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Building Link Popularity What is Link Popularity? Link popularity is a factor that many search engines use when ranking web pages within their indexes. Simply put, most search engines give a ranking boost to sites that have incoming links from quality, related sites. This method of establishing importance, pioneered by the increasingly popular Google, is now used in some form by 19 of the top 20 search engines. While it is still possible to achieve high rankings for non-competitive terms without a great deal of link popularity, it is unlikely your site will rank well for very popular terms without it. Directories It is important to note that the sheer number of incoming links is not as important as the quality of the sites that are doing the linking. The fastest way to get some quality incoming links is to get listings in the popular directories, such as Yahoo and the Open Directory Project (www.dmoz.org). For business sites, Yahoo costs $299 per year (it is free for non-commercial sites, although it takes a while to get listed). The Open Directory is free for all sites that meet certain quality standards, but it sometimes takes some respectful but diligent follow-up inquiries to make sure your site gets listed. When listing your sites, try to get them in the highest-level category that is applicable to your site. For instance, if your company in Smallville Ohio ships wind chimes to consumers nationwide, make sure you submit to the national "Wind Chime Dealers" category, not the "Retailers in Smallville, Ohio" category. Finding Partners Once you have submitted your directory listings, you should look for other sites that might link to yours. Ideally, the businesses that run these sites will be related to yours but will not be direct competitors. For example, if you had a site that sold supplies for swimming pools, it could be useful to your visitors if your site had a link to a swimming pool installer, and useful to his visitors to have a link back to your site. Since your offerings complement each other, neither of you are likely to lose business by exchanging links. You also have to find sites that show a propensity to link to others. Google is an excellent engine to use when looking for potential linking partners. Typing in keywords that you think your customers might use to find you, look for quality, well-ranked, non-competing sites that have "links" or "resources" pages, and objectively look to see if your site would fit with the other sites listed. If you think it is a possibility, make a note of the site, including the webmaster's address and something specific about the site you particularly liked. It is also very useful to look at each of the sites on these "links" pages, as many of them might also be potential link partners. When you have found a good number of sites, add a link to each of them from a "links" page on your own site. It is important to do this before contacting the site owners, as they are much more likely to reciprocate if they see that you have already taken the trouble to link to them. continue... All articles published on EthanCote.com are copyrighted by their respective author. They are not to be taken without the consent of the author. |
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