Forum Moderators: martinibuster
What kind of page do you want your inbound links to come from, and why?
Home Page?
Content Page?
Links Page?
I'm talking about links from content sites, not directories.
I'm not considering PR here. That's a different issue.
Links that send traffic are the issue.
I'd prefer a well targeted content page, or a category type links page that has less than 25 - 50 outbounds on it.
I really don't see the value of a link from a home page. Mostly I suppose that's because I look at traffic patterns on my own site (being a one site guy has disadvantages) and see that my home page gets less traffic than many of my internal content or resource (links) pages.
So that's my thinking. What's yours?
I really don't see the value of a link from a home page
I strongly disagree. Home pages, usually, have the most traffic and the most links pointing to them.
If I have a choice of a link from a page with 1000 IBLs or a page with 10 IBLs, I'll take the 1000 IBLs any day.
So I would say the best case is:
Most valuable: Home Page: (or high traffic hub page - if it is not the home page)
Next most value: Relevant content page.
Least valuable: Links page (but the one you are most likely to get)
As far as what to link *to*, a relevant content page sounds like the winner.
Our bottom line:
If big money, short kw terms, then homepages if the site is relevant to our term.
If sub-topics of our site, then any content page that matches that thematically.
Links pages rarely our first choice. The ones not currently being discounted surely will be discounted at some point.
My 2 cents.
Home Page?
Content Page?
Links Page?
Why - well, I'm a huge fan of: "The more links the better." (You can quote me on that).
I say, inbound links are inbound links. Get them everywhere you can and don't look back. Spend the most time gathering links.
Looking for links for serps then anywhere will do.
Sierra_Dad
Don't judge the traffic on someone else's site by the traffic on yours.
Yup, that's why I made the comment about being a one-site guy can have disadvantages, a lack of personal perspective. Of course that's also why I started the thread.
Most valuable: Home Page: (or high traffic hub page - if it is not the home page)
The high traffic internal hub page is an interesting idea. It happens to fit well with my site because I have several mid-level pages that feed traffic to various sections. Of course "high traffic" is relevant.
Caveman:
Links pages rarely our first choice. The ones not currently being discounted surely will be discounted at some point.
Discounted by who? The search engines?
In my case I'd estimate that 80 - 90%+ of the traffic to my links pages comes from my other pages. I have no idea if that's normal or not.
I do promote my links pages some on the rest of the site though with obvious links in the content areas, plus a link in the general nav bar.
I use anchor text to identify the destination page of course, but also to more or less filter the traffic.
There are very few content pages on my site that have outbound links, other than Adsense.
I'm thinking of modifying that policy, and am trying to sort through what would add the most value for my visitors, and for the sites I link to.
The type of internal hub page that Sierra_Dad mentioned is where I'm most likely to put additional outbounds, at least as I see things now.
For me, linking is about targeted traffic.
A link from within content about your topic will likely bring the best conversion rates, though it may not neccessarily bring in the most money, depending on the amount of traffic to a sites homepage. I doubt a link exchange (unless it is an uber quality links page) will bring much of either.
