The Write to Link Popularity

The Write to Link Popularity

by: Nicholas Dixon

Using writing as a means of boosting your link popularity can be a turnoff for many webmasters, when in fact it can lead to a wealth of links.

I first learnt about link popularity while researching about many different methods that I could use to market a Geocities site I had. After emailing countless webmasters and receiving some dismal results, I realized that it was hopeless to get people to exchange links with my freebie website.

Then I discovered writing. At first I was skeptical at using this concept but after trying it for some time, the results began to show. What was wonderful is that it only cost me some of my time.

With the help of article writing I was able to achieve a Pagerank of 4 for my Geocities website. The more webmasters that archived my articles the more links I had pointing to my site. As a result of my growing link popularity I began to see my site show up on the first or second page for some relatively competitive search terms.

Using writing as a marketing tool can save you thousands in advertising dollars. Imagine a website or ezine that costs hundreds to advertise in and you have the feature article which didn’t cost you a dime to produce. You can easily see which generates more profit in the long run.

Through the power of the written word you can be able to get free publicity for your business. Providing quality and profitable and sometimes inspiring information can help you to achieve that goal. Many top marketers have used writing to good effect.

Developing your own writing style is important. As there are many others doing the same thing you what to differ from them. How can you stand out in a crowd if you are just like everyone else.

Practicing and researching helped me to put pen to paper for my first articles. Some of your first creations maybe a bit tacky but as long as you keep going you can improve.

Writing can be a task at times. There are moments when I have written the first two paragraphs and just get stuck. The inevitable writer’s block can be a challenge to overcome. Taking a break and getting into the right frame of mind can be helpful.

Can anyone become a writer? Well the answer depends on how much effort you put into it. I have had some wonderful experiences since I became a writer. At times when there are criticisms and negative feedback, they can help you to better your skills if you use them the right way.

Many people don’t like writing. But sometimes it is the things that we don’t enjoy doing that are most beneficial to us. Try your hand at writing, if a guy from a Caribbean island can do it then so can you.

Copyright © Nicholas Dixon

About The Author

Nicholas Dixon is a writer and webmaster from Jamaica. Visit his website http://WWW.Oceanroc.com for articles, free courses and information about a cool island town.

[email protected]

This article was posted on December 10, 2004

by Nicholas Dixon

Reciprocal Linking Guide

Reciprocal Linking Guide

by: Jon C

What are Reciprocal Links?

Reciprocal links are links with other sites which are usually are related to the theme of your website. The concept is very easy to understand, you link to a site and that site links back to you. The idea behind this goes back to you scratch my back I scratch yours. Some sites have specific requirements when linking. For example some sites might have restrictions based on content, page rank, or even domain names.

So why are they important?

The reason link exchanges are important ranges from your traffic quality to your search engine position. This method of traffic building is 100% free and this always fits nicely into any websiteกs budget. It just requires dedication and time to build up quality links with other sites. By taking the time to sniff out links that relate to you and sites that are legit can have some huge payoffs.

First, it will increase your link popularity which is the search engines counting up how many times it finds your link on other websites. This act of counting up the links or otherwise known as a กLink Popularity Checkก will increase your position based on the amount of links it finds. A nice tool to check your popularity can be found here.

Your Link Popularity Rating is a combination of:

The Number Of Sites Linking To You

The Words That Are Used To Describe Your Site In The Links To You

The Relevance Of Those Sites As They Relate To Your Subject Matter

The Link Popularity Of The Sites That Link To You

The Search Engine Rankings Of The Sites That Link To You

Secondly, the visitors that come from related websites are highly targeted and youกve a much better chance of selling them your product or service since theyกve come to your site through a link on a related website. The logic behind this is simple they came from a site that had a theme related to yours. So we can make the assumption that they are interested in your product or service. So hand picking who you should exchange with should be very clear now.

Link Exchange Services

I am sure you have all seen the ads before that go something like กGet 1000กs of backlinks to your site!’these services really do not work well. They are designed to include all of its members links to be seen on your website. Some places have filters we you can specify the content based on the category another member might have placed themselves in. There are a few reasons this is really bad. One reason is that any member can put themselves in any category so the filter system can be comprimised quite easily. Another reason is these services are not worth it is that you can find alot higher qaulity sites by simply searching. Again, this can be time consuming but in the end it is worth it. All these members are sites looking for shortcuts and are typically not well ranked in search engines anyway so why would you want to be on these sites anyway? Finally, why would you pay for something that is free?! You can contact everyone of these webmasters and build a mutual relationship instead of going through a middle man and paying a premium on top of that.

Can Link Exchanges Hurt Me?

A very common misconception about link exchanges is ‘the more links you have the higher you will be ranked.ก While part of this is very accurate, we must understand that the worng types of links can do more harm then good. You would do well to avoid participating in link farms (FFA, or freeforall link lists that you can add your site to), the reason to stay away form this is because these have become recognized by the search engines, and by Googleกs antispam algorithm specifically, as red flags for spam and can often get your site banned from their index. And it makes sense if you have thousands of nonrelevant links pointing to your site, that does not say much about the legitimacy of your content. Major search engines have begun to aggressively penalize web sites that are deemed to be engaged in such linking strategies.

Do Reciprocal Links Still Work?

