Monday, September 3, 2007

Link Your Way to a Higher Search Engine Ranking

Are you serious about driving traffic to your website If you are then you should develop a linking strategy. People follow the recommendations of trusted websites. When a trusted website links to yours you suddenly get immediate attention. There are three major link strategies: 1) Purchasing text links 2) Employing a link finding service 3) Reciprocal linking.

This article focuses on the latter-reciprocal linking. Reciprocal linking means that your website links to another and their website links back to yours. Its a great way to increase your ranking in search engines. Search engines use link popularity to rank sites. Therefore exchanging reciprocal links with other websites will encourage visitors to not only visit your website but bookmark it as well.

Now, this is not as simple as throwing your links all over the World Wide Web. If that were the case nearly all websites would be popular. In order to have success with reciprocal linking you should bare in mind these factors.

The quality of links should out weigh the quantity. The inbound links should come from sites that are relevant to your site content Partners should link to you from pages listing as few links as possible.

The first thing is to get people to want to link to your website. This begins with having good web content. Analyze the value of your content in relation to your competitors.

Next, you need to research websites that are worth linking to and that will drive relevant traffic to your website. Take your time to identify the directories, news sites, portals, blogs and ezines that are specific to your field. There are many software tools that you can purchase to help make this task more efficient. They will locate relevant sites, collect email addresses and even prepare letters requesting that the website link back to yours.

Arelis Reciprocal Link Solution, Links Manager and Linkpro are but a few examples. Even if you decide to use software, its important to visit the websites that these tools generate. However, good quality content is still the best way to build long term link popularity.

You can determine the websites traffic by visiting www.alexa.com you will also learn the length of time their site has been online. Going to link sites that will tell you how many sites link to them for further proof that they get a lot of traffic. One should keep in mind the following components when adopting a reciprocal linking strategy.

You will need to know the name and email address of the person who runs the site, as well you should keep a record of the date you contacted the owner of the website and the date that he or she responds.

You will also need to make note of the resulting deal. Dont be surprised if some people say no, while others will not reply at all. Some may want money for links.

If the web owner agrees to swap links, verify that the links are in place and check the website periodically for the link. Some people swap links and then pull yours. When applied correctly, reciprocal linking is an excellent strategy for getting traffic and improving your search engine ranking.


http://www.articleco.com/Article/Link-Your-Way-to-a-Higher-Search-Engine-Ranking/35456

Start Linking And Skyrocket Your Profits

I make a lot of traffic to my site because it has so many links pointing in - and outwards. Links simply gather visitors residually.

1.Offpage search engine optimization is the key.

It simply means links to and from the site. This is the numbers - and the quality game. The more links the site has the better, but they must be related and search engine must appreciate these links.

Offpage optimization depends on:

- the links inward the site
- the number of sites linking to the site
- Google page rank of the site, which links to your site
- the page title of the page linking to the site
- the number and type of sites linking to the site which links to your site
- the number and type of outward links of the site linking to your one
- does Google see the linking site as " an authority website "

2. What are the quality links

Google has a small green bar above each page. Many think that the longer the bar, the higher page rank the page has. This is not true. The green bar is almost totally meaningless little " promotional " bar only.

My list for quality links is:

- the target site must be relevant
- the target site must be able to drive traffic to your site
- the target site must have high page rank at Google ( and other SE )
- the links must be visible to search engine spiders. Most spiders crawl the site three level deep only
- the target site allows to use your own linktext ( including keywords )
- the target site must link to a specific content of your page

3. How many links you have now

Go to linkpopularity.com and write your domain into the box. The result shows how many links right now point back to your domain. This number is what you have to increase.

4. Forum Postings.

Participate regularly to professional forums, which discuss relevant internet marketing issues. Note that the forums I recommend below are among the most visited sites worldwide! This means it is important to get links back to your site, these forums are 100 % related. I prefer these forums very professional: warriorforum, associateprograms forum and searchenginewatch forum.

At the bottom of each posting, there is a " sig-file ", where you can type in your url with a short ad. This is your link back to your site.

5. Articles.

You can always write your articles by yourself or order them from writers like nichearticleclub.com or Elane. Search engines love articles with original, useful and fresh content. If you use written ones, you have to customize them.

