by Thu Nguyen

Created on: September 19, 2010

There are two types of links you can build online - internal and external. Website owners need to consider both if they want to rank well in the search engines. Furthermore, the process through which this can be done is really simple. So let’s see how link building is practiced and how they can improve the rankings of your content online.

Internal Linking

When writers put out content on the internet, the topics will often be repeated. Through linking them as keywords to an article that was already written on the same site, the process of internal linking occurs. This helps resurface older content and in turn boost the website’s ranking.

Overdoing such a practice is not recommended as the effective use of keyword linking is necessary ONLY when needed. You don’t want to ‘keyword stuff’ the content and at the same time overlink to internal links. This will put the quality of what is being read down. The worse part is the bounce rate will increase. This just basically means, the reader will not stick around to read the rest of the content.

So when practicing internal linking, the website owner should position the content much like the insertion of SEO keywords. Only 2-4 times is enough to be seen effectively to convince the reader to take action on what they’ve read. This helps improve the site’s ranking and further keep it safe from being considered spam in the search engines.

External Linking

Outside the website, linking back to it can be done through two ways - commenting and article marketing. That’s because building links with sites higher ranked than yours is a surefire way to boost rankings. Moreover, if they are ‘dofollow’, they give back link juice which in turn is better for long-term backlinks.

So from the website you’re visiting, go down to the comment form. You’ll notice that there’s an area for inserting your website in the URL section. When you comment, make it relevant and before you publish it, make sure your site’s address is correct. This will be the link going back to your site. Furthermore, this is how the backlink will improve your site's ranking.

The next way to rank well is through writing articles and distributing them to directories like Helium and Ezine Articles. Writing about a topic that has been said already on your website and linking back to them creates another stream of backlinks. Thus, this is link building at it’s best . Most directories usually have a high page rank already so the benefits here are very high.

That's practically all there is to it. The basics of link building to improve the ranking of your content online needs to be done through the regular processing of internal and external linking. Soon enough the numbers will drop and the content which you're promoting will be more and more visible.

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