A Guide to Better
Link Popularity
By John Buchanan |
Over the past year or two, one thing has become extremely clear...the
need for link popularity. Every major engine weighs the link popularity
of sites heavily when ranking sites. At least one major engine even
claims they won't index sites that don't have at least one link pointing
to them from another site.
Unfortunately, building link popularity can be one of the most
challenging aspects of search engine promotion. It's tedious, boring,
extremely time consuming, and ABSOLUTELY essential.
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THE TOP TEN
REASONS VISITORS LEAVE YOUR SITE
Do your site visitors stay for
hours, happily reading your content, buying your merchandise, and
admiring your design techniques? Or do they take one look, then
laugh all the way to the next Web site? Check out our top 10 list to
see why visitors don't last long on some sites.
Click Here for Our Top 10 List |
That being said, let's go over some things you should and shouldn't
do when beginning your link popularity campaign.
We'll start first with the "shouldn't" list so we can get those out
of the way and focus on what will actually work.
* Don't bother with FFA pages.
They worked at one time but now most engines have learned to filter out
FFA pages, and even if they don't, your link will most probably rotate
off the results page in a matter of minutes, but you can guarantee that
your email address will remain in their database for YEARS.
* Don't join link farms. These
were a good idea once as well but have come under heavy fire by the
engines over the past year.
* Don't use hidden links with the
goal of building your link popularity. I'm of the opinion that one or
two throughout a site is no big deal, but don't go overboard with them.
* Don't use free classifieds to
get your URL out there. You are just asking to receive mass amounts of
junk mail.
Ok...now that we know some of the things NOT to do, let's get down to
some things that you can do to build your link popularity.
* The first thing you should do
is to get your site listed in the "Big 3" directories. Those are Yahoo,
LookSmart, and the ODP. Yes, Yahoo and LookSmart are expensive (even
more so since their recent price increases), but one link from each of
them can go a long way in boosting your link popularity.
* Next you should concentrate on
finding sites that are of a similar nature to yours and approach them
about linking to you. Stay away from off-topic sites. Links from sites
of the same theme as yours help to reinforce your theme and further help
in boosting your search engine rankings. Be creative in your thinking.
Attempt to develop a list of all the different types of sites that
relate to yours. Once you have this list you can then begin to search
for those specific types of sites.
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ASSISTANT
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advertising campaigns.
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for Details |
* Create a link page listing all of
the sites that you wish to link to you. By linking to the sites you are
going to be contacting first, they will be more likely to link back to
you when you contact them.
* Search for smaller vertical
directories to submit your site to. There are thousands of these
directories out there. A good place to start is at
Search
Engine Guide
* One often overlooked trick is
to find similar sites that use guestbooks and forums. If you can find
these you will often be able to post a message and include your URL. Be
careful with this. Some forums don't allow the posting of URL's so check
out their rules of etiquette first.
* Testimonials of products can
also be a good way to get your URL out. Consider writing a testimonial
of a product you've used. Include your name and URL at the bottom. Email
the testimonial to the site owner. Site owner's are ALWAYS looking for
testimonials as it increases buyer confidence and most likely they will
be happy to post your testimonial.
* Writing articles on your topic
can also be a great way to get your URL out. Write an article and
include your URL in the bio at the end of the article. Once written
submit it to related areas around the web such as E-zines etc. Most of
these publications also keep a web-based archive of articles that the
search engines will eventually spider. *
One product I have personally used is a program called Zeus. This
program can dramatically reduce the time involved in finding sites
similar to yours. There is a bit of a learning curve to it, but once you
understand it and have it up and running, it is a definite time saver.
The program is designed to automate the entire task of finding sites,
contacting them, and building a link system for those sites, but many
people use it just to help them locate the sites so they can personally
contact them. Visit Zeus
for more information.
* If you don't think you have the
time to devote to this consider hiring a professional to do the work for
you. I have personally worked with a company called
LinkageXpress and
had great results. They have different price plans depending on the
number of links you want.
* Finally, don't forget to link
from your site to other related and important sites. This is also taken
into account by the engines.
Yes, it can be a bit of a task, but it is an absolute necessity in
todays search engine era. Stick to the above guideline and with a little
work, effort, and time, you should be sitting pretty.
Good Luck and Happy Linking!
About The Author
John Buchanan is the author of the book "The Insider's Guide to
Dominating The Search Engines", and publisher of "The Search Engine
Bulletin", a FREE monthly newsletter. Visit him at
SE-Secrets.com for more
information or to sign up for the newsletter.
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