Being the gateway to the Internet is not the only purpose that search engines serve. Search engines are also the first tool that potential customers use to find the products, services, and information they need on the internet.
For this reason, link popularity is very imperative. Heres why: If customers do not find your website, your chances of maximizing your online sales are slim to none.
Id bet you are wondering what is the importance of the popularity of a link! Heres your one word answer -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, I am sure you are next question would probably be Well, how do I make my link popular?
Good question. Search engines are discretionary, giving status and ranking to sites that have links to their pages from related, quality sites. It 's a really simple formula, but a very important one. Google created the system, and now virtually all the most popular search engines employ the same formula to rank your web pages in their indexes.
The more commonly used your keyword is, the harder it will be to achieve link popularity. Without achieving this very important step, it is almost certain your site wont ever rank highly on any search engine. However, before you get discouraged, consider the fact that there are tried and true ways of achieving link popularity using only the most competitive keywords.
There are a few things to keep in mind. Link popularity is not achieved by just linking up with a large number of other websites. In fact, it may backfire and have quite the opposite effect.
Most typically this is true when pertaining to websites that contain line after line of indiscriminate links, or "link farms". It has been the tendency of search engines to aggressively discriminate against your website if you are associated with a link farm, so stay away from them!
The next thing to consider is the quality of the site you are linking to. Do not ever link to a page that you would have reservations about your visitors seeing. That would make your site look cheap and indiscriminate, which I do not think would be the look to go for. Linking to sites of poor quality not only fail to increase your link popularity, it may just destroy it altogether.
So let 's get right to it. Lets discuss 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 business-related, 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, and you most assuredly wont regret it.
The listing is free if your site is noncommercial, but it takes time and follow-up to actually get it listed. Open Directory is another popular director. It gives you a free listing whether you are business-related or non-commercial. However, be prepared to make a lot of follow-up inquiries before you see your site listed.
Getting listed on the lightest level of appropriate category takes some common sense. Heres what I mean: Lets say 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." HUGE MISTAKE!
You have to look a little deeper and think a little bigger. You would submit your listing to the "Fine Alpaca Wool" category. This is doubly effective because not only will you associate yourself with culture and quality, but you will also be listed in a national category.
The next step after having attained directory listings, is to locate other quality sites that will increase your link popularity and link with them. Finding quality sites that are in some way related to yours increases your link popularity in addition to expanding your customer base. Of course you want to avoid your competitors and look for sites that are useful to your site 's visitors.
Let 's look at the Alpaca Wool site example again. 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.
As a result of your linking to a related site thats relevant to your web site 's traffic, you are increasing both companies site 's business prospects - and both companies sites' link popularity. Teamwork makes the dream work.
Before we all break out and sing We Are The World, lets keep in mind that not all sites want to link to other sites. Proper research is necessary when you are looking for possible linking partners, and theres no better place than Google to start your search. Make sure you enter keywords that you think quality customers will also enter to find your site.
Also remember your criteria are: quality, highly ranked, non-competing websites that have a links or resources page. Go to these sites and objectively assess them. Look at the level of quality of the product, the graphics, and the ease of use. Then check out the other sites they are linked to, and determine how well or if your own site would fit in with the crowd.
Not unlike dating, 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 a very important first step; it not only shows good faith, but it also ups your chances significantly of their reciprocity.
After adding their link, contact the webmaster of their site. This is almost always done by email, so you want to make sure it is immediately clear that your message is not junk mail (EVERYBODY hates junk mail). With this in mind, there is a requirement 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.
Again, not unlike dating, be sure to be flattering and let them know how much you appreciate their website. Emphasize that you have actually visited their site, and that time and consideration went into your picking their site. Give them the address of your links page, and ask them to check out the link for themselves.
Be sure 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 or you will come off like a professor! Finally, tell them reciprocally adding your link on their own website would be as appreciated as it would be mutually beneficial.
Repeat this process with as many appropriate sites as you can find, bearing in mind the criteria of quality and non-competitiveness. After emailing all relevant sites, remember to check these website frequently to see if they have added a link to your page. Give it about four weeks, and if no link appears, try another charming email.
Then give it another four weeks, and if your site is still missing from their links page, it 's time to remove their link from your own links page. The only time you want to pursue a link any further than this is if you believe a site is absolutely crucial to your link popularity and your business needs. Remember to keep all your communications professional, complimentary, and cordial.
Set up a consistent schedule to check your ranking in the search engines to see if your link popularity has improved. This is not an over-night process. Just like anything else worth having, it will take some time and a good deal of work. There is no escaping the labor-intensive quality of improving your link popularity, which is why search engines regard it with such importance, and so should you.
I thought this might go without saying, but to be on the safe side - make sure you have a beautiful, streamlined site or you will never persuade anyone to link up to you. Just as you would not link up with a bad looking or poor quality site. Considering that in most cases nothing worth having comes easy, be prepared to keep plugging away at this process until you reach your goals.
Friday, April 4, 2008
How To Get Quality Back Links To Your Website
Today we will discuss how to get quality back links to your website. Back links are links to your website from other websites. Quality back links are links that are placed on websites that are relevant to your websites content.
For example: if you have a website that sells internet marketing services, you want to find websites that have the same type of content on their websites to place your website link on. Sites like internet marketing services, web design services, email marketing services, pay per click services, and affiliate marketing services will have content that Google, Yahoo, MSN, and the other major search engines see a relevant to your sites content.
Back links are important and count as votes of website quality. It use to be that quantity was more important than quality. But now quality is the key factor. It is better to have 10 quality back links that are targeted to your industry than 1,000 back links to uncommon topics.
It is better to get your back link placed on the first or second page of a website than hundreds of pages in. Make sure that you can get to the page your link is going to be on from the home page of the website. If you can't get there, than the search engines probably can't get there.
There are 2 types of back link placement, free and paid placement. Free placement can be done several different ways. You can submit your website to directories under the category of your website. Many will request that you place a reciprocal link on your site for the free placement of your link on theirs. Write articles about your expertise in the industry in which you have knowledge. This article is targeting internet marketing and back links. The link at the bottom of this article along with the article content will be placed on sites that need quality content on their websites. Most article directories are free to submit to. You can do research to find sites that are relevant to yours and write an email explaining the benefits of exchanging links with them It 's a lot of work but can be beneficial if you can get some decent link exchanges.
When you don't have a lot of time to do manual link placement work, you may choose to look at purchasing text links for your site. If you plan on doing this you will want to do your research on the sites history using Alexa, Google, and other free website tools.
Many websites want to charge a monthly fee for this. Make an offer; don't settle for what they are asking for. If they want to place you on one page or every page of the website, that can change the cost and value of the link. See if you can get a deal for the entire year, it may be much cheaper than paying for the link each month. The benefit of getting on every page is that you may get more than back link credit; many times you will get extra traffic from the site itself.
Using the right information in the back link is very important. You want to use the description you're using to place in the search engines with. When the search engines crawl the back link, they will come to your site and see that the information matches up and will give your site more relevance in the engines.
Remember that building quality back links takes time. You must continue to build back links to your site if you want to make it to first place in the engines.
For example: if you have a website that sells internet marketing services, you want to find websites that have the same type of content on their websites to place your website link on. Sites like internet marketing services, web design services, email marketing services, pay per click services, and affiliate marketing services will have content that Google, Yahoo, MSN, and the other major search engines see a relevant to your sites content.
Back links are important and count as votes of website quality. It use to be that quantity was more important than quality. But now quality is the key factor. It is better to have 10 quality back links that are targeted to your industry than 1,000 back links to uncommon topics.
It is better to get your back link placed on the first or second page of a website than hundreds of pages in. Make sure that you can get to the page your link is going to be on from the home page of the website. If you can't get there, than the search engines probably can't get there.
There are 2 types of back link placement, free and paid placement. Free placement can be done several different ways. You can submit your website to directories under the category of your website. Many will request that you place a reciprocal link on your site for the free placement of your link on theirs. Write articles about your expertise in the industry in which you have knowledge. This article is targeting internet marketing and back links. The link at the bottom of this article along with the article content will be placed on sites that need quality content on their websites. Most article directories are free to submit to. You can do research to find sites that are relevant to yours and write an email explaining the benefits of exchanging links with them It 's a lot of work but can be beneficial if you can get some decent link exchanges.
When you don't have a lot of time to do manual link placement work, you may choose to look at purchasing text links for your site. If you plan on doing this you will want to do your research on the sites history using Alexa, Google, and other free website tools.
Many websites want to charge a monthly fee for this. Make an offer; don't settle for what they are asking for. If they want to place you on one page or every page of the website, that can change the cost and value of the link. See if you can get a deal for the entire year, it may be much cheaper than paying for the link each month. The benefit of getting on every page is that you may get more than back link credit; many times you will get extra traffic from the site itself.
Using the right information in the back link is very important. You want to use the description you're using to place in the search engines with. When the search engines crawl the back link, they will come to your site and see that the information matches up and will give your site more relevance in the engines.
Remember that building quality back links takes time. You must continue to build back links to your site if you want to make it to first place in the engines.
One Way Link Strategies You Need To Know
Many people who are starting an internet business do not understand the importance of building links to their website. You can compare the links pointing to your internet business to opening a brick and mortar business and having people all around the area telling others how great your business is, this is basically people links.
How do these brick and mortar business get people to tell other people? They don't force them or pay them money; they give them great service, they give them a great product and continually give them great service after the sale. Well it 's the same on the internet. The links you receive pointing to your website tells others how good your business is, how good the service is and what great products you have.
How do you get links to your site? Internet marketers have many different ways of doing this. What is the best way? Well I don't think there is a best way I think there are just different ways and you need to choose the methods you are knowledgeable about and comfortable with.
Here is a list of some one way link methods that internet webmasters use:
1. Article writing and article submission
2. Trade articles with other webmasters
3. Directory submission
4. Post to forums
5. Post to blogs
6. Link Exchange (not a one way link but it has its place)
7. Create great content and have other websites link to you
8. Create a piece of software code that other websites can use on their site
9. Create a video that others can use
10. Submit a press release
11. Buy links from websites
12. Find webmasters and beg for a one way link
This is just a short list of ways to get links. When you create your link it is beneficial to create your link with a keyword or as some people call it an anchor tag. You should do some research and choose the best keyword that fits your business. I am not going to go into how to do keyword research in this article but there are many articles on the internet that explain how to do this.
Every time you place your link make sure that the keyword is the active link that points back to your site. One suggestion I would make is that I would use a keyword that has high traffic searches per month. Many people will tell you not do this because you will never rank in the search engines for this word, but what they don't tell you is that if you use the high search keyword you will get ranked for many low searched keywords on your website. This will create traffic to your website.
How long will it take until I receive tons of traffic? There are different types of traffic, paid and free. If you want traffic the same or the next day, there are many pay per click (PPC) system on the market today. Just go to your browser and type in pay per click and there will a list of sites that do this. If you want free traffic on the other hand this will take time. You need to promote your anchor tag (keyword) and start building one way links to your site. Don't forget to add valuable content to your website, this is important. Over time as you continue to build links, traffic will start arriving to your website. I did a test to see how fast I could build 100 visitors of traffic to my site. I wrote 20 articles over a 3 month period and submitted them to article submitters. At the end of 3 months I was receiving 150 to 200 visitors a day to my website.
It all depends on how much you put into your business. If you are passionate about what you are doing the traffic will come to your website. Keep going and do not give up, your success is right around the corner.
How do these brick and mortar business get people to tell other people? They don't force them or pay them money; they give them great service, they give them a great product and continually give them great service after the sale. Well it 's the same on the internet. The links you receive pointing to your website tells others how good your business is, how good the service is and what great products you have.
How do you get links to your site? Internet marketers have many different ways of doing this. What is the best way? Well I don't think there is a best way I think there are just different ways and you need to choose the methods you are knowledgeable about and comfortable with.
Here is a list of some one way link methods that internet webmasters use:
1. Article writing and article submission
2. Trade articles with other webmasters
3. Directory submission
4. Post to forums
5. Post to blogs
6. Link Exchange (not a one way link but it has its place)
7. Create great content and have other websites link to you
8. Create a piece of software code that other websites can use on their site
9. Create a video that others can use
10. Submit a press release
11. Buy links from websites
12. Find webmasters and beg for a one way link
This is just a short list of ways to get links. When you create your link it is beneficial to create your link with a keyword or as some people call it an anchor tag. You should do some research and choose the best keyword that fits your business. I am not going to go into how to do keyword research in this article but there are many articles on the internet that explain how to do this.
Every time you place your link make sure that the keyword is the active link that points back to your site. One suggestion I would make is that I would use a keyword that has high traffic searches per month. Many people will tell you not do this because you will never rank in the search engines for this word, but what they don't tell you is that if you use the high search keyword you will get ranked for many low searched keywords on your website. This will create traffic to your website.
