Increasing Link Popularity

Search engines are the gateway to the Internet; they are
the first tool that potential customers use to find the
products and services they need. This is why link
popularity is so imperative. If the customers do not find
your website, you have no possibilities of making any
sales.

You’re probably wondering what the blazes is popular about
a link! Well, in a word – plenty! Link popularity refers to
the ranking assigned to your website by the search engines,
and it determines the ranking your page gets when keywords
are entered into a search engine. So, you’re probably
wondering, how do I make my link popular?

Search engines are discretionary, giving status and ranking
to sites that have links to their pages from related,
quality sites. It’s a simple formula, but a very important
one. Google created the system, and now virtually all the
most popular search engines employ it to rank your web
pages in their indexes.

The more commonly used your keyword is, the harder it will
be to achieve link popularity, but without achieving this
step, it is almost certain your site will never rank highly
on any search engine. But don’t be discouraged; there are
tried and true ways of achieving link popularity using the
most competitive keywords.

There are a few things you should be aware of. The first is
that just linking up with a large number of other websites
will not achieve link popularity. In fact, it may have
quite the opposite effect. This is particularly true when
pertaining to websites that are nothing more than “link
farms” – pages containing line after line of indiscriminate
links. Search engines may aggressively discriminate against
your website if you are associated with a link farm, so
steer clear of them!

The next thing to bear in mind is the quality of the site
you are linking to. Never link to a page you have
reservations about your visitors seeing. The last thing you
want your website to appear as is indiscriminate and cheap.
Linking to sites of poor quality will only lessen your link
popularity, if not completely destroy it.

So let’s get to what you need to do to achieve supreme link
popularity and improve your rankings to stellar status on
all the popular search engines.

The first step, and the fastest way to get your foot in the
door, is to get a listing in a popular directory, such as
Open Directory Project and Yahoo. If your site is
business-related, you will want to be listed on Yahoo, and
despite the fact that it will cost you around $300 a year,
it will be money well spent. If your site is
non-commercial, the listing will be free, but it will take
time and follow-up to actually get it listed. Open
Directory is gives you a free listing whether you are
business-related or non-commercial, but be prepared to make
a lot of follow-up inquiries before you see your site
listed.

You are aiming to get listed in the highest level of
appropriate category, and this just takes some common
sense. For example, if your company ships Alpaca wool from
an Alpaca farm located in the middle of Nowhere, Tiny
State, do NOT submit your listing to “Retailers from
Nowhere, Tiny State.” BIG MISTAKE! All you have to do is
look a little deeper – and submit your listing to the “Fine
Alpaca Wool” category. You will not only associate yourself
with culture and quality, but you will be listed in a
national category.

The next step after you have attained directory listings is
to locate other quality sites that will increase your link
popularity. Try to find sites that are in some way related
to yours, so not only will your link popularity increase,
but your customer base may also be expanded. You want to
avoid your competitors and look for sites that are useful
to your site’s visitors. Let’s look at the Alpaca Wool site
example. Linking up to a site that sells knitting supplies
would be helpful to your visitors, and the chances of the
knitting supply site wanting to link up to your site are
also greater. By linking to a related site that will be
relevant to your website’s traffic, you are increasing both
of your site’s business prospects – and both of your sites’
link popularity.

Not all sites want to link to other sites, so you will have
to do some research when you are looking for possible
linking partners. Google is an excellent starting place for
your search. Make sure you enter keywords that you think
quality customers will also enter to find your own site.
Remember, your criteria are quality, highly ranked,
non-competing websites that have a links or resources page.
Go to these sites and objectively assess them. Look at the
quality of the product, the graphics, and the ease of use.
Then check out the other sites they are linked to, and
determine if your own site would fit in with the crowd.