The article submission can be done manually or by automated online service. If your choice is the manual submission, these 3 sites can do it: www.dmoz.org, www.stpt.com or www.elib.org.
If you want more, go to Google, you can find tons of them.

At Google insert the search word " submit your url " and you get a list of sites to where you can submit all of your urls.

If you as an internet marketer want effective coverage over internet community, use automated submission service and visit www.articlemarketer.com . They ship your article to over 32.000 places all over the internet!

6. The blog.

Search engines love blogs, because of their original, fresh and useful information. When so, they will index the blog, which means good results in search results.
The blog is like a library for other internet marketers and site visitors, they can pick the article and submit it to their site or blog.

7. Purchase Text Links.

Purchase text links but only for one month. Why Because when Google spider has crawled your site, the linksjob is done. This is the reason why one month is enough.

It is possible to get 1 PR7 for one month even at $ 150 and indexed at Google in 24 hours. Not bad!

8. Watch the link popularity.

A growing number of search engines appreciate the link popularity in their ranking algorithms, especially Google. You can either contact webowners by mail or use services like www.LinkMachine.com to do it with hundreds of sites in minutes. I used LinkMachine and succeeded to get above 700 related, reciprocal links to my website. LinkMachine has a super training lesson, which also includes SEO- techniques.

9. Look at the competition.

You can check the links of your competiors by typing your major keywords into Google. Then pick the first competitorsurls and type the domains into the box at www.marketleap.com. Click any underlined number and get linklist per search engine. These are your potential links. Count how many domains point to the site from relevant sites. Examine especially " authority / news sites and ezines ", because search engines appreciate them.


http://www.articleco.com/Article/Start-Linking-And-Skyrocket-Your-Profits/38319

Website Owners Need Quality Link Building

Quality link building should never be underestimated if a website expects to achieve a good page rank from a search engine. While there are other things to base page rank on, none matters as much as having quality links. Link building strategies play a key role in determining the rank that you will either get or give to your competitor.

While it is important to give a reader content that will be of benefit to them it is also important that the information will be something other sites will want to link to. Content should be fresh and not just basic information that can be found on any other website. Strategic links are always better than placing mass amount so links to any site available.

There are also different types of link building services that will work for a site. Competitive link analysis allows one to take a look at the strategy for quality link building. By analyzing the information with tools and software, it is possible to implement a winning strategy to stay ten steps ahead of competitors at every turn.

As the search engines compare the number of links in your website to that of other sites, it is imperative that those links are always of good quality. Your link strategy is determined by your competitors and the competition for a top page rank becomes quite fierce. It stands to reason that finding a service that wholly knows the ins and outs of quality link building is an absolute must.

Because no two websites are exactly the same, no two strategies should ever be alike. What works for one site can be quite detrimental to another. Without a number of good quality links to look at, there will be no page rank, which in turn leads to fewer views and even less sales.

The point of having a website is to get out information or achieve a certain amount of recognition for a certain product. Without using all the appropriate methods to do this, having a website becomes an investment that does not provide a return for a business. With the Internet being one of the number one ways to shop, it has become quite necessary to devote serious time and energy to achieving a good page rank.

With a personalized link strategy, one will always know what steps to take to improve their website ranking. Not only should a service be able to develop a personalized strategy, they should be able to implement it with ease. If so, the difference will be easy to see in your bottom line.

Along with a good strategy of quality link building, a link building campaign is another useful element to achieve a good page rank. Just like the strategy, the campaign should also be unique. This ensures that the energy spent cultivating hits is never futile and the return is worth the investment.

Investing in a service that uses cookie cutter methods and a one size fits all mindset can definitely cost money in the long run. Using a company that is comfortable dealing one on one with clients and customers is always a best bet. A good link building service is one that knows your success is their success.

Quality link building is a service that website owners certainly cannot be without. With the competition for page rank as fierce as it is, no one with a website can afford to lose out. Quality SEO companies are not only aware of this but are ready, willing and able to aid in building and implementing strategies and campaigns.


http://www.articleco.com/Article/Website-Owners-Need-Quality-Link-Building/40065

The Google Algorithm For Link Popularity

Google is by far the most important search engine on the net. To rise to the top of their search engine, you need to improve your link popularity and you need to understand how they measure your link popularity (over 50% of all search engine traffic comes from Google, and if you can rise to the top, you will likely rise to the top of all the other search engines as well).

