Carolyn Price is a partner in EngineHounds Search Engine Optimization Company in Fort Myers, Florida. Search Engine Optimization (SEO), is the process of making your Web site content 100% recognizable to Google and Yahoo so they can deliver it to potential Web visitors. www.EngineHounds.com

If you own a Web site, chances are someone’s told you that in order to get your site to the first page of Google’s search results, you have to do ‘link building’.

Very briefly, link building means getting a bunch of other Web pages to link to your Web pages. Search engines consider each one of these inbound links a vote of confidence in your Web site—if people like it so much they want to link to it, it must be good—and they reward you by giving your Web site better positions in the results page.

But there are good links and bad links. And all too often the people who try and sell you link building services are selling you useless links.

A Good Link

It’s a more complex topic than one can cover in a short blog, but generally speaking a good link is one that comes from a site that has subject matter related to your site; links to a relevant page within your site—not just the home page; and contains linked keywords as opposed to ‘click here’, or the name of your Web site.

e.g. ‘We love these stunning bridal accessories’ is better than ‘Click here for stunning bridal accessories’ or www.BebesBridal.com.

A Bad Link

A bad link is one that has no value as far as being a vote for your Web site is concerned, or appears on a page that has no Page Rank. It won’t do any harm, but if you’ve paid someone to do link building for you, you want them to knuckle down and get valid, authentic links that are useful to people who encounter them online.

A Nasty Link

Link building gets into scary territory when it goes from being simply harmless to being downright deceptive. I recently encountered a ‘top’ link building company that assured clients ‘great positions for at least ten of their keywords’, with maintenance payments required on a monthly basis. If the client were to discontinue the monthly payments—and here’s the nasty part—they would immediately lose their top positions.

Red flag. Authentic, widespread links don’t just disappear. This tells me one thing: the links they are getting for their clients are all smoke and mirrors. And threatening a client with an instant dive in rankings if payment should stop? That sounds more like blackmail than business.

It’s not always easy to tell what you’re getting when someone tells you they’ll ‘do link building’ for you, but here’s a list of red flags to look out for:

• They offer to submit your site to thousands of top directories.
There are not thousands of directories worth being in.

• They say they’ll get you thousands of links really fast.
They’re submitting your site to thousands of directories.

• They charge a few hundred dollars.
Real link building is time consuming and seldom cheap.

• They tell you your links will ‘go away’ when you stop paying.
Links worth their salt don’t go anywhere in a hurry.

• They tell you they’ll create blogs just for your link placement.
Of course they will—blogs that have no purpose other than being a vehicle for your link.

• They claim to have software that automates the link building process.
Like quality search engine optimization, there is no automated process that can compete with a well thought out strategy.

• They contact you via email or the form on your Web site to sell you a link building program.
Good link building companies are not doing this.

• They offer to write excellent descriptions, articles, or blogs for you, but the grammar and spelling on their own Web site is seriously funky.
‘Nuff said.

• Their link building consists of posting comments in ‘dofollow’ blogs.
This is a fast and effective way of tunneling directly into your wallet and systematically removing your dollars one at a time.

If you’re considering a link building campaign to help boost your Web site’s presence on the Internet, do your homework first, and don’t sign up for a service impulsively. And if you need direction—we’d be happy to help.