Well the bottom line is if they did not work this article would not have been written. But with that said it is a known fact that reciprocal links are NOT as effective as they used to be. This does not mean abandon ship as many other webmasters have done. This just means they do not play the same role as they used to. They do however have the long term effect and can still bring you a bunch of targeted traffic at no cost to you. The biggest claim on the net as far as link popularity and links are concerned is กone way linksก work better then reciprocal links. Here is the difference between the two, if you link to another web site and the other web site links back to you, itกs a reciprocal link. If you link to another web site and the other web site doesn’t link back to your site, itกs a one way link. One way links obviously are harder to find and usually cost some money to have.

Conclusion

The moral of the story is this: reciprocal links although not as effective as they used to be are still effective enough to warrant the time and effort to create the relationship with other websites. One must be very picky about oneกs site selection and keeping the content related to your site is a must. One way links are seen by search engines as more important then reciprocals but again you will most likely end up paying for these. Adapting to the times is no surprise when dealing with the web, so you must ask yourself กwhat is my competitor thinking in regards to link exchanges?ก The answer is they are building them up related to their content. So by you not keeping up with the times you simply fall short in the long run. There are no short cuts in reciprocal or one way linking unless you have deep pockets to shell out money on expensive text links on high ranked sites. So the next best option is to dedicate the time and effort to your site. If it wasn’t this way the internet would be useless and we would never be able to find what we are looking for. Its just a fact of life and we must keep on keeping on in respects to linking.

About The Author

Jon C

This article was brought to you by http://nerdlib.com/

This article was posted on September 02

by Jon C

Link Popularity: Why Itกs The Best Investment You

Link Popularity: Why Itกs The Best Investment You Can Do For Your Business

by: Marcio Dias

More and more search engines rank your web pages based on the number of links that point to your web site (link popularity). Google uses link popularity as its most important factor in ranking sites. HotBot, AltaVista, MSN, Inktomi, and others also use link popularity in their formulas.

In the near future every major search engine will use link popularity, so developing and maintaining good link exchange campaigns are essential to the success of your business. Also, finding the right partner to exchange links with is equally as important as becoming a member of a link farm can be devastating to your long term search goals.

Your exchange link partner should be reputable in the industry, and should provide links back to you on pages that have a high page rank.

The end goal is to have the greatest number of websites pointing to you saying on the link itself, ขYour Company – Offering (insert your key phrases here)ข.

For a good ranking on Google, Inktomi and Altivista, you need good links that point to your site. If you develop a strong content oriented site you can persuade thousands of other webmasters to link to you or to trade links with you. If you want to do it yourself, all you need is the right content, the right email letter, and a keen eye for finding sites that well link to your site.

The key is to develop content people want to link to and then get out there and make the contacts by visiting peopleกs sites, sending out personalized emails to webmasters of sites you have visited, and networking in discussion groups.

You can also make posts in forums related to your industry to increase your link popularity. Just do a search on any search engine with your industry + forums or discussions and you should be able to find a few discussion boards where you can make posts.

Make sure that you find a way to participate on the discussion as opposed to just posting an ad thatกs not related to what people are talking about.

Another way that you can greatly increase the link popularity of your website is by publishing articles. There are literally thousands of ezine and newsletter publishers that would love to publish your article on their ezine.

Again, if you search for ezines related to your industry you should find plenty of places where you can submit an article and see it bring lots of targeted traffic. Make sure you place your resource box at the bottom of the article and require publishers to keep it there.

Thatกs it for now. For more info on how you could Get a High Ranking on Google in 3 Days, Visit www.WebProfitSecrets.com/FastonGoogle

About The Author

Marcio Dias is an established Web Marketing Specialist who has taken dozens of sites from obscurity to millions of visitors per year in as little as a few months. Visit his main site at: http://www.webprofitsecrets.co?s=ea

This article was posted on April 11

by Marcio Dias

Build Link Popularity The Smart Way

Build Link Popularity The Smart Way

by: Alec Duncan

A Brief Introduction To Link Popularity

As webmasters research various ways to get more traffic to their site one method that is gaining more and more publicity is Link Popularity. Link Popularity is the number of links that point to your website as measured by the search engines. In theory if your site has many sites linking to it then it is considered to be a valuable resource on the particular topic so the search engines will give it a higher ranking.

The Problem

As with many rules/laws eventually people found a way to manipulate it. Sites were created solely to build the link popularity of other sites. These sites are called ‘Link Farms’ and contributed to the pollution of search engine results. They increased the search engine rankings of many sites that did not deserve the position they received.

Eventually the search engines caught on to this deception and some such as Google adjusted their algorithms accordingly. Google now penalizes websites associated with Link Farms imposing penalties they deem appropriate based on the site and the scenario. Many people that felt the effects of this penalization were fairly innocent, well that is if you consider ignorance to be an alibi. They simply did not know that what they were doing was wrong; some even paid for SEO services and were victims of bad services.

As the search engines change their algorithms aiming to reduce fraudulent activities by webmasters, more and more ways are conceived to manipulate them, and so the battle continues.

An Honest Link Building Strategy

Getting quality links to your site from related resources is not always as easy as some make it sound. The key word here is ‘quality’. It is a very time consuming process and involves the following steps:

Search for quality sites that are related to yours.

Contact the Webmaster of the related site.

Wait for a response from them.

Swap links if the response is positive.

There are also some automated methods of doing this that speed up the process, however, I would not recommend any of them and hence won’t list them in this article.