Link popularity is defined as the number of sites that are linking to your site. Some websites have thousands or even millions of sites linking to them, while others might have only a few. The search engines use the number of inbound links your site has as a measure of how important your site is, which translates into your search engine ranking.

The actual number of links to your site is not the only variable used to calculate your link popularity. The search engines also examine the relevance of the links to the subject matter of your site. For example, if a website that sells vitamins has 4,000 inbound links, but the source of most of the links are websites that have nothing to do with vitamins, then the algorithm that search engines use to determine link popularity will take that into account, and the link popularity score will not be very good.

It is possible for a website with a relatively small number of quality inbound links to be ranked higher than a site with a bunch of irrelevant or insignificant links. If I have a website that offers quotes for auto insurance, and I have 800 quality inbound links, then I might receive a much higher search engine ranking than another mortgage site that has 3,000 links that stem from link farms or Free For All (FFA) pages.

If you try to acquire inbound by using link farms or FFA pages, not only will it hurt your search engine ranking, but you might get permanently removed from the search engine listings. Links farms are sites where you can instantly exchange links with all the sites listed in that directory. FFA pages are pointless link directories. The search engines usually discount any links that come from either of these sources.

Now that we understand what link popularity is and how it works, we need to look specifically at how Google measures it. They use a number of variables in their algorithm to calculate your overall link score. The higher your score, the higher you will be ranked in the search listings.

One factor that Google uses in their algorithm, obviously, is the total number of sites linking to you. The more links you have, the higher your score will be. However, their algorithm is a little more complicated than that, and it is possible for a website with fewer links to be ranked higher than a website that has more links.

The reason for this is because Google also measures the quality of your links. If your website is about vitamins, and the site linking to you is a video game site, then that is not considered a quality link. The link still helps your score, but the link would help your score much more if it were from a website whose subject matter is the same as yours.

Also, Google gives a higher score to a link if it comes from a page that has actual content that relates to your keywords. For example, if your site is about jewelry, and another jewelry website has posted a link to your site on their links page, that link is not as valuable as a link to your site coming from a blog or a message board where a lot of information about jewelry is being written or discussed.

Also, they give an even higher score to a link if it contains anchor text that matches one of the keywords that describes your site. For example, if I have a site that sells lawnmowers, and a blog about lawnmowers has posted a link to my site, it helps my score even more if the link text (also known as anchor text) is LAWNMOWERS. To learn more about anchor text, go to a search engine and look up ANCHOR TEXT and you will be able to learn about it.

Another factor used by Google to score your link popularity is the diversity of keywords contained on sites linking to you. For example, if you have a site that sells handbags, and all the links to your site are from other sites that contain nothing but the keyword HANDBAGS, Google considers that to be abnormal. To get a higher score, you need to have links coming from sites that contain a variety of keywords related to handbags, such as BUY HANDBAGS, LEATHER HANDBAGS, etc.

It is difficult to increase your link popularity, but now that you understand how your score is calculated, you can devise a plan to improve your score. You might want to consider posting to forums and blogs that contain information that is related to your site, and when you post, include a link to your site.


http://www.articleco.com/Article/The-Google-Algorithm-For-Link-Popularity/40937

The Key to Successful Web Traffic Generation

You've heard the catch phrase a million times, but what is "Link Pop" exactly

It's simple really. A website's link popularity, often called "Link Pop", can be determined by the quality, quantity, and relevance of the other websites that link to its page.

Link Pop can be a tricky thing. In the good old days, search engines determined a site's page ranking by the amount of times the keywords appeared in the text. Soon webmasters learned that if they squeezed an obnoxious amount of keywords into their site's text, the site would eventually gain a very high page ranking.

Since search engines like Google gain users by serving quality webpage matches, they had to get smarter than the web developers. Google decided that instead of keyword match-ups only, page ranking would in addition be based on pages that had the most links to them. In theory, a website that has a bunch of other pages linking to it must be good, right Wrong.

Webmasters would create these links any way that they could. "Link Farms" began developing and cluttering up the web. A link farm is essentially a page with tons of links on it, often in no particular order. These pages were virtually useless to web users, yet web designers were using them to gain better page rankings.