When you decide you have found a good prospect, you must
set out to woo them. The first thing to do is to add a link
on your own links page to their site. This is an essential
first step; it shows good faith, and ups your chances
significantly of their reciprocity. After you have added
their link, you must contact the webmaster of their site.
Since this is almost always done by email, you want to make
sure it is immediately clear that your message is not junk
mail. This requires that you tell them right off the bat
that you have added a link to their page on your site. A
hook like this almost always insures the reader will read
on.

Next, be sure to be flattering and let them know how much
you appreciate their website. Make sure you emphasize that
you have actually visited their site, and that their site
is not just a random pick. Give them the address of your
links page, and ask them to check out the link for
themselves. It’s a good idea to mention that they will not
only benefit from the increased traffic your website will
direct their way, but you will also increase their link
popularity. Briefly, explain why link popularity is so
essential, but do this in a sentence or two so you don’t
sound like a professor! Finally, tell them you would
greatly appreciate if they would reciprocally add a link on
their own links page to your website.

Go through this process with as many appropriate sites as
you can find, bearing in mind the criteria of quality and
non-competitiveness. After you have emailed all relevant
sites, be sure to check these website frequently to see if
they have added a link to your page. Give it about a month,
and if no link appears, try another charming email. Then
give it another month, and if your site is still absent
from their links page, it’s time to remove their link from
your own links page. The only time you want to pursue a
link further than this is if you believe a site is crucial
to your link popularity and your business needs. Just
remember to keep all your communications complimentary and
cordial.

Then set up a schedule to check your ranking in search
engines frequently to see if your link popularity has
improved. This is not achievable in the blink of an eye. It
will take some time and a good deal of work. There is no
way around the labor-intensive quality of improving your
link popularity, which is why search engines regard it with
such importance.

By the way – make sure you have a beautiful, streamlined
site or you will never persuade anyone to link up to you.
Be prepared to keep plugging away at this process, as long
as it takes, until you achieve link popularity stardom!

Link Popularity and PageRank (PR) Misconceptions and Facts

In this article I’ll try to demystify Link Popularity and PageRank, or PR, clarify some common misconceptions and tell you how things work, in plain English, with facts and examples.

Link Popularity is based on the premise that people link to good sites, and if a lot of people link to your site, then it must be good. In plain English, if other sites are linking to your site, your site is popular, therefore it is useful and deserves a boost in rankings, so people can find it faster and easier.

Link Popularity is not specific to Google only, but was adopted by the vast majority of Search Engines.

Link Popularity is only one of the many factors (good content, number of pages, text, anchors, internal links, static URLs, keywords, meta tags, and many, many others) that are used in calculating your place in a search result page (ultimately, this is what all of it is about – how findable you are in a search).

PageRank (PR) is specific to Google and is a trademarked proprietary algorithm. There are many variables in the formulas used by Google, but PageRank is primarily affected by the number of links pointing to the page, the number of internal links pointing to the page within the site and the number of pages in the site.

PageRank focuses strictly on the quantity of links and is directly influenced by the PageRank of the pages that are linked.

In Google, Link Popularity puts more emphasis on the quality of links (ex. links from sites related to yours by topic or by industry rank much higher than links from non-related sites).

PageRank – as the name suggests – is specific to a web page, not to a web site. Every page on your site has a PageRank and every one is different, based mostly on your linking system. Generally – but not always – the goal is to achieve maximum PageRank on your main page, the one people hit when first entering your site.

You can check the PR of a page by installing the Google toolbar in Internet Explorer (the “official” way), a PR checker extension in Firefox, or by using one of the many online utilities, such as the one at [http://www.bsleek.com/tools/link_popularity.php] (which also checks Link Popularity and presence in DMOZ).

In Google only, PageRank is one of the factors that influence Link Popularity.

PageRank (PR), developed by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford University is considered to be the heart of Google’s software. PageRank solves an equation of more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Instead of counting direct links, PageRank interprets a link from Page A to Page B as a vote for Page B by Page A. PageRank then assesses a page’s importance by the number of votes it receives and by the PR of the page which casts the vote.