So you have started your link building campaign and are hopefully seeing the results. Now you say this is great but how can I make this process more efficient and effective without risking your good standings with the search engines.

Here is the solution.

The Smart Way To Build Link Popularity.

One thing webmasters are always looking for, and find hard to refuse, is good quality content. If you are knowledgeable on a particular topic that is related to your site, writing informative articles is a great way to gain your website additional link popularity. If you are reading this article and are not reading it on http://www.lilengine.com then there is your proof.

If you don’t consider yourself a writer don’t worry, you don’t have to be. Get your article in the best shape you possibly can and then have others, who you consider to be better at writing than you are, look it over. Make your edits and there you go.

How is writing articles efficient and effective?

Wellwritten articles do take time to produce but as you write more you will get better and will find that it starts to take less and less time. This method offers several more benefits than the linking method listed above. These are as follows:

Articles are, in most cases, permanent additions to sites.

Writing Articles demonstrates your knowledge of various industry related topics and this helps to build credibility.

If users are interested enough to read your entire article then there’s a very good chance that they will click on your link to visit your site in hopes of learning more or even just out of curiosity.

You are able to include several links with articles. You can have several links in the resource box also known as the bylines as well as in any ‘appropriate’ spots in the article.

You have the ‘option’ of including your affiliate links in the article if it includes information on that resource.

You also get to add this content to your own website.

If you include reprint information in the bylines then others that read the article, and feel it would be a valuable addition to their site, will add it and then it becomes almost viral. It spreads even though you are not doing a thing.

Summary

Building link popularity is a vital part to your search engine ranking and should be approached in either of the two methods listed above that you feel is more appropriate for your individual situation. The benefits from writing, however, far outweigh those of requesting reciprocal links in most situations. Hopefully this article has helped to shed some light on this and will encourage more knowledgeable people to start sharing their knowledge with others. For more information on Link Popularity visit http://www.lilengine.com

About The Author

Alec Duncan is the founder of http://www.lilengine.com, a search engine optimization resource site. Visit http://www.lilengine.com and also visit their new Web Hosting resource section at http://webhosting.lilengine.com.

This article was posted on October 25, 2003

by Alec Duncan

Instant Traffic Using Expired Domains

Instant Traffic Using Expired Domains

by: Wayne Ford

Every day thousands of domains กexpireก and are put back into the pool of available domains that anyone can register. They can be very valuable if you are looking for a quality domain for your online business, or if you want to resell them for profit. But wait! There is another huge advantage to a domain that was previously owned Instant Traffic!
As I said above, expired domains have all been owned by someone in the past. Many of these previous owners built Websites for these domains, advertised them, registered them with search engines, and even exchanged links with other sites. All translating into traffic to that domain name.
Now, why would someone who took the time to do all that work let the domain expire? It could be one of several reasons:
* the author simply lost interest * an online venture ran out of funding * poor management of the domain * they couldn’t afford the fees
Whatever the reason, it happens. And you can reclaim some of the wasted traffic and use it to your advantage. You can either point it to your existing site or use it to jumpstart and add value to a new site.
How do you know if an expired domain has traffic?
While there is no way to gauge the actual amount of traffic going to an expired domain, you can find out its link popularity in the major search engines. This will tell you the number of Web pages listed in a particular search engine that link to that domain. The more links, the higher link popularity and the more traffic that domain is getting (in some search engines, the higher ranking, too).
A free online tool to help you find the link popularity of an individual domain at five top search engines can be found at http://www.Webofsuccess.com/popularity/popularity.cgi
Another way I recently discovered is to use this powerful software program called Popular Domains. Among other features, it allows you to import a list of expired domains and automatically check the link popularity of each one. To learn more about it, check out http://www.Webofsuccess.com/domainsweekly/popular.html
As you can see, this can be an affordable way to gain instant traffic to your site. Be nice, though, and do not abuse this technique, make sure the site you are sending traffic to relates to the domain. For example don’t register the expired domain กehairplugs.comก just because it has a high link popularity and then forward the domain to your site about Internet marketing. Other than that you may use your new domain with กbuiltinก traffic however you wish!

About The Author

Wayne Ford, [email protected], is the founder and president of DomainsWeekly.com the leading supplier of daily expired and soontoexpire domain lists. He also publishes a free weekly newsletter packed full of domainrelated information and a list of quality available domains. You may subscribe by sending a blank email to [email protected]

This article was posted on January 16, 2002

by Wayne Ford

How to Quickly Gain Traffic to Your New Web Site

How to Quickly Gain Traffic to Your New Web Site

by: Herman Drost

The problem with a new site is that it often takes a long time before it is indexed by the search engines. This means you are missing out on getting traffic and making sales. Google places new sites in the กsandboxก which means they are on กholdก for a period of time before they rank.

Here are some ways to generate immediate traffic to your web site:

1. Start a PPC (pay per click) campaign – you can begin a Google Adwords campaign and start generating visitors the same day you set it up. Of course it is going to cost you some money but you can set a limit for how much you wish to spend. You will soon get a good idea what keywords produce the most clicks for your ads. You can incorporate these keywords in your site when you optimize it for the search engines.

