Link Popularity Basics
Understanding Link Popularity Basics is important for every small business website. Before we get into some useful strategies, let's talk a bit about the term itself.
Link Popularity refers to number of links (also called hyperlinks) pointing to your website from other sites. Search engines monitor these links in order to help determine the overall quality of your website content.
If there are lots of quality websites linking back to your site, the search engines see this as a vote of confidence and your search engine rankings will improve.
The thinking behind link popularity is that sites with great content will automatically attract links, while websites with poor content will attract few.
But it's not just the number of links, but the quality of the links as well. For example, links pointing to your site from established directories and institutions will carry more weight than links from some obscure personal homepage.
The bottom line is this - you must start a comprehensive link building program if you want to drive free targeted traffic to your website. Having great content is simply not enough. You must be proactive in building your link popularity.
Below are several strategies to help you begin.
Link Popularity Basics: Strategy #1
Submit to Quality Directories
This strategy involves submitting your site to quality web directories that manually review each website. In most cases, you will pay a fee for the review process. Some search engine optimization consultants recommend never paying for a directory link as the search engines don't like it.
The search engines do in fact look for patterns associated with paid links and, when they find them, devalue the link. So why am I advocating you pay for directory links? Because the search engines do not devalue quality web directories that manually review sites for submission.
According to Google employee Matt Cutts, here are the questions to ask before paying to get into any web directory.
1. Does the directory reject websites? If every website passes review, there is no value in being listed.
2. What is the quality of URL's listed in the directory? Directories that contain many low-quality websites raise the suspicions of the search engines.
3. If there's a fee, what's the purpose of it? For a high-quality directory, the fee is primarily for the time and effort involved in the manual review process.
A good strategy I recommend is to purchase one or two quality directory listings per month. Some directories are quite expensive. If you have a tight budget, simply submit to the lower cost directories for now.
To see a list of quality directories, please visit this Top Web Directories list.
Link Popularity Basics: Strategy #2
Submit Articles
A very good strategy for building inbound links (also known as backlinks) is to rewrite some of your website content and submit it as a standalone article.
The key to this is to include links back to your website in either the article body or in the Author Bio area. These links will be discovered by the search engines and will help grow your link popularity.
The article sites I've listed below are considered some of the very best. I recommend you visit each one and set up a free author account.
www.ezinearticles.com
www.articlealley.com
www.articlebase.com
www.articlecity.com
www.articledashboard.com
www.goarticles.com
To get started, write an original article pertaining to your area of expertise and submit this same article to each of the above article sites.
If you want to use an existing article from your site, I recommend rewriting it in order to avoid possible duplicate content issues. Search engines try to filter out duplicate content in their search results in order to provide diverse results for any single search query. By making your article a bit different, you will help ensure the original content on your site doesn't get pushed down in the rankings.
It's not necessary to rewrite the entire article from scratch. However, I do recommend changing the first and last paragraphs as well as the first sentence of each paragraph in between. In addition, it also helps to condense the article a bit. Ultimately, you want the most helpful and content-rich version of the article to appear only on your site.
Don't forget to include at least one active link back to your website in the author bio area. If you can, include an additional link in the article body (although some sites do not allow this) for additional information at your website.
My recommendation is to submit one article to each of the above sites every 1-2 weeks. Over the course of a year, you'll be amazed at how many new quality links you'll grow.
Link Popularity Basics: Strategy #3
Secure Links From High PR Sites
Google has a factor known as Pagerank. Each website has a specific Pagerank between one and ten. When you find a site that is willing to give you a link, make sure it has a PageRank equal or higher than your own Pagerank. The search engines monitor the Pagerank of all sites that link to yours and high Pagerank sites will carry more weight.
You can use this Pagerank Checker in order to see the Pagerank of any specific site.
Link Popularity Basics: Strategy #4
Anchor Text
Anchor text simply refers to the actual wording used in the link. The search engines monitor this text so make sure it includes the main keyword for the page it is pointing towards.
As an example, if you have a webpage that uses "Article Submission" as the main keyword, then a good anchor link text would be:
Click here for more information on article submission strategies
Link Popularity Basics: Strategy #5
Link Exchanges
One-way inbound links to your site holds the most weight with the search engines. A distant second is a link exchange. This is where you give a website a link in exchange for them giving you a link.
While I do recommend securing a few link exchanges, most of your time should be spent obtaining one-way incoming links. When you do find someone to exchange a link with, make sure there is relevancy in the link. If your site is about search engine optimization, don't link to a site about dog training. Yes, the search engines do monitor this.
Finally, I should mention the concept of Link Farms. Link farms are websites set up with the sole purpose of setting up irrelevant link exchanges to other sites in an attempt to build link popularity. Do not participate as they are a form of spam. The search engines have become much more sophisticated in identifying link farms and shutting them down.
Link Popularity Basics: Strategy #6
Forums and Blogs
Another way way to get inbound links is by answering questions on forums and posting helpful thoughts on business related blogs. Be careful here. Your primary motivation must be to help people. If you simply make a short unhelpful comment so that you can leave your name and website URL in the posting, this idea will backfire.
As Internet marketing guru Ken Evoy has said - "Keep it real!"
Link Popularity Basics: Strategy #7
Establish Deep Links
As you work to establish a link building program, work to get links to pages other than your home page. Yes, you certainly want links to your homepage, but it is very important to also establish links deeper into your site. These are called, not surprisingly, deep links.
One easy way to do this is with the links you develop through submitting articles. One strategy I recommended was to submit a shorter version of an article already contained on your site. If you do this, you can simply add a final sentence that reads something like:
"For more information on golf basics, please visit www.golf.com/golf-basics.html"
Link Popularity Basics: Strategy #8
Create Quality Content
Ultimately, as your website grows, you will establish links automatically - that is, if you have generated quality content.
As you build your business, make sure you are providing helpful content to your customers. Survey their wants and needs and then write articles to address these issues. This type of quality content will go a long way in developing automatic high-quality links.
Yes, you certainly want to optimize your on-page criteria for the search engines. But don't forget who you're really writing for - the customer.
Link Popularity Basics: Strategy #9
Keep Tabs on Your Links
I recommend monitoring your links on a monthly basis so you can see how your efforts are paying off.
The best way to monitor your inbound links is to use Yahoo's Site Explorer. Click on the link and enter your web URL in the box at the very top and then click on "Explore URL." Two buttons will show up at the top. One is labeled "Pages" and gives the number of pages Yahoo has indexed on your site. The second button is labeled "Inlinks" and shows all links pointing back to your site.
Unfortunately, this "Inlinks" total also includes any links within your site that point to other pages in your site. To view only external links pointing to your site, click on the "Inlinks" button. This will bring up a box labeled "Show Inlinks" which has a drop-down selection menu. Choose "Except from this domain" from the drop-down menu and the "Inlinks" button will update to show only links coming from other websites. This is the number you will want to monitor each month.
Link popularity basics - easy to understand and easy to implement. Start laying the groundwork for increasing your link popularity today! It's one of the most important strategies you can implement for your small business website.
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