Search Engine Optimization - Link Popularity

Link popularity is the most powerful SEO tool out of all for better search engine ranking and also the most difficult area for webmaster. It is "off-page optimization"means you have to work on building links to your website.

Over the past year or two, one thing has become extremely clear...the need for link popularity. Every major engine weighs the link popularity of sites heavily when ranking sites. At least one major engine even claims they won't index sites that don't have at least one link pointing to them from another site. To keep it as simple as possible you need to get many links to your site trying to have them from sites with a high page rank and related content. Unfortunately, building link popularity can be one of the most challenging aspects of search engine promotion. It's tedious, boring, extremely time consuming, and ABSOLUTELY essential.

It is a well-known fact that the number of important relevant inbound links to any website counts in its Google PageRank and position in search results. Google pageRank (PR) evaluates Web structure through link analysis to determine relevancy. It's an algorithm factor that gives higher rankings to sites with many strong, quality links leading to their pages. Such sites are deemed to be highly relevant because of all the incoming links.

Google's PageRank search technology works by first identifying the link structure of the entire Web, then ranking individual pages based on the number and importance of pages linked to them." Note that the popularity and relevance of the backlinks are more critical than their number.

By analyzing external links that point back to your web site, Google assumes that the more of these inbound links your site has, the more relevant your site is compared to a site that has few or no inbound links. It's like an online vote of confidence.

Today off-page factors rule in the Google algorithm, and you simply cannot achieve top rankings for your keywords if you don't work a lot on the off-page optimization of your site Remember, it is off-page optimization that really makes a difference in your website's ranking.

Off-page Search Engine Optimization Factors :

Anchor Text : This is extremely important to use the right anchor text, with the most important keywords for your site there, as it is one of the largest factors taken into account by the major search engines for ranking. Specific anchor text links help a site to rank better for that particular term/phrase at Google and other search engines. Hence,you should obtain links with your keyword phrases in the anchor text.

Link Popularity of a Link Partner's Website : The link popularity (the number of other websites linking to a site) of a website affects the value of all the links in hosted documents on the site. Highly linked to sites will provide more value in their links than sites whose link popularity is low. So, the more link popularity of your link partner, the more value is provided by the links from his/her website.

Popularity of Site in Topical Community : Topical communities are groups of websites who interlink to and with one another frequently and carry a similar topic or theme. Since topical communities are relevant and "on-topic", the links from them carry great weight. A site that is included in a topical community by way of links from many other members may be considered more relevant and authoritative on the community's subject matter. From this we can make a conclusion that you mainly have to find websites that are related to the topic of your own websites. One of the fast ways to find a right website is to examine its title. Does it contain your keyword? If so, you shouldapproach those websites and try to get them to link to your website.

Page Rank : Page Rank is the actual Google PageRank of the webpage linking to your website. Again, you should be looking for link partners which PageRank is higher than yours.

Tips for Improving Link Popularity :

Directory Listings: The first thing you should do is to get your site listed in the "Big 3" directories. Those are Yahoo, LookSmart, and the ODP. Yes, Yahoo and LookSmart are paid and expensive. Directory listings boost link popularity because they rely on human editors, known to result in relevant content. One link from each of them can go a long way in boosting your link popularity. Search for smaller vertical directories to submit your site to. There are thousands of these directories out there.

Request Reciprocal Links: When looking for possible link candidates, start by visiting a search engine and typing in your most important strategic keywords. You'll see a lot of competitors, but look for non-competing, complimentary sites. Screen those sites, selecting only the ones that might be receptive to your link request. Give them a compelling reason to link to your site and be sure to suggest where a link might be appropriate. Make sure your site is worth a link. This means your site must offer something of value to entice other sites to link to yours. Putting up a link to someone before you ask them for a link is proper linking etiquette and is much more effective than the alternative. If you’re going to ask somebody for a link then don’t waste their time unless you’ve already linked to them. This shows that you are serious about linking with their site and haven’t just spammed the universe asking for links! And if you tell somebody that you’ve linked to them, be sure that you really have. Otherwise, you’ve just lost your credibility. By the way, always tell your prospective link partner exactly how to link to your site.

You Shall Have No More Than 50 Links On One page. If you have more than 50 links on one page then you are doing something wrong. Google now ignores most web pages that contain more than about 50 links.

Promote Linkability Within Your Site: There are many ways to do this. Basically, you want to provide quality resources and outgoing links as appropriate. Outgoing links can be important in two ways: they provide incentive for other quality sites to link to you when you're already linked to them, and if internal linkage is done properly, it can improve your PRscore.

Write Articles: Writing articles on your topic can also be a great way to get your URL out. Write articles and submit them to article banks, directories and content sites will increase your link popularity. Provide a brief bio containing your Web site URL and make it a condition for publication that the article must appear with a bio containing your company URL. This can generate a lot of links for Free.

One often overlooked trick is to find similar sites that use guest books and forums. If you can find these you will often be able to post a message and include your URL. Be careful with this. Some forums don't allow the posting of URL's so check out their rules of etiquette first.

Don't join link farms ( Link Exchange Programs ) . These were a good idea once as well, but have come under heavy fire by the search engines over the past year. Don't use hidden links with the goal of building your link popularity. I'm of the opinion that one or two throughout a site is no big deal, but don't go overboard with them.

Finally, don't forget to link from your site to other related and important sites. This is also taken into account by the engines.

Inbound links are beneficial for any website in two ways, one they increases the traffic of audience to the website, indirectly they increases the pagerank and position in search results, so get them as much as you can.

Good Luck and Happy Linking !