Link Popularity and Link Exchanges

Link Popularity explained

Link popularity (or the importance) of a website is rated by Google using a certain algorithm that's based on the quality and the quantity of links that point to your site. This means Google assigns a higher Page Rank (PR) to a site that has more incoming links. It's just not the number of links that point to your site, but also the type of sites that contain these links. To be popular, these sites should be relevant to the theme of your web page. The more "relevant" the theme on the "pointing" website, the better rank (or more popular) you get. This whole process of "partnering" with other sites to point to yours is called "Link Exchange program" or "Reciprocal Link campaign". And the concept is referred to as Link Popularity. There are various techniques and procedures one can follow to achieve "good" external links to help you increase your Link Popularity. Search engines use the number and quality of links pointing back to your site as an indication of the site's value

As a part of our Search Engine Optimization services process, this phase is carried out after a detailed study of "who" to link with and by utilizing strategic anchor text from the results of our Keyword Research process.

Link Campaigns and Keywords

Keywords in your web pages are very important. But keywords outside your pages can also affect the page results. I.e. the keywords in links pointing to your site are very important. If hundreds of links around the world point to one of your pages and all these links contain the words leather shoes, then Google and, presumably, other search engines will get the idea that your pages are somehow related to leather shoes.

In effect, Google uses site owner's opinion to tell it what other owners' sites are about. Link text is also known as anchor text. The link tag is an tag, and the A stands for anchor.

Types of Link Campaigns

All major search engines place some emphasis on link popularity in their ranking algorithms. There are two main types of links that work best to increase your link popularity: links from other sites that focus on the same keyword phrases your site focuses and links from relevant categories in major directories and industry-specific portals. You can go about your link building process using either the reciprocal link exchange process or a one-way inbound link campaign.

Link Exchange (Reciprocal Link) Process

You start a campaign wherein you ask other websites with similar or related themes to link to you in exchange for you keeping a link on your site that points to their website. It is important to establish early on the exact definition of a quality link your sites. Research and identify Web sites that link to your competitors and find sites by keyword search. Identify sites in the following categories:

Resource directories (portals or sites that offer tools to run your event) Strategic partners: i.e. organizations that focus on your targeted industry. Vertical-specific portals Look at your competitor sites and check who links to them.

Criteria for exchanging links Which sites/themes you want to stay away from? What is the minimum home page PR and minimum link page PR? Any restrictions on the number of links per page on your partner site? For example you may not want to have your link on a page that have over, say, 40 links. Any other specific requirement?

Inbound (One-way) Links: Some tips Make sure you have very high quality content on your site. Directories: Spend a lot of time looking for directories to add your site to. Search on Google for "add url", "add link", "directory", "web directory". Also look at big directories like ODP, Zeal and Yahoo for categories that fit your site. Keep a "Link to this page" button on each web page of your site. Write quality content with your links on it. Submit to various related sites for free use by visitors. Look for Hubs..try to have back link from the hub Create an Article (pdf or html form) publish it and submit it in other sites. Have your site description in it. Give out press release of your site content or new article. Give away software, service or advice. Create Articles and allow people to copy it's content as long as they give credit to original source. Pay sometimes to be listed in niche directories. Start with reciprocal linking become some authority and prepare unique content. Be Original and Unique in the content.