There are two types of incoming links that can effectively contribute to increasing your Link Popularity:

1. Links from other sites that focus on the same keyword phrases you do. In other words, if a site that can be found in search engines by using a search phrase like “corporate cd-rom presentations” links to your site, and your site actually specializes in designing interactive media, like CDs or DVDs, then that link will help your Link Popularity. But if your site is about selling onions, then the mentioned link will be useless.

2. Links from relevant categories in major directories industry-specific directories and portals. The most important major directory is DMOZ (who feeds data to many others) and is the toughest to get in. Submission is free and there are actually people reviewing your site. The waiting times are in the months order, so my advice is submit and forget. The industry-specific directories are very important. For example, if you make interactive media, and list your site in a directory dedicated to graphic design or media under the appropriate category, then search engines like Google will pick that up as an incoming link and will increase your Link Popularity. Listing your site in such a directory is very useful to your potential visitors, and this is what Google is trying to emulate with its software. Remember, with Google and many others, there are no humans reviewing your pages, but software acting under very specific and strict rules (algorithms).

Both types of links I described above can be unilateral or reciprocal (“you link to me and I link to you”).

Reciprocal links are subject of controversy and misconception today. Many people think that exchanging links with sites is the easiest way to get them, new people learning about link popularity are under the mistaken belief that they must have links that are reciprocated on their site. Still many others are saying that reciprocal links are dead and that not only you won’t gain any benefit from them, but your PR (Page Rank) will decrease (your page will “leak PR”, as it is said in the SEO circles).

Both camps are not entirely correct. You certainly don’t need to get reciprocal links, but you can if you want to. Remember, it is links pointing to your site that are the helpful ones. Links pointing from your site to other sites are wonderful to have because they help your visitors find related stuff, but if your site doesn’t lend itself to linking to other sites, then by all means, don’t do it. You need to do what’s right for your company or hobby and your site visitors, first and foremost.

Links from sites that have nothing to do with yours will definitely not help you gain Link Popularity, but might produce a temporary boost in PR (PageRank).

If the PR (PageRank) boost is only temporary, why bother?

You should try to boost your PR (PageRank) even if temporary, because when Google sends Googlebot, its indexing robot, to spider your website, the bot is instructed not to crawl your site too deep unless it has a reasonable amount of PR (PageRank). But in order to increase your overall PR (PageRank) and, in order to have all your keywords from all your pages available for searches, you need Google to look at all of your pages, because the number of pages and the internal links affect PR (PageRank). But Google will not see your internal links and your keywords if only few pages are indexed, so you see, it’s catch 22 and the best way to win this is to start working on your incoming links as early in the game as possible.

To see which pages from your website are actually indexed by the search engines, you can use the following search with the major three (Google, MSN and Yahoo!): site:www.yourdomain.com, where [http://www.yourdomain.com] is the full address of your site. There is no space between site: and the address, otherwise you are actually searching for the words site: and [http://www.yourdomain.com].

To get a glimpse of your site’s Link Popularity, use the following search with Google and MSN: link:www.yourdomain.com. Again, there is no space between link: and the address. There is a common misconception regarding this. People think that the correct format is with the space, as it might produce a lot more results. It is incorrect, as the format with the space merely looks for [http://www.yourdomain.com] and the word link:, but will not actually show you who really links to you.

Please note that Google might not display all the links to your site that are stored into its database. Don’t panic. It has been reported that this is reminiscence from Google’s paranoia days, when the search engine’s execs did not want competitors to figure out the way they track Link Popularity.

As a word of caution, please do not waste your money on submitting your sites to “hundreds of FAA sites”. Free-For-All sites are not considered quality links today. This approach might have worked years ago, but search engines are constantly trying to stop any activity they consider as spamming, designed to artificially inflate numbers. This is actually a great thing, as it keeps the internet a fair and happy place.

Two more words of caution:

1. If you read SEO (Search Engine Optimization) related articles, please make sure you read stuff as recent as possible, as things change.