While you run your PPC campaign get busy with preparing your site for the main search engines. Once you have been indexed by the main ones such as Google, Yahoo and MSN and start moving up in rankings, you can scale back the amount you spend on Google Adwords. Your goal is to eventually rank high enough that you won’t have to use PPC anymore because you are getting enough visitors.

2. Optimize your site for the search engines – the keywords that generated the most clicks from your PPC campaign, should be included in your web pages. Research alternative keywords using utilities such as Wordtracker or the Overture Suggestion Tool. You can determine the popularity of those keywords by seeing how many Google Adword campaigns are running. You accomplish this by entering the keyword or keyword phrase in the Google search engine and see how many ads appear on the right hand side of the page. If there are a lot, that means the keyword you chose is very popular and in high demand.

Integrate a few of your best keywords within the text on each of your web pages. The home page should contain the keywords which have the highest demand (most searches) with the least number of competing web sites. Then proceed with the other pages in descending order of keyword popularity.

Make sure you also include these keywords in your meta tags, title, h1h3 tags, links and file names. Don’t overdo it for you may get penalized for spamming the search engines.

3. Increase link popularity – this refers to how many external and internal links are pointing or linking to any particular page. External links include those that come from web sites other than your own whereas internal links are those that come from within the same domain name. Link popularity is not based on the กquantityก of links but the กqualityก of those links as well. Therefore increasing link popularity does not necessarily require having a large number of links pointing to your site but rather a good number of quality links.

4. Submit to the top search engine directories – many of the top directories have good link popularity that can be passed on to your site. They also have specific category pages that are related to the nature of your site. The major directories include The Open Directory, Yahoo and Zeal.

The Open Directory is one of the largest that is still free, however it can take months or even years to get listed. If you become an editor for Zeal you can get your site listed free. Yahoo costs $299.00/year to be included. It is worth it if you can afford it.

Here’s a couple of articles on how to properly submit your site to the search engine directories:

http://www.searchrank.com/resources/art007.htm

http://www.searchrank.com/resources/art015.htm

5. Submit to specialty search engine directories – you may wonder why I haven’t mentioned submitting to the major search engines. When you work on building the link popularity of your site, it automatically places you in the main search engines. Once you have submitted your site to the main directories, find specialized directories related to your business. Here’s a good resource:

http://searchenginewatch.com/links/article.php/2156351

You can also research the link partners of your competitors’ sites by entering your favorite keyword in the search engines. Once you have found a number of top ranked sites, download the Google toolbar and check their back links. This can save you a lot of time researching other areas to find quality links.

Once your site been indexed by the search engines and included in the directories, focus on adding more content and continue building your link popularity. This will help you to maintain and/or increase rankings with the result of gaining more traffic to your new web site.

About The Author

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW) owner and author of http://www.iSiteBuild.com. Affordable Web Site Design and Web Hosting. Subscribe to his ขMarketing Tipsข newsletter for more original articles. mailto:[email protected]. Read more of his indepth articles at: http://www.isitebuild.com/articles

This article was posted on April 26

by Herman Drost

How to Market Your Web Site with Ethical Linking.

How to Market Your Web Site with Ethical Linking.

by: Gary Nappe

Your web siteกs search engine rankings are determined in part by the popularity of your site. This link popularity is a function of the quality and number of other web sites that link to your site. Generally speaking the more quality inbound links to your site, the higher your site will appear in the SE results for relevant search phrases.
Beware of Unethical Link Promotion Firms!
However, many web site owners have employed socalled experts that employ unethical web site promotion tactics. Surely you have received SPAM from some of them touting their unethical services and software. They claim that they (or the software you buy from them) will generate hundreds (or thousands) of reciprocal links for your site, and thereby get your site top SE rankings on your best search phrases.
The sad truth is that their tactics can actually get your site banned from the major SEs! That would be a disaster! It has happened to others, and it will eventually happen to you if you employ unethical tactics.
The Key to Link Popularity and Top SE Ranking
Create a web site with high quality content that is relevant to the visitors you wish to attract (your target market). If you can do this, your site will grow in link popularity organically visitors to your site will bookmark it and tell others about it.
Webmasters of other sites will voluntarily post links to your site. As your link popularity grows so will the perceived value of your site, and your SE rankings! And the easier it will be for your best prospects to find your site.
Submit Your Site to DMOZ, the Open Directory Project
DMOZ is a very important directory. Itกs essential that your web site be listed in this directory! The crawler based SEs appear to have preference for sites listed in DMOZ.
When submitting your site take care to read all the instructions. Itกs important that you select the category and title carefully. Your submission will be reviewed by one of their editors. If your web site is well designed and contains quality content, it should be accepted. Poorly designed web sites with little original content contribute little value to the World Wide Web and won’t be listed.
Contact Authority Web Sites in Your Niche
Use Google, Yahoo, MSN and DMOZ to search for the leading sites in your niche. These may be niche web directories or specific industry and trade organization sites. Avoid phony directories that require a reciprocal link (i.e. Link Farms).
Visit Google
Install the Google Toolbar in your browser. This will allow you to view the PageRank of the web sites you will be visiting when you do the research described below.
Who Links to Your Most Successful Competition?
First note the PageRank of your competitionกs web site. Then take a look at the web sites that currently have posted links to your competition. Note each siteกs PageRank and whether these are reciprocal links, or gratuitous links (no reciprocal link). Also note the specific text of the text links used for each link to your competition and the specific page to which each links. This will tell you a lot about their preferred search phrases and their overall link strategy.
Contact the webmasters of these linking sites and ask if they would post a link to your site as well. If the webmaster is agreeable, ask that the text link incorporate กyour target search phraseก and indicate the specific page where it should point.
Youกll receive many rejections so treat every new inbound link you acquire as an important victory. It is!
Remember, for longterm success, your web site must contribute to the body of knowledge that is known as the World Wide Web. Your high quality content will be rewarded by favored rankings in the SEs and lots of new customers. So get to work!

