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Link Popularity - Your Key to a Page #1 Listing
What is link popularity?
Some years ago the major search engines realized that the best way to decide if your website has valuable content (and is therefore worth a high ranking) is to see how many other websites link to your site.
Link popularity was pioneered by Google but has now become a key factor in the algorithms used by most of the major search engines.
Would you like to know your current link popularity?
Here's a free tool that will check your link popularity in Alltheweb, AltaVista, AOL, Google, HotBot and MSN. This tool will also compare your link popularity with your competitors': http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/
Now that you know your link popularity, you may be wondering how you can increase it.
Here are some commonly used strategies - some effective and some not:
FFA Sites
Free For All (FFA) sites are websites that collect your email address (and send you a lot of junk email) and in return allow you to post a link on a website.
FFA sites are rather like a conveyor belt - new links are constantly being added and old links being pushed off. On Many FFA sites your link will last an hour or two at the most.
Even if your link stayed on an FFA site long enough to be indexed by a search engine, it is unlikely it would increase your link popularity. Search engines regard FFA sites as spam and they'll either ignore your link or penalize your site.
Link Exchange Programs
As with FFA sites, you need to ask yourself the same question the search engines ask.
Did someone link to your site because you have valuable content? Or did they link to your site as part of a mutual ploy to artificially raise each other's link popularity?
The search engines know how to tell the difference and some of them (Google for example) will actually ban your site for engaging in 'link farming'.
Another problem with this method is *link relevancy*. If the sites linking to you have content that is not related to your content, the search engines will not give much weight to those links.
Reciprocal Links with Individual Webmasters
This will definitely increase your link popularity, especially if you seek out link partners whose websites share the same theme as yours.
But this approach is time consuming - first you have to surf around looking for potential link partners, then you have to email them, then you have to confirm that they added your link and so on.
Writing Articles
This is the technique I use for increasing link popularity and it works very well.
Write short articles of 300 - 800 words and then submit them to the article announcement lists and the online article banks.
There are thousands of webmasters out there who need free content for their websites and you'll soon find your articles appearing on dozens, even hundreds, of different websites.
At the bottom of your article is your Resource Box containing a link to your website. It might look something like this:
John Doe is the webmaster of dominomarketing.com where he offers cutting-edge tips on all aspects of web marketing. To find more advice, tools and resources to help you succeed in online business, visit: http://www.dominomarketing.com
Most webmasters will make the URL in your Resource Box an active link. If they don't, you should insist on it because it's part of the deal - they get free content for their website and you get a free link.
This technique has two important advantages over other methods of raising link popularity:
- You don't have to clutter up your website with reciprocal links
- You don't have to invest huge amounts of time searching for link partners and then emailing them to request a link. If they like your article, they just add it to their website.
Increase Visitors With This Simple Technique!
Running an online business can be very fulfilling. You set your own hours, you can work from almost anywhere and the income potential is outrageous. But do you know what I love the most about Internet marketing, though? Do you know what excites me and thrills me about it? It's that the time and energy you put into developing your business can pay off for weeks, months, even years to come!
Linking strategies are an excellent example of this force at work and, in my opinion, are one of the most powerful ways to market online! Why? Because by getting other websites who are already generating high volumes of traffic to link to you, a percentage of their traffic becomes your traffic!
Let's say, for example, that in your business niche there are a few hundred websites out there generating a million visitors every year, a few hundred more generating 30,000 visitors and a few thousand generating 10,000 visitors. By persuading these sites to link to yours, you are taking some of their traffic and funneling it directly into your website!
This is an incredibly powerful technique!
Think about it. If you get a link on their site, and if you do it right, it will probably stay there forever. As long as they are linked to you, they're continually sending traffic to your site -- week after week, month after month, year after year! The work you do now will have fantastic long-term payoffs!
This is a great way to use other people to generate traffic for you. However, I must add that it is also a largely unused and very misunderstood marketing strategy right now. Those who do try to take advantage of this tactic often fail because their technique is wrong, sloppy or unprofessional.
Let me explain exactly how you can immediately begin to put the power of linking strategies to work for you:
Step #1: Learn where your target audience hangs out online. Do they frequent any particular websites?
Step #2: Once you've found some sites that are popular among your target audience, gather information about each particular website. Get the owner's name, email address, phone number, etc.
Step #3: Write an email to the website owner. However, keep in mind that this email must:
A) Be personalized! This is VERY important. For example, mention the owner's name, the name of their business or company, their website, and some positive feedback about their site.
B) Emphasize how linking to your site is going to benefit their visitors. Specifically, focus on how, by linking to you, their visitors will view them as an even more valuable resource.
C) Mention how you think the link to you would fit into their site . For instance, mention how does your content relate to their content.
Step #4: Make it really easy for them to link to you. Give them the exact wording of what you would like them to add to their site, and provide the HTML code right in your email -- all they need to do is cut and paste it right into their website. By laying it all out for them, you dramatically increase the odds of them agreeing to add the link. There is no complicated emailing back and forth, trying to figure out how you're going to pull it off.
Step #5: Be sure that you've added your direct contact information to your email. While this might sound obvious, far too often we receive emails that do NOT contain this pertinent information.
Step #6: Be persistent! If they don't respond to your first offer, email them back and up the ante. Instead of simply asking them to link to your site, offer to exchange links. It becomes a win-win situation for both of you. If possible, you should also consider calling people directly. I know from experience that this is a great way to build rapport.
With these steps in mind, here's an example of a letter that I might send to someone I was interested in linking with:
Hi Frank!
I visited your website at [insert URL here] and noticed that your resource page has [insert personal comment here].
I thought you might be interested to know that we have a website dedicated to educating customers about [insert the purpose of your website here]. As well, we have some great articles about [insert list of articles here]. This kind of information would be a great addition to your resource center and I'm sure your visitors would love it.
To link to us, all you need to do is [insert specific instructions and HTML code here]. If you'd like to discuss this further, please feel free to contact me at [insert email address here] or [insert phone number here].
Thanks! [Your name here]
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