backlinkforfree.com/blog

To increase link popularity, you need solid link building techniques. Link building allows you to establish relevant inbound links to your website, which in turn increases search engine rankings and helps you get traffic.

If you aren’t familiar with the different methods people use to increase link popularity and get traffic, the first thing you need to know is that not every link building method is considered acceptable. In fact, some of the methods used to increase link popularity are considered so unethical that they can actually get you in trouble with the various search engines.

To help you differentiate between what is ethical and what is not, here is a list of the most common link building methods used to get traffic:

Social Bookmarking

There has been a lot of discussion lately in regards to using social bookmarking as a way to get traffic and increase link popularity. Some people think that this link building technique borders on unethical.

The truth is that it depends on how you utilize social bookmarking sites. If you are an active member of a social bookmarking community who posts links to a personal website and other relevant sites to increase link popularity for everyone, you are doing nothing wrong. If, on the other hand, you create an account and repeatedly submit your own links and nothing else to get traffic, you are participating in spam-like behavior.

Spamming

Spamming can sometimes get traffic to your website, but it is not the best way to increase link popularity. Most of the search engines frown upon spamming and have the ability to catch inexperienced spammers within a month or two.

The following link building techniques are considered unethical spamming by the major search engines: participation in unrelated and centralized link farms, automatically generated doorway pages, and false redirects.

Article Submission

Manual and automated article submission is another link building technique that has garnered proven results over the years. Article submission is widely thought to be an ethical way to increase link popularity and get traffic. Nevertheless, there are exceptions to the rule.

For example, article submission that is fully automated but not targeted is usually considered spam. It is also a huge waste of time when compared to other link building strategies. If you want to get traffic and increase link popularity, you must submit articles to the right directories.

CBuying Links

Search engines often advise against buying backlinks as a way to increase link popularity and get traffic. The reason is because it cheats their ranking system and is therefore considered unethical. Even so, there are plenty of website owners who employ this link building technique and reap great rewards.

If you want to give this link building strategy a try, the key is to start slowly by buying only a few backlinks. Buying 1,000 links in one day looks suspicious. You will also want to be careful as to where you buy your links from. Ten quality backlinks will help you increase link popularity and get traffic; 100 poorly regarded backlinks will not. Keep in mind you backlinks need to come from what search engines will consider good neighborhoods.

Link popularity is so very important today in the arena of natural search engine rankings. The presence of so many of the link building services and the services allowing the web masters to buy high PR links.

But how do you achieve link popularity and do it with a minimal cost? Sure, you can buy links, but are they really cost effective?

My biased opinion is that they are not.

But in my also biased opinion, article writing for link popularity is very cost effective, especially if you are just getting started online and have more time than money to spend on link building services or to buy high PR links.

How does it work?

With article marketing, you write articles that are tightly themed to the niche market of your web site. You include in those articles a link or two to your own web site, with anchor text that corresponds to a keyword for which you want to have high link popularity.

Next, you submit those articles to various online article directories, and when they publish the articles, you will receive back links with your anchor text link included in the articles.

Those back links create link popularity for you at a much lower cost than paying for the links.

One useful thing to think about:

When you are writing articles for the circulation, submit many articles to a few article directories that are big, get big traffic and have RSS delivery to other sites.

When you are writing articles for link popularity, write a few articles and submit them to every article directory, no matter how big or small. That will create more back links.

The major factor for success on the Internet is link popularity. If you have good link popularity it can increase traffic to your web site by bringing high ranking on search engines. It is quite difficult task for a new site to build link popularity which has just born here we will discuss what strategy a new site should adopt to boost link popularity. First of all let’s understand the meaning of link, link popularity and link exchange.

What is Link and Link Popularity?

The link (hyperlink, or Web link) is a connection from one web resource to another. Internet begins with the hyperlink and a person go from one page to another page by clicking link. Links are the buttons and underlined text on web pages that take you to other pages on click.

What is Link Popularity?

Link Popularity means how much you are known on the internet which can be measured how many sites or web pages linked to you. Link popularity is a measure of both the quantity and quality of sites that link to your site. Link Popularity is the number of quality hyperlinks pointed to your website.

What is Link Exchange?