About The Author

Gary Nappe is the owner of NetBizWeb, a web design, promotion and hosting firm offering turnkey solutions for small and midsized businesses. Learn more about promoting your web site at http://www.netbizweb.com

This article was posted on July 24, 2004

by Gary Nappe

Increasing Link Popularity

Increasing Link Popularity

by: Paul Buckley

Search engines are the gateway to the Internet; they are the first tool that potential customers use to find the products and services they need. This is why link popularity is so imperative. If the customers do not find your website, you have no possibilities of making any sales.

You’re probably wondering what the blazes is popular about a link! Well, in a word plenty! Link popularity refers to the ranking assigned to your website by the search engines, and it determines the ranking your page gets when keywords are entered into a search engine. So, you’re probably wondering, how do I make my link popular?

Search engines are discretionary, giving status and ranking to sites that have links to their pages from related, quality sites. Itกs a simple formula, but a very important one. Google created the system, and now virtually all the most popular search engines employ it to rank your web pages in their indexes.

The more commonly used your keyword is, the harder it will be to achieve link popularity, but without achieving this step, it is almost certain your site will never rank highly on any search engine. But don’t be discouraged; there are tried and true ways of achieving link popularity using the most competitive keywords.

There are a few things you should be aware of. The first is that just linking up with a large number of other websites will not achieve link popularity. In fact, it may have quite the opposite effect. This is particularly true when pertaining to websites that are nothing more than กlink farmsก pages containing line after line of indiscriminate links. Search engines may aggressively discriminate against your website if you are associated with a link farm, so steer clear of them!

The next thing to bear in mind is the quality of the site you are linking to. Never link to a page you have reservations about your visitors seeing. The last thing you want your website to appear as is indiscriminate and cheap. Linking to sites of poor quality will only lessen your link popularity, if not completely destroy it.

So letกs get to what you need to do to achieve supreme link popularity and improve your rankings to stellar status on all the popular search engines.

The first step, and the fastest way to get your foot in the door, is to get a listing in a popular directory, such as Open Directory Project and Yahoo. If your site is businessrelated, you will want to be listed on Yahoo, and despite the fact that it will cost you around $300 a year, it will be money well spent. If your site is noncommercial, the listing will be free, but it will take time and followup to actually get it listed. Open Directory is gives you a free listing whether you are businessrelated or noncommercial, but be prepared to make a lot of followup inquiries before you see your site listed.

You are aiming to get listed in the highest level of appropriate category, and this just takes some common sense. For example, if your company ships Alpaca wool from an Alpaca farm located in the middle of Nowhere, Tiny State, do NOT submit your listing to ‘retailers from Nowhere, Tiny State.ก BIG MISTAKE! All you have to do is look a little deeper and submit your listing to the กFine Alpaca Woolก category. You will not only associate yourself with culture and quality, but you will be listed in a national category.

The next step after you have attained directory listings is to locate other quality sites that will increase your link popularity. Try to find sites that are in some way related to yours, so not only will your link popularity increase, but your customer base may also be expanded. You want to avoid your competitors and look for sites that are useful to your siteกs visitors. Letกs look at the Alpaca Wool site example. Linking up to a site that sells knitting supplies would be helpful to your visitors, and the chances of the knitting supply site wanting to link up to your site are also greater. By linking to a related site that will be relevant to your websiteกs traffic, you are increasing both of your siteกs business prospects and both of your sitesก link popularity.

Not all sites want to link to other sites, so you will have to do some research when you are looking for possible linking partners. Google is an excellent starting place for your search. Make sure you enter keywords that you think quality customers will also enter to find your own site. Remember, your criteria are quality, highly ranked, noncompeting websites that have a links or resources page. Go to these sites and objectively assess them. Look at the quality of the product, the graphics, and the ease of use. Then check out the other sites they are linked to, and determine if your own site would fit in with the crowd.

When you decide you have found a good prospect, you must set out to woo them. The first thing to do is to add a link on your own links page to their site. This is an essential first step; it shows good faith, and ups your chances significantly of their reciprocity. After you have added their link, you must contact the webmaster of their site. Since this is almost always done by email, you want to make sure it is immediately clear that your message is not junk mail. This requires that you tell them right off the bat that you have added a link to their page on your site. A hook like this almost always insures the reader will read on.

Next, be sure to be flattering and let them know how much you appreciate their website. Make sure you emphasize that you have actually visited their site, and that their site is not just a random pick. Give them the address of your links page, and ask them to check out the link for themselves. Itกs a good idea to mention that they will not only benefit from the increased traffic your website will direct their way, but you will also increase their link popularity. Briefly, explain why link popularity is so essential, but do this in a sentence or two so you don’t sound like a professor! Finally, tell them you would greatly appreciate if they would reciprocally add a link on their own links page to your website.

