Such a big part of getting high rankings in the search engines is knowing how to improve link popularity. For example, Google looks at links as the main factor on how they rank websites in their search results. Links give the search engines an idea of how important a website is. By seeing how many other websites link to yours, they can tell whether or not your site is important. Each link pointing to your site counts as a vote for your website’s importance.
Another important factor of improving link popularity is the knowledge that it does matter what links point to your site. In other words, not all links are created equal. When you begin the process of building link popularity, there are some important principles to remember:
» Avoid Link Farms and Free For All links pages at all costs – many search engines will not recognize these as legitimate links
» Get links from websites that are relevant to your website - the closer the website is related to your the more weight it will carry
» Get links from websites that have many back links - search engines look at linking many levels deep, if a site that links to you has many links pointing to it, its a better link for you
» Try to get non-reciprocating links to your site - when you link back to the person who is linking to you it carries less weight with the search engines, try to get one way links
» Submit to as many directories as possible - you never know which directories will help improve link popularity so submit to a lot of them, just make sure they offer a one way link (no reciprocation)
Buying Text Links
There is some debate in the SEO industry on whether or not buying text links really work. I recently read a blog post from an employee of Google that said that when they find sites that are selling blocks of 10-20 text links, Google will not count any links found on those websites. He even specifically pointed out links sold by Text-Link-Ads.com as ones that are worthless.
Having said that, there is debate that these links do help with Yahoo and MSN. So the tough decision is whether the increase in rankings you get from Yahoo and MSN is worth the price of the link.
My advice would be that if you are happy solely with the traffic that you get directly from people clicking on the link, then it is worth paying for it, otherwise spend your money elsewhere.
Link Building The Right Way
Over the years I have worked with over 200 websites as an SEO consultant. The advantage of having worked with so many different sites is that I could effectively test what works and what doesn’t work.
During that process I have learned how to build link popularity for clients to make it look as natural as possible to the search engines, thus maximizing search engine rankings.
The biggest thing to consider when trying to improve your link popularity is that search engines want to see links that are naturally added to the web. Many of the link building services out there will help you get alot of new links but these links hold little value in the eyes of the search engines.
For example, reciprocal links used to have a great effect on rankings, now you probably get 10 emails a day that tell you how great your site is and that you should do a link exchange with them. Because this process is so abused, these types of links have been discounted.
A natural link is one that is embedded into the content and flow of a website. For example, a natural link would be one where in the middle of this paragraph, we link to another site because they are a good resource on the subject I am talking about. Just like the phrase “natural link” above is a link to another site.
These types of links aren’t reciprocal, and they don’t appear to a search engine to be purchased so the SE’s give them more weight.
Some tools for effective link building
One Way Text Links – As one way links have become a hot topic in the SEO world, this website will allow you to track your submissions to over 600 directories that will give you a one way link. Since most of the websites are free, this is by far the most cost effective way to improve link popularity.
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