The thing is, search engines aren't designed for web developers. They are designed for web users. Thus, when the "best" sites weren't showing up first, Google had to try yet another strategy.

This time links would be categorized. The best kind of link is an "Inbound Link." An "Inbound Link" basically means another site links to your site. This generally happens because the webmaster of the site feels that the information on your site is valuable to his or her readers. Your page ranking will improve significantly if the website has a higher page ranking than yours and if there is obvious relevance between the two sites.

An "Outbound Link" means that your site offers a link to another site. "Outbound Links" don't hurt your popularity if they are relevant sites, but they don't necessarily help.

Then we have "Reciprocal" and "Non-Reciprocal" links. A reciprocal link means that two sites connect to each other. A non-reciprocal link is a one-way link. Search engines are able to tell the difference between reciprocal and non-reciprocal links. Obviously non-reciprocal links are more credible because there is no direct benefit to the linker, and will thus increase your link popularity.

In order to create link pop for your website, you should focus on creating as many inbound non-reciprocal links as possible. One of the best ways to do this is through locating sites that are similar to your own and that accept links on their site from other related websites.

This can be a very time consuming process if done manually but there are many software programs out there that can make the job much easier and in less time then if you were doing it manually.

One of the best programs on the internet to handle this process is called Backlink Submitter and it can be found at http://www.backlinksubmitter.com

Link directories are another great way to build ones link pop. Essentially, a link directory provides users with a collection of links organized by topic. There are thousands of directories to choose from. DMOZ and Yahoo! are the most heavily weighted.

Directories exist solely to provide users with valuable resources. They are edited and organized by humans, so appearing in a directory can be a measure of a site's worth. If your website is listed, it is viewed by users as a credible source.

Get your link in many directories as you can! There are two benefits. It will generate targeted traffic to your site, and it can improve your page ranking. When choosing a directory, look for the ones that allow you to add your own title and/or keywords. Choose directories that have less than 50 listings per page, and make sure the addition can improve your page ranking.

The submission process can be frustrating and time-consuming. The upside is, once your link is posted your link pop can shoot through the roof.

Fortunately, we have developed a way to make the submission process painless. To learn how to efficiently submit your website to the top directories on the web, go to http://www.directorysubmitter.com

http://www.articleco.com/Article/The-Key-to-Successful-Web-Traffic-Generation/41648

How to Improve Your Link Pop on a Tight Budget

There are a lot of different ways to improve your link pop that don't cost a cent.

Unfortunately, these methods can be very time-consuming. But, you get what you put into it. And even if you only spend an hour a day constantly striving to increase your PR, it will be an hour well spent.

First, email all the websites you can and simply ask for a link. You'll be surprised at how many people say yes. Politely explain that you'd like to increase your traffic, and explain why you think his or her site's users have something to gain from visiting your homepage. Enclose a pre-made html coded link so that if they agree, it's a simple cut-and-paste job.

Next, start on your linking campaign. Again, try emailing webmasters and explain that your sites' readers can benefit from reading both websites. Show them where you will prominently post their link, and politely ask for the exchange. If your site contains helpful information, they will most likely say yes.

You can in addition try posting testimonials about other sites on your homepage. When you're finished, send a link of your comments to the webmaster. Who would pass up the opportunity to brag about a great review

Next, start writing free articles for popular article directories (search "article directory" in Yahoo! or Google for submission options). This allows people to read your work and publish it for free. Make sure to include a Bio Box that includes a link to your site. Stipulate that the article may be reprinted for free as long as the Bio Box is included. This will instantaneously provide extra links to your page when people reprint your work.

Be sure to post comments in discussion groups and on message boards. Make useful, relevant statements based on topics being discussed. Comments that only contain a link will usually be deleted or banned. If you make worthwhile contributions, people will definitely want to find out what else you have to say by visiting your site.

If your site distributes a newsletter, start a contest for ad space. Offer to advertise a website in your publication to the sites that offer you a free link.