Go through this process with as many appropriate sites as you can find, bearing in mind the criteria of quality and noncompetitiveness. After you have emailed all relevant sites, be sure to check these website frequently to see if they have added a link to your page. Give it about a month, and if no link appears, try another charming email. Then give it another month, and if your site is still absent from their links page, itกs time to remove their link from your own links page. The only time you want to pursue a link further than this is if you believe a site is crucial to your link popularity and your business needs. Just remember to keep all your communications complimentary and cordial.

Then set up a schedule to check your ranking in search engines frequently to see if your link popularity has improved. This is not achievable in the blink of an eye. It will take some time and a good deal of work. There is no way around the laborintensive quality of improving your link popularity, which is why search engines regard it with such importance.

By the way make sure you have a beautiful, streamlined site or you will never persuade anyone to link up to you. Be prepared to keep plugging away at this process, as long as it takes, until you achieve link popularity stardom!

About The Author

Published by

Paul Buckley

The Profit Eye

http://www.theprofiteye.com

This article was posted on August 12

by Paul Buckley

Writing Articles to Improve Link Popularity

Writing Articles to Improve Link Popularity

by: Bob Hampton

There are many different ways to improve link popularity for your Website. One of the most effective ways to improve your siteกs link popularity is by writing articles for publication on other related Web sites and in other related newsletters or Ezines.

In this article, I will be sharing 10 techniques I use when I am writing articles to improve link popularity for one of my Websites.

Letกs use this article as an example. I have two goals in mind as I start writing this article, a primary goal and a secondary goal.

My primary goal is to inform you, my reader, about how to improve link popularity for your Website.

My secondary goal is to improve link popularity for one of my own Websites.

If, after having read this article, you can say to yourself that this article was informative and it gave you one or more ideas about how to improve link popularity for your own Website, then I will have achieved my primary goal.

If, after having written this article, I can say to myself that this article was written well enough, and was informative enough, to persuade Webmasters and newsletter or Ezine publishers to reprint this article on their Website or in their newsletter or Ezine, then I will have achieved my secondary goal.

If I do achieve my primary goal, my secondary goal will be achieved as well you will have been informed and the other publishers will realize that and will reprint this article in order to inform their readers as well.

Now, on to achieving my primary goal, informing you…

How to Improve Link Popularity by Writing Articles

1. Before writing your article, have definite goals in mind. Ask yourself what you want to accomplish by writing this article.

Since you are now reading an article about how to improve link popularity for your Website, that should be one of your goals. Iกll leave you to decide what other goals you want to achieve by writing your article.

2. Have well thought out ideas for the beginning, middle and ending of your article.

For this article, the purpose of my beginning was to inform you about an effective way to improve link popularity for your Website.

The purpose of the middle of this article is to inform you about how you can use this effective way to improve link popularity for your own Website.

The purpose of the ending of this article will be to provide you with a way to learn more on this topic and, to achieve my secondary goal, to improve link popularity for my own Website.

3. Include your most important keyword in the title of your article. You will notice that I have used the keyword phrase กimprove link popularityก in the title of this article. This will improve the odds that your article will become indexed and listed by search engines.

4. Use your important keyword throughout the content of your article. Again, you will notice that I have used the keyword phrase กimprove link popularityก several times throughout the content of this article. Again, this is for the purpose of getting this article indexed and listed by search engines.

5. Write your article as if you were speaking directly to your best friend about a topic that both you and she are passionate about. Don’t try to impress her with your knowledge of the topic. Simply provide her with your thoughts on the subject, using easytounderstand words and phrases.

6. After you have written your article, leave it alone for a day or two before coming back to it. Using a fresh pair of eyes, read your article to see if the content flows in a logical, easytounderstand manner. Then proofread your article for typos. Make any necessary corrections.

7. After you have written and proofread your article, publish it on your own Website. Include a resource box at the bottom of your Web page that informs Webmasters and newsletter or Ezine publishers that they are free to reprint your article. This is, after all, the focus of this article on how to improve link popularity for your Website.

8. If you publish a newsletter or Ezine, also publish your article in it as well. If it is a lengthy article, publish part of the article in your newsletter or Ezine and provide a link to the complete article that is published on your Website.

9. Include a resource box at the end of your article that provides a little information about you and an invitation for your readers to visit your Website. Some readers will go to your Website, read your other articles, and choose to reprint some of those as well. This is a definite bonus when you are writing an article to improve link popularity for your Website.

10. Submit your article to Websites that archive articles that are available for reprinting on other Websites and in other newsletters or Ezines. My favorite Website for archiving my articles and for obtaining articles written about how to improve link popularity is ArticleCity.com, located at http://www.articlecity.com/. Other archives can be located by searching on กfree articles for reprintก or something similar.

Summary

It took me about two hours to write this article. When you are passionate about the topic you are writing about, the words just seem to flow from your brain to your article.

If you are passionate about the topic of your article, you will be able to write an informative article which will be reprinted by Webmasters and newsletter or Ezine publishers and that will help to improve link popularity for your Website.

Bob Hampton

LPIQ.com

About The Author

Bob designs and builds his own Websites. His most recent site is Link Popularity IQ (http://www.lpiq.com/lpiq). He invites you to test your knowledge of link popularity by taking his free Link Popularity IQ Test (http://www.lpiq.com/test).