In Link Exchange basically, we exchange links – you add my link to your website and I will add your link to mine. It is a barter system give link and in return get link .By exchanging links, with theme based sites or authority sites you can increase your websites link popularity and which will results into increase of your website search engine rankings.

What are new site link exchange problems?

For new sites it is quite difficult to get linked with other sites. Even the google takes the site for indexing if it has got few inbound links from other websites. Google says “The best way to ensure Google finds your site is for your page to be linked from lots of pages on other sites…”

In one of the reason for site not listed Google has explained: “If we have not picked up your site and it has been several months, then it is likely that our spiders are not able to find your site. If you increase the links pointing to the page, Google will likely find your site in the future. “

It is clear that your site will not be listed on Google quickly. Search Engines usually takes news sites very fast if you are linked by other popular related web sites. New site will also not get reciprocal link from other sites because of non popularity or 0 PR (Google Page Rank).

Link building strategy for new site owners

Now what strategy should new sites adopt to get started on the Web? Here are the few one, which will work.

1. Get Listed on Free Top Web directory Try to get listed on open directory project DMOZ ( www.dmoz.org.) and also submit your site to Yahoo! by visiting http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/. Be sure to follow their guidelines for listing. The important free directories in addition to dmoz are:

http://www.dmoz.orghttp://dir.yahoo.com

2. Get Links for Your Associates Try to get link from your associated or friends web sites. If you are in business you can get link from your dealers or business associates. It will also help you in getting theme bases links. In initial stage you can take link from your friends and relative web pages or site although they may not be theme based but at least search engine like Google will find your link and index you.

3. Free Site Submission Tools There are lot free site submit tool are available on the Internet. Use them to get listing as for the new site owner it is difficult to find the important search engines. Be careful and do not submit many time to same search engines as they may consider repetive submission it Spam. Further try to keep away from FFA pages as they are treated as ‘link farms” by search engines and listing is penalized.

4. Join Discussion Forum The Discussion form is another media to get inbound links. Join the Message Board which is related to the theme of your site and if you are expert in your field you can reply the many threads. Be sure to include your URL in your signature and also anchor text to be linked with URL should be your site Keyword. If the message board allows it, you can even include a short promotional blurb about your site at the end of your posts. Even if you do not post try to add your url in profile and it is also an inbound link and is important if from your theme based Forum. Try to add your details i.e city, country name, interest and occupation in profile as it will make your theme based pages where all contents are related to you.

5. Email based discussion Email based discussion lists, which are archived on the web in static HTML pages can also be used to boost the link popularity of your site in a similar manner. In this case, the signature file that you use with your email program should contain the URL for your web site.

6. Reciprocal links request low page rank sites The New site faces difficulty in exchanging link with high Page Rank Sites. It is better to start exchanging link with sites which are related to your topic or theme of your site even they may have low Page Rank. You will see that there page rank will increase with the time and you will gain.

7. Link Popularity through Awards Try to join the award sites. There are many sites which open contest or award of good site design or good content site you can apply for it. If you get a chance to which your brief site content will be published on Award site, which will increase your link popularity.

8. Major Industry Associations There are many industrial association sites which publish free listing of there sites. Just find the association site relating to your products or theme of site and get listed.

9. Signing of Testimonial Lot of website ask to write testimonial and also add your URL. Just study the site and write brief genuine testimonials about the website. If you will be able to write good, genuine testimonial you are sure to get listed there with your comment. Do not sign guest books with vague comment just to get link.

10. Discount Offer You can offer a discount or concession on your good, products and services to anyone who put a small banner or text link back to your site.

11. Affiliate program Set up an affiliate program, which is an excellent way to boost link popularity. Your affiliate members will put there affiliate code on there sites which will contain your URL and your will get theme based inbound link.

12. Free Netcard Try to make free netcard available on the Internet and your complete detail to make your full information page and inbound link is also important as it is your business card on net.

It is always said better beginning is half done. So if new site adopt the above method to increase link popularity they are sure to build good page rank in the beginning and latter on all higher page rank web sites will be ready to exchange link with you and will result into building of solid link popularity for your site. You should not expect results (Increase in search engine ranking) so fast. Wait for at least 3 month till search engines index you all full site pages.

