| Build Link Popularity The Smart Way |
A Brief Introduction To Link Popularity
As webmasters research various ways to get more traffic to their
site one method that is gaining more and more publicity is Link
Popularity. Link Popularity is the number of links that point to
your website as measured by the search engines. In theory if your
site has many sites linking to it then it is considered to be a
valuable resource on the particular topic so the search engines will
give it a higher ranking.
The Problem
As with many rules/laws eventually people found a way to manipulate
it. Sites were created solely to build the link popularity of other
sites. These sites are called "Link Farms' and contributed to
the pollution of search engine results. They increased the search
engine rankings of many sites that did not deserve the position they
received.
Eventually the search engines caught on to this deception and some
such as Google adjusted their algorithms accordingly. Google now
penalizes websites associated with Link Farms imposing penalties
they deem appropriate based on the site and the scenario. Many
people that felt the effects of this penalization were fairly
innocent, well that is if you consider ignorance to be an alibi.
They simply did not know that what they were doing was wrong; some
even paid for SEO services and were victims of bad services.
As the search engines change their algorithms aiming to reduce
fraudulent activities by webmasters, more and more ways are
conceived to manipulate them, and so the battle continues.
An Honest Link Building Strategy
Getting quality links to your site from related resources is not
always as easy as some make it sound. The key word here
is "quality'. It is a very time consuming process and
involves the following steps:
* Search for quality sites that are related to yours.
* Contact the Webmaster of the related site.
* Wait for a response from them.
* Swap links if the response is positive.
There are also some automated methods of doing this that speed up
the process, however, I would not recommend any of them and hence
won't list them in this article.
So you have started your link building campaign and are hopefully
seeing the results. Now you say this is great but how can I make
this process more efficient and effective without risking your good
standings with the search engines.
Here is the solution.
The Smart Way To Build Link Popularity.
One thing webmasters are always looking for, and find hard to
refuse, is good quality content. If you are knowledgeable on a
particular topic that is related to your site, writing informative
articles is a great way to gain your website additional link
popularity. If you are reading this article and are not reading it
on http://www.lilengine.com then there is your proof.
If you don't consider yourself a writer don't worry, you
don't have to be. Get your article in the best shape you possibly
can and then have others, who you consider to be better at writing
than you are, look it over. Make your edits and there you go.
How is writing articles efficient and effective?
Well-written articles do take time to produce but as you write more
you will get better and will find that it starts to take less and
less time. This method offers several more benefits than the linking
method listed above. These are as follows:
* Articles are, in most cases, permanent additions to sites.
* Writing Articles demonstrates your knowledge of various industry
related topics and this helps to build credibility.
* If users are interested enough to read your entire article then
there's a very good chance that they will click on your link to
visit your site in hopes of learning more or even just out of
curiosity.
* You are able to include several links with articles. You can have
several links in the resource box also known as the bylines as well
as in any "appropriate' spots in the article.
* You have the "option' of including your affiliate links in
the article if it includes information on that resource.
* You also get to add this content to your own website.
* If you include reprint information in the bylines then others that
read the article, and feel it would be a valuable addition to their
site, will add it and then it becomes almost viral. It spreads even
though you are not doing a thing.
Summary
Building link popularity is a vital part to your search engine
ranking and should be approached in either of the two methods listed
above that you feel is more appropriate for your individual
situation. The benefits from writing, however, far outweigh those of
requesting reciprocal links in most situations. Hopefully this
article has helped to shed some light on this and will encourage
more knowledgeable people to start sharing their knowledge with
others. For more information on Link Popularity visit
http://www.lilengine.com
About the author:
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Alec Duncan is the founder of http://www.lilengine.com
a search engine optimization resource site. Visit
http://www.lilengine.com and also visit their new Web Hosting
resource section at http://webhosting.lilengine.com
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