Search engines are always looking for ways to differentiate sites. One thing they now include in their relevance-ranking algorithm is how many other sites are linked to the one you are submitting. They take the view that if tens or hundreds of other sites are linked to yours there must be a good reason and the site is worth ranking higher.

Links into your Web site from other sites are in their own right an important means of attracting "traffic" to your site. Getting a link simply requires finding web sites that have a reason for pointing to you, and offering to point one back in exchange. Find complementary sites that will attract the type of visitors you are looking for e.g. vendors, suppliers, providers of complementary products, trade associations or your customers and clients. Also look for appropriate industry sites, business directories, Chambers of Commerce web sites, electronic Yellow Pages or professional organisations that are relevant to your business. Many counties, towns and cities now have their own web sites with business listings.

It is possible to find who has a link to a site by doing a reverse search using search engines to analyse links to your own company and your competitors' web sites. This can be done entering a web site address instead of a keyword. Alta Visa provides this facility but all search engines do not support this process. The search brings back a list of sites in their database that have links to the URL you searched on, just as they would bring back a list of all sites containing a keyword that you have entered.

Linkpopularity.com offers a similar service, providing links into your chosen web site address from Google, Alta Vista and Hotbot.

Key Points

The key points to remember when seeking to exploit the full capabilities of search engines as part of your Web marketing activities are:

Develop a suitable meta tag information including titles, keywords and page titles.
Take care in defining the key words that best describe your core products and services.
Ensure that page titles are relevant and encourage people to your site.
Be aware that search engines and directories vary in the ways in which they index pages.
Address the potential problems caused by frames.
Develop links from other related web sites.