Link exchange is very necessary for any website. It refers to swapping of Links with one more Webmaster. You can place other webmasters ‘site’s link’ at your website and in return they put a link back to your site from their websites. In this situation it can be said that the Links have been exchanged. Every week, you can save your time to work on your link exchange program to increase the quality and number of your text links out on other websites inside your niche market.

It is a key aspect of SEO and also a starting place of getting targeted traffic. Link Exchange is being used from the beginning of the internet as a way in advance popularity in the eyes of the major search engines. Link exchange is the best way to get a great position in the major search engine results for your given keywords. Your business can acquire high position rapidly by utilizing link exchanges. Even if you get 1000 links all night, does it really mean that your website is important? But the number of links pointing to the website is the only decisive factor to resolve the importance of the website and then search engine results can be influenced easily.

Link Exchange or Reciprocal Link Exchange is the practice of swapping links with other websites. There are many ways to dispose a link exchange with webmasters. Many webmasters are searching for ways to get a higher position with search engines and increasing traffic to their website everyday. A webmaster does it through exchanging links with other websites. To make a link exchange program more helpful, one needs to focus on building a solid exchange program in the proper manner. Many search engines like google, can pedestal your rankings by how many inbound links you have. One can think how this is a simple task. Anyone can just work on exchanging links with any website that is willing to take part. Just sending out an email to every webmaster is not so simple. You can make the biggest mistake that is not relevant to the theme of your website. To exchange links with only targeted websites is the best way to build a solid program and customers would have an interest in your products or service.

The majority of people have the same opinion that having a lot of links to your site is the key to rank well in all search engines. Nowadays, everyone tries to arise with new methods to gain many links as possible while designing a website. The most complicated link exchange today is a link exchange network. In the network, you post a ‘URL’ of another website in your own site and the server posts your ‘URL’ in another person’s website based on a merit or point system. There are also many other people who add in the plan of ‘MLM’ into link exchange, turning the whole linking system into a pyramid. Link exchange makes everybody to post and exchange links in blogs, link directories and link pages. Nearly everyone wish to add in a link directory when designing their website only for SEO purpose.

So, link exchange is an important factor in calculating its searched ranking in major search engines. Therefore, link exchange and other SEO methods to get inbound links should be important. There are really more link exchange contents as contrasted to the site’s main contents. If we are more careful with links, so then search engines would have a simple task of showing appropriate search results.

So tell the truth, were you popular in high school? Did you have a lot of friends, and a wide social circle? Were you an athlete? Did your accomplishments extend far outside the halls of your alma mater to neighboring schools and counties? If so, then congratulations; you’re probably in the minority of those reading this article. What does this example have to do with link popularity you ask; more than you think.

Just as in high school, on the World Wide Web, your website is known by the company it keeps. Link to the wrong site or “hang with the wrong crowd” and you could be ostracized by the search engine community before you even begin. Achieve quality inbound links from a wide range of popular kids on the internet, however, and watch your site’s online profile soar. Sounds simple, and it is, if you know what to do to climb the online social ladder that is Link Popularity.

But before we get to that, what exactly is Link Popularity? Simply defined, Link Popularity is a measure of the quantity and quality of other web sites that link to your site on the internet at any given time. It is considered an off-the-page criteria that is greatly utilized by search engines to determine the overall importance and quality of your site to the online community. Because of its impartial nature, a site with a very high number of incoming links is usually viewed as highly relevant to the online community at large and thus highly visible within relevant search engine results. Whereas a content-poor site will attract fewer incoming links and thus hold little value to the same visitors.

What is the current link popularity of your site today? Take a moment to enter your site url at popular free link tool www.linkpopularity.com, then come back for the rest of this article…..

Still there, good! The results probably weren’t what you had hoped for though, where they? Not to worry; probably the biggest threat to you obtaining a high link popularity score for your site is relying on old information. To that end, below is a quick 10-step CURRENT process that can be implemented immediately to increase your site’s overall link popularity:

Step 1 – SUBMIT YOUR SITE TO OPEN DIRECTORY (DMOZ) AND YAHOO – Although neither of these sites are the 800 lb. gorillas they used to be, any link from these sites is going to increase your online profile immediately and very visibly. Find your appropriate category in both sites and submit for free with DMOZ and invest the $299 for a yearly indexing with Yahoo. Although DMOZ is still incredibly slow in adding new sites, keep at it, find the appropriate editor and send him cookies or flowers if necessary (couldn’t hurt?) then be patient.

