Off page SEO: The importance of incoming links and search engine optimization

Off page seo an integral part of getting your web site indexed in search engines. All of your on page, or onsite, Search Engine Optimization will be wasted if you don't have a method for getting search engine robots to your web site in the first place.

So, how do you go about getting these search engine robots to your web site? A simple way to do this is to get other web sites to link to yours. Getting a web site to link to your new site is not really that difficult, only it can take a bit of time. There are literally thousands of web sites out there that will give you a link to your web site simply for the asking. The internet is a beautiful thing!

I am going to focus on one group of web sites that will help you with your off page seo link building: online directories. These are collections of links to web sites grouped by related categories. The good thing about these directories is that with a little bit of effort you can find high ranking directories that will allow you to place your web site link in their directory without payment and without having to link back to them. Typically these directories can be found by doing a search for "Free non reciprocal directory" in your favorite search engine. The problem with this method is that it can be time consuming.

1) If you don't have a compiled list of these directories, it could literally take you an hour just to submit your web site to 5-10 directories.

2) If you by chance find a web site that has links to these types of directories but you don't have a good method of submitting your web site: It could take you up to 5 minutes or more just to submit 1 link!

Why would I even suggest this method if it is such a hassle? It's because there are web sites that will do the "dirty work" for you. Directory submission services can take the hassle and mind numbing effort out of your off page search engine optimization. Simply do a search for "Directory Submission Service" in your favorite search engine to find some of these time saving gems.

The reason you absolutely need incoming links is so that your web site can start to get crawled, then indexed, by search engines. As I stated above: It doesn't matter if you have the most search engine friendly web site in the world: If search engine robots cannot find your webster: you've wasted your time and money! Do not waste your time with "search engine submission" services: while these methods can work, they are very slow to get results. If you submit your web site to Google via their "Add Your Website" page, you can expect to wait 4-6 weeks or more for Google to even visit your web site! There's no guarantee they will return, either. With the directory submissions I've mentioned here your web site can be crawled and even indexed by search engines within 24 hours of getting your link placed on a high ranking web site.

The main point is this: in order to get your web site crawled and indexed by search engine robots quickly, you need to build incoming links to your web site. Do them yourself, or hire someone else to do them for you, it doesn't matter. Otherwise, your pretty new web site might never have a visitor other than yourself.