About Link Shepherd
The links to your website from other sites are critical to achieving the business results. Links, placed on websites your prospective customers are likely to read or use, can notify those prospective customers of your existence, present them with your offers and value statements. Some of the prospective customers viewing your links click through to your website and initiate a business relationship with your company.
The links may take the form of simple linked text, mixed text and graphic advertisements, or purely graphic ads. You are probably familiar with many versions of links, banners, video ads and other attempts to move people from one website to another. People familiar with search engine optimization also may know that links play a role in search engine results, too. For example, Page Rank, an element in Google's Search Engine Results (or ranking) Placements (SERPs) are calculated partly by the links pointing to a page on one website from other websites.
Link Strategies
Link Shepherd is a service line of More Web Leads, an internet marketing consultancy serving commercial and non-profit customers. Search optimization is in high demand among More Web Leads' customers and developing appropriate links to assist with traffic and search is part of almost every typical project we complete. Recently, we have seen the demand for links take off in ways we have never seen before, and so, to better serve our own customers, and to provide value added linking services to companies and organizations with the internal internet marketing capabilities, as well as to other internet marketing companies we created the Link Shepherd service.
Shepherds, Sheep and Goats
More Web Leads is an internet marketing consultancy orignially founded by Joe Mann, More Web Leads President, a practicing Presbyterian (if not quite orthodox), a protestant Christian. Some of our biggest clients at More Web Leads have been Christian organizations, Joe feels privileged to have been able to connect with the missions of these organizations, and acknowledges their trust in him and the work of More Web Leads> Partly, in commemoration of his own faith practices, he chose the word “shepherd” for this service line. It also fits, as an appropriate metaphor for what it takes to be successful building a “flock” of links.
Among search marketing specialists, there are varying opinions of how links can help or hurt you. The serach engines themselves have been clearer. Google has been both straightforward in punishing what are known among industry insiders as “black hat” techniques. These are automated methods of search optimization which give a short term spike in search results. Because they are automated, they leave telltale signs of their automated approach and are relatively straightforward to detect, once identified.
In recent public statements, Google personnel have said they will explore how to deal with the “problem of paid links and link brokerage.” As a practical matter, placed links and brokered links are rather similar, and if properly crafted, it is not possible to differentiate such placed links from any other kind of link. We think of links as being like sheep and goats, another shepherding metaphor. A lot of people think goats are nasty and not worth eating. Recall, however, that they produce milk used in wonderful cheeses and make a very tasty meal of cabrito, too. Sheep are much more to be desired, giving wool and a much more highly sought after meat. So it is with links.
With placed and brokered links, let's be clear, most buyers are after Page Rank and keyword relevance. Placed links are not as desirable, perhaps, as brokered links. Placed links often start on new pages with no pre-exising page rank, or on pages with only very low page rank. As for brokered links, the links we can place, and those that can be placed by other link brokerages usually specify the page rank of the pages where links will be placed, and there position within the hierarchy of their own website. Google staff maintain that, therefore, all such links are only aimed at “gaming” their system. However, we know that not all links have this as their only purpose, even if they have this very favorable result. Links placed on sites which are related to your business are likely to generate profitable traffic.
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It Works!
We have gotten remarkable results growing from success from free search traffic for our most important keywords. marketing director, Growing Generations