Google as well as other major search engines such as yahoo and MSN all look at how many links your site has in order to determine its importance. This is also what determines your ranking.

Not all links have an equal value. What determines the value of the link is its relevancy to the page it is linked to. The more relevant the page is the greater the value of the link. If not just the page, but the whole site is relevant the link is even more valuable.

Here are some methods you can use to create links to your site.

Reciprocal Links.

They are not of the value they once had in determining the importance of your site. They are still good but you must make sure that it comes from a site that is on the same or similar subject to yours.

Article Writing.

One of the best ways of improving your ranking and increasing relevant links to your site is article writing. You need to be a regular contributor of articles. Most article sites will allow you a link back to your site in the bio section. There are hundreds of article directories that you can post your articles to. Here are a few you really need to use: EzineArticles.com, ArticleCity.com, and GoArticles.com.

Link Farms

A link farm is a site with scrolling pages of endless links. They allow you to place your link there no strings attached. If you come across one run the other way. They are considered part of a spammer's network. Linking to these sites can actually damage your ranking. Google will downgrade your links and your page rank.

Directories

Links from directories can be very helpful in upgrading your ranking. This is especially so from such directories such as DMOZ and Yahoo. You can also look for other respected directories. Try to get your site listed with DMOZ. It can be very difficult but if you keep submitting it every 4 - 6 months. Search for the best category and keep trying for it.

With Yahoo it is easier to list your site but it will cost you. Yahoo charges $299 per year to list your site. The listing can be very valuable as Google looks at Yahoo directory as an authority.

Another link that is important is anchor text. Anchor text is the text in the hyperlink. An example of anchor text is this: For the very best in web hosting you can't go past LinksParadise. The words "web hosting" is hyperlinked. This is anchor text. I used "web hosting" as this would be a keyword my site is optimized for. If you did a search with Google for the words "Click Here" you will find that the #1 site for that search term is Adobe. This is because many sites link to Adobe Acrobat Reader, and use the anchor text "Click Here"

So the key to making use of anchor text is to anchor keywords you have optimized your site for. For example; if your site was optimized for the phrase "cheap reliable hosting" you would use the phrase as the hyperlinked text. This will give the link greater relevance to the search engines.

This of course is just a few of the thing that will help to increase the ranking of your site with the search engines.

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