Links: The Web's Version of Election

It's an election year!  To celebrate here is a list of items to remember about links, the voters of the internet.

1. Think Election! 

Each link gives your site a "vote" in terms of good information, popularity, relevance etc.  The more links, the more votes and we all know that the person with the most votes wins!

2. Win the primaries in the best states.

Remember that it's more important to have links from relevant sites, sites that relate to your business. Don't participate in link farms.

3. Stay on the campaign trail - winners don't quit

Most people start link building then quit from over confidence (or exhaustion).  This is a mistake, you should always be on the look out for good linking opportunities.

4. Buying votes with money or favors isn't a good thing.

Anytime you buy a link or promise to exchange just to get the link doesn't help your overall goal.  These types of links aren't relevant and you'll get penalized when Google recognizes it's a paid link site. You're also at risk of being reported by your competitors.  Strive for high quality organic links that compliment your site.

5. Don't make false campaign promises.

If you've got pages on your site that have moved be sure you use search friendly redirects. These are on the server side and they are "permanent" telling the search engines to get the new page and do away with the old. This way, when someone clicks on the link they still get to the relevant content on your site and search engines will pass links to the correct address.

If you've lead your link campaign with integrity you'll soon reap the rewards of gaining the popularity vote and your site will gain status through higher page ranking.