This article was posted on October 27, 2003

by Bob Hampton

Reality Check: A Straightforward Guide to Keywords

Reality Check: A Straightforward Guide to Keywords and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

by: Michael Murray, VP of Fathom SEO

Web site owners need to have realistic expectations when it comes to the world of keyword selection.

It’s essential to understand your audience, as well as to aim appropriately at powerful, concise keywords that are not vague or generic—those broad, expansive keywords that rarely attract the audience you are seekingand lead to disappointing rankings and wasteful expenditures of cash resources.

If you want a healthy return on investment (ROI) with search engine optimization (SEO), your success – or failure – hinges on the keywords you select when combined with other factors like link popularity and web site design.

If your web site has content and design barriers, lacks saturation (a term used to describe how well a site is indexed by search engines) and isn’t found on many other relevant web sites, you’re odds of ranking well are pretty low.

Be careful with keyword research so that you don’t miss excellent opportunities or aim so broadly that you target phrases that will never rank well. Get your act together. Here are 5 tips to guide you along the way in your research. They may help you make good choices, achieve high rankings and bring more traffic (and leads) to your web site.

1. Know your audience and think through your business goals.

Many businesses simply pick keywords out of thin air. They don’t talk to customers or hot prospects in order to determine what might be a useful set of keywords. Your keywords need to match your business strategy. What are your main products? Where are sales lagging? Are there products or services that do well and could soar with SEO? Which products have the highest margins? You should have scores of other questions that make sense for your business. The information should be readily available. If it’s not, you’re way behind in the SEO process.

2. Watch the broad search terms.

Companies make a mistake in this area more than any other place. The keyword landscape is more inviting than a onehour toy store shopping spree for a child. The excitement forces people to ignore reality. Who can blame them? Wouldn’t it be great to be #1 on Google for ขfood,ข ขcars,ข ขsoftwareข? Yes, single words can help drive sales. But they’re difficult to achieve. Link popularity, web site content, site structure and other considerations will impact rankings.

3. Learn how to form search terms.

You can start with ขautomobileข all you want, but build on your core phrase by adding on other words like ขsuppliers,ข ขproducts,ข ขservices,ข ขcompanies,ข ขfirms.ข

4. Analyze log files.

Often overlooked and easily underplayed, web site log files reveal much about the way people search. You can generate many keyword and search phrase ideas just by examining the data with an intuitive sense.

5. Know your link popularity.

First you need to know your competitors – compare their link popularity to yours. How far do you need to go to catch up? Study who else links to their site. Would those web sites be willing to link to your site? Would you be required to do a link exchange with them? Use a Link Popularity Check (www.checkyourlinkpopularity.com) service to ascertain how your site is faring with link popularity.

Get additional keyword tips through our free keyword development report. Our FREE guide, ขReality Check: A Straightforward Guide to Keywords and Search Engine Optimization (SEO),ข helps business owners navigate the often misunderstood world of keyword selection, including how to pick them right words and mistakes to avoid.

Get your copy today here:

http://www.fathomseo.com/forms/keyword_form.asp

About The Author

Michael Murray is vice president of Fathom SEO (www.fathomseo.com), a Cleveland, Ohiobased search engine optimization firm. A member of Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), he also authored the white paper, กSearch Engine Marketing: Get in the Gameก and the manufacturing SEO study กU.S. Manufacturers Resist Natural Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Online Sales Leads.ก

[email protected]

This article was posted on September 10

by Michael Murray, VP of Fathom SEO

Submitting to Directories: A Comprehensive Guide

Submitting to Directories: A Comprehensive Guide

by: David Di Cristo

Why submit to a Directory?

Every webmaster is looking for ways to improve their website’s visibility, and one great way is by getting listed in the major web directories. This should be a very important part of your marketing strategy online, which many website owners neglect.

The only way to grow your online business is if people can actually find you! Some web directories have a free submission option whereas others require some form of payment or reciprocal link in exchange. With the hundreds of various general directories and niche directories you have the choose to submit to – it becomes crucial knowing which directories are worth your time and money.

Submitting to directories can be a real time consuming task. Moreso, if your handing over your hard earned cash, its wise to know which directories will most benefit you in your linking campaign. Understanding why you should submit to directories will help you identify which one’s are worthwhile.

There are two major reasons for submitting to Directories:

Targeted traffic

Link popularity

Clearly, the same benefits can be be said about links from other sites not just from a directory. However, there are some significant differences between the two link sources:

Directories provide one way links to your site which is really beneficial to your link popularity (Exchanging links with other sites will often require a reciprocal link in exchange)

Directories are an established source of กauthorityก in regard to various subject matters.

It is much easier and simpler to be listed in directories than in subject specific sites (not forgetting the fact that there may be a conflict of interest issue!)

Directories as traffic source

What is ‘targeted trafficก?

Directories are an excellent source of targeted traffic. Even with the advancement of Search Engine technology, the keyword based search method, common to all search engines, is still far from perfect. That is many search results do not actually match the userกs requirements. Although Search Engines will most likely generate more website traffic to your website, many of those visitors will NOT become กcustomersก, as they had a different requirement when they conducted the search.

Thus, it is not enough to simply กcountก the number of visitors. One must also look at the กconversion rateก. For example, if one source of traffic sends 1000 visitors/day with a conversion rate of 1% and another sends only 100 visitors/day with a conversion rate of 20% the latter provides TWICE as many กcustomersก as the former. We can say that the second source provides better ‘targeted trafficก.