How long will it take until I receive tons of traffic? There are different types of traffic, paid and free. If you want traffic the same or the next day, there are many pay per click (PPC) system on the market today. Just go to your browser and type in pay per click and there will a list of sites that do this. If you want free traffic on the other hand this will take time. You need to promote your anchor tag (keyword) and start building one way links to your site. Don't forget to add valuable content to your website, this is important. Over time as you continue to build links, traffic will start arriving to your website. I did a test to see how fast I could build 100 visitors of traffic to my site. I wrote 20 articles over a 3 month period and submitted them to article submitters. At the end of 3 months I was receiving 150 to 200 visitors a day to my website.
It all depends on how much you put into your business. If you are passionate about what you are doing the traffic will come to your website. Keep going and do not give up, your success is right around the corner.
Getting One Way Links Is A Must For Visitor Traffic
Good quality incoming links are craved by the online promotion experts all over the world. The number of links that point to your site and the quality of those links are defined as link popularity. In fact, experts in SEO say that increasing your number of relevant incoming links is the most important strategy in your SEO process.
What you must do first is create an informative and useful website. If your website is good, people will want to link to it. Website traffic is important to all individuals who have their own websites. Without the aid of inbound and outbound links, your website will not have favorable results on the search engine results page. Websites that participated in link exchange programs will soon have to realize that these link exchanges are not helpful anymore, one way links is the most powerful way of building search engine rankings and traffic. Link exchanges which do not favor your website will often harm your search engine ranking, while one way links cannot damage your website. Without links, your website will more than likely go unnoticed.
Generating links that contain anchor text will boost your serps. Anchor text is the name for the text that appears on a specific link that leads to a website. In effect you can make your anchor tag keyword rich. Anchor tag text is a very important criterion in search engine ranking matrix. The link anchor text tells the search engines what is the important theme for the page being reached by the link. Again your link text is key to the linking game.
Link exchanging with web sites that are of low quality will weaken your web site 's link popularity, and it could possibly even destroy it. Search engines are leery of suspicious links that increase too quickly and violate reasonable limits. Remember that value and quality are more important than volume of links. Link exchanging is also starting to lose their value in terms of link popularity. Writing articles of high quality will ensure that your articles will be posted on many sites; a good article will get you a good number of one way links.
One way links will really push you up in the search engines. Writing articles is one of the best and easiest ways to get one way links. Articles will bring you traffic right from the articles, and this is a great advantage. The result is that your articles are often sought after and published by webmasters. You made need to do a little research, but articles will really help build your traffic and ranking. Better still you can submit your article to any number of article sites. Of course articles are also important resources for webmasters in another way free content for your site.
Directories are another great source of one way links; they provide a new website an opportunity to get incoming links rapidly. This in turn will help with traffic and search engine rankings.
It is amazing how most people remain so ignorant about text links. The really sad thing here is that the consequences on their web traffic is devastating to say the least. You know that traffic is important in order for a web business to survive. When you buy or rent a link on similar themed websites, it drives relevant traffic interested in your website and products. Obviously this kind of traffic is more likely to convert into a sale. Linking is a big project, and keeping track of links can be an even bigger project, but it has long lasting benefits and it brings targeted traffic. Traffic is what linking is all about.
The final way to obtain incoming links is by simply buying them or joining a one way link system.
What you must do first is create an informative and useful website. If your website is good, people will want to link to it. Website traffic is important to all individuals who have their own websites. Without the aid of inbound and outbound links, your website will not have favorable results on the search engine results page. Websites that participated in link exchange programs will soon have to realize that these link exchanges are not helpful anymore, one way links is the most powerful way of building search engine rankings and traffic. Link exchanges which do not favor your website will often harm your search engine ranking, while one way links cannot damage your website. Without links, your website will more than likely go unnoticed.
Generating links that contain anchor text will boost your serps. Anchor text is the name for the text that appears on a specific link that leads to a website. In effect you can make your anchor tag keyword rich. Anchor tag text is a very important criterion in search engine ranking matrix. The link anchor text tells the search engines what is the important theme for the page being reached by the link. Again your link text is key to the linking game.
Link exchanging with web sites that are of low quality will weaken your web site 's link popularity, and it could possibly even destroy it. Search engines are leery of suspicious links that increase too quickly and violate reasonable limits. Remember that value and quality are more important than volume of links. Link exchanging is also starting to lose their value in terms of link popularity. Writing articles of high quality will ensure that your articles will be posted on many sites; a good article will get you a good number of one way links.
One way links will really push you up in the search engines. Writing articles is one of the best and easiest ways to get one way links. Articles will bring you traffic right from the articles, and this is a great advantage. The result is that your articles are often sought after and published by webmasters. You made need to do a little research, but articles will really help build your traffic and ranking. Better still you can submit your article to any number of article sites. Of course articles are also important resources for webmasters in another way free content for your site.
Directories are another great source of one way links; they provide a new website an opportunity to get incoming links rapidly. This in turn will help with traffic and search engine rankings.
It is amazing how most people remain so ignorant about text links. The really sad thing here is that the consequences on their web traffic is devastating to say the least. You know that traffic is important in order for a web business to survive. When you buy or rent a link on similar themed websites, it drives relevant traffic interested in your website and products. Obviously this kind of traffic is more likely to convert into a sale. Linking is a big project, and keeping track of links can be an even bigger project, but it has long lasting benefits and it brings targeted traffic. Traffic is what linking is all about.
The final way to obtain incoming links is by simply buying them or joining a one way link system.
Increasing Link Popularity the Sure Way
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. It 's 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 "link farms" - 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 let 's 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 business-related, 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 non-commercial, the listing will be free, but it will take time and follow-up to actually get it listed. Open Directory is gives you a free listing whether you are business-related or non-commercial, but be prepared to make a lot of follow-up 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." BIG MISTAKE! All you have to do is look a little deeper - and submit your listing to the "Fine Alpaca Wool" 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 site 's visitors. Let 's 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 website 's traffic, you are increasing both of your site 's business prospects - and both of your sites' 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, non-competing 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. It 's 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 non-competitiveness. 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, it 's 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 labor-intensive 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!
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. It 's 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 "link farms" - 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 let 's 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 business-related, 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 non-commercial, the listing will be free, but it will take time and follow-up to actually get it listed. Open Directory is gives you a free listing whether you are business-related or non-commercial, but be prepared to make a lot of follow-up 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." BIG MISTAKE! All you have to do is look a little deeper - and submit your listing to the "Fine Alpaca Wool" 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 site 's visitors. Let 's 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 website 's traffic, you are increasing both of your site 's business prospects - and both of your sites' 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, non-competing 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. It 's 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 non-competitiveness. 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, it 's 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 labor-intensive 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!
The Secret Of The One Way Link Maniac
What does every website owner want? Good quality one way links to boost traffic of course. When you talk about link popularity what is meant by this is the number of quality one way links that will drive traffic to your website. All SEO experts agree that increasing one way links is the way to increase popularity, traffic and sales.
Reciprocal links are starting to lose their value in terms of link popularity. If you can avoid reciprocal links do it at all costs. Reciprocal links are dead, look for one way links, this is what you need to concentrate on to build traffic and link popularity. Do you think the major websites are exchanging links or do you think they are building one way links?
Submitting your website to as many directories as possible will increase your one way link popularity. Many of the specialized directories are indexed by the major search engines. Do not exchange links with directories, the entire purpose is to receive one way links from the directories. Also consider paying for submission to some important directories. By paying a fee directories will include the website in their directories in less than 2-5 days. There are many directories on the internet that are free; many charge a fee and some want a reciprocal link to be accepted into the directory. If you want to skip to the front of the queue the best way is to pay and the directories will move you to the top for inclusion. When submitting your website to a directory in many instances it will increase your ranking on the search engines and give you quality one way links to your website.
You need to write articles of quality, that are informative and educative, something the reader needs to know. Writing articles of high quality will ensure that your articles will be posted on many sites; a good article will get you a good number of one way links. You can write about anything from dogs, to computers, to personal training, to web hosting, heck you can even write about writing. Many of the article site do not offer any statistical analysis, but you can always use the search engines to search on your articles to find out information about it. Once the articles are written, you can submit them through article submissions services. To find these services go to the search engines and type in submit articles services.
Linking marketing is very important, one of the most important aspects of link marketing is keeping track of all the one way links. Targeted traffic is the key. It may take some time with your link marketing but in the end it will be all worth it. Every webmaster 's goal is to have thousands of visitors every day. And the best way to receive targeted traffic is trough search engines and to get your website ranking well you need to get many quality one way links.
In conclusion, here are the best ways of getting one way links, submit to directories, write articles, join one way link systems, submit to social networks, post to blogs and write great content.
The formula is as follows one way links + Search Engine Ranking + Traffic = Sales
Reciprocal links are starting to lose their value in terms of link popularity. If you can avoid reciprocal links do it at all costs. Reciprocal links are dead, look for one way links, this is what you need to concentrate on to build traffic and link popularity. Do you think the major websites are exchanging links or do you think they are building one way links?
Submitting your website to as many directories as possible will increase your one way link popularity. Many of the specialized directories are indexed by the major search engines. Do not exchange links with directories, the entire purpose is to receive one way links from the directories. Also consider paying for submission to some important directories. By paying a fee directories will include the website in their directories in less than 2-5 days. There are many directories on the internet that are free; many charge a fee and some want a reciprocal link to be accepted into the directory. If you want to skip to the front of the queue the best way is to pay and the directories will move you to the top for inclusion. When submitting your website to a directory in many instances it will increase your ranking on the search engines and give you quality one way links to your website.
You need to write articles of quality, that are informative and educative, something the reader needs to know. Writing articles of high quality will ensure that your articles will be posted on many sites; a good article will get you a good number of one way links. You can write about anything from dogs, to computers, to personal training, to web hosting, heck you can even write about writing. Many of the article site do not offer any statistical analysis, but you can always use the search engines to search on your articles to find out information about it. Once the articles are written, you can submit them through article submissions services. To find these services go to the search engines and type in submit articles services.
Linking marketing is very important, one of the most important aspects of link marketing is keeping track of all the one way links. Targeted traffic is the key. It may take some time with your link marketing but in the end it will be all worth it. Every webmaster 's goal is to have thousands of visitors every day. And the best way to receive targeted traffic is trough search engines and to get your website ranking well you need to get many quality one way links.
In conclusion, here are the best ways of getting one way links, submit to directories, write articles, join one way link systems, submit to social networks, post to blogs and write great content.
The formula is as follows one way links + Search Engine Ranking + Traffic = Sales
The Google Algorithm For Link Popularity
Google is by far the most important search engine on the net. To rise to the top of their search engine, you need to improve your link popularity and you need to understand how they measure your link popularity (over 50% of all search engine traffic comes from Google, and if you can rise to the top, you will likely rise to the top of all the other search engines as well).
Link popularity is defined as the number of sites that are linking to your site. Some websites have thousands or even millions of sites linking to them, while others might have only a few. The search engines use the number of inbound links your site has as a measure of how important your site is, which translates into your search engine ranking.
The actual number of links to your site is not the only variable used to calculate your link popularity. The search engines also examine the relevance of the links to the subject matter of your site. For example, if a website that sells vitamins has 4,000 inbound links, but the source of most of the links are websites that have nothing to do with vitamins, then the algorithm that search engines use to determine link popularity will take that into account, and the link popularity score will not be very good.
It is possible for a website with a relatively small number of quality inbound links to be ranked higher than a site with a bunch of irrelevant or insignificant links. If I have a website that offers quotes for auto insurance, and I have 800 quality inbound links, then I might receive a much higher search engine ranking than another mortgage site that has 3,000 links that stem from link farms or Free For All (FFA) pages.
If you try to acquire inbound by using link farms or FFA pages, not only will it hurt your search engine ranking, but you might get permanently removed from the search engine listings. Links farms are sites where you can instantly exchange links with all the sites listed in that directory. FFA pages are pointless link directories. The search engines usually discount any links that come from either of these sources.
Now that we understand what link popularity is and how it works, we need to look specifically at how Google measures it. They use a number of variables in their algorithm to calculate your overall link score. The higher your score, the higher you will be ranked in the search listings.
One factor that Google uses in their algorithm, obviously, is the total number of sites linking to you. The more links you have, the higher your score will be. However, their algorithm is a little more complicated than that, and it is possible for a website with fewer links to be ranked higher than a website that has more links.
The reason for this is because Google also measures the quality of your links. If your website is about vitamins, and the site linking to you is a video game site, then that is not considered a quality link. The link still helps your score, but the link would help your score much more if it were from a website whose subject matter is the same as yours.
Also, Google gives a higher score to a link if it comes from a page that has actual content that relates to your keywords. For example, if your site is about jewelry, and another jewelry website has posted a link to your site on their links page, that link is not as valuable as a link to your site coming from a blog or a message board where a lot of information about jewelry is being written or discussed.
Also, they give an even higher score to a link if it contains anchor text that matches one of the keywords that describes your site. For example, if I have a site that sells lawnmowers, and a blog about lawnmowers has posted a link to my site, it helps my score even more if the link text (also known as anchor text) is LAWNMOWERS. To learn more about anchor text, go to a search engine and look up ANCHOR TEXT and you will be able to learn about it.