2. Major search engines, especially Google, keep their algorithms (rules) in deep secret. Therefore, you’ll probably wonder why you are reading so many different opinions, sometimes conflicting. The answer is simple, because little is actually known to the public about the deep inner workings of a search engine.

In general, there’s no need for the average site to obsess over link popularity. Contrary to popular belief, link popularity constitutes only a portion of most search engines’ ranking algorithms. Arguably, Google places more emphasis than most other engines on incoming links at this point in time. How much these actually boost a site’s ranking is debatable and truly depends on the site. It also depends on the words that are placed in the anchor text (the clickable portion of a text link). From my personal experience, just a few highly relevant links with strong anchor text can go a long way towards link popularity for many sites.

The Weakest Links in Link Popularity Building

As one of the most important ranking factors on today’s modern search engines, link popularity starting to gain public exposure, the misinformation about what link popularity is and what it isn’t also starting to grow. Everyday thousand of new webmasters jump head first into their first search engine optimization project after reading a few SEO forum posts or news articles.

Unfortunately these new webmasters have only a partial view of the search engine optimization process and link building that will actually produce lasting results on the top three search engines, Google, Yahoo and MSN. The key I would like to emphasize here is achieving and maintaining “lasting results”. If your want your website to do well on the search engines even 5 years from now, it’s imperative you play by the rules and gain as much understanding about safe and effective link popularity building as possible.

Considering the sophisticated ranking algorithms used by especially Google, it’s very easy for inexperienced web masters to do irreparable damage to their sites by using spammy on-page optimization and link popularity building techniques that Google frowns upon. The real problem is, most of these search engine fooling tricks or sometimes referred to as “black hat SEO” techniques are not even known to new website owners.

Straight answers on link building methods that can hurt your ranking In this article I would like to shed light on some of the link popularity building techniques that will produce very limited results or worse will get your website banned on Google.

Before we start, I would like to introduce you to some basic concept about link popularity. A link in its simplest terms is a connection from one website to another. You can read more about web links on World Wide Web Consortium website. Search engines use the number and relevance of links to a website to measure its popularity. Therefore it naturally follows, the websites with the most links and the most relevance of those links will come out on top of the search results. Well, as I will reveal below, there is a whole lot more to links than you can imagine.

The risks of link building mistakes Since the link popularity building methods below have varying degrees of negative effects on your search engine ranking from no effect to an outright ban by the search engines, I will place a “Danger Score” next to each of these techniques to better illustrate the risks associated with each method.

A “Danger Score” of 10 will most likely result in a search engine ban while a “Danger Score” of zero will have little or no negative effect. Please also keep in mind Google, Yahoo and MSN have different levels of link spam tolerance. Google clearly leads the way in weeding out link spam and is much more vigilant in defending its search results against sites using link popularity building methods listed below.

Lets start by listing some of link popularity techniques that will not get you brownie points on the search engines.

The weakest links in link popularity building are:

