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:/
oolbar.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.

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:

Search Engine
Optimization - Offering search engine optimization services.

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.

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.

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