Another factor used by Google to score your link popularity is the diversity of keywords contained on sites linking to you. For example, if you have a site that sells handbags, and all the links to your site are from other sites that contain nothing but the keyword HANDBAGS, Google considers that to be abnormal. To get a higher score, you need to have links coming from sites that contain a variety of keywords related to handbags, such as BUY HANDBAGS, LEATHER HANDBAGS, etc.
It is difficult to increase your link popularity, but now that you understand how your score is calculated, you can devise a plan to improve your score. You might want to consider posting to forums and blogs that contain information that is related to your site, and when you post, include a link to your site.
Link popularity is defined as the number of sites that are linking to your site. Some websites have thousands or even millions of sites linking to them, while others might have only a few. The search engines use the number of inbound links your site has as a measure of how important your site is, which translates into your search engine ranking.
The actual number of links to your site is not the only variable used to calculate your link popularity. The search engines also examine the relevance of the links to the subject matter of your site. For example, if a website that sells vitamins has 4,000 inbound links, but the source of most of the links are websites that have nothing to do with vitamins, then the algorithm that search engines use to determine link popularity will take that into account, and the link popularity score will not be very good.
It is possible for a website with a relatively small number of quality inbound links to be ranked higher than a site with a bunch of irrelevant or insignificant links. If I have a website that offers quotes for auto insurance, and I have 800 quality inbound links, then I might receive a much higher search engine ranking than another mortgage site that has 3,000 links that stem from link farms or Free For All (FFA) pages.
If you try to acquire inbound by using link farms or FFA pages, not only will it hurt your search engine ranking, but you might get permanently removed from the search engine listings. Links farms are sites where you can instantly exchange links with all the sites listed in that directory. FFA pages are pointless link directories. The search engines usually discount any links that come from either of these sources.
Now that we understand what link popularity is and how it works, we need to look specifically at how Google measures it. They use a number of variables in their algorithm to calculate your overall link score. The higher your score, the higher you will be ranked in the search listings.
One factor that Google uses in their algorithm, obviously, is the total number of sites linking to you. The more links you have, the higher your score will be. However, their algorithm is a little more complicated than that, and it is possible for a website with fewer links to be ranked higher than a website that has more links.
The reason for this is because Google also measures the quality of your links. If your website is about vitamins, and the site linking to you is a video game site, then that is not considered a quality link. The link still helps your score, but the link would help your score much more if it were from a website whose subject matter is the same as yours.
Also, Google gives a higher score to a link if it comes from a page that has actual content that relates to your keywords. For example, if your site is about jewelry, and another jewelry website has posted a link to your site on their links page, that link is not as valuable as a link to your site coming from a blog or a message board where a lot of information about jewelry is being written or discussed.
Also, they give an even higher score to a link if it contains anchor text that matches one of the keywords that describes your site. For example, if I have a site that sells lawnmowers, and a blog about lawnmowers has posted a link to my site, it helps my score even more if the link text (also known as anchor text) is LAWNMOWERS. To learn more about anchor text, go to a search engine and look up ANCHOR TEXT and you will be able to learn about it.
Another factor used by Google to score your link popularity is the diversity of keywords contained on sites linking to you. For example, if you have a site that sells handbags, and all the links to your site are from other sites that contain nothing but the keyword HANDBAGS, Google considers that to be abnormal. To get a higher score, you need to have links coming from sites that contain a variety of keywords related to handbags, such as BUY HANDBAGS, LEATHER HANDBAGS, etc.
It is difficult to increase your link popularity, but now that you understand how your score is calculated, you can devise a plan to improve your score. You might want to consider posting to forums and blogs that contain information that is related to your site, and when you post, include a link to your site.
How To Increase Link Popularity
You have a fantastic website. You provide high quality content that makes your reader stay awhile. Now all you need is the traffic. Increase the number of links pointing to your website and you will get your traffic! It really is that simple!
The two types of links are one way links and reciprocal links. Search engines prefer one way links because these occur more naturally than a reciprocal link. This is because one way links commonly occur in conjunction with the high quality content on your website and in the articles you write.
While these techniques are quite easy and simple, do not underestimate their power to bring you free targeted traffic. So how do you this? Read on...
Forums
Hang out in forums relevant to your website theme. Join forums where you can give advice and also receive advice. Do not just submit a post for the sake of advertising and do not post any sales pitches or advertisements in your post. The forum moderator will likely delete it anyway and you will quickly become unpopular in the forum.
Always remember to offer value when posting in a forum. This will equate to 100% free advertising to your website. Each forum you belong to will give you an opportunity to enter a link to your website in the signature of your post.
Article Marketing
Article Marketing will be your most important and effective linking strategy. Each article that is written by you and submitted to the article directories gives you another opportunity to build one way links to your website. Focus most of your time on this strategy. Set a minimum goal of writing at least one article a week. You will find this to be the quickest and fastest way to increase your link popularity.
Blogging
Blogging also creates another opportunity to build one way links. Each post that you make to your blog will include your one-way link back to your website. Those links will be associated with the high quality content of your posts.
Reciprocal Linking
Reciprocal linking involves the mutual exchange of links between two websites. Two websites owners agree to exchange links, usually through a link exchange directory. You will need to contact the website owners directly to ask for a link exchange. The main goal is to appeal more to search engines.
Online Directories
There are thousands of free online directories that will allow you to submit your URL. Just search for link directories in Google or any other search engine to find them. It will take a considerable amount time to submit your website to all the directories but you can potentially end up with hundreds of one way links to your website. That would be well worth the effort.
There are also paid directories. The Yahoo directory has the most impact, but it is rather expensive. Unless you have an unlimited start up budget, wait before submitting to this directory. Chances are there are already higher ranking websites listed so it probably won't be worth it for you at this point.
Link popularity is an important part of search engine optimization so devote some time to your linking campaign. Remember to always work smarter not harder. The bottom line is that you must perform these actions consistently. Your traffic will not increase overnight but over time your search engine ranking and traffic will increase and you will see your income increase.
The two types of links are one way links and reciprocal links. Search engines prefer one way links because these occur more naturally than a reciprocal link. This is because one way links commonly occur in conjunction with the high quality content on your website and in the articles you write.
While these techniques are quite easy and simple, do not underestimate their power to bring you free targeted traffic. So how do you this? Read on...
Forums
Hang out in forums relevant to your website theme. Join forums where you can give advice and also receive advice. Do not just submit a post for the sake of advertising and do not post any sales pitches or advertisements in your post. The forum moderator will likely delete it anyway and you will quickly become unpopular in the forum.
Always remember to offer value when posting in a forum. This will equate to 100% free advertising to your website. Each forum you belong to will give you an opportunity to enter a link to your website in the signature of your post.
Article Marketing
Article Marketing will be your most important and effective linking strategy. Each article that is written by you and submitted to the article directories gives you another opportunity to build one way links to your website. Focus most of your time on this strategy. Set a minimum goal of writing at least one article a week. You will find this to be the quickest and fastest way to increase your link popularity.
Blogging
Blogging also creates another opportunity to build one way links. Each post that you make to your blog will include your one-way link back to your website. Those links will be associated with the high quality content of your posts.
Reciprocal Linking
Reciprocal linking involves the mutual exchange of links between two websites. Two websites owners agree to exchange links, usually through a link exchange directory. You will need to contact the website owners directly to ask for a link exchange. The main goal is to appeal more to search engines.
Online Directories
There are thousands of free online directories that will allow you to submit your URL. Just search for link directories in Google or any other search engine to find them. It will take a considerable amount time to submit your website to all the directories but you can potentially end up with hundreds of one way links to your website. That would be well worth the effort.
There are also paid directories. The Yahoo directory has the most impact, but it is rather expensive. Unless you have an unlimited start up budget, wait before submitting to this directory. Chances are there are already higher ranking websites listed so it probably won't be worth it for you at this point.
Link popularity is an important part of search engine optimization so devote some time to your linking campaign. Remember to always work smarter not harder. The bottom line is that you must perform these actions consistently. Your traffic will not increase overnight but over time your search engine ranking and traffic will increase and you will see your income increase.
How To Protect Your Search Engine Rankings
Your website 's ranking on search engines is a vital element of your overall marketing campaign, and there are ways to improve your link popularity through legitimate methods.
Unfortunately, the Internet is populated by bands of dishonest webmasters seeking to improve their link popularity by faking out search engines.
The good news is that search engines have figured this out, and are now on guard for "spam" pages and sites that have increased their rankings by artificial methods. When a search engines tracks down such a site, that site is demoted in ranking or completely removed from the search engine 's index.
The bad news is that some high quality, completely above-board sites are being mistaken for these web page criminals. Your page may be in danger of being caught up in the "spam" net and tossed from a search engine 's index, even though you have done nothing to deserve such harsh treatment. But there are things you can do--and things you should be sure NOT to do--which will prevent this kind of misperception.
Link popularity is mostly based on the quality of sites you are linked to. Google pioneered this criteria for assigning website ranking, and virtually all search engines on the Internet now use it. There are legitimate ways to go about increasing your link popularity, but at the same time, you must be scrupulously careful about which sites you choose to link to. Google frequently imposes penalties on sites that have linked to other sites solely for the purpose of artificially boosting their link popularity. They have actually labeled these links "bad neighborhoods."
You can raise a toast to the fact that you cannot be penalized when a bad neighborhood links to your site; penalty happens only when you are the one sending out the link to a bad neighborhood. But you must check and double-check all the links that are active on your links page to make sure you haven't linked to a bad neighborhood.
The first thing to check out is whether or not the pages you have linked to have been penalized. The most direct way to do this is to download the Google toolbar. You will then see that most pages are given a "PageRank" which is represented by a sliding green scale on the Google toolbar.
Do not link to any site that shows no green at all on the scale. This is especially important when the scale is completely gray. It is more than likely that these pages have been penalized. If you are linked to these pages, you may catch their penalty, and like the flu, it may be difficult to recover from the infection.
There is no need to be afraid of linking to sites whose scale shows only a tiny sliver of green on their scale. These sites have not been penalized, and their links may grow in value and popularity. However, do make sure that you closely monitor these kind of links to ascertain that at some point they do not sustain a penalty once you have linked up to them from your links page.
Another evil trick that illicit webmasters use to artificially boost their link popularity is the use of hidden text. Search engines usually use the words on web pages as a factor in forming their rankings, which means that if the text on your page contains your keywords, you have more of an opportunity to increase your search engine ranking than a page that does not contain text inclusive of keywords.
Some webmasters have gotten around this formula by hiding their keywords in such a way so that they are invisible to any visitors to their site. For example, they have used the keywords but made them the same color as the background color of the page, such as a plethora of white keywords on a white background. You cannot see these words with the human eye--but the eye of search engine spider can spot them easily! A spider is the program search engines use to index web pages, and when it sees these invisible words, it goes back and boosts that page 's link ranking.
Webmasters may be brilliant and sometimes devious, but search engines have figured these tricks out. As soon as a search engine perceive the use of hidden text--splat! The page is penalized.
The downside of this is that sometimes the spider is a bit overzealous and will penalize a page by mistake. For example, if the background color of your page is gray, and you have placed gray text inside a black box, the spider will only take note of the gray text and assume you are employing hidden text. To avoid any risk of false penalty, simply direct your webmaster not to assign the same color to text as the background color of the page ever!
Another potential problem that can result in a penalty is called "keyword stuffing." It is important to have your keywords appear in the text on your page, but sometimes you can go a little overboard in your enthusiasm to please those spiders. A search engine uses what is called "Keyword Density" to determine if a site is trying to artificially boost their ranking. This is the ratio of keywords to the rest of the words on the page. Search engines assign a limit to the number of times you can use a keyword before it decides you have overdone it and penalizes your site.
This ratio is quite high, so it is difficult to surpass without sounding as if you are stuttering--unless your keyword is part of your company name. If this is the case, it is easy for keyword density to soar. So, if your keyword is "renters insurance," be sure you don't use this phrase in every sentence. Carefully edit the text on your site so that the copy flows naturally and the keyword is not repeated incessantly. A good rule of thumb is your keyword should never appear in more than half the sentences on the page.
The final potential risk factor is known as "cloaking." To those of you who are diligent Trekkies, this concept should be easy to understand. For the rest of you, cloaking is when the server directs a visitor to one page and a search engine spider to a different page. The page the spider sees is "cloaked" because it is invisible to regular traffic, and deliberately set-up to raise the site 's search engine ranking. A cloaked page tries to feed the spider everything it needs to rocket that page 's ranking to the top of the list.
It is natural that search engines have responded to this act of deception with extreme enmity, imposing steep penalties on these sites. The problem on your end is that sometimes pages are cloaked for legitimate reasons, such as prevention against the theft of code, often referred to as "pagejacking". This kind of shielding is unnecessary these days due to the use of off-page elements, such as link popularity, that cannot be stolen.
To be on the safe side, be sure that your webmaster is aware that absolutely no cloaking is acceptable. Make sure the webmaster understands that cloaking of any kind will put your website at great risk.
