By Salihu Ibrahim. http://www.ebizstartups.com

How can one get a good ranking in major search engines ? This is a question, I'm sure, agitates minds of every newbie as well as professional webmaster. Even those that are doing well are fighting to keep their place. But isn't there a way to consistently appear in a good position at major search engines? I think there are ways to achieve this enviable position. One of ways is what this article is all about. That is, consistently build one way inbound links to your site. Getting other webmasters to link to your site without you linking back.

Link Popularity, link prominence or link reputation is one of most important elements search engines use to know if a site is an authority site. That is a quality site. However, like all other search engine ranking criteria, webmasters have found ways to beat this hurdle of link popularity. This they have done by exchanging links with one another. This is called reciprocal linking. You link to me and I to you and both of us have increased our link popularity by one.

Webmaster have realized importance search engines attached to link popularity for top search engine positioning and have therefore resorted to reciprocal linking. However, in near future this strategy will become obsolete, because these links are artificial links. Not generated voluntarily. And so they do not indicate a site as being an authority site.

The purpose of reciprocal linking is to increase link prominence for top search engine positioning and not necessarily for benefit of web surfers. The search engines will recognize this. I predict that they will start taking this into account when they are changing their algorithms . The webmaster that will survive is one that consistently builds one way inbound links to his site. These types of links are best. It portrays a site as being an authority site because site is linked to naturally by other webmasters. Without reciprocal links. Webmasters would not like to link to just any site unless there is some benefit for their site or site visitors. In this modern world nothing goes for nothing. A webmaster will only link to your site if there is some benefit for his site.

Why webmasters would link voluntarily.

Now in order for you to succeed in this one way inbound link building strategy, you need to know some of these benefits that lead webmaster to link voluntarily. If you like, call it carrot. In accepting and eating carrot webmaster is led to link to your site. Let's look at some these benefits before we look at how they can be used to entice webmasters to link to you.

1. Webmasters would want to provide good, important and timely information for their visitors. If your site has this information, they will readily link to you. They could for example, point their visitors to a free resource at your site. 2. Webmasters recognize fact that providing good information creates a good image for their site. Visitors will get to know that site is a good resource site even though resource might not be located there. This keeps visitors coming back again and again. 3. There is also benefit of linking to an authority site. Search engines do award some points for linking to an authority site. Contrary to popular belief that this reduces overall link popularity of a site, it actually benefits that page . This is my practical experience.

Now how do you acquire these one way inbound links?

1. Provide some useful resource at your site. This is a very powerful incentive for webmasters to link to your site. More so, if this resource is free. It could be a free tool , free software download, free content etc. This gives an incentive for webmasters to point their visitors at this resource. Some resources you could provide are:

(a) Link popularity check tool (b) Meta tag generator (c) Search engine page analyzer (d) Free CGI scripts (e) Search engine page ranking check tool etc.

For free and paid scripts go to Hotscript.com or Searchscripts.com. There you will find all kinds of scripts that perform specific functions. Or you can hire a programmer to write a custom script for you. You will find programmers at many sites such as Elance.com.

2. Write good articles and submit to article sites, article syndicate sites and ezine announcement sites. Your article will be published along with your byline with a link pointing to your site. Make sure that text link has your keywords in it and not your domain name. For example, < a href=" http://www.ebizstartups.com" rel="nofollow"> home base business ideas and not www.ebizstartups.com

This you DO NOT want to miss: The newest report out on "seeing" what people look at when they browse through your site and how they react to certain layouts, headlines, images, and text formats.

Do you really want to know what people see when they visit your site? You think you're ready for harsh reality?

The project managers of EYETRACK III team, Steve Outing and Laura Ruel seem to have done quite a bit of work and I want to thank them for their findings.

So how do we utilize this new found information ? Knowledge is only power, unless it is applied.

Applying Knowledge: Homepage Layout

Quoted From: http://www.poynterextra.org/eyetrack2004/main.htm

"The eyes most often fixated first in upper left of page, then hovered in that area before going left to right. Only after perusing top portion of page for some time did their eyes explore further down page."

It is mentioned all throughout those articles that people they tested and had EyeTracker III track their movements, and they repeatedly looked towards upper left hand corner first. The logical reason for that would be because many people in world read left-to-right. Only certain people can read right-to-left.

That would be another explanation why they even tested sites that used their menu on right and why most of people tested, seemed to be drawn to menus on right.

Pay Attention As To What You Add On The Top Left Hand Corner!

Msn does this so perfectly, here's what you can find at top of MSN, MSN Home, My MSN, Hotmail, Web Search, Shopping, Money, People & Chat .

The study shows that with having important links at top, people will gravitate to those links first. First impressions are huge, even more than most of us consider sometimes.

Things you can add at top to maximize space:

- Add a link To Their Favorites button - Tell a friend link - Search function - Company specials - Site Map - Contact Us - Log-In - Print Page - Newsletter Subscription - Daily News Report

How To Improve Your Content For More Exposure:

If you have information or news that you want read right away, try to implement and position that information near top. The study shows that by adding a small "caption" of article, people will generally read caption more than if there were only a headline to article.

On other hand, it doesn’t mean that people will read entire article more but ... You may attract readers to that article that may have just brushed headline off.

The key to your content is flow:

If you want people to scroll down and view content that you have near bottom of page, make sure that ALL of your content flows towards bottom. Try not to break it in any way. The more flow you have, more people will browse down.

Many aspects of web sites functionality is sub-conscious. Implementing more and more tested strategies will increase your chances at a successful and powerful website.