How link popularity can help your WEB sites

A high percentage of №1 ranked Web pages on Google don't contain the queried search term in the body text or in the META tags. How can that be? The answer is: These top ranked Web pages have high link popularity and a good PageRank(tm).

In our new series we're going to tell you how to obtain high link popularity and a good PageRank so that your Web pages get a high ranking on Google and other popular search engines.

Part 1: What exactly is link popularity?

Link popularity refers to the total number of links that a search engine has found for your Web page. The more Web sites link to your Web page, the higher the link popularity of your page. High link popularity contributes to a high search engine ranking.

Note that link popularity is measured only for single Web pages, not for the whole Web site. Your Web site can have several Web pages with different PageRank numbers.

The idea behind the link popularity concept is simple. The more other Web sites link to your Web site, the more important your site must be. Other sites wouldn't link to your site if there wasn't something interesting on your site or if your Web site didn't contain any special content.

It's nearly impossible to manipulate link popularity. Previous ranking algorithms that took META keywords or similar factors into account have been quickly abused to mislead the search engines. On the other side, it's very difficult to manipulate the number of links that point to a site.

That's why link popularity is now one of the most important factors for search engines when they rank a Web page.

However, you cannot get high link popularity by submitting your Web site to thousands of FFA (free for all) link pages. Not all links are considered equal by the search engines. It does matter who links to you and how they link to you.

Part 2: Not all links are considered equal

As mentioned in the last issue of our newsletter, the more Web sites link to your Web site, the higher your link popularity.

However, not all links are equal. Some links count more than others. Links from important Web sites have a greater effect on your link popularity and your search engine rankings.

A link from www.AOL.com to your Web site has more weight than a link from a small private Web page. A link from a Web site with high link popularity is better than a link from an unknown Web site.

It's also important that the Web site that's linking to you has a similar topic as your Web site. Imagine that you sell books on your Web site. A link from another Web site that is all about books will count much more than a link from a Web site that links to all kind of Web sites.

Finally, it's important how the link to your site looks like. For example, one of your important keywords might be "all books about dogs".

The link

href="http://www.domain.com">all books about dogs

leads to much better search engine rankings for the keyword "books" than the following link

href="http://www.domain.com">DVD shop>

By the way, many people think that they can increase their link popularity by submitting their Web site address to FFA (free for all) link pages and link farms (Web sites that link to all kind of Web sites). This doesn't work.

More and more search engines recognize FFA pages and link farms and choose to ignore these pages. Usually, submissions to FFA pages are a waste of time that only results in many spam email messages.

In addition, you should avoid services that promise you 1000 links to your site within a week or so. If they link to you at all, these 1000 links must be of poor quality or they don't have a similar topic as your Web site.

Use common sense. Offers that sound too good to be true probably aren't true.

Summary all:

try to get links from important Web sites
try to get link texts that contain your important keywords
don't use FFA or link farm pages
don't use services that promise lots of links within days
focus on quality links, not on quantity

Part 3: How to find good potential link partners

As explained in the last issues of our newsletter, it's important _who_ links to your site. Web sites that have a similar topic as your site are more important than Web sites with different topics.

In addition, if you can convince Web sites with a similar topic to link to your site, you'll also get targeted traffic from these sites.

People who visit your topic partner sites are usually interested in what you have to offer. They are more likely to come to your site and to buy something. It's the quality of the traffic that counts, not the quantity.

But how do you find good potential links partners? There are several ways:

Search the most important search engines for your most important keywords.

Among the search results, you'll usually find Web sites that don't compete directly with your site. These Web sites are very good potential link partners.

They have a good listing on search engines under your important keywords. This means that they get a good amount of traffic from people who are interested in what you have to offer.

If such a site links to you, you'll get high quality targeted traffic from them. In addition, their link to your site also increases your link popularity and your search engine rankings.
Find out who links to your competitors.

Web sites that link to your competitors are probably Web sites that should link to you. If a Web site links to one of your competitor sites, it's a strong hint that it could be a very good link partner to you.

First, the webmaster of that site has shown that s/he is willing to link to other sites. Second, those Web sites are often related to what you have to offer. You'll get targeted traffic from them while increasing your search engine ranking.

Part 4: How to contact potential link partners

In part 3, we told you how to find good potential link partners. When you've found such high quality sites, it's important that you use the right words to contact the webmasters of these sites.

If you want them to link to your Web site, you have to be personal and politely. Emails like the following usually do NOT work:

---snip---
Subject: Let's trade links

Hi!

I've found your site and I think we could link to each
other. That will increase your search engine ranking and
mine, too.

Best,

Alexander
---snip---

Many webmasters consider sending such messages as spamming. It's much more effective to use personalized email messages. They'll improve the chances of your link request message being read and acted upon favorably.

If you want positive feedback, you must convince the webmaster that you've really visited the Web site and that you know what the site is about.

Try to convince them that your Web site is related to their site and make it easy for potential link partners to link back to your site.

Here's an example:

---snip---
Subject: stakh.com and koobik.com

Alex,

I found your koobik.com site recently and
like it very much. I think the straight-to-the-point web
site design is perfect for the freeware tool you're
offering.

I've placed a link to your site at
http://www.stakh.com/recommended-sites

I've noticed that you link to other Web sites that are
related to your freeware tool.

It'd be great if you also placed a link to our Web site. If
you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact me
by email or phone at 123-456-789.

Best regards,

Alexander Stakh, Stakh SEO NEWs

http://www.Stakh.com

PS. Visit "http://www.stakh.com/link-to-me.htm" for ready
made HTML code.
---snip---

As you can see, we've already linked to the other site before asking them for a reciprocal link. If you've already linked to a site, the webmaster is much more likely to answer your request.

Part 5: How to increase the success of your campaign

Until now, you've learned how to locate good potential link partners. In addition, you know which Web sites and services you should avoid if you want to obtain a good and long lasting link popularity.

You've also learned how to contact potential link partner sites and that a personal approach gets much better results than mass emailing sites.

Here are a few other important tips to increase the success of your linking campaign:

Link to potential link partners first before you ask them to link to you.
Tell potential link partners that you've linked to their site and tell them where they can find the link on your site. If you link to other Web sites first, more webmasters are willing to add a link back to your site.
Offer a "Link to us" page on your Web site.
Make it easy for other people to link to your site. Offer a "Link to us" page on your site that contains sample HTML code that your link partners can copy and paste into their own Web sites. The easier it is for your link partners to link to your site, the more likely they're going to link to you.

http://www.stakh.com/link-to-us.htm

On this Web page, there are three ready made HTML snippets at the end of the page that link partners can insert on their own link pages.

With the snippets at hand, your link partners don't have to think about how to link to your site. A "Link to us" page also indicates that you're willing to exchange links. That means that other webmasters will approach you through that page.
Make your link pages easy to find.
Don't be surprised that no one wants to link to you if your link back to their site is hidden somewhere in your site and cannot be found by the average Web surfer.

Make it easy for your visitors to find your links page. If you're afraid of losing visitors, you can open the links to other Web sites in a new window.

Conclusion

Building a good link popularity requires some work but the results will pay for it. Link popularity is already the most important factor for search engines to rank Web sites.

The sooner you start with your linking campaign, the better the results for your business.