Just as you must be diligent in increasing your link popularity and your ranking, you must be equally diligent to avoid being unfairly penalized. So be sure to monitor your site closely and avoid any appearance of artificially boosting your rankings.
Unfortunately, the Internet is populated by bands of dishonest webmasters seeking to improve their link popularity by faking out search engines.
The good news is that search engines have figured this out, and are now on guard for "spam" pages and sites that have increased their rankings by artificial methods. When a search engines tracks down such a site, that site is demoted in ranking or completely removed from the search engine 's index.
The bad news is that some high quality, completely above-board sites are being mistaken for these web page criminals. Your page may be in danger of being caught up in the "spam" net and tossed from a search engine 's index, even though you have done nothing to deserve such harsh treatment. But there are things you can do--and things you should be sure NOT to do--which will prevent this kind of misperception.
Link popularity is mostly based on the quality of sites you are linked to. Google pioneered this criteria for assigning website ranking, and virtually all search engines on the Internet now use it. There are legitimate ways to go about increasing your link popularity, but at the same time, you must be scrupulously careful about which sites you choose to link to. Google frequently imposes penalties on sites that have linked to other sites solely for the purpose of artificially boosting their link popularity. They have actually labeled these links "bad neighborhoods."
You can raise a toast to the fact that you cannot be penalized when a bad neighborhood links to your site; penalty happens only when you are the one sending out the link to a bad neighborhood. But you must check and double-check all the links that are active on your links page to make sure you haven't linked to a bad neighborhood.
The first thing to check out is whether or not the pages you have linked to have been penalized. The most direct way to do this is to download the Google toolbar. You will then see that most pages are given a "PageRank" which is represented by a sliding green scale on the Google toolbar.
Do not link to any site that shows no green at all on the scale. This is especially important when the scale is completely gray. It is more than likely that these pages have been penalized. If you are linked to these pages, you may catch their penalty, and like the flu, it may be difficult to recover from the infection.
There is no need to be afraid of linking to sites whose scale shows only a tiny sliver of green on their scale. These sites have not been penalized, and their links may grow in value and popularity. However, do make sure that you closely monitor these kind of links to ascertain that at some point they do not sustain a penalty once you have linked up to them from your links page.
Another evil trick that illicit webmasters use to artificially boost their link popularity is the use of hidden text. Search engines usually use the words on web pages as a factor in forming their rankings, which means that if the text on your page contains your keywords, you have more of an opportunity to increase your search engine ranking than a page that does not contain text inclusive of keywords.
Some webmasters have gotten around this formula by hiding their keywords in such a way so that they are invisible to any visitors to their site. For example, they have used the keywords but made them the same color as the background color of the page, such as a plethora of white keywords on a white background. You cannot see these words with the human eye--but the eye of search engine spider can spot them easily! A spider is the program search engines use to index web pages, and when it sees these invisible words, it goes back and boosts that page 's link ranking.
Webmasters may be brilliant and sometimes devious, but search engines have figured these tricks out. As soon as a search engine perceive the use of hidden text--splat! The page is penalized.
The downside of this is that sometimes the spider is a bit overzealous and will penalize a page by mistake. For example, if the background color of your page is gray, and you have placed gray text inside a black box, the spider will only take note of the gray text and assume you are employing hidden text. To avoid any risk of false penalty, simply direct your webmaster not to assign the same color to text as the background color of the page ever!
Another potential problem that can result in a penalty is called "keyword stuffing." It is important to have your keywords appear in the text on your page, but sometimes you can go a little overboard in your enthusiasm to please those spiders. A search engine uses what is called "Keyword Density" to determine if a site is trying to artificially boost their ranking. This is the ratio of keywords to the rest of the words on the page. Search engines assign a limit to the number of times you can use a keyword before it decides you have overdone it and penalizes your site.
This ratio is quite high, so it is difficult to surpass without sounding as if you are stuttering--unless your keyword is part of your company name. If this is the case, it is easy for keyword density to soar. So, if your keyword is "renters insurance," be sure you don't use this phrase in every sentence. Carefully edit the text on your site so that the copy flows naturally and the keyword is not repeated incessantly. A good rule of thumb is your keyword should never appear in more than half the sentences on the page.
The final potential risk factor is known as "cloaking." To those of you who are diligent Trekkies, this concept should be easy to understand. For the rest of you, cloaking is when the server directs a visitor to one page and a search engine spider to a different page. The page the spider sees is "cloaked" because it is invisible to regular traffic, and deliberately set-up to raise the site 's search engine ranking. A cloaked page tries to feed the spider everything it needs to rocket that page 's ranking to the top of the list.
It is natural that search engines have responded to this act of deception with extreme enmity, imposing steep penalties on these sites. The problem on your end is that sometimes pages are cloaked for legitimate reasons, such as prevention against the theft of code, often referred to as "pagejacking". This kind of shielding is unnecessary these days due to the use of off-page elements, such as link popularity, that cannot be stolen.
To be on the safe side, be sure that your webmaster is aware that absolutely no cloaking is acceptable. Make sure the webmaster understands that cloaking of any kind will put your website at great risk.
Just as you must be diligent in increasing your link popularity and your ranking, you must be equally diligent to avoid being unfairly penalized. So be sure to monitor your site closely and avoid any appearance of artificially boosting your rankings.
How To Increase Your Search Engine Ranking
The methods employed to increase your search engine rankings may seem like rocket science to you, so you have probably avoided dealing with this issue. I am here to tell you--the time has come to face your website! A high search engine ranking for your website is so essential that if you have the slightest desire to actually succeed in your business, there is no way you can continue to avoid this issue.
At least 85% of people looking for goods and services on the Internet find websites through search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN. The idea of optimizing your pages for high search engine rankings is to attract targeted customers to your site who will be more than likely to make a purchase. The higher your page comes up in search engine results, the greater the traffic that is directed to your website. That 's what search engine optimization is about.
You can immerse yourself in all the technical information available online to figure out how to optimize your web pages to achieve higher rankings. Or you can look at a few simple items on your pages, make some small adjustments, and most likely see improved rankings quite rapidly. The first item you should examine is the title bar on your home page.
The title bar is the colored bar at the top of the page. Look at the words that appear there when you access your home page. To increase search engine rankings, the words on your homepage 's title bar should include the most important keywords or phrases, one of which would include your company name.
Then click on all your links and examine the title bars on the pages you access. Each title bar on every single page of your site should contain the most important keywords and phrases taken from the page itself. However, avoid very long strings of keywords, keeping them to six words or less. Avoid repeating keywords more than once in the title bars, and make sure that identical words are not next to each other.
The next item to put under your microscope is your website content. Search engines generally list sites that contain quality content rather than scintillating graphics. The text on your site must contain the most important keywords--the words that potential customers will be typing into search engines to find your site.
Aim to have around 250 words on each page, but if this is not desirable due to your design, aim for at least 100 carefully chosen words. If you want to achieve a high ranking on search engines, this text is essential. However, the search engines must be able to read the text, meaning that the text must be in HTML and not graphic format.
To find out if your text is in HTML format, take your cursor and try to highlight a word or two. If you are able to do this, the text is HTML. If the text will not highlight, it is probably in graphic form. In this case, ask your webmaster to change the text into HTML format in order to increase your search engine rankings.
Next we come to what is called metatags. I know this sounds like something out of science fiction, but it is really just simple code. Many people believe that metatags are the key to high search engine rankings, but in reality, they only have a limited effect. Still, it 's worth adding them in the event that a search engine will use metatags in their ranking formula.
To find out if your page is set up with metatags, you must access the code. To do this, click the "view" button on the browser menu bar, and select "source". This will pull up a window revealing the underlying code that created the page. If there are metatags, they usually appear near the top of the window. For example, a metatag would read: meta name="keywords" content=. If you do not find code that reads like this, ask your webmaster to put them in. This may not do much for your search engine rankings, but any little boost helps.
Lastly, we come to the issue of link popularity. This is a factor that is extremely important in terms of search engine rankings. Almost all search engines use link popularity to rank your website. Link popularity is based on the quality of the sites you have linked to from your links page.
If you type in "free link popularity check" in a popular search engine, the search engine will then show you what sites are linked to your site. In the case that there aren't many sites linked up to yours, or that the sites that are linked up have low search engine rankings, consider launching a link popularity campaign. Essentially, this entails contacting quality sites and requesting that they exchange links with your site. Of course, this requires checking out the rankings of the websites you want to link up with. Linking to popular, quality sites not only boosts your search engine ranking, but it also directs more quality traffic to your website.
Search engine rankings are extremely important for a successful Internet Marketing campaign. Before you go out and hire a search engine optimization company, try taking some of the simple steps listed above, and see if you can't boost your rankings yourself. Don't ever ignore this all-important factor in Internet Marketing. Remember, the higher your search engine ranking, the more quality customers will be directed your way.
At least 85% of people looking for goods and services on the Internet find websites through search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN. The idea of optimizing your pages for high search engine rankings is to attract targeted customers to your site who will be more than likely to make a purchase. The higher your page comes up in search engine results, the greater the traffic that is directed to your website. That 's what search engine optimization is about.
You can immerse yourself in all the technical information available online to figure out how to optimize your web pages to achieve higher rankings. Or you can look at a few simple items on your pages, make some small adjustments, and most likely see improved rankings quite rapidly. The first item you should examine is the title bar on your home page.
The title bar is the colored bar at the top of the page. Look at the words that appear there when you access your home page. To increase search engine rankings, the words on your homepage 's title bar should include the most important keywords or phrases, one of which would include your company name.
Then click on all your links and examine the title bars on the pages you access. Each title bar on every single page of your site should contain the most important keywords and phrases taken from the page itself. However, avoid very long strings of keywords, keeping them to six words or less. Avoid repeating keywords more than once in the title bars, and make sure that identical words are not next to each other.
The next item to put under your microscope is your website content. Search engines generally list sites that contain quality content rather than scintillating graphics. The text on your site must contain the most important keywords--the words that potential customers will be typing into search engines to find your site.
Aim to have around 250 words on each page, but if this is not desirable due to your design, aim for at least 100 carefully chosen words. If you want to achieve a high ranking on search engines, this text is essential. However, the search engines must be able to read the text, meaning that the text must be in HTML and not graphic format.
To find out if your text is in HTML format, take your cursor and try to highlight a word or two. If you are able to do this, the text is HTML. If the text will not highlight, it is probably in graphic form. In this case, ask your webmaster to change the text into HTML format in order to increase your search engine rankings.
Next we come to what is called metatags. I know this sounds like something out of science fiction, but it is really just simple code. Many people believe that metatags are the key to high search engine rankings, but in reality, they only have a limited effect. Still, it 's worth adding them in the event that a search engine will use metatags in their ranking formula.
To find out if your page is set up with metatags, you must access the code. To do this, click the "view" button on the browser menu bar, and select "source". This will pull up a window revealing the underlying code that created the page. If there are metatags, they usually appear near the top of the window. For example, a metatag would read: meta name="keywords" content=. If you do not find code that reads like this, ask your webmaster to put them in. This may not do much for your search engine rankings, but any little boost helps.
Lastly, we come to the issue of link popularity. This is a factor that is extremely important in terms of search engine rankings. Almost all search engines use link popularity to rank your website. Link popularity is based on the quality of the sites you have linked to from your links page.
If you type in "free link popularity check" in a popular search engine, the search engine will then show you what sites are linked to your site. In the case that there aren't many sites linked up to yours, or that the sites that are linked up have low search engine rankings, consider launching a link popularity campaign. Essentially, this entails contacting quality sites and requesting that they exchange links with your site. Of course, this requires checking out the rankings of the websites you want to link up with. Linking to popular, quality sites not only boosts your search engine ranking, but it also directs more quality traffic to your website.
Search engine rankings are extremely important for a successful Internet Marketing campaign. Before you go out and hire a search engine optimization company, try taking some of the simple steps listed above, and see if you can't boost your rankings yourself. Don't ever ignore this all-important factor in Internet Marketing. Remember, the higher your search engine ranking, the more quality customers will be directed your way.
Building Links The Right Way
Link building has benefits for webmasters. There are beliefs that this improves your search engine ranking as well as generally gets the word on your site out to a greater audience. As with most options for webmasters, this area offers both potential benefits as well as penalties.
The easy ways are simple. Enlist the power of family, friends and associates who all have web pages or web sites. Get as many as possible to link to your web site. Of course, this is only the start of the links you'll want.
There once was a popular practice online called, "link farming." This was in high demand because it was believed that links had a far greater impact on a web site 's popularity. In truth, links do help your web site, but this is only to a point. You can't have a poorly coded web site and expect to jump to the top 100 just by linking.
People who operated link farms didn't focus enough on content and, as a result, web engines began punishing those who maintained pages too similar to link farms. Why was this an unwanted practice?
One of the main reasons this was undesirable was because the pages simply had no real content. Web masters who practiced link farming literally created page after page of links. There was no content, no navigation, nothing of any substance whatsoever. Web surfers were finding themselves trapped on pages that didn't offer anything aside from links.
Search engines grew wise and began avoiding such link-filled pages. Soon after that, those once-popular web sites started declining in popularity and visitation.
