How is Search Engine Optimization like High School? 

It has everything to do with popularity.  Remember high school.  Making friends, joining teams and clubs and basically your overall success had to do with linking.  If you became friends with someone well-liked in a particular sphere you too became almost instantly popular.  A simple smile and a wave from the right student could rocket you popularity and 'ranking'.  This same concept is true with search engine rankings.

When a search engine sees a link to your website from another site this is considered a vote for your site.  As opposed to a democracy, votes by linking are not all created equal.  The more important, popular, relevant and authoritative the website is that links to you the stronger the vote.  This is why it's important to get your site listed in the bigger directories such as DMOZ.  Although I don't believe anyone actually uses DMOZ for searching a link from this site is considered important to acceptance and ranking in Google, MSN and Yahoo.

The question is how do you go about getting these links.  The first step is to see what links you already have.  To do this you go to the search bar and type in one of the following:

link:InternetAdvertisingDictionary.com  (Your Domain Name)  Available in Yahoo and Google

links:InternetAdvertisingDictionary.com  (Your Domain Name)  Available in Yahoo, Google and MSN

linkdomain:InternetAdvertisingDictionary.com  (Your Domain Name) Available in Yahoo

Once you check this you'll know how you currently stand with the big three.  The next step is to find out something about your competition.  The rule here is that someone who links to your competition may well be willing to link to you.  You probably have some idea who your competition is.  Pick one or two competitor sites and check for links as above.  If they don't have more links than you do think of a bigger competitor. 

A great way to get the information you need to do this competitor research is to type into Google:

info:internetadvertisingdictionary.com (Your Domain Name)

Google will display a page such as the following:

Eventually you'll find someone with lots of links.  Now honestly compare your site to theirs.  How does your site hold up.  Would you want to link to your site?  Work on your site so you really like it and think it offers content worth linking to.  Also, remember all websites are works in progress.  Keep developing your site as you request links.  Search engines also likes website site that are changing and growing. 

Now contact those websites that are linking to your competition.  Explain why it would benefit them to link to you.  In some cases, a simple link exchange may do the trick. 

Be willing to put in some time in acquiring links.  I doesn't happen over night. But it's worth all the time invested.

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