What is Link Building?

Link Building, simply enough is the process of getting links from other websites to point at your site.

This is the way that Google and other Search Engines, such as Yahoo, MSN, ASK, etc assess the popularity of a particular website. Much in the same way that an election works, so does linking; the person with the most votes wins. The website with the most links pointing at it gets the highest in the search engine rankings, or SERPs. (Search Engine Results Pages).

Larry Page and Serge Brin; the founders of Google, devised a special way of counting all these links, called PageRank. PageRank is the basis of Google and how it works. The maths and science behind pagerank, is quite complicated, but in a nutshell, it is an algorythmn that calculates all the links on the Internet. It then gives a score to a webpage, based on the amount of links that website page is receiving. It works by both assessing the links to that webpage and from that webpage. A link to a webpage is called a backlink. But be aware all links are not the same.

This is a very important point to remember when link building. For example: If I have 10 links pointing at a webpage and 1 link from that webpage, that one link is going to be very powerful. If I have 1 link to a webpage and 10 links from that webpage, those 10 links will not be very powerful.

Have a look at the pagerank toolbar from Google. You can add this to your google toolbar. Although it is not very accurate, (Google for trade reasons will never give a completely accurate picture) it is a fantastic way of assess the value of the link you are getting. The pagerank tool gives a score from 1 to 10 of the importance of that website. (how many links it has pointing at it) No one knows if this is entirely accurate apart from the people at Google, but it will show you how the pagerank score is created.

It is always best to get links from webpages with a highpage rank. For example if you got the BBC (which has a pagerank of 9) to link to your website from their home page - your job as an SEO would probably be over! This is because the BBC website is one of the best websites on the Internet. It has hundreds of thousands of links, thousands of pages with unique well written content.

It is nearly impossible to get links from pages with a pagerank over 6, because of the value of these links. A good rule of thumb is never bother with webpages with a pagerank of 0. The best you are likely to get is 1-3. In my experience the best I have every got is a 6, but this took a lot of wrangling, trading, exchanging my own links.

Pagerank only works as a guide to getting links. Sometimes a website is waiting to have a pagerank score added to it. If you think the website looks good, is related to yours and could be valuable resource - get the link anyway!

Fred Dinbar is the Director of SEO Brighton a SEO Consultant Brighton. For expert SEO Brighton services SEO Brighton is a fantastically informative blog for those interested in SEO.

Encouraging Greater Teamwork - Link Performance to Individual and Team Benefits

Given that teamwork is mostly about what benefits the team, how do you encourage individual team members to do their best? You explain how performance that benefits the team also benefits the individual. For example, suppose you wanted individual team members to:

1. Meet deadlines for completing individual team tasks in a more timely manner

2. Demonstrate greater flexibility when faced with changes to team goals, practices, or members

3. Communicate changes in individual plans to team members in a more timely manner

4. Support viable decisions adopted by the team, even if own suggestions were not adopted

5. Work more effectively with team members to overcome obstacles to team performance

You could explain to the individual employee how any or all of these behaviors could lead to:

1. Increased productivity for the team and the individual

2. Improved ability to meet deadlines for the team and the individual

3. More opportunities for the individual to take on different or desirable roles within the team

4. Faster resolution of team and individual workload problems

5. Improved ability of the team and the individual to make timely adjustments to personal or professional plans

This approach allows you to reframe the discussion about teamwork. Instead of focusing on team benefits, you focus on mutual benefits. In some instances, the benefits may even be greater for the individual than for the team. But individuals will not necessarily know that unless you link these benefits during discussions about teamwork.

Develop your own list of mutual benefits by thinking about the things employees complain about regarding teamwork. Can you use any of these complaints to justify improved or continued teamwork? You probably can. Most employees want to work in a congenial environment. They want to make positive contributions and they want others to do the same.

And while every employee is not always going to do his or her fair share, ignoring the problem does not make it go away. Likewise, you are not necessarily going to get better teamwork by threatening or demanding that employees work for the good of all team members. Thankfully, you have other options, like focusing on the mutual benefits of greater teamwork. Try this approach the next time you want to encourage more positive team contributions. The results may surprise you.

Barbara Brown, PhD shows managers how to improve employee performance by linking performance to results. She publishes handbooks that contain phrases for discussing performance. Handbook topics include Linking Time Management To Results, Linking Customer Service To Results, and others. Dr. Brown also offers E-Courses and E-Consulting as well as onsite training and consulting.

Website: http://www.LinkToResults.net

Email: Barbara@LinkToResults.net

List Building - 5 "Breakthrough" List Building Tips For Newbies

One of the biggest problems anyone getting started online as an Internet Marketer is building their first list.

If you've never heard of list building before it's simply a list of names and email addresses of people who have specifically requested information from you.

It's this list of names and email addresses that is the foundation of your online business because it gives you the ability to drive traffic to any website at any time.

Think about that for a second... any website at any time. That website could be a sales letter to your product, an affiliate product recommendation, or even just your blog.

Hopefully by now you can see just how critical it is to get started building a list of subscribers to help you grow your online business.

Here are 5 breakthrough list building tips that'll help you get started...

Tip 1: At the very least you need to have a website. It doesn't have to be anything fancy, just a landing page with a headline, some bullet points and an opt-in box. It's the opt-in box people enter their names and email addresses into to get the information you promise them on your website.

