There was a funny game Web Master’s used to play with Google called Google Bombing. It was a process that was used to associate words, most often popular search terms with websites which only marginally deserved to benefit from the term. Most often it was used by unethical SEO specialists to get their clients ranked highly but most famously it was used to link the search term Miserable Failure to the official White House web page for George W. Bush.

As you can imagine, nowhere on the White House website does it refer to George W. Bush as a miserable failure, so how did they do it and why does it matter to you? Nobody is suggesting you take part in subverting the Internet but learning from the process of the most famous diversion on the Internet will help you understand how to market your own website.

First, you must understand how the con was played and how Google fell for it. As it turns out, it was wonderfully easy in it’s simplicity. Google ranks websites based on a system called Google PageRank. Every website is assigned a value from 0 (worthless) to 10 (reliable) and Google uses that value to understand how relevant a link is to the rest of the Internet. For example, a low ranked website which contained a link describing my site content would hardly influence Google’s impression of me at all but if somebody huge like the The Washington Post or SlashDot took the time to write about me, they would assume my website was relevant. It’s a little like high school, if the cool kids think you’re cool too then you most likely are.

Now, the second thing to understand is that Google values what others say about you more than what you say about yourself. This is how Google protects itself from millions of people trying to climb the ranks with fake keywords and bogus content. Inbound links therefore matter.

The beauty of the GoogleBomb was that all you needed to do was convince enough people with the trust of Google to insert the words “miserable failure” on their pages and link that content to the official biography of George W. Bush. Now some people think GoogleBombs still work, Google says they don’t. What really matters is how we’re going to use the basic lessons from the GoogleBomb to help your business.

Google loves inbound links, so logically if you want to improve what Google thinks of you (and therefore increase your ranking) you need to generate good inbound links. A few cautionary notes here:

1. Do not attempt to GoogleBomb. Google will catch you and remove you from their database. I only describe the process to better help you understand how Google thinks.
2. Do not buy links. Google will catch you … see #1.
3. Do not get involved in link farms, see #1 and #2.
4. Be ethical.

So how do you increase inbound links and stay on the better side of the law? First, there’s a great interview with Matt Cutts which you should read.

Here’s my recommendations for how to generate inbound links:

• Write good content
• Make your website informative
• Build loyalty through quality advice
• Help support your community with tutorials and materials
• Generate a reputation for expertise in your field

It’ll take longer than hiring an SEO but it will also result in long term benefits to your business as other professionals in your industry link to your articles. Remember, building a reputation on the Internet is a long game but if you build slowly and surely you’ll generate the trust of not only new customers but also others in your industry and in the end, major search engines.