Step 2 – ADD YOUR KEYWORDS TO THE LINKING ANCHOR TEXT – When at all possible, try to have an on-point relevant keyword phrase used as the linking text within any inbound link your seek for your site. If all you can manage is your site name or your url, that is certainly fine. But if you are selling toothbrushes to Eskimos, then “Eskimo toothbrushes for sale” as the linking keyword phrase from one site to yours is always the way to go.

Step 3 – WRITE ARTICLES AND SUBMIT PRESS RELEASES – Hey, look what I am doing right now! I could be watching ESPN, but I am writing this article instead. Write articles and submit press releases when you have a personnel change, introduce or upgrade a service or product or when you have a topic of interest you wish to share with the online world web community. Don’t have a blog? Get one! This is a simple way to get your articles and press releases out for indexing and review. Make sure to include links to your site where appropriate and watch your link popularity grow and grow.

Step 4 – FIND OUT WHO LINKS TO YOUR COMPETITORS – Go to Google.com and enter this into this search query: link:www.yourcompetitor.com. Do the same for Yahoo by entering linkdomain:www.your-competitor.com -site:www.your-competitor.com into the search field. Seek out the sites linking to your competitors and convince them to link to you instead. You win TWICE with this approach. You gain a quality link and an increase in your overall popularity while your competitor LOSES a link and achieves a lower popularity score in return.

Step 5 – CREATE AN AFFILIATE PROGRAM – Nothing generates quality, inbound links to your site faster than an established, commission-paying affiliate program. Whether your site is product or service-based, an affiliate program can be just the thing that takes your site and its link popularity to new heights. Visit www.CommissionJunction.com or www.LinkShare.com to set-up a new affiliate program of your design today and watch your online profile grow by leaps and bounds.

Step 6 – DEEP LINK YOUR SITE – This step is vastly overlooked by even the most savvy of online marketers initiating a new link popularity campaign. Make sure that links you seek out or solicit don’t just link to your home page, but ALL pages of your website. This process has numerous benefits including expanding your overall online link profile as well as generating unique Google PageRank values for each and every one of your site’s pages instead of just your home page.

Step 7 – SIGN UP ON GUESTBOOKS AND FORUMS – If you don’t participate in forums on your site topic or remember to sign-in when visiting a new site for the first time, now is the time to make such actions a habit. Always post a message or participate in a forum thread whenever possible and include a link to your site in your signature where appropriate. These “sig” files do get indexed and really add up, especially if the site forum in question is something highly regarded in your specific industry.

Step 8 – CONTACT RECIPROCAL LINKS BY PHONE NOT EMAIL – You would be shocked how successful this really is. More people are inclined to respond to your request when you introduce yourself by phone and let them know that you were visiting their site. Tell the person you are linking to their site, asking permission of course, and then politely ask for a link back. Cement the request by following up by email; then wait for the links to roll-in (oh, and get rid of the form letters; they don’t work!).

Step 9 – AVOID LINK FARMS AND LINK EXCHANGES – Reputation on the web is more important than ever. Again, just like friendships in high school, it’s better to have fewer higher-quality links to your site than hundreds of off-point, non-relevant links that do nothing to enhance the overall experience of the online community. Stay away, far away, from companies promising you hundreds of links to your site overnight. At best you don’t need the links, and at worst, you could be banned by the major search engines altogether.

Step 10 – DOWNLOAD THE GOOGLE TOOLBAR – This very simple technique allows you to view all potential link partners by the very important Google PageRank score (1-10) that is viewable in this browser. Use the toolbar to keep tabs on your own site’s PageRank score, than seek out complimentary, highly relevant linking partners that have a Google PageRank score of 6 or higher whenever possible. Convince a handful of high Google PageRank sites to link back to you and watch your site take off.

Remember, just like in high school, you and your site will be known by the company kept. Follow the simple, ten step plan outlined above, and you will be well on your way to achieving real, measured, lasting success online. Be the popular site on the block today; it’s easier then you think. Go ahead, be popular!

