I was going to put “link” singular in the title, because people might think it referred to golf if I used the plural. About 1/4 of a second later, I realized that I would be defeating the purpose of this post if I shied away. So, here we are.
I’ve talked before about putting your business somewhere it will be tripped over. One of the best ways to do this is with a links page on your site. That is, a list of other sites, blogs, resources – whatever – that you like, are local to you, or are recommending to your clients/customers/patients.
Links perform a couple major functions. The first is that done correctly they are the on-line equivalent of a personal recommendation. If you’ve read almost anything I’ve written, you’ll know that word-of-mouth promotion is the be-all and end-all of marketing (how’s that for hyperbole!). Well, at any rate, it’s damned important. Most of our “decisions” are not decisions at all, but simply following the recommendations of those we know.
The second function of links, and the one we’re discussing here, is that they provide what I call search hooks. Let’s say you put a link to a local Italian restaurant on your site – one you happen to like. Your website deals with, let’s say. . . exotic fish. I’m an af-fish-ianado (I couldn’t pass up the pun) of both exotic aquatics and Italian food, but today I’m searching for someplace to have lunch. One of the links that pops up in my search happens to be from your fish site. I visit, like what I see, and mark it for later before clicking the link to visit the restaurant’s page. You can do that with shoe stores, your doctor, a doggie playcare facility. . . almost anything as long as you can show relevance. A page full of random links? Those went out in the dark ages of the ‘net – about 1999.
If you put up a dozen links, that’s a dozen more ways your site can be found during engine searches.
