What exactly is link popularity?

High link popularity contributes to a high search engine ranking. Link popularity and content are closely associated. Link popularity can be achieved through link campaigning (one-way, two-way and three-way link campaigning.) The idea behind the link popularity concept is very simple. The more other web sites link to your web site, the more important your site must be. Other sites wouldn't link to your site if there wasn't something interesting on your site or if your web site didn't contain any special content. So give more importance on unique and creative content.

Not all links are considered equal.

I have told you before that link campaigning can be done in three ways; i.e. one-way, two-way and three-way link campaigning. Among these three types of link achievements one-way link (popularly known as inbound link, incoming link or natural link) is the most valuable one. The rest follow accordingly. The page which gives you link should have a good rank, which will boost your webpage ranking, otherwise, there will negative impact on your webpage immediately.

Whenever you campaign for link, don’t forget to put your targeted keywords as anchor text. Some Common Sense Tips for link campaigning:

1. Try to get links from important web sites

2. Try to get link texts that contain your important keywords

3. Don’t use FFA or link farm pages

4. Don’t use services that promise lots of links within days

5. Focus on quality links, not on quantity

6. Try to get links from indexed pages

Can SEO companies guarantee rankings?

Some search engine optimization company offer guaranteed high rank with in stipulated period. If you find any SEO company claiming in this way, then just consider them as cheaters. No way, they can help you. Don’t think that it’s impossible, but doesn’t yield good results. There are only two techniques through which top ranking can be achieved. These are as follows:

1. PPC/CPC campaigning

2. Obscure keyword optimization

In PPC campaign the top result can be achieved, but until you pay for this service. The moment you stop paying, your website will be nowhere in the SERP. You can optimize your site by taking obscure keyword for which there is no one to search and to compete. Obviously when you type in that obscure keyword, your site will come on the top. But what will be the value in adopting this strategy, if you don’t boost your business? So those who claim this, just ignore there service. There is one way to get high search engine rankings and staying there is good web page content and playing by the rules.

How link popularity can help your search engine rankings

After proper search engine optimization of your website, if there is no development in search engine ranking, this is due to low link popularity. As we know the popular things are widely available. Search engines (like Google) give more significance to link popularity and to content, too. Link popularity refers to the total number of links that a search engine has found for your web page. The more web sites link to your web page, the higher the link popularity of your page.

Top 10 tips for high link popularity

Let’s revisit the link popularity section. Here I’m giving you TOP 10 strategies for link popularity. They are as follows:

1. Cross-link your sites

An easy way to improve your link popularity is to add a link from your own popular web site to a less popular site of your own.

However, it's very important that one site is not only a duplicate of the other and that both sites are related to each other. It is considered as cross-linking.

2. Give testimonials

Everyone has some favorite software tools and utilities. Contact the publishers or developers and explain why you like their software programs. Some of them will request a permission to display your testimonial on their web site, along with a link to your site.

You can also contact web sites that don't offer software programs but interesting articles. Just make sure that you really stand behind what you say as it can backfire to you if you recommend bad products.

3. Awards for you and other sites

You can submit your web site to sites who offer awards. If they reward you their award, then they'll probably link to your site. Just search Google for "awards directory your-keyword" (replace "your-keyword" with a keyword that is important to your business).

You can also offer an award for other web sites. Submit your awards page to the above-mentioned awards directories to make it popular. The web sites who receive your award will link back to your site.

4. Participate in newsgroups and discussion forums

When you post to newsgroups and discussion forums, add a signature file with a link to your web site.

An easy way to post messages in newsgroups is to create a Google account and to post via their web interface:http://groups.google.com

To find good discussion forums, just search Google for "forums directory your-keyword". For example, if you want to participate in a marketing forum, search Google for "forums directory marketing". This is a great medium of getting natural links.

5. Provide a link directory

Offer a link directory on your web site which links to quality web sites with a similar topic. Your visitors will appreciate such a resource and you'll provide incentive for other sites to link to your site.

You can add a "link to us" page to your web site on which you promise to add other complementary sites to your link directory if they link back to you first.

6. List your web site in the Yahoo directory

If you have a business web site, you might want to pay US$299 yearly to Yahoo to have your web site listed in the Yahoo directory. The Yahoo directory is independent from Yahoo's main search engine:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/busexpress.html

If you have a non-business site, you can submit to Yahoo without paying: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/

7. List your web site in the Open Directory Project (ODP) directory

If your web site is listed in the popular directory ODP, then your web site will have a good base for the link popularity.

Rumor has it that Google starts crawling web sites with the web sites listed in the ODP directory. Best of all, you can add your web site to ODP without paying a fee.

8. List your web site in regional and industry-specific directories.

A link in regional and industry specific directories is good for your web site because your link will appear on a related page. Links from related pages are much better than links from unrelated pages.

9. Write articles for your audience

Write articles about the topics that your web site visitors are interested in. After a while, other web sites will link back to your articles.

You can also send your articles to syndicate web sites. They'll offer your articles to other web sites. Just make sure that your article contains a link to your web site so that other sites who publish your article will automatically link to you.

10. Get reciprocal links from complementary sites

Search the major search engines for your keywords. They will return many web sites that don't compete with your site, or which offer complementary things.

Visit their site and then write them an email message to request a link to your site. If you link back to them first, they'll be more likely to link to you.