| It's a term you hear search engine optimization | | | | coming into that site. |
| gurus through around a lot. They speak of the | | | | Here's how to make your site's link structure look |
| importance of having a natural link structure, but | | | | natural. |
| just what the heck is a natural link structure. | | | | Making a site's links look natural should be the goal |
| That's an excellent question, and it's one you need | | | | of anyone optimizing their website. That means |
| to know the answer to if you want your website | | | | that you should focus on getting links from a wide |
| to achieve its full potential in the search engines. If | | | | variety of places. Get links from articles, |
| your link structure looks "artificial" to search | | | | directories, social media sites, blogs (very |
| engines like Google, then you're always going to | | | | important), press releases, and just about any |
| be playing catch-up instead of getting ahead in the | | | | other place you can think of. |
| search engine ranking game. | | | | If you have control over the anchor text, make |
| Having a natural link structure means that you | | | | sure you use a variety of it. For example, if you |
| have a large variety of links pointing to your site, | | | | have a site about coins, a good variety of anchor |
| your links use a variety of anchor text, and those | | | | text would be "coins," "coin collectors," |
| links point to a variety of different pages. | | | | "numismatics", "gold coins", and so on. The point is |
| Examples of sites that have natural link structures | | | | to mix it up. |
| would be websites like WebMD.com, Wikipedia.org, | | | | Also, don't have all your links point to you |
| and These sites don't need to go out asking for | | | | homepage. That doesn't look natural. Sites with a |
| people to link to them. People will link to your | | | | natural link structure have links pointing to a huge |
| website for a variety of reasons - perhaps you | | | | variety of internal pages on their website. For |
| have an article that is really informative; maybe | | | | example, if you had coins.com, you'd want links |
| you offer a free tool for download on your site; | | | | pointing to coins.com/silverdollars/ coins.com/gold/ |
| or maybe you have a hilarious video that people | | | | and so on. |
| need to see. And there are a whole lot more | | | | Of course, the best way to get a natural link |
| reasons why someone will link to someone else's | | | | structure is to get it naturally. By that, I mean |
| site. Heck, sometimes people who hate you will | | | | that your website is just so interesting and offers |
| link to you. | | | | such great content that people can't help but tell |
| Websites that have a natural link structure tend | | | | others about it. If you have a website like that, |
| to rank highly in the search engines. For example, | | | | you'll have new links pouring in all the time and |
| Wikipedia tends to rank in the top ten for just | | | | your website natural search engine rankings will |
| about every general term these days - a lot of | | | | skyrocket. |
| this is due to the sheer number of quality links | | | | |