Introduction

“Link Popularity” – these words may have caught your attention several times while you have been searching the Internet for tips on optimizing your website for top search engine rankings. Link popularity means popularizing a particular link of a website by increasing the number of websites that link to that site. Nowadays link popularity is being considered to be the most important step of the search engine optimization process. You cannot imagine getting good ranks in the top search engines especially Google without following an effective link popularity plan.

Link Popularity Basics

Google gives a lot of importance to the number of websites that link to a website. In order to get the number of websites that link to a site, just type in a domain name in this manner link:www.your-domain.com in the search box and the number that returns is the number of incoming links to your site. On the basis of the number of incoming links to a website along with various other factors, Google provides points within 1-10 to that website. These points or PageRank in the language of Google is like a measuring tool that helps the Internet surfers to know about the online popularity of that website. The PageRank of a website can be obtained from the PageRank Toolbar of Google which can be easily downloaded from the Google website. (http://toolbar.google.com/)

Link Popularity Methods

Link Popularity can be done through different methods like

• Reciprocal Link Exchange Programs among websites
  

• Posting messages of your websites on various message boards and guest books
  

• Publishing articles about your website or company in other websites.
  

1. Reciprocal Link Exchange Program

Definition -

Reciprocal Link Exchange Program is the most popular and commonly followed method for implementing the link popularity plan of a website and getting the desired results.

Reciprocal Link Exchange Program Steps -

A reciprocal link exchange program deals in exchanging of links with several websites. This program involves several steps that need to be followed which have been described below:

Step 1 –

Link exchange for a website is usually done with websites of the same industry as well as with the websites of other industries. For example, if your website is all about finance, you should be on the lookout for websites that deal in finance along with other websites that are not related to finance. So the first and foremost step is to find prospective link partners/websites that offer reciprocal link exchange programs. You can do this easily by typing in the industry related keywords (e.g. “personal finance”, “financial expert”) in the Google search box. And you can find out the websites offering link exchange out of the search results thus generated.

Step 2 -

Always try to exchange links with websites having Google PR (PageRank) of 4 or more. Here the PR 4 criteria is applicable for both index page as well as the links page of a website.

Step 3 –

You have to look for the link exchange details of each of the websites. The link exchange details lets you know how the website wants to its link to appear in your links page, where to send your link exchange details, etc. The details generally include the website’s link code, email address to send your information. Sometimes you may have to submit your link information through a form provided in the website.

Step 4 –

Now, create an html page containing the list of link partners that you have searched and saved so far. Name this html page as Resources/Partners/Links/Interesting Websites, etc. and provide a link to this links page in the index page of your website. Make sure that your links page is either 1 click or maximum of two clicks away from the index page otherwise prospective link partners may not be interested in reciprocating your link.

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Step 5 –

Prepare the link code for your website that you would send or submit through a form to the prospective link partners. A sample link code is given below:

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Always try to include potential keywords for your website in the link text that is the text between the anchor tag () as well as in the description provided against the link text. Always go for text links instead of banner ads because Google gives a lot of importance to the anchor text of the incoming links.

Step 6 –

Target to get maximum of the incoming links towards the home page of your website as it is the most significant page of your website that leads to the other pages of your website. This means you have to request the link partners to link to your index page. Ensure that a good navigation exists within your website so that all the pages are accessible from one particular page of your website. And that all the link texts/anchor texts in your website contain the most important keywords related to your business. This helps in improving the link popularity of your website.

Step 7 –

After preparing the link code for your website, you have to approach the prospective link partners through email requesting them to accept your link exchange offer and place a link to your website in their links page.

Step 8 -

Lastly you have to submit these links pages to the search engines especially Google where your link has been placed by your link partners. (http://www.google.com/addurl.html)

2. Message Board Link Popularity Program –

Link popularity can also be pursued by posting your website link message to the message boards and guest books. In this method you have pay more attention towards the selection of message boards and guest books. Always select message boards and guest books that have a PageRank of 4 or more and have already been indexed by Google. It is also necessary to submit the URLS generated after posting messages to the search engines. For example, say www.online-message-board.com is one of the popular message boards where you want to post your website link. After posting your website link at www.online-message-board.com, the message board will generate a particular URL say www.online-message-board.com/your-website-link.html which contains the particular information about your site. Submit this URL in various search engines so as to boost the link popularity of your site.

3. Other Methods of Increasing Link Popularity -

You can also improve the link popularity of your site by publishing articles or write-ups regarding your company or website in other websites. And make sure you do not forget to include a link to your website in these articles or write-ups. In this way your link becomes visible to the search engine robots. Paid ads also help in your link popularity plan.

Conclusion

In this paper, we have tried to explain the link popularity basics along with various methods for pursuing the link popularity campaigns for your website. Being a vital parameter of your search engine optimization plan, you need to make a link popularity plan and follow it strictly so that your website finds place within the top 10 results of all the important search engines, especially Google.

Vudatala Meena is the Co-Founder & Managing Director of Search Engine Optimization Guru Pvt. Ltd. (http://www.searchengine-optimization-guru.com), a premiere Search Engine Optimization and Marketing (SEO/SEM) consultancy firm, catering to clients which range from Fortune 500 to small home business start-ups. Our services include Top 10 SE rankings, Pay Per Click (PPC) targeted traffic campaign, Paid Listing Management, Keyword Advertizing. She can be contacted at meena@searchengine-optimization-guru.com