There are a far better methods of utilizing the power of links and webmasters can rest assured there will be no rank deductions for practicing them. Remember, the benefits of link exchanges should be two-fold. Not only do you want your rankings improved, you want more traffic.
Link exchanges are a great way to both give and create links to your site. In turn, this will give a good flow of traffic. These are best done on pages where surfers are told to expect links. You can give your page such titles as, "friends," "affiliates," or even, "associates." In order for your page to avoid the "link farm" category, you must consider your visitor.
For every link you offer, give them some information on what the site is about. Link farmers avoided this and didn't give their visitors any information on the site. You can include the site 's title, its mission, or just a brief statement on why it is appropriate on your web site.
The best link exchanges will be with sites offering similar information. If you maintain a web site on the fun of homemade crafts, you may not see a great benefit from linking with an online casino company. However, you can link with suppliers, teachers, or hobbyists and see a great influx of traffic.
One practice that you don't want to undertake is the fruitless link. Many webmasters will link up with anyone and everyone, regardless, and expect this aggressive linking to have a positive result. It does little more than annoy many other webmasters and imply your site is a "seedy," one.
Aggressive linking has no merit and there is no reason for it. Certainly, you can't often get direct permission from a site 's administration and this doesn't cover legitimate recognition. If you cite a work or post on a message board that another member may benefit from a web site you visit, there 's nothing wrong with that. That 's a genuine purpose. Just linking for the sake of linking doesn't give you any results.
Many webmasters who link this way spend far too much time attempting to drum up visitors who may or may not be curious when they should also be focusing on code, purpose, organization, and drawing legitimate, steady traffic. Link exchanging is the greatest benefit when it 's a cooperative effort. Otherwise it would simply be called, "linking."
Another way of building links is through the paying services. These companies do require a financial investment, but many are highly worthwhile. Be wary in this arena, though, it may get you into trouble with the search engines if you are simply buying links from another site. You can always trade content with associates in your industry. This helps when a "blurb" is left. You may find that just a link in the copyright information of your article or press release can drive a great deal of traffic to you.
These tips are only the start in a topic that has held the attention, and fascination, of webmasters for years. Linking can be beneficial and draw a great deal of traffic to your site; however a few rules must be observed to obtain optimum link efficiency.
The easy ways are simple. Enlist the power of family, friends and associates who all have web pages or web sites. Get as many as possible to link to your web site. Of course, this is only the start of the links you'll want.
There once was a popular practice online called, "link farming." This was in high demand because it was believed that links had a far greater impact on a web site 's popularity. In truth, links do help your web site, but this is only to a point. You can't have a poorly coded web site and expect to jump to the top 100 just by linking.
People who operated link farms didn't focus enough on content and, as a result, web engines began punishing those who maintained pages too similar to link farms. Why was this an unwanted practice?
One of the main reasons this was undesirable was because the pages simply had no real content. Web masters who practiced link farming literally created page after page of links. There was no content, no navigation, nothing of any substance whatsoever. Web surfers were finding themselves trapped on pages that didn't offer anything aside from links.
Search engines grew wise and began avoiding such link-filled pages. Soon after that, those once-popular web sites started declining in popularity and visitation.
There are a far better methods of utilizing the power of links and webmasters can rest assured there will be no rank deductions for practicing them. Remember, the benefits of link exchanges should be two-fold. Not only do you want your rankings improved, you want more traffic.
Link exchanges are a great way to both give and create links to your site. In turn, this will give a good flow of traffic. These are best done on pages where surfers are told to expect links. You can give your page such titles as, "friends," "affiliates," or even, "associates." In order for your page to avoid the "link farm" category, you must consider your visitor.
For every link you offer, give them some information on what the site is about. Link farmers avoided this and didn't give their visitors any information on the site. You can include the site 's title, its mission, or just a brief statement on why it is appropriate on your web site.
The best link exchanges will be with sites offering similar information. If you maintain a web site on the fun of homemade crafts, you may not see a great benefit from linking with an online casino company. However, you can link with suppliers, teachers, or hobbyists and see a great influx of traffic.
One practice that you don't want to undertake is the fruitless link. Many webmasters will link up with anyone and everyone, regardless, and expect this aggressive linking to have a positive result. It does little more than annoy many other webmasters and imply your site is a "seedy," one.
Aggressive linking has no merit and there is no reason for it. Certainly, you can't often get direct permission from a site 's administration and this doesn't cover legitimate recognition. If you cite a work or post on a message board that another member may benefit from a web site you visit, there 's nothing wrong with that. That 's a genuine purpose. Just linking for the sake of linking doesn't give you any results.
Many webmasters who link this way spend far too much time attempting to drum up visitors who may or may not be curious when they should also be focusing on code, purpose, organization, and drawing legitimate, steady traffic. Link exchanging is the greatest benefit when it 's a cooperative effort. Otherwise it would simply be called, "linking."
Another way of building links is through the paying services. These companies do require a financial investment, but many are highly worthwhile. Be wary in this arena, though, it may get you into trouble with the search engines if you are simply buying links from another site. You can always trade content with associates in your industry. This helps when a "blurb" is left. You may find that just a link in the copyright information of your article or press release can drive a great deal of traffic to you.
These tips are only the start in a topic that has held the attention, and fascination, of webmasters for years. Linking can be beneficial and draw a great deal of traffic to your site; however a few rules must be observed to obtain optimum link efficiency.
How To Find The Missing Links
Two of your most crucial concerns will be to maximize the number of visitors to your web site and boost your position on a search engine, and a prime method of assisting in these areas is to create links from other sites directly to yours. I want to show you four manageable methods of creating these links and also demonstrate how to investigate your own site 's popularity.
Essentially, there are two kinds of link that can be generated. The first of these is the inbound link, or the backlink as it is also known, which is basically where a different site provides a link guiding visitors to you. The good thing about backlinks is that it makes no difference whether or not the other site has similar content to your own; the link can still exist.
The other kind of link, and the one that it is most useful for you to attempt to develop, is the reciprocal link, which implies that you and the other site, literally, exchange links, guiding visitors to each other 's sites. Reciprocal links need to be from sites which have similarities with your own as you might well find that search engines object if they do not.
The following suggestions are four ways in which you can find suitable websites to enable you to build up these invaluable reciprocal links.
1 Using Search Engines
First of all, consider the keywords or terms which you believe relate to your own website and then run a search for them on any one of the predominant search engines. This should provide you with a number of sites that you can then review in order to find those with a similar ethos to your own. Then, contact the webmaster of each of these sites, with a view to establishing a reciprocal link. Make sure that you carry out this quest thoughtfully; think about how you would like to be approached and go about it in the same way. Personally address your proposition and aim it specifically at whom you are writing - thus avoiding the 'one size fits all' blanket approach. The time spent personalizing the letter will be time well spent. Also, make sure that you illustrate how you would link to their site and give them the information you would want them to post in reciprocation.
2 Using the Links of your Competitors
If you don't already know who your on-line competitors are, then you really need to find out. Carry out a keyword search to identify your competition and then discover with whom they have recipocal links. It 's not unethical for you to then make your own contact with those links, to offer them a similar reciprocal arrangement with your own site. You will find that they will invariably agree, as you are going to have related content with both their own site and the one they already have links with.
3 Building Good Relationships
A more subtle and time-consuming manner of developing links is to develop a good relationship with a particular site over a period of time. For example, if you know of a site that has similarities of content with your own, then it is a good idea to subscribe to their newsletter, or contribute to their blog or forum, or submit e-articles or testimonials relating to their products or services. In this way, you will be able to form a relationship with the site, and particularly its webmaster, and consequently develop a strong reciprocal link with them.
4 Using Third Party Software and Services
Although I am not going to recommend any specific software - after all, different things are suitable for different needs - suffice it to say that there is a large amount of suitable material out there for you to employ to help identify potential partners.
I can, however, mention that you can download, free of charge, an enhanced toolbar from Alexa, which can, amongst other things, estimate how much traffic a specific site generates. You can find this at alextoolbar-dot-com/site/download
On a related theme, if you go to AddMe-dot-com/popularity-dot-htm you can discover those sites that already link to you.
Obviously, the more effective, high-quality reciprocal links that you have, the better, as these can only increase the number of hits you are going to receive. It is abundantly clear, therefore, that your linking strategies must form a vital part of your long-term planning.
Essentially, there are two kinds of link that can be generated. The first of these is the inbound link, or the backlink as it is also known, which is basically where a different site provides a link guiding visitors to you. The good thing about backlinks is that it makes no difference whether or not the other site has similar content to your own; the link can still exist.
The other kind of link, and the one that it is most useful for you to attempt to develop, is the reciprocal link, which implies that you and the other site, literally, exchange links, guiding visitors to each other 's sites. Reciprocal links need to be from sites which have similarities with your own as you might well find that search engines object if they do not.
The following suggestions are four ways in which you can find suitable websites to enable you to build up these invaluable reciprocal links.
1 Using Search Engines
First of all, consider the keywords or terms which you believe relate to your own website and then run a search for them on any one of the predominant search engines. This should provide you with a number of sites that you can then review in order to find those with a similar ethos to your own. Then, contact the webmaster of each of these sites, with a view to establishing a reciprocal link. Make sure that you carry out this quest thoughtfully; think about how you would like to be approached and go about it in the same way. Personally address your proposition and aim it specifically at whom you are writing - thus avoiding the 'one size fits all' blanket approach. The time spent personalizing the letter will be time well spent. Also, make sure that you illustrate how you would link to their site and give them the information you would want them to post in reciprocation.
2 Using the Links of your Competitors
If you don't already know who your on-line competitors are, then you really need to find out. Carry out a keyword search to identify your competition and then discover with whom they have recipocal links. It 's not unethical for you to then make your own contact with those links, to offer them a similar reciprocal arrangement with your own site. You will find that they will invariably agree, as you are going to have related content with both their own site and the one they already have links with.
3 Building Good Relationships
A more subtle and time-consuming manner of developing links is to develop a good relationship with a particular site over a period of time. For example, if you know of a site that has similarities of content with your own, then it is a good idea to subscribe to their newsletter, or contribute to their blog or forum, or submit e-articles or testimonials relating to their products or services. In this way, you will be able to form a relationship with the site, and particularly its webmaster, and consequently develop a strong reciprocal link with them.
4 Using Third Party Software and Services
Although I am not going to recommend any specific software - after all, different things are suitable for different needs - suffice it to say that there is a large amount of suitable material out there for you to employ to help identify potential partners.
I can, however, mention that you can download, free of charge, an enhanced toolbar from Alexa, which can, amongst other things, estimate how much traffic a specific site generates. You can find this at alextoolbar-dot-com/site/download
On a related theme, if you go to AddMe-dot-com/popularity-dot-htm you can discover those sites that already link to you.
Obviously, the more effective, high-quality reciprocal links that you have, the better, as these can only increase the number of hits you are going to receive. It is abundantly clear, therefore, that your linking strategies must form a vital part of your long-term planning.
Link Popularity
Once you have your website up and running, you may be shocked if, after a few months, you aren't getting any visitors and you're still in the dungeons of the major search engines. If you have good content, lots of SEO and a great product or service, what 's keeping you from being seen? It 's most likely your lack of links. The importance of links to your site 's placement in the most popular search engines can't be underestimated. Links tell the search engines how popular your site is with others who are on the web.
You could, of course, simply submit your site to a paid links site that promises you "thousands of links" for your site and hope that whatever they throw at the wall sticks, but that may not be your best bet. After all, search engines are increasingly savvy to how links work, and if your site has hundreds of links that aren't really relevant to your product or service, your link popularity will probably remain quite low in the rankings. On the other hand, what help is there in having highly relevant links in limited numbers? It is this balancing act between link popularity and link relevance, or pop that is so hard to maintain. Finding the right balance is essential.
Link Popularity: The Case for and Against Numbers. Every site should try to cultivate multiple links to their site. One-way links from other sites to yours indicate that lots of people are interested in what you have to offer, and search engines do recognize this link popularity and reward it in the rankings. Reciprocal links are also a good way to increase your presence in the search rankings. With reciprocal links, you can show up in searches for your own product or service and searches for the products and services of those sites you've linked to.
The down side to this type of linking is that you can also be penalized in the ranks if you have hundreds of links, one-way or reciprocal, to sites that have nothing to do with your own site 's purpose. It 's why submission to paid linking services can be a bad idea. If you end up linked to sites that are too diverse or questionable in their content, you'll drop quickly in the ranks. A site selling baby clothes linked to hundreds of baby product and care sites will do well. A baby clothes site linked to thousands of sites peddling porn, vitamins, diuretics and auto loans won't.
How to "Pop": Understanding the Importance of Quality. When establishing links, be industry specific. A handful of links from other sites that are focused in some way on your industry, whether it 's cleaning products, income tax preparation or natural food supplements will help pop you closer to the top in the search engines. If you make natural herbal teas, look for links to natural health and living, teas and natural cures, all inter-related topics that are relevant to what you offer.
