As much as 80% of the algorithm used by a search engine to rank a web site is dependant upon links to your web site from other web sites - this should be central to any website marketing strategy.

You also must have quality links to make the search engine take notice of your site. No quality links means you will never get a high ranking - it's as simple as that.

How Linking Points are calculated

The following determine how many "points" your web site scores for a particular search phrase, and therefore how high your site ranks in the search engine results pages:

? Total number of links pointing to your site

? Quality of the sites linking to your site

? Text used in the link to your site (anchor text)

The remaining 20% of the search engines algorithm takes into account the search engine friendliness of the site, site freshness, site content, etc.

Linking and Your Competition

If sufficient web sites link to your site with the correct anchor text, then your site will get top rankings. The more competition there is for a particular search phrase, then the more high quality links you'll require.

For the highest competition search phrases, your site will also need SEO, as some of your competitors will have called in a search engine optimization consultant to help them with their web marketing strategy.

Some of the top ranking web sites will also be using advanced techniques such as .XML feeds to reach, and stay at the top of the search engine results pages.

All the above needs to taken into account before developing your web marketing strategy.

Linking Strategies that don't Work

Reciprocal link exchanges are basically dead - the search engines know what's going on - web site owners are linking to each other to boost their search engine rankings.

To combat this the search engines are now heavily discounting the value of a link from a web site, if the site receiving the link, links back - i.e. a reciprocal link.

Also you only want links that come from web sites that are associated with your industry - i.e. they have a valid reason to link to your site.

For example, if you are selling holidays, a link from a travel insurance company would be a quality link - one that is from a company selling pet food would not!

A Link is a Vote for your Site's Content

A link is like a vote for your content, and the search engines assume the more quality links you have, the more valid the content of your site is.

Therefore, your web marketing strategy should be:

1. One-way incoming links, i.e. a site links to you, but you don't provide a link back to their site.

2. Links from sites that have a valid reason to link to you.

The Simplest Way to Get Quality Links

The simplest and most effective way to get quality links on the Internet is to submit articles on topics related to your business or services, to article download sites - with your article containing a live anchor text link back to your site.

There are plenty of article download sites to submit to, and they place your information in front of millions of potential customers.

Other web site owners also look through the download site's archives - looking for good content for their own websites. They will then host your article on their own site - provided your articles professionally written. This causes your articles to spread out virally across the Internet, creating more links and traffic.

Linking in this manner creates quality links and "hot" leads - readers are already receptive to your offer because of the quality of the information provided by your article.