This article will show you
importance of link popularity and how to improve your webpage's link popularity utilizing a few different techniques.
Link popularity simply is number of links that point to a webpage and is a crucial factor used by almost all of search engines to rank websites.
Link Popularity importance
With every increasingly popularity of Google, web site owners marketing efforts have had to change to accommodate what Google is looking for in a quality site. One way to prove that you have a quality site has been with link popularity. Good quality incoming links coupled with good quality page content will bring highly targeted traffic, and a lot of it. Just keep in mind that quality is key. The saying less is more really applies here. Just because your website has five hundred incoming links doesn't mean that they are all relevant. Ensure that links you are getting are relevant to content that your page is offering. This is extremely important.
Tips to Improving link Popularity
1. Directory Listings: Ensure your site is listed in Open Directory Project (ODP) and also in Yahoo's Business Express ($299 yearly) and LookSmart Express Submit ($299) or Basic Submit ($149). Directory listings boost popularity because they rely on human editors, known to only select relevant websites. You may also try searching for other directories to submit to. Do a search for "search engine directories".
2. Cross Linking: Or you may hear it referred to as internal linking. Make sure you cross link your important related pages. This technique tells search engines that these are more important pages within your website therefore they will increase in ranking. Cross linking your pages also helps search engines find and index your most important pages quicker, especially if you have hundreds of pages and some of them are four and five levels deep. Internal linking is a great way to increase amount of keywords in your visual text links.
3. Publish articles: Write up some informative articles your audience is interested in, then submit these articles to online publications in your industry. Provide a brief bio which includes your web sites URL and make a condition that article must be published intact with your bio. Over a short period of time you should gather some quality links.
4. Request Links: Open up an Excel spreadsheet and list all of possible linking partners that you have gathered. Now that you have a list of possible link partners put a link on your site to their site and then email each site owner telling them that you've linked to them and respectfully ask them to link back to you in return. You would be surprised by amount of response you get. Make it as easy as possible for other site to link to you. I've found a that actually providing a form so site owner can just copy and paste your link code into their site makes linking to you extremely easy. This can save a lot email-tag for both of you.
Two Important Factors
There are essentially two important factors in increasing your webpage's link popularity. Studies have shown that quality of link is just as important as number of incoming links to your site.
1. Quality of link - Link popularity will skyrocket when popular sites link you such as Yahoo and Open Directory Project (ODP). These sites are considered authoritive sites and receive a high amount of traffic. Also, you should concentrate on getting links from major search engines such as Google, MSN, and also sites that relate to your sites theme/content. Most search engines will see your website in a much higher light if you have a incoming link from a major search engine, thus greatly increasing free search engine traffic.
Try to find websites that link to your competition. This does a couple of things for you. First and utmost you know that links to your competition usually will be relevant and on topic. Also, this will greatly reduce amount of time you have to invest in finding incoming links. Finding sites that link to your competition is actually quit easy. Try typing "link" and then competitors domain name like this:
"link:www.competitors-domain.com."
Another technique in finding quality links is by finding sites that offer site submissions. Go to Google and type in:
"add url" "your keyword phrase"
Also try replacing, "add url" with any other these search phrases::
add site, add link, add a url, add a site, add a link, submit url, submit site, submit link, submit a url, submit a site, submit a link.
