As we all know … incoming links are the juice that we all like to drink (search engines value them). Only problem is … sometimes it’s the wrong flavor that does very little for us. Sure, you can do things to get links naturally (pro bono), and yet there are times when some cash can help you out.

Before buying a text link (oh, sorry … “advertisement”), you should run through the pointers I have outlined below.

1. Check how well this juicy website ranks for it’s own keywords. (If they don’t rank well for their own keywords, they will most likely give you very little “juice”.)

2. How many incoming links does the page (NOT WEBSITE) that your link will be placed on has? You know why those “links” pages are somewhat worthless? Because no one really links to them. If no one links to where your link is hosted … why should Google care about it?

3. When was the last time this page got crawled by Google? Not only should you care about the freshness of the page but you should check if Google has in fact spidered that page where you want your paid link to be placed.

4. What is the title of the page? It’s always a big benefit to have your link placed on a web page that has a relevant title tag to what your website is all about.

5. Alexa rank. Yes, Alexa is somewhat …. useless. Nevertheless, a site that has an Alexa rank of 4,453,424 versus one with 24,995 is less desirable to me.

6. Outgoing links. It’s crucial to see who the page is linking out to. If your link is going to be a part of a 400 outgoing links page varying from gambling to porn sites, I’d suggest you passing on such deal. On the other side, if there is a limited amount of outgoing links and they all are relevant to what you want to rank for … you’ve got a winner.

7. Check quality of sites they link to. Yes, you should care about the quality of the websites they usually link to … especially on that particular page where your link will reside.

8. .EDU and .GOV incoming links. See how many .edu and .gov websites link to the domain of the websites you’re trying to get a link from. These are usually a high quality, high authority websites and search engines do value these “referrals”.

Kevin Henney adds #9 and #10

9. Where your link will appear - A link in the sidebar along with a number of other links (even if they’re relevant, quality links) is generally less valuable than a link in the main body of the page.

10. For a quick summary of the quality of the page your link will appear on, SEOmoz’s Page Strength Tool comes in handy.

11. Now you go. ……….. add your suggestions in the comments and I will add them to the list mentioning your “credits”.

I made this a short list because I am relying on you, my reader, to contribute to the list. Please do.

Keyword Research Tool