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How
To Improve Your Link Popularity With Internal, Incoming
& Outgoing Links
In
this article I show you how to improve your link popularity
with internal, incoming & outgoing links, which will
in turn improve your search engine rankings.
Link
popularity, which refers to the number of links pointing
to and from related sites, is considered by many search
engine experts as the most important element of a site's
relevance in search engines.
If
you're not sure what your site's link popularity rating
is, then use this link
popularity check tool to check your link popularity
rating in the top search engines.
There
are three types of links that will increase the link
popularity of your site; internal, incoming and outgoing
links.
1.
Internal Links
Internal
link popularity refers to the number of links to and
from pages within a site.
Make
sure you cross link your important related pages back
and forth. By doing so, you are telling search engine
spiders that those are the most important pages of your
site.
Cross
linking your pages also helps the search engine spiders
find and index your most important pages quicker, especially
if some pages are buried deep within your site.
2.
Incoming Links
Incoming
link popularity refers to links pointing to a site from
other related sites. In addition, there are two types
of incoming links:
- Links
From Sites You Control
You can control your site's theme by setting up several
small related sites. Then cross link them all together,
including links back to the main site.
Select keywords that describe the theme of the main
site and use those same keywords to link to the main
site from the other sites.
The reason for doing this is because some of the major
search engines, such as Google, place a great importance
on the text used within links.
- Links
From Sites You Do Not Control
There are three ways of finding sites to link to yours.
i.
Find Sites That Link To Your Competition
Did
you know that search engines can tell you which
sites link to your competition? To find out, visit
your favorite search engine and enter, "link:"
followed by the competitors domain name (with and
without "www").
For
example, "link:theirdomain.com" and "link:www.theirdomain.com."
(Quotation marks not required)
To
check the link popularity of your own sites, simply
replace "theirdomain.com" with your own domain names.
ii.
Find Link Partners In Web Directories
Do
not forget that all the sites listed in the same
category as yours in the major web site directories,
such as Yahoo!, LookSmart and the Open Directory
Project, are ideal link candidates too.
Once
you have compiled a list of related sites, add a
link to them in your site. Then send an email to
each site owner informing them that you have linked
to their site and politely ask them for a link back
to your site. Don't forget to tell them about the
benefits of exchanging links in this manner.
iii.
Find Sites That Accept Site Submissions
Another
way of finding sites to link to yours is to find
sites that accept site submissions. To find such
sites, visit a search engine, such as Google, and
search for:
"add
url" "your keywords"
Replace
"your keywords" with those related to your site.
Include the quotation marks to ensure the search
engine only return pages with the exact search phrases
you enter.
Also
try replacing, "add url" with one of the following
sets of search phrases:
add
site, add link, add a url, add a site, add a link,
submit url, submit site, submit link, submit a url,
submit a site, submit a link.
In
addition, you can also find site submission pages
by searching for the actual page. So, try replacing
the "add url" search phrase with one of the following
page names:
addurl.html,
addsite.html, addlink.html, addaurl.html, addasite.html,
addalink.html, submiturl.html, submitsite.html,
submitlink.html, submitaurl.html, submitasite.html,
submitalink.
add-url.html, add-site.html, add-link.html, add-a-url.html,
add-a-site.html, add-a-link.html, submit-url.html,
submit-site.html, submit-link.html, submit-a-url.html,
submit-a-site.html, submit-a-link.
add_url.html, add_site.html, add_link.html, add_a_url.html,
add_a_site.html, add_a_link.html, submit_url.html,
submit_site.html, submit_link.html, submit_a_url.html,
submit_a_site.html, submit_a_link.
You
could also try replacing the ".html" extension
with others, such as ".htm," ".shtml," ".cfm,"
etc.
3.
Outgoing Links
Outgoing
links refers to links pointing to other related sites
from your site.
Search
engine spiders will crawl your site's outgoing links
and determine that the content of the sites you link
to are related to the content of your own site.
Search
engines like sites that link to related content, especially
"authoritative hubs" that other sites "suggest" (i.e.
link to) as a reference for information on a particular
topic.
Link
Keywords
It
is important to name your internal and outgoing links
carefully. Since keywords are important in determining
the relevancy of a page, it is essential that they are
used throughout a page.
The
page title, headers and links should always include
the keywords describing the page.
Therefore,
I suggest that you always name a page using the keywords
relevant to the page. In turn, the visible link text
used on other pages to link to the page should use the
same keyword phrase as the page name.
For
example, if the title of a page is "Link Popularity."
Then the page name should be "link-popularity.html,"
or "link_popularity.html."
Make
sure you include a hypen or underscore between each
word. This will ensure that search engines index each
word as a separate keyword. There's no difference to
using a hypen or underscore.
Do
not pack all the words together. For example, "linkpopularity.html."
You
should also make sure that all links to that page use
the link text, "Link Popularity."
You
notice how everything fits together?
Link
Quality
Studies
have shown that the quality of the links is just as
important as the number of links to your site.
The
types of sites you should concentrate on getting links
from include major search engines (Google), popular
web portals (MSN), web directories (Yahoo! and the Open
Directory Project), high trafficked sites (eBay and
Amazon), news sites (CNN), weblogs, and sites related
to your site's topic.
Search
engines consider links from major search engines and
web portals as big votes of confidence for your site.
Incoming
Links Mistaken As Link Popularity Boosters
There
are two types of incoming links that some people mistake
as links that will boost their link popularity;
- Pay
per click advertising links, such as Overture and
Google AdWords Select.
- Affiliate
program provider links, such as Commission Junction.
Such
links never link directly to your site, so they will
not help your link popularity rating. These types of
links actually point to their own site, which then redirects
the visitor to the correct site. They are used for tracking
purposes.
However,
if you host the affiliate program software on your own
server and the affiliate tracking links point to your
web site, then those links will count towards your site's
link popularity.
Link
Exchanges And Farms
A
word of warning! Never ever use links from link exchange
sites and link farms.
Link
farms are networks of heavily cross linked pages on
one or more web sites, with the sole intention of improving
the link popularity of those pages and sites.
Many
of the top search engines consider such links as spam,
so stay clear of these types of links.
Conclusion
Do
not underestimate the influence link popularity plays
in the ranking of your web pages. It is actually possible
to achieve top rankings almost entirely on link popularity
alone. So, spend time improving your site's link popularity.
If
you want to save time and effort, I recommend using
a link finder and management tool, such as Arelis.
Good
luck with improving your link popularity!
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About
The Author: Michael Wong is a respected