It's a simple word, link.  But in terms of the Internet, it means a lot.  Links are one of the most fundamental building blocks of the web.  After all, the Internet is nothing more than a huge conglomeration of links between computers.  Links build the Internet. 

So why is this important?  Well, it all comes back to search engines.  Since there are reported to be some 75million web sites, it's hard to get your site seen amongst the crowd. 

That's why we're writing this story.  If you want your web site to work for you, you need to put just a little effort in, and its pretty easy.  Get some links happening.

When you type a word in to Google's search engine, it looks at two things, relevance and reputation.  Relevance is the easy part.  If you type 'dog', it looks for sites that contain the word 'dog'.  Now as you would imagine, there are millions of sites that contain the word 'dog'.  So how does Google rank them?  This is where reputation comes in.  Reputation is measured by links.  That is, the number of links to and from your site, and the relevance of each of those links to each other.

In our 'dog' example, the number one ranked site is, you guessed it "www.dog.com".  No surprises there, but if you go to the site, you'll find it has a mountain of information about dogs.  That is good in itself.  You'll also find it has links to heaps of dog clubs, vets, training, etc.  All of these links are very relevant to 'dog'.  Of course they have a lot more as well, products, encyclopedia, stories, articles and forums, which all help to build the relevance and reputation of the site.

So how do the search engines find this stuff?  All major search engines use things called 'web bots'.  These are software applications that scour the Internet, looking at web sites, gathering details.  From this information the make their databases, which you then search through.  Web bots never sleep and they don't only visit your site once, but many times.

Here are some points to remember about links;

• Links from high ranking sites are valuable
• Relevant links to your page are more valuable (that is, relevant re content)
• If the link relates to a keyword on your site, it's more valuable.
• Links from your site to relevant sites are valuable.
• Make sure links to and from your site are from different pages, not all on one page.

Another important point to keep in mind is the keywords you use on your site.  These again relate to links.  For example, if Hullabaloo linked to a production company like this, "ABC Productions made a great video production last week", the link would get more value, if the page it linked to used almost exactly the same keywords, ie video production.  The web bots would like a link such as this and rank it well, especially if it worked both ways.  So ABC Productions would mention music production and link back to Hullabaloo.

Getting your keywords right is important.  If you would like to find out how many people search for phrases that relate to your site/business, go here.  This site will tell you how many times the phrase has been searched, and breaks it down into sub-categories.  This is a handy tool to get your sites keywords correct for your target market.

Now to the 'dont's'.  Don't use companies that sell you links.  Non-relevant links are useless.  Don't go crazy linking to everyone you know even if they are relevant.  The web bots don't like this as they see it as a purchase of links and they will disregard them.  Don't set up bogus sites all linking back to you.  It doesn't work.

If you need help with this aspect or any other of your web site, send me an email and maybe we can help you.

So good luck.  Get out there and spend a little time asking to link to your clients and suppliers.  It's beneficial to both and to the industry.  Hullabaloo is open for links!