Industry directories are also a great place to submit links that are high quality. Why? Because the larger directories are set up with complex search capabilities. Their category descriptions, Meta tags and keywords all result in highly relevant, top quality links. Because they were designed expressly to make finding particular industry information easier, a lot of time and effort has gone into the links and how they are interconnected.
Links are "graded" by the search engines based on complex algorithms that detect not only how many links there are to your site, but also how relevant those links are (keep the whole diuretics and porn links problem in mind) to your own product or service. A higher relevancy score in the search engines gives you more weight based on the authority of the sites you're linked to. Will ten incoming links from little-known sites equal one link from a site featuring recognized experts in your field? One hundred? One thousand? Or will your small cache of links from big, important sites count you out because everyone else seems to have thousands of links, relevant or not, compared to your hundreds?
The fact is, the algorithms that determine which sites are the best are evolving daily. A balance of link popularity and link "pop" is essential to being recognized by search engines and moving up through the rankings. Once you've achieved that status, however, you have to maintain it. That means constantly "tweaking" the links to and from your site. Fine-tuning both number and relevance in order to maintain your spot. Finding the proper balance and adjusting your Internet presence to optimize both content and links is a never-ending process that, when done properly, can place you on the front page of the best search engines.
You could, of course, simply submit your site to a paid links site that promises you "thousands of links" for your site and hope that whatever they throw at the wall sticks, but that may not be your best bet. After all, search engines are increasingly savvy to how links work, and if your site has hundreds of links that aren't really relevant to your product or service, your link popularity will probably remain quite low in the rankings. On the other hand, what help is there in having highly relevant links in limited numbers? It is this balancing act between link popularity and link relevance, or pop that is so hard to maintain. Finding the right balance is essential.
Link Popularity: The Case for and Against Numbers. Every site should try to cultivate multiple links to their site. One-way links from other sites to yours indicate that lots of people are interested in what you have to offer, and search engines do recognize this link popularity and reward it in the rankings. Reciprocal links are also a good way to increase your presence in the search rankings. With reciprocal links, you can show up in searches for your own product or service and searches for the products and services of those sites you've linked to.
The down side to this type of linking is that you can also be penalized in the ranks if you have hundreds of links, one-way or reciprocal, to sites that have nothing to do with your own site 's purpose. It 's why submission to paid linking services can be a bad idea. If you end up linked to sites that are too diverse or questionable in their content, you'll drop quickly in the ranks. A site selling baby clothes linked to hundreds of baby product and care sites will do well. A baby clothes site linked to thousands of sites peddling porn, vitamins, diuretics and auto loans won't.
How to "Pop": Understanding the Importance of Quality. When establishing links, be industry specific. A handful of links from other sites that are focused in some way on your industry, whether it 's cleaning products, income tax preparation or natural food supplements will help pop you closer to the top in the search engines. If you make natural herbal teas, look for links to natural health and living, teas and natural cures, all inter-related topics that are relevant to what you offer.
Industry directories are also a great place to submit links that are high quality. Why? Because the larger directories are set up with complex search capabilities. Their category descriptions, Meta tags and keywords all result in highly relevant, top quality links. Because they were designed expressly to make finding particular industry information easier, a lot of time and effort has gone into the links and how they are interconnected.
Links are "graded" by the search engines based on complex algorithms that detect not only how many links there are to your site, but also how relevant those links are (keep the whole diuretics and porn links problem in mind) to your own product or service. A higher relevancy score in the search engines gives you more weight based on the authority of the sites you're linked to. Will ten incoming links from little-known sites equal one link from a site featuring recognized experts in your field? One hundred? One thousand? Or will your small cache of links from big, important sites count you out because everyone else seems to have thousands of links, relevant or not, compared to your hundreds?
The fact is, the algorithms that determine which sites are the best are evolving daily. A balance of link popularity and link "pop" is essential to being recognized by search engines and moving up through the rankings. Once you've achieved that status, however, you have to maintain it. That means constantly "tweaking" the links to and from your site. Fine-tuning both number and relevance in order to maintain your spot. Finding the proper balance and adjusting your Internet presence to optimize both content and links is a never-ending process that, when done properly, can place you on the front page of the best search engines.
PageRank-free Linkbuilding
It’s the bane of every webmaster and even the most accomplished SEO practitioners. Google serves up little green and white (and gray!) data on the value of every page on the Internet . And webmasters seeking link-partners follow blindly as if drawn to their latest fix of soma.
However, we all know that the PageRank indicator on the Google Toolbar, where webmasters get this “data”, is first and foremost a gimmick by Google – a very clever gimmick – and more importantly, a fairy tale...even on those occasions when it is not broken.
Here is my Top-7 list of reasons to ignore PageRank when exchanging links or submitting one’s website to directories.
PageRank isn’t everything. While PageRank (real PageRank, not what the Toolbar shows) is a part of Google’s algorithm, it is only a small part. The theme of the page, how well it is optimized for your search term (as opposed to being well optimized for “Exchange Links”), the anchor text of your link and so many other related factors count more than the actual PageRank.
Toolbar PageRank is fictional. It doesn’t take very long roaming the Net for links before you realize that the Toolbar PageRank readings are not real. Just look at any site where a PR3 or PR4 page links to a few dozen internal pages, each of which appear to have PR0 or a gray bar. Whereas on other websites, the home page might register as PR3 or PR4 and so does every internal page, even two or three clicks in.
Gray is no longer bad. Once upon a time, a long time ago, gray on the toolbar meant “run”. It meant the page or even the whole website has been banned from Google for doing unspeakable things that could also get you banned by associating with it. Gray no longer means the site is banned. Check the cache feature of the Toolbar and see how many gray pages remain in Google’s index and are perfectly fine and respected. Your edge over your competition is that many of them will ignore good pages because of false Google Toolbar readings.
The Toolbar is broken. Increasingly, PageRank flips wildly, where a page registers a certain PageRank, then a week later it’s gone, even though other page on the website might not be affected. Or the whole site might lose PageRank, even those its link profile and its rankings in the search engines have not changed.
PageRank is only for Google. Yeah, I know...Google delivers 50% or more of search engine traffic, but that is no reason to ignore a page that might help you move up in Yahoo or Ask or MSN...or even send you direct sales (Which is the most gratifying of all).
You can simulate PageRank. The simple fact is that it takes very little effort to determine the value Google or any other search engine. If the website ranks well or even somewhat well for some of its important search terms, that is a good start. If the page your link would be placed on is well linked from the home page or even from a page that is linked to from the site template, then you know that whatever PageRank the website has as a whole is being passed along (and that human visitors might even find the page and click on your link, too.). If on the other hand the page your link would go on is one of several dozen that links from a page that is linked to from only the home page, only a small portion of the link value is even going to reach that page. You don’t need an exact number to determine the value of a page; you just need to estimate if the page is worth the effort. After all, topical and keyword relevancy, as well as the absence of red-letter words like “link exchange” or “reciprocal link” are probably more important and you can’t place an exact number on those factors.
Ignore the search engines. I know, this might seem like heresy, but try using your imagination for a minute. Supposing the search engines did not exist. Supposing the only way people would find your website was by clicking on links on other websites. Where would you want your link placed? In some directory with hundreds of other somewhat related websites? Or in the middle of a content page? Guess what? The search engines know what is worthwhile and what’s not. They are not stupid and they are not so easily tricked. If you build links for direct traffic, and make sure they are spiderable by the search engines, the smart guys at Google and yahoo and MSN can figure out that this link took more thought from the webmaster to place and is therefore a better indication of quality and a better vote for your website.
So break free of the PageRank addiction. Make sure you get links on pages cached by the search engines. Make sure the links are spiderable. And go for the highest quality links you can get by using your common sense and figuring it out – without the help of that broken fairytale sitting atop your browser window.
However, we all know that the PageRank indicator on the Google Toolbar, where webmasters get this “data”, is first and foremost a gimmick by Google – a very clever gimmick – and more importantly, a fairy tale...even on those occasions when it is not broken.
Here is my Top-7 list of reasons to ignore PageRank when exchanging links or submitting one’s website to directories.
PageRank isn’t everything. While PageRank (real PageRank, not what the Toolbar shows) is a part of Google’s algorithm, it is only a small part. The theme of the page, how well it is optimized for your search term (as opposed to being well optimized for “Exchange Links”), the anchor text of your link and so many other related factors count more than the actual PageRank.
Toolbar PageRank is fictional. It doesn’t take very long roaming the Net for links before you realize that the Toolbar PageRank readings are not real. Just look at any site where a PR3 or PR4 page links to a few dozen internal pages, each of which appear to have PR0 or a gray bar. Whereas on other websites, the home page might register as PR3 or PR4 and so does every internal page, even two or three clicks in.
Gray is no longer bad. Once upon a time, a long time ago, gray on the toolbar meant “run”. It meant the page or even the whole website has been banned from Google for doing unspeakable things that could also get you banned by associating with it. Gray no longer means the site is banned. Check the cache feature of the Toolbar and see how many gray pages remain in Google’s index and are perfectly fine and respected. Your edge over your competition is that many of them will ignore good pages because of false Google Toolbar readings.
The Toolbar is broken. Increasingly, PageRank flips wildly, where a page registers a certain PageRank, then a week later it’s gone, even though other page on the website might not be affected. Or the whole site might lose PageRank, even those its link profile and its rankings in the search engines have not changed.
PageRank is only for Google. Yeah, I know...Google delivers 50% or more of search engine traffic, but that is no reason to ignore a page that might help you move up in Yahoo or Ask or MSN...or even send you direct sales (Which is the most gratifying of all).
You can simulate PageRank. The simple fact is that it takes very little effort to determine the value Google or any other search engine. If the website ranks well or even somewhat well for some of its important search terms, that is a good start. If the page your link would be placed on is well linked from the home page or even from a page that is linked to from the site template, then you know that whatever PageRank the website has as a whole is being passed along (and that human visitors might even find the page and click on your link, too.). If on the other hand the page your link would go on is one of several dozen that links from a page that is linked to from only the home page, only a small portion of the link value is even going to reach that page. You don’t need an exact number to determine the value of a page; you just need to estimate if the page is worth the effort. After all, topical and keyword relevancy, as well as the absence of red-letter words like “link exchange” or “reciprocal link” are probably more important and you can’t place an exact number on those factors.
Ignore the search engines. I know, this might seem like heresy, but try using your imagination for a minute. Supposing the search engines did not exist. Supposing the only way people would find your website was by clicking on links on other websites. Where would you want your link placed? In some directory with hundreds of other somewhat related websites? Or in the middle of a content page? Guess what? The search engines know what is worthwhile and what’s not. They are not stupid and they are not so easily tricked. If you build links for direct traffic, and make sure they are spiderable by the search engines, the smart guys at Google and yahoo and MSN can figure out that this link took more thought from the webmaster to place and is therefore a better indication of quality and a better vote for your website.
So break free of the PageRank addiction. Make sure you get links on pages cached by the search engines. Make sure the links are spiderable. And go for the highest quality links you can get by using your common sense and figuring it out – without the help of that broken fairytale sitting atop your browser window.
How To Get Free Inbound Links To Your Website
If you want your website to be popular on the Internet then it simple cannot be isolated. You must find ways to make other websites link back to your website. Lets look at how you can create inbound links to your website. There are many reasons why inbound links matter. First of all, they build your page rank or popularity. Page rank is basically a scale in which your site is ranked which is based on the number of links coming into your website. The more links, the higher the page rank. Higher page rank means your website is that much more popular. Secondly it helps a lot in search engine rankings. The number of websites linking to you will speak of your worth to Internet users. If you see a lot of links coming in that means your website is considered to be worthy on the Internet. If you're truly doing well, you can even land at the top spot of search results, which spells massive traffic and higher conversion rate for your online business.
The question now is this: where and how do you get free inbound links? Here are some easy methods to consider:
1. Participate in forums. You can start looking for message boards and chat rooms that are related to your chosen niche. When you have a good list, you can start signing up. You will notice that these sites actually permit you to build your own profile as well as add your signature, which will appear in all of your posts. You can use these spaces to add the URL of your website or specific pages. As long as your chosen message boards are also performing well in Google, you can expect that you can benefit from their increased page rank. What 's more, because you have exposed your links to different webmasters too, you are increasing your chances of being linked by other websites. The goal is to find forums that are popular in the same market that 's relevant to your website, join each forum and then make some good, worthy posts at each of them. Do not spam the forums with junk. Make sure that you contribute ethically and be a good member. Each of your posts will include your signature with a link back to your website. Each of those links will count towards your in bound link and thus increase your page rank as well.
2. Create your own blog. There are more and more people who are getting interested in reading blogs. This is because bloggers are very generous with their information. Besides, they get to know some personal insights, which can help them too in their business or in their personal affairs. Blogs, at the SEO standpoint, get indexed easily by Google. That alone is already good news for you. Moreover, if you leave a link to your blog in other people 's blogs, you're actually providing yourself an inbound link. You can also obtain links going into your website and allowing other blogs to link to you and vice versa. A list of linked websites is known as the Blog Roll.
