e-skills UK Guide

Website linking

How to get your website linked to others

One of the most powerful aspects of the world wide web is the ability for web sites to link to each other, producing a set of references to other sites that may be of interest to the reader.

By having links to and from other websites you will drive increased traffic to your site which in turn will help you make money

What are links?

Links, sometimes called hyperlinks, are found in the content of a website. These links are often highlighted in blue and are underlined such as this;

www.e-skills.com

On clicking the link you will normally be redirected to another website which has related content. Indeed some websites are no more than a collection of links, acting as a setting off point to other websites.

The more links there are to your website then the more important your site is considered in the hierarchy of millions of web pages. This is because it is believed that someone will only link to another site if the content is relevant and of interest, so the more links the more interest and the better the content. In fact search engines such as Google will look for the number of websites linking to yours and incorporate that metric into the ranking for your site. 

Getting links from industry sites

Clearly as a small business it is difficult to get seen above the general “noise” on the web. By getting a bigger partner or supplier to link to your site is a great way of getting your company known.

For example you may be in an industry with one or two major players that run a partner program, by which we mean that you join a scheme that encourages you and your customers to use a certain product from that main supplier. Often by joining such a partner program one of the benefits will be a link from the major player’s site to yours.

Although this may be useful there is little that sets you above any other partner, so you need to think creatively.

Content is king

On the web content is king. People will visit your site if it addresses their concerns or interests. That is why many small businesses will put interesting content on their site as well as information about their products. For example if you are writing an article or letter to a publication then why not put it on your web site? If you have contributed to an industry event why not put your presentation on the site for people to download? More advanced sites will also have a mechanism to take down the details of visitors downloading information for use in marketing campaigns.

You may be interested in the Guides that talk about Using Blogs and Using Forums as a way to generate site traffic. Linking to these sites will help get more coverage for your website. 

Don’t forget that by linking with your site people are showing that they wish to be associated with you. They will only do so if they like what you do, how you say it and how you present it.

Buying links

It is possible to buy website links. Some marketing companies aggregate websites and will interlink them in an effort to drive up web traffic. Whilst this may appear to be a good idea initially you should be looking for quality rather than quantity. In addition many of the better known web search engines will filter out data from such aggregated sites. In fact some search engines will place sites that are seen to be falsifying such links onto a black list to be ignored in future searches. 

Further information

For further information on this topic, why not take a look at these videos:

Marketing and the web

The Railway Children's guide to getting noticed (on the web)

Online marketing skills

Commercial suppliers

We do not recommend specific products or suppliers; instead we provide you with a representative sample which covers the range of suppliers/products available. You may choose to look at these suppliers or products but this is entirely at your discretion.