Link Popularity Basics

Link popularity has recently become an important aspect to
consider when promoting a website. Many search engines have
started to use link popularity to help determine ranking in
their listings. Gaining links from other sites is also very
beneficial because you gain added traffic when users follow
the link from another site to your site.

What Is Link Popularity?

Link popularity is basically the number and quality of links
that point towards your site. A link from a very important
site is worth more than a link from a smaller site. The
search engine companies think that an important site would
only link to your site if your site was important, and it
makes sense too. Try getting the main page of Yahoo! to
link to you and you'll fail, but if you did get a link, then
your site must be worth something. You couldn't even get a
link to your site from a medium size site unless your site
was important enough and had something to offer. Both of
which are important aspects in determining relevancy - a
search engines main goal.  

The number of links is also important for the same reason.
Your site must be important if many sites link to you.
Search engines know these things, and that is the basis for
link popularity.

Linking Strategy Rules

The most basic way of gather and exchanging links is to
simply visit websites and email the webmaster asking for a
link exchange. However, there are a few rules to keep in
mind.

1. Related, Not Competitive - You should try to focus your
linking strategy on sites related to yours, but not in
direct competition. For example, a search engine submission
company site wouldn't want to link with a competitor. They
would be better off linking with a website that teaches
various ways of promotion. The object is not to lose
business to competitors, but to gain business from similar
sites.

2. Offer A Link - Most sites won't just give out a link for
nothing in return. Have a link to their site setup and then
email them asking for an exchange. Even go as far as to
give them the URL of where their link is located. This
basically just makes the offer more serious because you
already have a link setup.

3. Be Selective - You shouldn't just fire off an email to
every website you find asking for a link exchange. Be
selective based on the importance of your site. If you
have a large site that has been around a while, you can be
more selective with your linking. You just want to be sure
that you aren't wasting your time with sites that will
benefit greatly from your link, but won't do much for you
at all.

4. Mini Yahoo! - When I created my links page, I had in my
mind a picture of a small directory. Yahoo uses actual
people to decide where and if a site gets added. Although
my link page is obviously much smaller than Yahoo, I try to
keep the same idea. I set up a page with different
categories that relate to my site. This makes your links
page professional and also offers another free service for
my visitors to use. They can use my links page as a
targeted directory where they can easily find specific,
relevant information.

Best of luck to you,

JC Anderl
www.Redlionbooks.com, JC@Redlionbooks.com

Visit my site or email me if you have any questions about
marketing or website promotion.