|
Improving
the Link Popularity of your site
By Sumantra Roy
Link
popularity, i.e. the number of sites which
are linking to your site, is an increasingly
important factor as far as search engine placement
is concerned. Other things remaining the same,
more the number of links to your site, higher
will be its ranking.
What
is important is not only the number of links
to your site, but also the types of sites
which are linking to you. A link from a site
which is related to yours is more valuable
than a link from an unrelated site.
In
this article, I explore different methods
by which you can improve the link popularity
of your site. I start with the methods that
you shouldn't bother using, then go on to
the moderately effective methods, and then
end with the most effective methods you can
use to boost the link popularity of your site.
1)
Submitting your site to Free For All (FFA)
pages
A
common misconception among many Internet marketers
is that while FFA pages may not directly bring
in traffic to your site, it will help to improve
the link popularity of your site, and hence,
will indirectly bring in traffic through the
search engines.
Nothing
could be further from the truth. Most FFA
pages can contain only a certain number of
links at a time. This means that when you
submit your site to a FFA page, your site
will be placed at the top of the page. However,
as more and more people submit their sites
to the FFA page, your site will be pushed
down, and finally, when it reaches the bottom
of the page, it will be removed.
Now,
since you can bet that plenty of other people
are also submitting their sites to the FFA
pages, your site will remain in these pages
for only a short span of time. Hence, in order
to ensure that the search engines see your
site if and when they come to spider the FFA
page, you will need to ensure that you submit
your site to these FFA pages on a regular
basis - at least once a week.
Even
if you used an automatic submission program
to do it, can you imagine a worse way to spend
your time and/or money? Furthermore, many
search engines recognize these pages which
only contains links to other sites as FFA
pages and may completely ignore them. And
while I haven't yet seen any evidence that
submitting to the FFA pages will actually
penalize your site, there is every possibility
that this might happen in the future.
Hence,
when it comes to FFA pages, my advice is simple:
don't even think about them.
2)
Joining Reciprocal Link Services
Some
people have recommended that in order to increase
the link popularity of your site, you can
join some reciprocal link services. The basic
idea behind these services is that you add
some pages to your site which contain links
to other sites which are members of that service,
and in exchange, these members will also add
pages to their sites which will contain a
link to your site. Theoretically, more the
members of that service, more your link popularity.
However,
I have plenty of reservations about using
this method to boost the link popularity of
your site:
i)
Most of these services require that you add
a visible graphical or text link from your
home page to the pages containing the links.
If they require a graphical link, it can completely
destroy the general look and feel of your
site. Even if they require a text link, how
would you feel if a visitor to your site clicked
on such a link and found one of your competitors
(who is also a member of this service) right
at the top of a page?
ii)
Most of these services give the same pages
containing the links to each of its members,
i.e. the pages that you are required to upload
to your site are exactly the same as the pages
which all the other members of that service
are required to upload to their servers. Even
the file names of the pages tend to be the
same for all the members. Most search engines
are now able to detect such duplicate pages
in different domains and may either ignore
the pages or may even penalize all these domains
for spamming.
iii)
Instead of linking only related sites with
each other, most of these services link all
the members with each other. This means that
lots of unrelated sites will be linking to
your site. As I mentioned before, links from
unrelated sites are simply not as valuable
as links from related sites.
Hence,
I don't recommend that you join any reciprocal
link programs.
3)
Exchanging links with other webmasters
Another
way of improving the link popularity of your
site is to exchange links with other webmasters
who have sites which are related to yours,
but are not direct competitors. Here's how
you can do it:
First,
open a database program like Microsoft Access
and create a new table containing fields like
FirstName, LastName, Email Address, URL etc.
Then, make a list of the sites belonging to
your competitors. Then, go to AltaVista, and type in the
following in the search box:
link:somesite.com
-url:somesite.com
where
somesite.com is the domain name of one of
your competitors. This will give you a list
of all the sites which are linking to that
competitor. Then, find out in what context
a particular site has linked to your competitor.
If this site is an affiliate of your competitor,
then your chance of getting a link from this
site is limited, unless you offer an even
better affiliate program. However, if you
find that this site has a Links page which
contains links to other sites, one of which
is a link to your competitor, then it is an
excellent prospect for exchanging links. Find
out the name and email address of the webmaster
of the site and add them to your database.
In this way, go through all the sites which
are linking to your competitors, locate those
sites which you think may want to exchange
links with you, and build up your database.