Link Popularity, the make or break element for Search Engine Rankings

Link popularity is the single most influential factor for determining how well a web site will perform in search engine rankings. A web site’s link popularity is computed from the number and more importantly, the quality of links pointing to a web site.

Link Popularity history:

To gain a better understanding of link popularity it is useful to know why it became so crucial for search engine rankings. In the past a web page’s ranking was determined, amongst other factors, by the number of keyword occurences within ‘on-page’ elements i.e. in page text, META tags, title tag. When web developers learned that they could trick a search engine to return their web pages by cramming keywords into their pages the search engines had to get a bit smarter. They were using ‘on-page’ elements to determine relevance so it was only natural that they would look to elements out of direct control of the web page creator i.e. ‘off-page’ elements. Search engines made the assumption that the greater the number of links from other sites pointing to a web site, the more popular the web site is and therefore a more quality resource. This worked nicely in theory but in practice it was also to be abused.

Web site owners figured out many ways to get links pointing to their web sites one example of which was through the use of link farms, pages the contained nothing more than a collection of links, Quantity of links was being abused so the search engines made use of the old saying “quality not quantity” and began to assign a quality factor to each of the links pointing to a web site. Now web sites that had a higher number of high quality links were looked upon favourably by the search engines. Building link popularity became a science in itself and today is still the most time-consuming and frustrating activity for a search engine optimizer.

Main classes of links:

Note: In the following examples SiteA is our web site and SiteB is an outside site (i.e. a web site under a different domain name than SiteA).

Inbound links:

Inbound links to a web site are links that originate from an outside web site . An example would be a link on SiteB pointing into a page on SiteA.

SiteA SiteB

There are two further classifications of links:

Reciprocal links:

An example of a reciprocal link is when SiteA links to SiteB AND SiteB links to SiteA, the link is reciprocated by both parties.

SiteA —–> SiteB

AND

SiteA

One-way links:

An example of a one-way link is when either SiteA links to SiteB OR SiteB links to SiteA, it is one-way only.

SiteA SiteB

To achieve a high link popularity the type of links to build are inbound one-way links. This simulates how natural links are created i.e. links that people create to point to your site because they found it worth linking to.

For outbound links it is natural to assume that they might decrease link popularity of a web site but this is not true. You do not give away your link popularity when you link to another site. They do not add to your link popularity though.

Reciprocal links can add to your link popularity if the web site that you exchange links with has a higher link popularity than your site. However they are not as powerful as inbound, one-way links as they are quite artificial in nature i.e. most probably created by communication between the owners of both sites.

How to build link popularity:

So it is quite obvious that to help build up a nice link popularity many inbound, one-way links need to be created. This can be achieved in a number of different (and most importantly, legal) ways:

Directories:

Directories are categorized listings of links from around the web. Many, many directories exist and vary in their methods of getting your link posted on them. They provide a great source of quality inbound, one-way links. Getting listed in quality directories such as DMOZ or Yahoo can be more beneficial for your link popularity than a lot of links from smaller, newer directories. Directories are discussed in my Directories article

Great site content:

The most powerful way to get inbound, one-way links is to have great site content that other web sites will want to link to. This allows you to get links from sites other than directories, which can definitely be better. The best thing about this is that it requires no communication on your part, it just happens naturally. If your site has poor content then others sites may not link, including the directories. Most of the top ranking web sites today got to the top because of great content. Writing interesting and informative articles for your web site is a good way of getting these kind of links.

Emailing web site owners:

If you come across a listing of links on a web site other than a directory e.g. a links page on a somebody’s personal web site, it can do no harm to write the web site owner a polite email requesting a link to your site from their page. They may request a reciprocal link in return but sometimes they do not and you can get a quality inbound, one-way link for your efforts. I have got many links in the past using this method. In my email I always ask them to visit my site first before making a decision to link and I personalise each email with a comment or two about their site.

back to top

Summary:

The best and most effective way of increasing your search engine rankings is working to improve your web site’s link popularity. This can be achieved by getting as many inbound, one-way links as you can from quality sites such as directories. Other ways to get these links are having great content on your site and requesting a link to your site from other web sites.

