Link
Popularity - Your Key to a Page #1 Listing
by Michael
Southon
Last week I was
doing a search in Google under 'ezine advertising' and
was amazed to find one of my own websites on the first
page of results (position #4 out of
271,000).
So then I went to
Yahoo and got another shock - there it was again at
position #4 out of 274,000 results.
If you're
wondering how I did it, the answer is I'm not entirely
sure.
But my guess is
*link popularity*.
What is link
popularity?
Some years ago
the major search engines realized that the best way to
decide if your website has valuable content (and is
therefore worth a high ranking) is to see how many
other websites link to your site.
Link popularity
was pioneered by Google but has now become a key
factor in the algorithms used by most of the major
search engines.
Would you like to
know your current link popularity?
Here's a free
tool that will check your link popularity in
Alltheweb, AltaVista, AOL, Google, HotBot and MSN.
This tool will also compare your link popularity with
your competitors':
http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/
Now that you know
your link popularity, you may be wondering how you can
increase it.
Here are some
commonly used strategies - some effective and some
not:
==> FFA Sites
Free For All
sites are websites that collect your email address
(and send you a lot of junk email) and in return allow
you to post a link on a website.
FFA sites are
rather like a conveyor belt - new links are constantly
being added and old links being pushed off. On Many
FFA sites your link will last an hour or two at the
most.
Even if your link
stayed on an FFA site long enough to be indexed by a
search engine, it is unlikely it would increase your
link popularity. Search engines regard FFA sites as
spam and they'll either ignore your link or penalize
your site.
==> Link
Exchange Programs
As with FFA
sites, you need to ask yourself the same question the
search engines ask.
Did someone link
to your site because you have valuable content? Or did
they link to your site as part of a mutual ploy to
artificially raise each other's link popularity?
The search
engines know how to tell the difference and some of
them (Google for example) will actually ban your site
for engaging in 'link farming'.
Another problem
with this method is *link relevancy*. If the sites
linking to you have content that is not related to
your content, the search engines will not give much
weight to those links.
==> Reciprocal
Links with Individual Webmasters
This will
definitely increase your link popularity, especially
if you seek out link partners whose websites share the
same theme as yours.
But this approach
is time consuming - first you have to surf around
looking for potential link partners, then you have to
email them, then you have to confirm that they added
your link and so on.
==> Writing
Articles
This is the
technique I use for increasing link popularity and it
works very well.
Write short
articles of 300 - 800 words and then submit them to
the article announcement lists and the online article
banks.
There are
thousands of webmasters out there who need free
content for their websites and you'll soon find your
articles appearing on dozens, even hundreds, of
different websites.
At the bottom of
your article is your Resource Box containing a link to
your website. It might look something like
this:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Doe is the
webmaster of yourdomain.com where he
offers
cutting-edge tips on all aspects of web
marketing.
To find more
advice, tools and resources to help you
succeed in online
business, visit:
http://www.yourdomain.com
--------------------------------------------------
Most webmasters
will make the URL in your Resource Box an active link.
If they don't, you should insist on it because it's
part of the deal - they get free content for their
website and you get a free link.
This technique
has two important advantages over other methods of
raising link popularity:
(1) You don't
have to clutter up your website with reciprocal links
(2) You don't
have to invest huge amounts of time searching for link
partners and then emailing them to request a link. If
they like your article, they just add it to their
website.
Happy writing!
(c) 2002 by
Michael Southon
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Southon
has been writing for the Internet for
over
3 years. He has
shown hundreds of webmasters how to use
this simple
technique to get massive free publicity
and
dramatically
increase traffic and sales. To find out
more,
please visit:
http://www.ezine-writer.com
--------------------------------------------------
You have
permission to publish this article electronically or
in print, in your Newsletter, on your website, or in
your E-Book, as long as the author's Resource Box is
included with the
article.
^
arriba
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