Finally, submit your website to as many relative sites as you can that accept free one-way links or offer a link exchange, A great new tool to help you get this done quickly and easily is called Backlink Submitter found at backlinksubmitter.com

Also submit your website to as many directories as you can. Webmasters readily agree that directory submission is the BEST way to gain targeted traffic to your site. By listing your site in a directory, web users will view your page as a reliable resource tailored specifically to their search criteria. You can submit to directories such as Yahoo! Directory for about $300. However, if you're operating on a smaller budget it is better to take the time to submit to several small directories. It is much more time-consuming but you can ultimately achieve the same results!

For a faster way to submit to over 2000 quality, specialized directories (at less than 1/3 of the price of Yahoo!), directorysubmitter.com


http://www.articleco.com/Article/How-to-Improve-Your-Link-Pop-on-a-Tight-Budget/41962

Website Linking Strategies for Artists and Artisans

Good link popularity is more important even than keyword density. The search engines seem to change their algorithms now and then and your position in the search engine database depends on satisfying those algorithms. Good content coupled with a solid strategy for soliciting incoming links from related websites will help your position in the search engines as well as drive traffic from your linking partners to your own site.

Three kinds of links exist. These are internal links, outgoing links and incoming links. Of these three the incoming links are the most valuable, but you can use internal and outgoing links in certain ways to make your site more marketable.

Internal Links

These are the links that lead from one page to another within your site. You can get extra mileage out of these links by increasing your keyword density in the writing of the link. When you write the code for these internal links, add a title and description of the link with in the code. Use your keywords in these titles and descriptions to increase keyword density.

Check your links to assure that they are correct and that you do not link to a "coming soon" page or a blank page. You can also link within a page to bookmarks. They are a secondary navigation system for your site and help your focus your content as well as enhancing your keyword density.

One of the most valuable ways to link within your site may be the site map. The search engines find sitemaps and can index all of your internal links from this page. A site map helps your visitor understand your site better. It is also your own hand cultivated "link farm". Your site map should use your keywords and have page descriptions along with the codes within the title rather than just having a list of links.

Outgoing Links

These are links from your site to outside sites. Since you have the ultimate control over these links, you should be assured that they lead to quality sites that augment your own content. You can use these links as a "carrot" when requesting reciprocal links for your site. You can link to an authority in your field, which may give you more credibility and status on the engines. As an artisan, you might want to link to publications in your field, museums, craft show schedules, galleries that show your work, style or trend resources, lifestyle sources or raw materials information sites. Links to your competitors will not hurt you, but provide little benefit to your linking plan.

Here is an example of an optimized internal link to Ornament magazine using a title and description within the link and explaining where the link takes the visitor. The statement causes the link to open in a new window so your site visitor does not leave your site permanently.

Ornament Magazine The magazine for people interested wearable art, jewelry and other accessories.

Incoming Links

These links to your site from outside sources are links that you can not control, but try to attract to your site. The search engines rate links that relate to your site as more valuable than those that are unrelated to your content. You should request links from publications in your field, fashion or style publications, newspapers, stylists, interior decorators, galleries, museums, your suppliers, etc. A link from Vogue Magazine if you are a jeweler or Home Interiors if you are a potter would be of more value than one from the local plumber. Reciprocal links from Visitor's Bureaus, Chambers of Commerce and local business organizations are valuable and should be cultivated

The growing trend is that relevant, quality links certainly can drive direct traffic to your site. Search engines consider links when they are determining your positioning in the database of websites. Link popularity, the number of links to a website from other sites, is important. Some links are said to be more beneficial than others. You will receive offers by businesses who provide linking services. Some are reputable while others just get links on websites, known as link farms, that are set up for the purpose of linking. This type of linking can get you banned from the search engines as a spammer.

The best strategy for obtaining good incoming links for the best benefit to your website involves your own choices of links to request. You set up the link on your own site to their site and make contact with the webmaster of the site showing him or her where the link is to their site and requesting a link back to your own site. When you do this, include the linking code and description for the webmaster's convenience and your own input. You can also provide a page on your website with a form for webmasters to request links to their own site and code for them to link back to you.

Time spent visiting sites, setting up your linking goals, making a list of linking partners and contacting the webmasters requesting reciprocal links will be worth it, but it is a step-by-step detailed process. A simple spread sheet detailing which sites you have contacted, dates and responses will help keep you organized.

http://www.articleco.com/Article/Website-Linking-Strategies-for-Artists-and-Artisans/47534