Increasing link popularity is a time-consuming and sometimes frustrating process but is definitely worth the time and effort when you see a dramatic increase in traffic.

There are many ways how to improve search engine ranking.  Some of these methods can be effective while others will not get you anywhere.  If you want to quickly get a top spot in organic search engine results, then you have to build your link popularity.  This is the key in claiming the number one position in search engine ranking.  All website analysis tools put premium in tracking link popularity.  Even Google is publicly announcing that link popularity is the key to improve search engine ranking. 

So how do you go about building incoming links to your website?  There are also several ways to build incoming links to improve your link popularity.  Some methods are ethical and they are guaranteed to work.  Ethical link building is a pretty slow process and it also involves lots of hard work. However, you could reap big rewards from it in the long run.  Do not be tempted by black hat link building or artificially buying links from link farms.  Your website could be penalized by the search engines if you resort to easy but unethical tactics.  So here are the proven methods to link building to improve search engine ranking.

First, create quality blogs that you can link to your website.  Quality blogs mean they are related to the content of your website and they have useful content.  You must also regularly update these blogs so they can be indexed by search engines.  When you post articles to these blogs, make sure that each article contains one or two links to your website.  You can also place a related link category on the sidebar of your blogs and put a link to your website in those places.  If you have 20 or more blogs, then you can have 20 quality links pointing to your website.  Use a website analysis tool to track these links.  A website analysis tool can also determine if there are some dead links on your blogs.

Your work to improve search engine ranking will not stop in creating blogs.  You have to write articles and submit it to at least 3 article directories.  Make sure that you put a direct link to your website from these articles.  Normally, article directories will allow you to place 2 links to your website.  Some directories allow you to create a resource box where you can directly advertise your website with live links.  When these articles are go live in the directories then you get additional incoming links.  When other webmasters use your articles in their websites then your inbound links will start to multiply. 

Lastly, write regular press releases.  PR is the easiest article you can write.  Link these press releases to your website and distribute them on the Internet.  Online newswires regularly picks up press releases and publish it on their news pages.  With a live link on these press releases, you can definitely get more inbound links.  Always use a website analysis tool to track inbound links to protect your interest.  These efforts alone can skyrocket your search positioning.  These are also ethical ways to improve search engine ranking.

<!– /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:”"; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-bidi-language:AR-SA;} a:link, span.MsoHyperlink {color:blue; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed {color:purple; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} –> It is always beneficial to get people link to you voluntarily rather than buying links because it will increase your website’s online popularity in a natural way. Search engines too prefer this and search engine algorithms were originally developed to assess a website’s importance based on such natural popularity. However, today website popularity is achieved by artificial link building methods. Link baiting helps us build our website’s popularity through voluntary and natural link building approach.

Link baiting tries to create content that is useful to the audience in their respective niche industry and thereby it invites webmasters to link to that content voluntarily. Link baiting is becoming one of the most popular ways of achieving link popularity for a website because there are many advantages linked to this approach.

Primarily, it is one of the cheapest ways of building links for your website. All that you need to do is to create link-worthy content or product and people will automatically consider your website resourceful. Secondly, the links you get here are pure one-way links and it does not require you to exchange links with any third party website. In most cases, the links you get through link baiting are permanent links. The number of links to your website will increase gradually as more and more people discover your link bait. All these will help your website in getting better search engine rankings.

One of the essential aspects of link baiting is popularizing the content that is link-worthy. It is not sufficient to create compelling content but it is important that the online community is aware of the presence of such content. Therefore, the page or the content that you are using as link bait has to be promoted well. Link baits are normally promoted in social networking websites, forums, content related sites such as Digg, Delicious, etc.

Link baiting is becoming one of the most preferred ways of building a website’s online popularity because once the link bait is promoted well; it will also attract highly targeted traffic to the website. Search engine spiders too will frequent your website because link baiting tries to keep the content fresh by adding new content regularly to increase the number of websites that link to it.

This is also one of the most search engine friendly ways of building links, as it does not use any unauthorized promotion techniques. Link baiting has thus become a very popular SEO strategy.

The first place that a potential customer goes to find a product or service on the internet is a search engine. The higher you are listed in a search engine the better the possibility of your site being found. If the potential customers do not find you in their search, chances are that they will not visit your site and as a result you will not have an opportunity at making a sale with the prospect.