Website links in forum posts signatures used to be a favorite method a few years ago to gain link popularity in a short amount of time. Although contributing to community forums is a great way to get your site noticed by other forum members, it’s not an effective link popularity building method anymore if you try to rely solely on a website link in your forum post signatures. (Danger Score:0)
Blog comment spam involves posting comments to blogs with a hyperlink pointing back to a website using a well targeted anchor text. This link posting method usually automated with the use of scripting languages and bots. This is a very popular method used by many sites peddling porn, pharmacy and many other products. Don’t get discouraged posting blog comments if you have something worthwhile to say, you can only get yourself in trouble if you over do it by adding a large number of links or try to automate comment posting. (Danger Score:7)
Guestbook posting spam is very similar to blog comment spam. The guestbook posts are sometimes automated and if there are a large number of these links identified by search engines pointing to your website, it can results in a ranking loss or a ban. (Danger Score:7)
Large number of inbound links from no Page Rank or low Page Rank pages can send a sign of low website quality or link manipulation to Google. Although the Google Page Rank is not as important as it used to be, nonetheless it serves as an acid test for minimum site quality. It’s becoming harder and harder to find new websites with a high Page Rank score as Google updates its Page Rank less frequently. (Danger Score:2)
Large number of links from the same C class IP block indicates the website is most likely involved in inbound link spamming. Since class C IP addresses use the first three octets to identify a network, the search engines substantially reduce the link popularity score being passed from one website to another in the same network. A large number of inbound links from the same class C IP addresses also suggest the use of the same hosting company or web server. (Danger Score:8)
Large number of links from unrelated sites suggest a link manipulation scheme since the website may lack unique content to attract links naturally. This type of scenario can often be observed in new websites involved in indiscriminate link exchanges using link exchange networks whether it’s automated or manual. It’s inevitable you will have some low quality unrelated links pointing to your website, but if the majority of inbound links are unrelated, you can quickly find yourself in a lot of trouble. (Danger Score:7)
Link farms and web rings are setup with the sole purpose to manipulate link popularity by using a central database, automated scripting and a network of websites. This method is usually beyond the reach of the average webmasters as it takes technological savvy and a large number of servers and other resources to execute. (Danger Score:10)
Interlinking your own websites is a similar linking scheme to getting links from the same C class IP block, but in this case the WHOIS website registration information may be also used by the search engines to link the owner to all the websites involved in the link network. (Danger Score:8)
Co-op Ad networks such as the Digital Point CO-Op Ad Network are used to automatically interconnect websites involved in the network by inserting a small piece of code on their web pages. Every website participating in the network has to be validated first before joining the ad co-op. Google recently took a much harder line against sites using these type of link networks and the risks of getting banned has increased. (Danger Score:9)
Paid links is a very controversial subject in the SEO industry, since Google itself is making most of its revenue from selling small text ads next to its search results and other web services. As long as the paid links remain “under the radar” of the search engines the link popularity boost can be very significant to a website. Google is using both human power and automated tools to detect paid text links. When a website it identified as a known seller of text links, the link popularity benefits are no longer passed on to the target website, while the website owner continues to pay sometimes astronomical monthly fees for the text links. (Danger Score:2)
Automated link exchanges using server side scripting and databases are still popping up as the lure of easy and fast link popularity building attracts thousands of new website owners. As the saying goes “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is”. In most cases automated scripts are used to execute the link exchanges and they usually leave a very large “foot print”. The search engines can easily identify the websites involved, and punish them accordingly. The automated link exchange services using server side scripts are sure way to loose your search engine ranking or get your site de-indexed by the search engines. (Danger Score:8)
Identical anchor text used in a large percentage of inbound links are unnatural and can be picked out by the search engines very easily. When linking occurs naturally people use all kinds of different anchor text to link to a website. When the same anchor text is used in a large number of inbound links, it’s a sign of someone trying to manipulate the inbound links and the search results. (Danger Score:5)
Run of site links are placed in the footer or side navigation of a website that is repeated on every page using a server side include or other HTML scripting method. Run of site links can also suggest the use of paid text links to the search engines. (Danger Score:4)
3 way link exchanges occur when a website is invited to participate in a link exchange, but the inbound link is placed on a third website participating in the link exchange. Despite what many people think, three-way link exchanges can be easily identified by search engines and if there are a large number of these types of links are present, it can result in a ranking drop or ban. (Danger Score:3)
Low quality directory links could give a decent ranking boost to a website a few years ago, but that is no longer the case. Inbound links from brand new, template based general directories are not going to result in a link popularity increase for your website. These new directories are a waste of time and money to submit to. If you want to submit to well established, older directories, please visit our internet directory list page. (Danger Score:2)
Inbound links from sites which are heavily optimized without contact information, phone number or a physical address imply a website that was created with the sole purpose of getting higher ranking in the search results and/or pass link popularity score to other websites. Most of these websites don’t have any real products or services to offer, they are sometimes also used by SEO companies selling permanent text links for a fee or used to place their own clients’ website links on them. If you can’t find contact information on the web site, only a web form, it’s most likely a low quality resource. (Danger Score:1)
Inbound links from new sites under 1 year old will not pass as much link popularity score as older domains. The fact is Google favors old websites in its search results especially for very competitive keyword terms. (Danger Score:1)
Inbound links from affiliate or Google AdSense sites are relatively poor links due to the fact these sites contain very little unique content. Most of these site solely exist to generate ad revenue from Google’s AdSense program, or affiliate relationships.(Danger Score:2)
Inbound links using Javascript or other redirect methods are sometimes used by unscrupulous webmasters creating a perception of a fair link exchange with new webmasters. The problems is, most search engines can only follow static links to your website and therefore any type of redirect to your website will not result in link popularity vote that can be recognized by the search engines.(Danger Score:0)
Adding too many links too fast is a sure way to get noticed by the search engines for the wrong reasons. Except in some special cases when a website gains a lot of public exposure and links due to a TV ad, website blog or other forms of advertising medium. Inbound links appearing too fast especially from unrelated websites can result in a ranking drop or complete ban. Slow and steady, natural link building is the name of the game. (Danger Score:5)
In Conclusion Search engines are much more sophisticated than people give them credit for. Avoid damaging your web site’s link reputation on the search engines by staying clear of the above link popularity building methods. Fixing link popularity building mistakes is hard work and can take a long time to correct. Before you start your search engine optimization project, learn all you can about effective and safe link building methods that will guarantee your web site’s long term success.

