One important feature that gives value to your website in the eyes of Google as well as other search engines, is the inbound links. Also, inbound links enable more people to find your site and your offerings. Inbound links are as good as another vote of confidence given to your website.

Now, is it that the job is complete as soon as the link has been set up?

One of the most challenging aspects of SEO efforts is to get links to point to your website. However, the effort of link-building does not end with setting up a link. On the other hand, setting up links should be just a stepping stone to the major task, which is long-term link building.

Do you embark on links follow-up?

This is worth discussing for a while. Perhaps someone got your link request, and took all the effort to respond. Or, maybe they got to know about you via referral, and researched you further, probably bought an item from you and considered it fit to link to you. Whatever be the chain of activities that brought the decision, the person deemed it fit to link to your website and devoted time to do so.

Do you just feel good about it, and that’s all?

Please don’t stop at that! The person who took all the effort to link to you should also be rewarded, at least with a bit of your attention and time. So, what do you do? In addition to thanking them for the link; also, handle this as a rare opportunity that it really is by establishing a firm relationship with them. This can open amazing business opportunities that you can’t imagine!

Here are top questions to ask when a site links to your site:

• Is their site popular, and to what extent?

A site that links to your site would benefit you more if such a site is popular. Verify the popularity of the site by checking the amount of inbound links that such site gets. This is a good way to access how popular a site is.

• Which of the links is providing you with quality traffic?

The best way to find out is to investigate Google Analytics. Getting traffic from sites could be attributed to different reasons; for instance, it could be that your target audience is the same with those sites; so their visitors are keen at your offerings. Also, it could be that sites that bring you traffic provide your site with good reviews and talk nicely about your offerings. Another reason is that such sites generate voluminous traffic themselves, and may have also placed your link in strategic area on their websites.

• The traffic from the linking sites, do they translate to sales?

If all the traffics you generate from sites that link to your site do not translate to sale, at least some of them, the traffic would be of no benefit to you. Setting up Google Analytic would help you find out if the links bring you traffic, and if the traffic converts to sale. If you find out the answer, that you get sale via the traffic, don’t delay a moment longer to thank them and build a more solid relationship with them.