What has this all got to do with link popularity? Well, link popularity refers to the ranking assigned to your website by the search engines. It determines the ranking your page gets when keywords are entered into a search engine by a potential customer when looking for a product or service.

There are a few things you should be aware of and guard against in your quest for link popularity. These can be summed up in two words: Quantity and Quality. You will not achieve link popularity just by linking up with a large number of other websites. In fact, it may work against you. There are web sites that are known as “link farms” containing line after line of indiscriminate links. Search engines will discriminate against your website if you are associated with a link farm, so steer clear of them!

The quality of the site you are linking to is also super important. So be sure to check out the site you are linking to before you commit to linking. If you have any reservation about your visitors seeing that you are linking to a site that is indiscriminate and cheap, forget about it. Linking to sites of poor quality will only lessen your link popularity, if not completely destroy it.

Here are some things you need to do to achieve link popularity and improve your rankings on the popular search engines.

The fastest way to get your foot in the door is to get a listing on some popular directories. You can do this manually or with the aid of software. There are several excellent software products on the market and when you consider the cost versus the time, you can decide which course is best for you.

The next step after you have attained directory listings is to locate other quality sites that will increase your link popularity. Try to find sites that are in some way related to yours, so not only will your link popularity increase, but your customer base may also be expanded. You want to avoid your competitors and look for sites that are useful to your site’s visitors. For instance, if you are selling life insurance, someone selling health insurance would be a good link choice. By linking to a related site that will be relevant to your website’s traffic, you are increasing both of your site’s business prospects – and both of your sites’ link popularity.

Remember, your criteria are quality, highly ranked, non-competing websites that have a links or resources page. Go to these sites and objectively assess them. Look at the quality of the product, the graphics, and the ease of use. Then check out the other sites they are linked to, and determine if your own site would fit in with this crowd. Again you can do this manually, or with a software program.

It is a lot of hard work and other than the software programs to assist you there are no shortcuts to achieve link popularity. So be prepared for a long journey to the top. This is one of those areas where patience, commitment, and persistence pay off. Good Luck!

P.S.: You want to be sure to have an attractive and interesting site or you will never persuade anyone to link up to you.

There are many different factors which contribute to the effectiveness of link building. While some people may think it’s the number of links you have to your site that will help to improve your rankings in the search engine results pages, this is not always the case. There are many things that need to be considered before you have your site’s link added to another site. Here are some of the most important:

Trusted Domains

If you link to a domain that is trusted by Google and the page is relevant, this will pass on link juice. However, even if a web page is less relevant but with a powerful domain, the links will still be counted.

If you can get a link from a website that is in your niche community, this will help with the Topic Sensitive Page Rank. To get good ranking here, you’ll need to establish links from a niche website in a specific topical community. This is even effective if you can link to a new website in your niche community. Don’t overlook these sites just because they are new.

Page Rank

Google has recently changed the algorithms used to give page rank. This is due to the manipulation by many websites of the page ranking system. While page rank is important, don’t bypass the chance to link with pages that have a high PR and are only somewhat relevant.

Link Popularity

While page rank is a way to measure link popularity, this can be different for two websites. If a PR6 website has 1000 links and another with the same page rank has 7000, the one that has 7000 links is more valuable to link to.

You simply cannot measure the link popularity with the toolbar PR. Link analysis must be implemented as well. There are many free tools available that can be used to determine the number of links a website has. However, it is possible that Google may not count half of those links shown on these tools, so use this as a relative measure for link building. By consistently analyzing the links on the pages your site is linked to, you will soon see if a pattern emerges.

Link Popularity on Topic-Related Websites

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to rank in the SERP’s if you don’t have links to sites that are in your topical community. One way to distinguish between websites is to see if there are links of the same topic to other websites. This is a good indicator that the website is related to the topic of your webpage or site.

In Closing

Building links to websites that are in your topic community is the best way to work on raising your ranking in the SERP’s. Choose sites that are reputable and trusted. Realize that increasing your ranking will not happen overnight, but if you practice “white hat” techniques, you will see results. As always, avoid buying links or using link farms to try and improve your ranking.