Link Popularity for the Unpopular, a Quick Primer for Today’s Search Engine Landscape

So tell the truth, were you popular in high school? Did you have a lot of friends, and a wide social circle? Were you an athlete? Did your accomplishments extend far outside the halls of your alma mater to neighboring schools and counties? If so, then congratulations; you’re probably in the minority of those reading this article. What does this example have to do with link popularity you ask; more than you think.

Just as in high school, on the World Wide Web, your website is known by the company it keeps. Link to the wrong site or “hang with the wrong crowd” and you could be ostracized by the search engine community before you even begin. Achieve quality inbound links from a wide range of popular kids on the internet, however, and watch your site’s online profile soar. Sounds simple, and it is, if you know what to do to climb the online social ladder that is Link Popularity.

But before we get to that, what exactly is Link Popularity? Simply defined, Link Popularity is a measure of the quantity and quality of other web sites that link to your site on the internet at any given time. It is considered an off-the-page criteria that is greatly utilized by search engines to determine the overall importance and quality of your site to the online community. Because of its impartial nature, a site with a very high number of incoming links is usually viewed as highly relevant to the online community at large and thus highly visible within relevant search engine results. Whereas a content-poor site will attract fewer incoming links and thus hold little value to the same visitors.

What is the current link popularity of your site today? Take a moment to enter your site url at popular free link tool http://www.linkpopularity.com, then come back for the rest of this article…..

Still there, good! The results probably weren’t what you had hoped for though, where they? Not to worry; probably the biggest threat to you obtaining a high link popularity score for your site is relying on old information. To that end, below is a quick 10-step CURRENT process that can be implemented immediately to increase your site’s overall link popularity:

Step 1 – SUBMIT YOUR SITE TO OPEN DIRECTORY (DMOZ) AND YAHOO – Although neither of these sites are the 800 lb. gorillas they used to be, any link from these sites is going to increase your online profile immediately and very visibly. Find your appropriate category in both sites and submit for free with DMOZ and invest the $299 for a yearly indexing with Yahoo. Although DMOZ is still incredibly slow in adding new sites, keep at it, find the appropriate editor and send him cookies or flowers if necessary (couldn’t hurt?) then be patient.