Web directories are maintained by human editors in most cases volunteers. Having a real person review your site before inclusion assures only rich content and informative sites will get included. The purpose of a directory is to provide an intuitive and precise category structure. Are you in any doubt as to the nature of sites found in this DMOZ category?

Top: Games: Role playing: World Building: Created Worlds: Science Fiction

Or the following Gimpsy category?

I want to > Play > games > role playing > SciFi

It is therefore safe to assume that users who trail through either Directory structure will have a very clear idea of what to expect from sites found there. Such matching of content with user expectation guarantees that the conversion rate of visitors from Directories will be significantly better than standard Search Engines.

Directories as Link Partners

The Importance of Link Popularity

It would be safe to assume that Link Popularity now plays a significant role in the ranking algorithm of all the major Search Engines.

The challenge for site owners and web masters is to increase Link Popularity, which in turn increases the likelihood of pages from their sites appearing high in the search results. One of the best ways to start a link campaign is to get links from Directories. If you put the right amount of effort (and money) into it, you can see your Link Popularity increase significantly in a short space of time. The question is: Which directories are worth paying for? Hereกs some pointers to make an educated decision.

Link Types

The first and most important consideration is the link type. There are two types of links: Simple Link (otherwise known as Static Link) and a Redirected Link. You cannot discover the difference by clicking on them the results are absolutely identical, but from the perspective of gaining link popularity, knowing the difference is vital.

A Simple Link is a link that contains the target URL of the site and directly points to it, as in this link: http://www.yourdomain.com. On the other hand, a Redirected Link points to a URL inside the current site, and has a longer URL like this: http://www.thisdirectory.com/jump.php?www.yourdomain.com. You can check the type of links used by a Directory by observing the กStatus barก at the bottom of your browser while hovering your mouse over the links.

If your primary objective is to increase your link popularity, then only submit to web directories which use simple links. Obtaining redirected links is just a waste of your time (and money). A good sure way in identifying the type of link a directory uses is to check the PR of its category pages. Redirected link pages will often have no PR.

PageRank and Back Links

Not all links are created equal some are more important than others. If you have the Google toolbar installed, it will give you a rough estimate on the pageกs กimportanceก, or PageRank (PR), on a scale of 0 to 10. A Directory with a high PR is more important than a Directory with a low PR. Having your link on a page with a high PR will transfer more PR to your site.

Invariably, the Home Page of the directory will have the highest PR, but very few (if any) sites will be listed there. What you need to examine is the PR of the specific Category (page) in which your site will be listed to get an idea of the กstrengthก of vote you are likely to receive from this link. For example, although DMOZ has an exceptionally high PR of 9 on its home page, most of it’s deeper categories have a PR of 4.

Also consider the number of outgoing links on the specific category page you wish to be listed on. It’s great if the category page has a PR6, however if the site is not well maintained and there is hundreds of links on that page, then minimal PR will be transferred to your site.

In Summation: Look for Directories which make use of simple links, have high PR category pages, with few outgoing links on the page. This will ensure maximum link popularity will be transferred to your site, which ultimately will boost your search engine rankings.

Final words

How can you make a good decision when faced with so many options and considerations? The answer lies, perhaps, in limiting the number of directories you submit to. When beginning your linking campaign I feel you should submit to all free niche directories, and select a few paid submission directories that will most benefit you in terms of link popularity and traffic. Most paid directories will require you make a onetime payment between $550 USD. This is money well spent. Having to pay for submission will deter most other webmasters, hence there will be fewer outgoing links on each category page – so you gain maximum link popularity and it’s a great traffic generator as visitors browsing the directory can easily find your site without having to wade through hundreds of links.

Below are a few web directories I strongly recommend to submit to:

BlueFind

GreatNexus

Arielis

IstSpotNet

LinkoPedia

ThisIsOurYear

About The Author

David Di Cristo is an online entrepreuner and owner of http://www.onlinesellersresource.com/

[email protected]

This article was posted on August 10, 2004

by David Di Cristo

How To Increase The Link Popularity Of Your Web Si

How To Increase The Link Popularity Of Your Web Site.

by: John Taylor

Link Popularity is the term used to describe how popular your web site is by examining how many other web sites link to it.

For example, if you only had one other web site linking to your site, then your link popularity would be one. In other words link popularity is a measure of how may other sites are willing to กvoteก for your site by adding a link to it.

Is Link Popularity Important?

Yes. Search engines have a hard job when it comes to deciding what search results to return. They attempt to return the most relevant results that are contained in their database. One significant problem that the search engines have is how to decide which web sites are best, which they basically do by calculating both the relevance of a site and its popularity.

To determine relevancy the search engines look at a number of on page factors, such as your title tag, your description and the keyword density. To determine the popularity of your web site they look at how many links point to it. Most search engines work on the assumption that the more links a web site has pointing towards it, the better it must be.

How Do I Check My Link Popularity

You can check your link popularity in a number of ways. You can use the link: command in Google. For example you can type the following in to the Google search box to check which web sites are linking to you. Forexample if I wanted to check the popularity of my own ‘testing

About The Author

John Taylor

To learn more information about Link Popularity I strongly recommend that you visit http://www.LinkAdvantage.com.

[email protected]

This article was posted on August 11

by John Taylor