There is no doubt that links from other websites to your website is vital for an ecommerce business. It all filters down to the Google Page Rank. This is the Google tool that is used to determine how important a website is to people surfing the net.

Google will balance the number of links, the PR of the pages exchanging the links, the keyword similarities on the linked pages, how often the site is updated, and the number of hits a site receives. Two PR 4 sites sharing links between pages with ‘small business’ as the main keyword, will benefit more from a small business website with a PR4 and a private blog that discusses ‘wealth building.’

Also, 100 links between a PR6 site and a PR4 site will increase the ranking of the second site faster than 100 000 links from a PR2 site and the same PR4 site.

This can all be a little confusing. Google’s PR algorithm controls everything. The confusion comes from the fact that search engines cannot think. Both the PR4 ‘small business’ site and the PR2 ‘wealth building’ site can be helping small business owners improve their page promotion. However, search engines cannot read. If they don’t see similar keywords, then they do not understand that the sites really do have similar content.

Building Links

The main problem with generating inbound links is the time needed to generate links. Even a strong link building campaign can take months to build a few thousand organic links. This brings up the question, should you buy links from other sites with high ranks?

The benefits are solid, if the link is in the right place. Some link buying services let the business owner pick what sites their links appear on, and which pages they appear on. This is the only type of ‘static page’ service to use.

Another service puts links on blogs. This type of service, like www.payu2blog.com and www.blogsvertise.com or www.payperpost.com let business owners pick the PR ranks, topics, and quality of blog, their links are posted on. Blogs have a benefit that static websites don’t. First, blogs always put the link inside the content, hidden within keywords that the business owner chooses. This guarantees that the keywords at both sites match.

The second benefit is that blogs are pinged to blog search engines, and directories, every time the blogger posts a blog, or a comment is posted. This means that a single blog can be ‘pinged’ to the search engines daily, where a static web page is pinged every few months – if ever.

However, a static page that is linked to a blog will be ‘crawled’ every time the blog post is published and pinged.

Crawling Your Site

Many people buy links from PR4 to PR8 sites for no other reason than to have the search engines come and crawl the site. It doesn’t matter if the link goes down, because the benefits have already been received. This is the best way to have a new website resolved by Google in a matter of hours, instead of weeks, or months.

Cost

Cost can be prohibitive. Some companies have a budget of $1million for blog advertising. However, a small company can get started for $1000. In fact, if the blog owner finds blogs with ads hidden among the posts, they can contact the blog owner and deal with them directly. A PR 2 or 3 blog will cost $5. A PR 4 – 5 will cost $10. A PR6+ can run as high as $100.

However, the traffic driven to your site by Google can easily offset the cost. Buying 10 links from 10 PR5 websites or blogs can result in 100 000 extra hits in a month, which can produce 1000 extra sales.

Link Farms

Whether you buy links on blogs or web sites, avoid link farms. These are sites that are in business to sell links. If the search engines find these sites they will ban them. This can result in your 1000 PR7 links disappearing – forever. It can take Google six months, or more, to apply new links to your website. This drops your page rank, and profits, for a few months.

Outbound linking

It is also important to remember to link from inside your website to similar sites. Google will count these links too. In the end, it is up to each individual business owner to decide whether they should build organic links, or invest in buying links.

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By Mark Walters