3. Submit articles to article directories. Content is certainly king in the World Wide Web. You can add links to the body of your article, which can also generate excellent inbound links into your website. And if this isn't enough, you can add some more in the resource box. Take a look at the end of this article and you'll see what I mean. I've included a link to my own website in my resource box which will hopefully give me a link back to my site.
Whatever technique you choose, you have to remember one thing: stick to policies. You may be getting your website an inbound link, but if you don't follow rules, it will completely destroy your reputation.
The question now is this: where and how do you get free inbound links? Here are some easy methods to consider:
1. Participate in forums. You can start looking for message boards and chat rooms that are related to your chosen niche. When you have a good list, you can start signing up. You will notice that these sites actually permit you to build your own profile as well as add your signature, which will appear in all of your posts. You can use these spaces to add the URL of your website or specific pages. As long as your chosen message boards are also performing well in Google, you can expect that you can benefit from their increased page rank. What 's more, because you have exposed your links to different webmasters too, you are increasing your chances of being linked by other websites. The goal is to find forums that are popular in the same market that 's relevant to your website, join each forum and then make some good, worthy posts at each of them. Do not spam the forums with junk. Make sure that you contribute ethically and be a good member. Each of your posts will include your signature with a link back to your website. Each of those links will count towards your in bound link and thus increase your page rank as well.
2. Create your own blog. There are more and more people who are getting interested in reading blogs. This is because bloggers are very generous with their information. Besides, they get to know some personal insights, which can help them too in their business or in their personal affairs. Blogs, at the SEO standpoint, get indexed easily by Google. That alone is already good news for you. Moreover, if you leave a link to your blog in other people 's blogs, you're actually providing yourself an inbound link. You can also obtain links going into your website and allowing other blogs to link to you and vice versa. A list of linked websites is known as the Blog Roll.
3. Submit articles to article directories. Content is certainly king in the World Wide Web. You can add links to the body of your article, which can also generate excellent inbound links into your website. And if this isn't enough, you can add some more in the resource box. Take a look at the end of this article and you'll see what I mean. I've included a link to my own website in my resource box which will hopefully give me a link back to my site.
Whatever technique you choose, you have to remember one thing: stick to policies. You may be getting your website an inbound link, but if you don't follow rules, it will completely destroy your reputation.
Buy Links or Buy Trouble?
The big debate raging on the Internet these days focuses on Google 's recent campaign to ensure that paid links aren't part of the determination of popularity of a website. Their take is that if you buy links, you're trying to skew the results of any search in order to increase your presence in the rankings. But wait, isn't that what any successful company wants to do? Increase their presence and popularity?
Taking a closer look at what Google 's official stance is, you'll find that Google doesn't condemn outright companies who sell or buy links. In fact, they state on their website that, "Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results." And here is where Google 's new campaign runs into trouble. How does one decide what links are for "advertising purposes" vs. "manipulation of search results?"
It is inherent that any article, review or informational posting a company has on their website will have words and phrases that will register in search results. The information wouldn't be relevant to the reader if it weren't also relevant in searches, and vice-versa. The same can be said for articles and reviews that are on other sites but link back to a particular company 's own website. The dilemma for Google is that there is really no way of knowing when and if a link was paid for.
The fact is that the Google algorithm can't distinguish between a paid link and an equity link. Consultants often provide links to companies they are doing or have done work for. Authors link to bookstores carrying their latest work, and software firms link to client companies. These aren't paid links, but they sure do increase the rankings for sites that, quite frankly, improve the bottom line for them personally.
The next blog you visit may have a few relevant articles on great ways to raise an all-natural garden. If the blog is associated with a site that sells all-natural fertilizers and pesticides, it 's only natural that these articles will provide needed and valued information. If these sites link to other sites that have books about natural gardening, how can Google determine whether these are paid links or natural?
The simple answer is, it isn't possible. These links could be because the writer of the articles actually uses and endorses the products mentioned in the links or the book publisher and the gardening supplies house have a reciprocal agreement. Other reasons could be because the book publisher paid for a link, the owner of the publishing house received a free load of fertilizer to try out (in hopes of being mentioned in a future book); he liked it; he thanked them with a link, or even the gardening supplies company is owned by a man whose sister is a sales associate for the book publisher.
But the results are the same. The links are relevant, regardless of whether they were paid for in cash, as a favor, in trade or in sweat equity. It 's this vary blurring of the lines that makes it so practical and helpful to buy links. The more relevant information you provide to consumers, the more valuable you become. If a link is relevant, helpful and trustworthy, it should and will increase the ranking of the site it 's on.
Google has asked that Internet users report sites that have paid links. It 's a laughable suggestion. How does anyone else on the Internet know whether you have paid for a link or not? They can't. And this is why, although some people may temporarily "go underground" with purchased links, the practice isn't going to stop. It 's a good thing, because these links increase competition and encourage growth and change, two very important aspects of a dynamic marketplace. Whether you buy a link or receive it unsolicited, it 's going to be useful and relevant. If it weren't, the link wouldn't show up in Google 's algorithm anyway.
Finally, Google suggests that those who buy links are "buying page rank." Page rank isn't for sale, particularly since it is owned by Google. The algorithm removes or penalizes non-relevant information in search results. If the information is relevant, it will improve rankings. To that end, it doesn't matter at all whether that link was paid for in cash or trade.
Taking a closer look at what Google 's official stance is, you'll find that Google doesn't condemn outright companies who sell or buy links. In fact, they state on their website that, "Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results." And here is where Google 's new campaign runs into trouble. How does one decide what links are for "advertising purposes" vs. "manipulation of search results?"
It is inherent that any article, review or informational posting a company has on their website will have words and phrases that will register in search results. The information wouldn't be relevant to the reader if it weren't also relevant in searches, and vice-versa. The same can be said for articles and reviews that are on other sites but link back to a particular company 's own website. The dilemma for Google is that there is really no way of knowing when and if a link was paid for.
The fact is that the Google algorithm can't distinguish between a paid link and an equity link. Consultants often provide links to companies they are doing or have done work for. Authors link to bookstores carrying their latest work, and software firms link to client companies. These aren't paid links, but they sure do increase the rankings for sites that, quite frankly, improve the bottom line for them personally.
The next blog you visit may have a few relevant articles on great ways to raise an all-natural garden. If the blog is associated with a site that sells all-natural fertilizers and pesticides, it 's only natural that these articles will provide needed and valued information. If these sites link to other sites that have books about natural gardening, how can Google determine whether these are paid links or natural?
The simple answer is, it isn't possible. These links could be because the writer of the articles actually uses and endorses the products mentioned in the links or the book publisher and the gardening supplies house have a reciprocal agreement. Other reasons could be because the book publisher paid for a link, the owner of the publishing house received a free load of fertilizer to try out (in hopes of being mentioned in a future book); he liked it; he thanked them with a link, or even the gardening supplies company is owned by a man whose sister is a sales associate for the book publisher.
But the results are the same. The links are relevant, regardless of whether they were paid for in cash, as a favor, in trade or in sweat equity. It 's this vary blurring of the lines that makes it so practical and helpful to buy links. The more relevant information you provide to consumers, the more valuable you become. If a link is relevant, helpful and trustworthy, it should and will increase the ranking of the site it 's on.
Google has asked that Internet users report sites that have paid links. It 's a laughable suggestion. How does anyone else on the Internet know whether you have paid for a link or not? They can't. And this is why, although some people may temporarily "go underground" with purchased links, the practice isn't going to stop. It 's a good thing, because these links increase competition and encourage growth and change, two very important aspects of a dynamic marketplace. Whether you buy a link or receive it unsolicited, it 's going to be useful and relevant. If it weren't, the link wouldn't show up in Google 's algorithm anyway.
Finally, Google suggests that those who buy links are "buying page rank." Page rank isn't for sale, particularly since it is owned by Google. The algorithm removes or penalizes non-relevant information in search results. If the information is relevant, it will improve rankings. To that end, it doesn't matter at all whether that link was paid for in cash or trade.
Two Easy Tricks To Immediate And Continuous Pipeline Of Free Traffic
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.
It is also important to note that when people go to the internet they are likely to look for content that are relevant at that particular moment in time. So the question that remains is this..
What is it that you need to do to find the key to an avalanche of unstoppable free flow of targeted traffic to your website?
To put this simply, it is none other than having links from other relevant websites linking to your site. This is also known within the internet marketing community as 'Link Popularity'.
So why is it important?
The search engines particularly Google place an important emphasis to sites that have links from other relevant and quality sites. Google will then use these information to determine your search results on their site.
Of course, Google will also use their own search algorithm to assist them in deciding the position of your site on the search engine results.However, your site is likely to appear when you have relevant links directing to your site, which means that your potential customers will be able to find you inside the 'immense jungle of information' the world has to offer today.
Remember, this is orchestrated automatically by 'Google Web Spider' that trails every records available online. But don't be discouraged; there are tried and true ways of achieving your site to free traffic super stardom.
The first step, and the fastest way to get your foot in the door, is to get a listing in a high PageRank websites. A good example is article submission portals where you can submit articles along with your web links. Sites include EzineArticles, ArticleCity and many more.
The second step 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.
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 enter to find your own site. Remember, your criteria are quality, highly 'Page Ranked' 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, web copy 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.
Contact the webmaster of the site. Since this is almost always done by email, you want to make sure it is immediately clear that your message is about the benefits that can be gained through link exchange such as ensuring that good information is provided to potential online customers and also to mutually experience an increase number of targeted traffic.
Go through these processes with as many appropriate sites as you can find, bearing in mind the criteria of quality and Page Rank value and watch your site grow with immense free targeted traffic every day all year round!
It is also important to note that when people go to the internet they are likely to look for content that are relevant at that particular moment in time. So the question that remains is this..
What is it that you need to do to find the key to an avalanche of unstoppable free flow of targeted traffic to your website?
To put this simply, it is none other than having links from other relevant websites linking to your site. This is also known within the internet marketing community as 'Link Popularity'.
So why is it important?
The search engines particularly Google place an important emphasis to sites that have links from other relevant and quality sites. Google will then use these information to determine your search results on their site.
Of course, Google will also use their own search algorithm to assist them in deciding the position of your site on the search engine results.However, your site is likely to appear when you have relevant links directing to your site, which means that your potential customers will be able to find you inside the 'immense jungle of information' the world has to offer today.
Remember, this is orchestrated automatically by 'Google Web Spider' that trails every records available online. But don't be discouraged; there are tried and true ways of achieving your site to free traffic super stardom.
The first step, and the fastest way to get your foot in the door, is to get a listing in a high PageRank websites. A good example is article submission portals where you can submit articles along with your web links. Sites include EzineArticles, ArticleCity and many more.
The second step 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.
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 enter to find your own site. Remember, your criteria are quality, highly 'Page Ranked' 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, web copy 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.
Contact the webmaster of the site. Since this is almost always done by email, you want to make sure it is immediately clear that your message is about the benefits that can be gained through link exchange such as ensuring that good information is provided to potential online customers and also to mutually experience an increase number of targeted traffic.
Go through these processes with as many appropriate sites as you can find, bearing in mind the criteria of quality and Page Rank value and watch your site grow with immense free targeted traffic every day all year round!
There 's Value in Link Building for Businesses
With the search engines becoming more discerning every day in their efforts to ferret out purchased links vs. reciprocal links and valuable links vs. random links, the value of links for online businesses is still being questioned. The simple fact remains the same - there is no other tool that offers more ways to get your site noticed on the Internet than good links. That being said, link building is obviously still an incredibly valuable tool that isn't going to fade into the background any time soon.
Links increase ranking. Link building affects where you fall in search engine rankings. Yes, it depends on how good those links are and whether they are reciprocal links, one-way links and dozens of other variations on the theme, but the net result is the same. If others are linking to you, the search engines will sit up and take notice.
Links increase business credibility. If no one else in your industry is linked to you, potential customers will wonder why; conversely, if they keep seeing links to your site on other industry sites they will notice and assume that you must be "somebody." They may follow the link now or later, or they may simply file the information away for future reference, but the name and the credibility will stick.
See increased traffic. Link building leads to traffic, pure and simple, particularly if you have built links from relevant websites. Not all of this traffic will turn into business, but remember that increased traffic will also move you up in the rankings, and better rankings will turn into more business. Are you beginning to see how there 's a circular but beneficial pattern to link building?
Of course, you do want to approach a link building campaign with a sound business plan. Some links will be a tremendous asset while others can actually damage your reputation and move you down in the search engine rankings. Be aware of what types of links you should be focusing on for the best value for you business.
Be selective. One of the most common mistakes made is to quickly buy up links in inexpensive, poorly designed directories that will list any and all websites. Search engines recognize these directories, and websites that are listed in these are often penalized. Look for directories that are difficult to get into and strive to meet their criteria; it will be worth it in the long run.
Be selective on your end as well. Take the directory for a test drive. Do all of the links go to active sites? Are the sites well maintained, current and informative? Or are there inactive sites and broken links? What about links to sites that are pornographic or in questionable taste? If the directory features links to websites you would be embarrassed to be associated with, don't pay to list with them.
