You may also be interested in:

How link popularity can help your rankings?

We’ll tell you the answer now.
A high percentage of #1 ranked Web pages on Google don’t contain the 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 series we’re going to teach you how to obtain high link popularity and a good PageRank so that your Web pages can get a high ranking on Google and other search engines.For successful Web sites,Link Popularity plays an important role in it.

Part 1: What exactly is link popularity?

Link popularity refers to the total number of links that a search engine has found in 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 the single Web page, not for your whole Web site.Different PageRank numbers will be found on different pages about your Web site.

As a matter of fact,The concept of link popularity is simple. The more other Web sites link to your Web site pages, the more important your site must be. Other sites wouldn’t link to your site if the content of your site is nothing to do with him or there wasn’t something interesting on your site and your site don’t contain any special content.

To manipulate link popularity is nearly impossible. Previous ranking algorithms 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 free for all link pages. Search engines will not considered all links equal. It does matter who and how they links to you.

Part 2: Search engine will not consider all links equal

As mentioned above, 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 a authoritative and famous site like www.Yahoo.com to your Web site has more weight than a link from a small private Web site which no noe knows about it. 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 which is linking to you has a similar topic as your Web site. Imagine that you introduce the local tour on your Web site. A link from another Web site that is all about tourism will count much more than a link from a Web site that links to all kinds of Web sites.

Finally, it’s important how the link to your site looks like. For example, one of your important keywords might be “SEO Services”.
The link
<a href=”http://www.webay.com.au/html/seo.html”>SEO Services</a>
leads to much better search engine rankings for the keyword “natural scenic view” than the following link
<a href=”http://www.webay.com.au/html/seo.html”>Smith and Partners</a>

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).But,waht you to do doesn’t work.

Many search engines recognize FFA pages and link farms and choose to ignore these pages. So,Your job to submit to FFA pages are a waste of time and you’ll receive many spam emails.

At the same time, Someone may promise you 3000 links to your site within a week or so. If they link to you at all, these 3000 links must be of poor quality or they don’t have a similar topic as your Web site, that means all those links will have no advantage to your site .

Here is the summary we want to tell you:

a. try to get links from important and same topic Web sites
b. try to get link texts that contain your important keywords
c. don’t use FFA or link farm pages
d. don’t use services that promise lots of links within days
e. focus on quality links, not on quantity

Next, we’re going to tell you how to find good potential link partners quickly and easily.

Part 3: How to find good potential link partners

As explained above, it’s important which web site links to your site. Web sites that have a similar topic as yours are more important than Web sites with different topics. In addition, you’ll also get targeted traffic from web sites which you can convince them with a similar topic to link to your site.

People are more likely to come to your site and to buy something if they visit your topic partner’s sites and will interested in what you have to offer. It’s not the quantity of the traffic that counts,but the quality.

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

1. Search the most important search engines for your most important keywords.
which sites are very good potential link partners–Among the search results, you’ll find those Web sites which don’t compete directly with your site.
They are good listing on search engines with the same important keywords as yours. This means that they get a good amount of traffic from people who are interested in what you have to offer.
You’ll get high quality targeted traffic from them, if such a site links to your site. at the same time, their link to your site also increases your link popularity and your search engine rankings.

2. Find out who links to your competitors.
Web sites that link to your competitors are probably Web sites that should link to you. they must have a sae topic with your site,If it 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 can we contact potential link partners for exchanging links?

In part 3, we have already told you about how to find good potential link partners. It’s important for you to use the right words to contact the webmasters of high quality sites when you’ve found such one.

If you want to exchange your web link with them, you must to be personal and politely. You can not write emails like the following one, it 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,

Paul
—snip—

Such messages are usually considered as spamming by many webmasters. 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. A personal approach gets much better results than mass emailing sites.

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: Axandra.com and CheckYourLinkPopularity.com

Dear Peter,

I found your SEO Services site recently and
like it very much. I think the service which you’re
offering is perfect.

I’ve placed a link to your site at
http://www.webay.com.au/html/service.html

I’ve noticed that you link to other Web sites that are
related to your services. We offer a Web site promotion
tool that also focuses on link popularity
(http://www.webay.com.au/html/service.html).

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 123-456-7890.

Best regards,

Cindy
http://www.webay.com.au/html/service.html

PS. Visit “http://www.webay.com.au/html/service.html” for ready
made HTML code.
—snip—

If you’ve already linked to a site before asking them for a reciprocal link, the webmaster is much more likely to answer your request.

Part 5: How to increase the success of your linking campaign

So far you’ve learned how to find good potential link partners, 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.

Here are some other important tips for you to increase the success of your linking campaign:

1. 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.

2. 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.

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.

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.

3. Make your link pages easy to find.

No one will want to link to you if you hide your link back to their site 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.

link popularity, potential link partners