Link Popularity - Ways to Improve Web Site Page Ranking

Link popularity is an important barometer that search engines use to determine your web site ranking. Links to your site from other web site owners is seen as a "vote" towards the quality of your site. Each web site gains link popularity depending on the (outside of the current site) pages that link to it. Google and other search engines consider link popularity strongly they evaluate the web pages that they include and rank in their databases. Google has a tool bar where you can see the page rank of web sites you visit, so you can use the tool bar to get a good snapshot about your web site's popularity. There are a number of very good "free" link popularity tools on the net that give you a better overall view of your ranking to include other major search engines and one my favorites is link popularity (put this term in your favor search engine block and you will find it). The more links, the higher your ranking will be on most of the major search engines.

Okay, you are now thinking, "how do I get more links"? The answer, you work at it but there are some ways that you "supercharge" your linking actions and in the following paragraphs I'll explain the how-to.

The easiest link is called "one-way link" that is pointing to your web site from someone else's site with no return link from you to them. The second type is called "reciprocal" and that is where both web site owners agree to add a link that will point to the other. Obviously, reciprocal links require a great deal of emailing and hoping that the other party will agree. With all of the spam and other nonsense that goes on the net, you may not be successful using this technique. The best option is go after "one-way links" and here is how you do it:

A webmaster who places a link to your website on his/her page believes that their visitors will benefit from the CONTENT of your site. Great content insures that these links become long term and provide continuing value to the sites that are linked to you.

Here are some tips on how to obtain One-Way Links:

Remember, the most important thing to keep in mind is that to get more links you must offer something of value. Think of what you can give that viewers/site owners will want to link to:

• Natural links from sites that are similar to your theme (example: travel to travel site(s))
• Free access to e-books, articles, and other content
• Directory links, listed under category related to your theme
• Blogs, submitted to a blog directory or archived online
• Business or Professional associations listed under your category relative to your topic/theme
• Newsletter text ads promoting your businesses or theme
• Original press releases that you submit to online related web sites

On each of the above options, make sure you add an active link pointing to your site. It is always a good idea that when you change the content on your site that you archive the old content on your site this assures that your link popularity to grow as your site increases it' pages.

When you provide a link make sure that it can be followed by the search engine robots. It can be a plain text link or image link. Usually, JavaScript links are not recommended because robots can typically follow the link. The simpler linking code you provide the better. A technique you can use is to conduct a search for the page where the link to your web site will be located. You can search via the entire web site or by individual page(s). It the page is listed in the search engine results, this means the page was indexed by the search engine robots and viable for indexing and that your link will be found.

While I have just scratched the surface of link popularity in this article, there are many web sites that provide a wealth of information on this important SEO action and I suggest you spend some time on studying and practicing link popularity management.

Visit Chuck at his blog at http://www.sysconn.com . Chuck St. Arnaud is the Chairman & CEO of a the oldest and largest ISP in Coastal Georgia. A frequent writer and speaker on the Internet, he is considered a local asset when it comes to understanding the potential of using the Internet. Chuck is also an adjunct professor of Marketing at a local university.