Be specific, not general. Look for directories that are industry-specific. If you are in the banking industry, be sure to find directories that are specifically focused on banking and money markets. If you are an artist, there are directories for galleries, art studios and other artists that would be of interest.
Content rich sites are great. When linking to other websites, look for sites that have lots of content in the form of articles, how-to 's and even surveys. Whenever a link to your site can be embedded within content rather than simply pasted in a "Links" page, it will improve the status of the link. Search engines love links that are integral to content. If you want a link to a great site, offer to provide them some content they could use on their site and include your link in it. Sites are always looking for fresh content.
As you can see, link building can add plenty to the success of your business, so be sure to put some time into constructive linking strategies for your website every week.
Links increase ranking. Link building affects where you fall in search engine rankings. Yes, it depends on how good those links are and whether they are reciprocal links, one-way links and dozens of other variations on the theme, but the net result is the same. If others are linking to you, the search engines will sit up and take notice.
Links increase business credibility. If no one else in your industry is linked to you, potential customers will wonder why; conversely, if they keep seeing links to your site on other industry sites they will notice and assume that you must be "somebody." They may follow the link now or later, or they may simply file the information away for future reference, but the name and the credibility will stick.
See increased traffic. Link building leads to traffic, pure and simple, particularly if you have built links from relevant websites. Not all of this traffic will turn into business, but remember that increased traffic will also move you up in the rankings, and better rankings will turn into more business. Are you beginning to see how there 's a circular but beneficial pattern to link building?
Of course, you do want to approach a link building campaign with a sound business plan. Some links will be a tremendous asset while others can actually damage your reputation and move you down in the search engine rankings. Be aware of what types of links you should be focusing on for the best value for you business.
Be selective. One of the most common mistakes made is to quickly buy up links in inexpensive, poorly designed directories that will list any and all websites. Search engines recognize these directories, and websites that are listed in these are often penalized. Look for directories that are difficult to get into and strive to meet their criteria; it will be worth it in the long run.
Be selective on your end as well. Take the directory for a test drive. Do all of the links go to active sites? Are the sites well maintained, current and informative? Or are there inactive sites and broken links? What about links to sites that are pornographic or in questionable taste? If the directory features links to websites you would be embarrassed to be associated with, don't pay to list with them.
Be specific, not general. Look for directories that are industry-specific. If you are in the banking industry, be sure to find directories that are specifically focused on banking and money markets. If you are an artist, there are directories for galleries, art studios and other artists that would be of interest.
Content rich sites are great. When linking to other websites, look for sites that have lots of content in the form of articles, how-to 's and even surveys. Whenever a link to your site can be embedded within content rather than simply pasted in a "Links" page, it will improve the status of the link. Search engines love links that are integral to content. If you want a link to a great site, offer to provide them some content they could use on their site and include your link in it. Sites are always looking for fresh content.
As you can see, link building can add plenty to the success of your business, so be sure to put some time into constructive linking strategies for your website every week.
Exchange Your Web Site Popularity
Link exchanging has become a legitimate and respected practice amid many webmasters in the online community. Once concerns over being confused with a "link farm," made many site owners hesitate, however the idea never failed to transcend such worries and has become a popular option for building traffic.
If link exchanging is performed in a professional and reasonable way, it can boost the results of your hard work. It an improve search engine rank, offer great link popularity, and ultimate, increase your worthwhile web traffic.
To maximize your benefit and improve your traffic, there are several factors you need to be aware of. Link exchanging only works when you know precisely what you want to say. You must both know your "niche," or area of specialty, you must have a fully finished web site. It isn't very interesting to consider a link exchange with a site that is, "under construction," and is most likely new. New web sites simply don't have the traffic of established sites and it often takes time before any such volume of traffic will regularly visit.
Once your site is complete and ready for traffic, you can start looking through the similar web sites out there. It 's best to avoid seeing these sites as simple "competitors," if you want the system of link exchanging to work. These sites can bring you a great deal of traffic that is already interested in what your site offers.
When you are exchanging, do not behave in ways that will get on other webmaster 's bad sides. Don't demand that they link with you or expect an immediate response to your offer. Webmasters are often hit with tens or hundreds of visitors requesting link exchanges. Watch your tone in your communications and appreciate the effort of all parties involved. Never set deadlines or try to pressure the other webmaster into linking with you. If they are interested they will respond.
Naturally, if you want to exchange, always get permission from the other party 's web site beforehand. Do not expect someone to link with you just because you placed a link to them on your page. Another common behavior to avoid is the virtual, "bait-and-switch."
This is where you agree to a link exchange, wait until they have posted your link, and remove the return link to their site. This will often get your link permanently removed with no hope of future exchanges with that domain.
Also, actually visit the sites you want to exchange links with. Many webmasters are good at noting which offers are genuine and which are impersonal or automated.
Now that the basics of what you should not do are established, it 's time to discuss how you can benefit and prosper from link exchanging.
For link exchanging, create at least one page that 's specifically for your links. This should be visible on your home page. You may have as many pages as you like so long as you don't overdo your linking on each page. The limit for linking penalties in search engines is around twenty or twenty-five links per page. When you pass this amount, you run the risk that a search engine will mistake your page for a link farm.
For example, if you have a site devoted to electronics and exchange links with similar sites, you will showcase different areas for software, computer systems, and hardware on your partners' sites. This gives your visitor a greater knowledge of where the links point and what they can expect to find at the end of them.
It will also improve your visitor 's experience if you organize the exterior links. Some webmasters leave a small notification to let visitors know clicking on the link will take them away from their site.
Your "guest links," will have a title and a brief description. Your titles should be in simple title format with no all capitals or "toggle" formatting. A good title length will be around twenty-five characters.
To optimize your link exchanging, keep your link descriptions brief, as well. Never use more than twenty words to describe where each link points to. Be concise, precise, and straightforward about your inner navigation and the navigation you have to sites outside.
Link exchanging can provide a beneficial tool for promotion and profiting from the internet. By adhering to a few simple rules, you can have all the traffic of exterior links without any search engine penalties for doing so.
If link exchanging is performed in a professional and reasonable way, it can boost the results of your hard work. It an improve search engine rank, offer great link popularity, and ultimate, increase your worthwhile web traffic.
To maximize your benefit and improve your traffic, there are several factors you need to be aware of. Link exchanging only works when you know precisely what you want to say. You must both know your "niche," or area of specialty, you must have a fully finished web site. It isn't very interesting to consider a link exchange with a site that is, "under construction," and is most likely new. New web sites simply don't have the traffic of established sites and it often takes time before any such volume of traffic will regularly visit.
Once your site is complete and ready for traffic, you can start looking through the similar web sites out there. It 's best to avoid seeing these sites as simple "competitors," if you want the system of link exchanging to work. These sites can bring you a great deal of traffic that is already interested in what your site offers.
When you are exchanging, do not behave in ways that will get on other webmaster 's bad sides. Don't demand that they link with you or expect an immediate response to your offer. Webmasters are often hit with tens or hundreds of visitors requesting link exchanges. Watch your tone in your communications and appreciate the effort of all parties involved. Never set deadlines or try to pressure the other webmaster into linking with you. If they are interested they will respond.
Naturally, if you want to exchange, always get permission from the other party 's web site beforehand. Do not expect someone to link with you just because you placed a link to them on your page. Another common behavior to avoid is the virtual, "bait-and-switch."
This is where you agree to a link exchange, wait until they have posted your link, and remove the return link to their site. This will often get your link permanently removed with no hope of future exchanges with that domain.
Also, actually visit the sites you want to exchange links with. Many webmasters are good at noting which offers are genuine and which are impersonal or automated.
Now that the basics of what you should not do are established, it 's time to discuss how you can benefit and prosper from link exchanging.
For link exchanging, create at least one page that 's specifically for your links. This should be visible on your home page. You may have as many pages as you like so long as you don't overdo your linking on each page. The limit for linking penalties in search engines is around twenty or twenty-five links per page. When you pass this amount, you run the risk that a search engine will mistake your page for a link farm.
For example, if you have a site devoted to electronics and exchange links with similar sites, you will showcase different areas for software, computer systems, and hardware on your partners' sites. This gives your visitor a greater knowledge of where the links point and what they can expect to find at the end of them.
It will also improve your visitor 's experience if you organize the exterior links. Some webmasters leave a small notification to let visitors know clicking on the link will take them away from their site.
Your "guest links," will have a title and a brief description. Your titles should be in simple title format with no all capitals or "toggle" formatting. A good title length will be around twenty-five characters.
To optimize your link exchanging, keep your link descriptions brief, as well. Never use more than twenty words to describe where each link points to. Be concise, precise, and straightforward about your inner navigation and the navigation you have to sites outside.
Link exchanging can provide a beneficial tool for promotion and profiting from the internet. By adhering to a few simple rules, you can have all the traffic of exterior links without any search engine penalties for doing so.
How to Use eBooks for Marketing and Promoting Your Online Business
There are innumerable ways to use ebooks to promote your business and drive quality traffic to your website. Once posted on your site, you can turn them into a daily course, which brings your customer back to read the next chapter. You can use them as a free gift for making a purchase or for filling out a survey. Put your ebook on a disc, and you will have an innovative brochure. Blow your competition away by inserting the disc into your sales packages.
The most effective marketing products are those that are unique. Copyright your ebook, and immediately, you have a powerful tool that you, and you alone, can offer to the public. People will have to visit your site to acquire your ebook, which increases the flow of quality traffic and the potential of sales and affiliate contacts. Make sure that you keep your ebook current. Update it frequently as the market and trends change. Add new advice and techniques to show your prospects how your goods or services can enrich their lives. By constantly keeping abreast of new trends and techniques, you can continue to see profits from your ebook for years after your original creation.
Another phenomenal advantage of ebooks is that you can test their marketing potential without putting out hardly any cash at all. You can even produce an ebook one copy at a time, each time you receive an order, eliminating the need for storage and inventory. By this method, you can gauge the saleability of your ebook, and make adjustments as necessary until the orders start pouring in. Ebooks allow you to learn about your market and customer habits and motivation over a period of time, without risking your precious financial resources.
They also provide you with an invaluable way to gather marketing information, which you can use in many different facets of your business. Use your ebook to discover what the specific goals and problems are in your specific industry. Then figure out how to solve these problems, and publish an ebook with this invaluable information. This will increase the value of your business, upgrade your reputation, and get you known as an expert in your field.
You can extend the value of single ebook by breaking the book down into chapters for a serial course, into special reports available on your website, or into audio or visual tapes. Ebooks can be broken down into several different promotional materials by excepting some of the articles and using them to promote your product. You can include a catalogue in your ebook to promote all the products or services you sell. You can include a thank-you note for reading your book and an invitation to download a trial version of your product. Or you can include a form for your audience to contact you for further information or with questions, thereby building your business relationships and your mailing list. Using ebooks in this manner helps to cut the cost of individually producing separate promotional materials. You can use a single ebook to entice new prospects and to sell new products to your current customers.
No other medium has this kind of flexibility and ability for expansion. Think of your ebook like a spider spinning a beautiful and intricate web. Now go and create that web, and see how many customers and prospects you can catch!
The most effective marketing products are those that are unique. Copyright your ebook, and immediately, you have a powerful tool that you, and you alone, can offer to the public. People will have to visit your site to acquire your ebook, which increases the flow of quality traffic and the potential of sales and affiliate contacts. Make sure that you keep your ebook current. Update it frequently as the market and trends change. Add new advice and techniques to show your prospects how your goods or services can enrich their lives. By constantly keeping abreast of new trends and techniques, you can continue to see profits from your ebook for years after your original creation.
Another phenomenal advantage of ebooks is that you can test their marketing potential without putting out hardly any cash at all. You can even produce an ebook one copy at a time, each time you receive an order, eliminating the need for storage and inventory. By this method, you can gauge the saleability of your ebook, and make adjustments as necessary until the orders start pouring in. Ebooks allow you to learn about your market and customer habits and motivation over a period of time, without risking your precious financial resources.
They also provide you with an invaluable way to gather marketing information, which you can use in many different facets of your business. Use your ebook to discover what the specific goals and problems are in your specific industry. Then figure out how to solve these problems, and publish an ebook with this invaluable information. This will increase the value of your business, upgrade your reputation, and get you known as an expert in your field.
You can extend the value of single ebook by breaking the book down into chapters for a serial course, into special reports available on your website, or into audio or visual tapes. Ebooks can be broken down into several different promotional materials by excepting some of the articles and using them to promote your product. You can include a catalogue in your ebook to promote all the products or services you sell. You can include a thank-you note for reading your book and an invitation to download a trial version of your product. Or you can include a form for your audience to contact you for further information or with questions, thereby building your business relationships and your mailing list. Using ebooks in this manner helps to cut the cost of individually producing separate promotional materials. You can use a single ebook to entice new prospects and to sell new products to your current customers.
No other medium has this kind of flexibility and ability for expansion. Think of your ebook like a spider spinning a beautiful and intricate web. Now go and create that web, and see how many customers and prospects you can catch!
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