Tip 2: You must have a professional autoresponder account (and I don't mean an auto-reply email address either). This has got to be a professionally hosted autoresponder system that sends out sequential emails and helps you manage your list.

Tip 3: The emails you send people after they join your list (through your autoresponder) must be informative and useful to keep people reading them. If you don't provide anything of value your emails will not get opened, your list will become unresponsive and your business will surely fail.

Tip 4: Another must is to use what's called "double opt-in subscriptions". Here's how it works... People enter their details into your opt-in form. They then get an instant email from you (your autoresponder system sends this to them) that asks them to click on a link. By clicking on this link they're confirming their request to receive information from you by email. Depending on how you've set up your follow-up emails they'll then automatically get their first email from you.

Double opt-in subscription is an essential part of list building because it protects you from spam complaints, "Joe jobs" and all other kind of problems and abuse.

Tip 5: Don't ever, ever, ever buy lists of email addresses until you know exactly what you're doing. It's when you mail out to these lists that the real problems can begin, so my best advice is to stay well away from buying lists of email addresses.

Instead start build your list yourself using the tips I've given you above. The key to successful email marketing, list building and ultimately successful business building is it's all about quality and not quantity.

Brian Terry is the Co-Founder of ListHero.com The Fastest, Easiest, Simplest Way To Build Your List On Autopilot For FREE.

Go Here Now To Multiply Your List Building Super Powers: http://ListHero.com/EA

How Do You Get Links to Your Website?

Building links to a site may be one of the most challenging things you can do. Most webmasters are very aware of what giving links can do, and some are reluctant to give links, even when deserved, to competitors.

It can make link building pretty difficult.

But links are vital to the health of any website. It's not just that search engines use them in their algorithms. It's that high quality links themselves can send in regular traffic. Low quality links not so much, but they can still send occasional small amounts of traffic.

Article Marketing

Article marketing is a very popular way to get links, and just like any other method requires a lot of work. But perhaps the biggest challenge is getting your high quality articles noticed when they're surrounded by all the spammy junk other website owners are submitting because they heard that article marketing is a good thing. It can be pretty frustrating.

Social Media Marketing

A better way, when you can manage it, is to get attention through social media marketing. The Digg effect does more than just crash websites, after all. It can generate links as other websites blog about your post.

Crafting something that will do well in social media takes time and a great deal of research, as a rule. You cannot just write something quick and expect massive results. You may once in a long while hit it big with something you never thought would. And often the results aren't what you expect. There's a degree of chance in there, due to algorithms on the social media sites, who submits the story, who else likes it, who hates it and so forth.

Lists can do very well, however. You can do a longer list with minimal detail, a shorter one with greater detail, or a long one with detail. Short lists without details rarely do so well, as they are rarely unique, funny enough or useful.

A good list can create some authority for your site. People may refer back to your list to get to more information on your topic. Include the number of items in your list. Numbers go over well.

It can help some to have a group of friends who will help one another get social media attention, whether it's on Digg, del.icio.us or another website. However you do not want to be overusing your friends, sharing junk or anything like that. Make what you submit or ask friends to submit something really worthwhile. It will improve your overall results.

It also helps if you're a regular enough user that you know what is likely to do well. Be prepared for the simple fact that social media traffic doesn't tend to convert directly into sales.

Directory Submissions

Directories have been popular in the past, but many really have minimal effect, at least with Google these days. My own rule for directory submission, if I choose to do them, is to submit and forget about it. They go in or not.

Some directories require payment. I wouldn't recommend paying for a spot in a directory unless you've researched it to find out if the links are any good.

A bad directory can do more than fail to send traffic. It can get you associated with penalized or banned sites. Do directory submission with caution whether you pay or not.

Post Questions and Answers on Other Sites

Yahoo! Answers, Google Groups and Squidoo can be decent sources for links. You do have to watch how you place your links, and avoid spamming these sites. People do catch on quickly.

Guest Blog

Guest blogging has lately been a popular way to get links. Not only can you have the chance to get your writing up in front of a new audience, you get a link to your site. There's some pretty good potential to that if you choose wisely and keep it relevant.

Hold a Contest

Holding a content can also bring in the links. People love to win, and some of them will tell all their online friends, through their own websites, all about it. There are also websites that specialize in announcing contests. The better the prize you can give, the more attention you may get for this.

Link Out to Others

Give links to quality sites that are relevant but not too competitive with yours. You'll have to decide how competitive is too competitive, and that depends on your niche. But linking to other sites is a great way to get their attention, and there's a chance they'll return the favor. If not, you have at least provided your audience with a quality resource, right?

Participate on Forums

Find forums that will allow you to have live links in your signature. The forums should be relevant to your topic.

Participate in these forums. Ask and answer questions. Do not, however, do nothing more than push your own site. That is rarely welcome behavior. People do click on signature links, especially if you have interesting things to say on the forum itself.

There are many more ways to get links, of course. The important thing is to make sure that the links you get are good quality. It is possible to hurt your site through careless link building practices.

Stephanie Foster blogs at http://www.aspectsofhomebusiness.com/blog/ about her experiences running a home business. Get more tips on optimizing your site for the search engines at her site.