No-Follow Web Links-When is Search Engine Rank not the only Reason!
It's not a secret that "No-Follow" and "Do-Follow links can affect the Search Engine Rank of a web page or blog, but are there times when Page Rank is not the determining factor in an Online Marketing plan?
How Do You Know if Your Links are going to be "No-Follow" on any given Website?
Knowing whether or not your links are Follow or not can be very important when making decisions to expand your business in a certain direction. Take for example HubPages. A perfect site to expand your marketing message by creating lens's about your expertise, business, passions or hobbies. Like any other part of your marketing plan, Squidoo can be used to drive targeted traffic to your site, blog, lead capture pages or other material, but most don't realize that Squidoo's content is mostly made up of "Do-Follow" web links. This gives you a great venue, not only to share your message and further the branding process, but to take full advantage of the positive Search Engine Rank capabilities with "Do-Follow" web links.
Squidoo is just one of many sites that a marketer can take advantage of positive link following to share their message, but if you use sites like Facebook and Twitter, your "Link Love", as some call it, is not so positive. Many social networking sites, like these two, use the "No-Follow" rule, but how do you know which is which?
If you use the Free web browser, Mozilla Firefox, you can install an extension that allows you to see if a website uses "No-Follow" or "Do-Follow" links. If you only use Internet Explorer, you might be missing some excellent benefits that Mozilla offers Internet Marketers including the extension Mozilla Search Results. This extension allows you to see many things about a site you visit, including the following of links and how they are structured.
Why would your Internet Marketing Strategy need to include Site's that use "No-Follow" Links?
I recently read a post by a prominent Internet Marketer who talked about these two link following scenarios and "Why you Shouldn't use any Marketing of Links unless they were Do-Follow." I understand the relation to Search Engine Rank, but if you cut out all the avenues and connections that can be made, soley on the reason that "No-Follow" links might hurt you, will you miss the chance for more targeted traffic?
One area that was discussed in detail from this prominent marketer referred to "Leaving Comments on Blogs" and how he only leaves comments when the site allows "Do-Follow" links. But what if that site is appealing to you? What if the post is compelling and you want to share that with the author? More importantly, what if you want to connect with that author and their readers?
Attracting targeted visitors requires a level of connection with people. When you provide value in your message, whether it is a HubPage, Squidoo Lens, Blog Post, Ezine Article or Twitter Tweet, people recognize it and will want more. Commenting on a person's Blog is no different. Providing a valuable note by letting the author know they did a great job, or interjecting a new thought, or even sharing a similar experience that you related with, shows that author and their readers what you are all about. When you leave your link, it gives those people a way to find YOU. Should it matter if it is "No-Follow" or not?
Internet Marketing is about blending what you offer across many fronts. Leave one piece of the puzzle out and you might miss that next sale, Opt-In Lead, Business partner, or life long friend. By focusing your efforts on Attracting your visitors through value instead of only worrying about Page Rank, might just move your site or blog to the top of the Search engines naturally.
To Your Success,
Mike Witt
Mike Witt