Houston SEO Link Building & How to Check Backlinks

Houston SEO What Is Link Building

Houston SEO experts know that an important part of optimization is link building. Link building used to only mean internal and inbound links. Internal links are links from one page on a site to another page on the same site. These links are usually in the form of text links, and the text they link through should contain the primary Houston Search Engine Optimization keywords for the site.

Inbound links are usually text links from blogs, deep links in directories, and inbound links from other sites. In the past, SEO strategies encouraged the accumulation of many links. However, a good Houston SEO Company knows that quality links matter more than quantity. Inbound links should be carefully selected from niche directories that drive relevant traffic to your site, as well as directories and sites that have a high Page Rank.

Remember that as of the Panda Update last February, link building has changed a great deal. Inbound links do not carry quite as much weight as they used to. Google did factor social media use into the algorithm. Social media ends up overlapping with link building, because social media creates inbound links to a site. These social media inbound links also relate to trustworthiness of the site, site activity, and popularity on the Internet. Cumulatively, link building and social media can make up about 24% of site traffic.

Local map listings are also very important, as are citations. Local map listings are the Google, Bing, Yahoo and Yelp listings that detail your business address and site. Many people use these directories to find local businesses, and the results will show immediately in Google Analytics. Customers review the business here on the local map listings through Citations.

Google recently changed the way citations from different domain names show up on Google organic searches. Citations used to appear cumulatively and greatly affect the order of map listings, however now you must click through to the reviewing domain to read full reviews. Google did this because of legal issues with the referred to sites. Citations are still very important. However, right now Citations posted directly to Google may be more relevant to SEO than ones posted to, say, Urbanspoon or Yelp.

Houston SEO How to Check Your Inbound Links

Houston search engine optimization checks inbound links at www.yahoo.com. In the search toolbar, type “link:www.yoursite.com” and hit Enter. A list pops up of all the links related to the domain name you entered. To see only the inbound links from link building, and to exclude inbound links from your own site, select Show Inlinks: “Except from this domain” at the right side of the navigation bar at the top of the page. The remaining links are all of the inbound links to your site.

While you’re on this site, it’s a good idea to check the links from your top competitors for organic search engine results. Finding and acquiring the same quality inbound links as your competitors is a great way to improve your organic search engine results and find relevant niche directories to your business.

You will probably find that many of the top competitors in Houston search engine optimization have bought links in the Yahoo Directory, Business.com Directory, or are listed in Dmoz – the best directory on the web. To keep up with these competitors, I would highly recommend that you also join those directories. They will help drive relevant traffic to your site. To learn more about link building and Houston web marketing, contact Directory One at (713) 465-0051 for Houston SEO services.