Step 2 – ADD YOUR KEYWORDS TO THE LINKING ANCHOR TEXT – When at all possible, try to have an on-point relevant keyword phrase used as the linking text within any inbound link your seek for your site. If all you can manage is your site name or your url, that is certainly fine. But if you are selling toothbrushes to Eskimos, then “Eskimo toothbrushes for sale” as the linking keyword phrase from one site to yours is always the way to go.

Step 3 – WRITE ARTICLES AND SUBMIT PRESS RELEASES – Hey, look what I am doing right now! I could be watching ESPN, but I am writing this article instead. Write articles and submit press releases when you have a personnel change, introduce or upgrade a service or product or when you have a topic of interest you wish to share with the online world web community. Don’t have a blog? Get one! This is a simple way to get your articles and press releases out for indexing and review. Make sure to include links to your site where appropriate and watch your link popularity grow and grow.

Step 4 – FIND OUT WHO LINKS TO YOUR COMPETITORS – Go to Google.com and enter this into this search query: link:www.yourcompetitor.com. Do the same for Yahoo by entering linkdomain:www.your-competitor.com -site:www.your-competitor.com into the search field. Seek out the sites linking to your competitors and convince them to link to you instead. You win TWICE with this approach. You gain a quality link and an increase in your overall popularity while your competitor LOSES a link and achieves a lower popularity score in return.

Step 5 – CREATE AN AFFILIATE PROGRAM – Nothing generates quality, inbound links to your site faster than an established, commission-paying affiliate program. Whether your site is product or service-based, an affiliate program can be just the thing that takes your site and its link popularity to new heights. Visit http://www.CommissionJunction.com or http://www.LinkShare.com to set-up a new affiliate program of your design today and watch your online profile grow by leaps and bounds.

Step 6 – DEEP LINK YOUR SITE – This step is vastly overlooked by even the most savvy of online marketers initiating a new link popularity campaign. Make sure that links you seek out or solicit don’t just link to your home page, but ALL pages of your website. This process has numerous benefits including expanding your overall online link profile as well as generating unique Google PageRank values for each and every one of your site’s pages instead of just your home page.

Step 7 – SIGN UP ON GUESTBOOKS AND FORUMS – If you don’t participate in forums on your site topic or remember to sign-in when visiting a new site for the first time, now is the time to make such actions a habit. Always post a message or participate in a forum thread whenever possible and include a link to your site in your signature where appropriate. These “sig” files do get indexed and really add up, especially if the site forum in question is something highly regarded in your specific industry.

Step 8 – CONTACT RECIPROCAL LINKS BY PHONE NOT EMAIL – You would be shocked how successful this really is. More people are inclined to respond to your request when you introduce yourself by phone and let them know that you were visiting their site. Tell the person you are linking to their site, asking permission of course, and then politely ask for a link back. Cement the request by following up by email; then wait for the links to roll-in (oh, and get rid of the form letters; they don’t work!).

Step 9 – AVOID LINK FARMS AND LINK EXCHANGES – Reputation on the web is more important than ever. Again, just like friendships in high school, it’s better to have fewer higher-quality links to your site than hundreds of off-point, non-relevant links that do nothing to enhance the overall experience of the online community. Stay away, far away, from companies promising you hundreds of links to your site overnight. At best you don’t need the links, and at worst, you could be banned by the major search engines altogether.

Step 10 – DOWNLOAD THE GOOGLE TOOLBAR – This very simple technique allows you to view all potential link partners by the very important Google PageRank score (1-10) that is viewable in this browser. Use the toolbar to keep tabs on your own site’s PageRank score, than seek out complimentary, highly relevant linking partners that have a Google PageRank score of 6 or higher whenever possible. Convince a handful of high Google PageRank sites to link back to you and watch your site take off.

Remember, just like in high school, you and your site will be known by the company kept. Follow the simple, ten step plan outlined above, and you will be well on your way to achieving real, measured, lasting success online. Be the popular site on the block today; it’s easier then you think. Go ahead, be popular!

SEO marketing professional Casey Markee is president of San Dieg

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