Once
you have done that, create a Links page in
your site, and add the URLs of these sites
to the Links page. Then, send an email to
these webmasters, introduce yourself and your
site, congratulate them on building an excellent
web site, tell them that you have already
added a link to their sites from yours, and
then ask them whether they would be kind enough
to add a link to your site. In your email,
emphasize the fact that exchanging links in
this way will be mutually beneficial for both
of you because it will help both of you drive
traffic to your sites. Wait for a month or
so to see the response. Some webmasters will
agree to link to you. Others will simply not
respond. After a month, remove the links to
those sites who are not interested in exchanging
links and using the methods outlined above,
try to locate more sites with which to exchange
links.
When
you send the email to the webmasters, make
sure that you personalize each email. Don't
begin every email with "Hello Webmaster",
begin with "Hello Mike". If you want, you
can use email merge programs to automatically
personalize each email. You can check out
some email merge programs by going to http://download.cnet.com
and searching for "email merge" (without the
quotes).
The main problem
with this method of improving the link popularity
of your site is that it takes a lot of time.
You may find that the number of links you
manage to get just does not justify the time
that you spend over it. The best way to automate
the whole process is to use a program called
Zeus. Zeus will allow you to locate and exchange
links with sites that are related to yours
and manage those links on an ongoing basis
in a fraction of the time it would take for
you to do it manually. You can download a
free trial version of Zeus at the following
URL:
http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?3761&zeus/
While the program
does take a while to get used to, the results
that you can obtain with it are simply phenomenal.
I highly recommend that you download the free
trial version and try it out.
Another thing
that you can do is to mention in your Links
page that you are willing to exchange links
with other web sites. This allows other webmasters
who come to your web site to propose a link
exchange.
4)
Starting an Awards Program
A
moderately effective method of improving the
link popularity of your site is to start an
awards program. You can have web sites which
are related to yours apply for an award from
your site. The sites which win the award get
the chance to display the logo for your award.
This logo is linked to your site, preferably
to a page which contains more information
on the award.
If
you publish a newsletter, consider declaring
the winners in your newsletter. You can also
perform a review of the winners' sites in
your newsletter. This adds useful content
to your newsletter and also gives more webmasters
the incentive to apply for your award, since
you may review their sites in your newsletter.
This also gives them the incentive to subscribe
to your newsletter to see if they win the
award.
Make
sure that you give awards to only those sites
which deserve to win. If you give your award
to sites which don't deserve it, your award
will have little credibility, which will,
in turn, hurt the credibility of your company.
Furthermore, make sure that the logo you design
for the award looks professional. If it doesn't,
not many webmasters will want to display it
in their sites.
5)
Giving testimonials
This
may sound a bit unusual, but giving testimonials
for products or services which you find useful
can be another moderately effective way of
improving the link popularity of your site.
If you really like a product, simply write
to the company and tell them why you liked
the product so much and how it has helped
you. Chances are, the company will write back
to you to thank you for your comments and
will ask you for permission to display your
comments in their web site. Tell the company
that you have no problems if they publish
your comments, but request them to add a link
to your site along with the testimonial. There
is every possibility that the company will
agree since publishing the URL of your web
site gives more credibility to the testimonial.
Of
course, please don't go about giving testimonials
to every company you can locate just because
it will improve your link popularity :-)
6)
Posting to Message Boards and Discussion Lists
Another
moderately effective method of increasing
the link popularity of your site is to post
to online message boards. At the end of every
message that you post, you can sign off by
mentioning your name and the URL of your web
site. If the message board allows it, you
can even include a short promotional blurb
about your site at the end of your posts.
However, make sure that the individual messages
that are posted to that message board are
archived in static HTML pages (i.e. the URLs
for the individual messages should not contain
a "?"). Otherwise, the search engines will
consider these pages to be dynamic pages and
may not spider these pages and hence, will
not be able to find your link.
Email
based discussion lists which are archived
on the web in static HTML pages can also be
used to boost the link popularity of your
site in a similar manner. In this case, the
signature file that you use with your email
program should contain the URL for your web
site.
7)
Starting a Link Contest
A
good method of improving the link popularity
of your site is to give away prizes to other
webmasters if they link to you. The prizes
that you give out should ideally be something
which other webmasters will find valuable
enough to want to link to you, but which do
not cost you too much. For instance, if you
publish a newsletter, and have unsold ad inventory,
you can give away some free advertisements
in your newsletter to the winners. If you
sell a software (or an ebook), you can give
away a free copy of your software or ebook
to the winners, since it doesn't cost you
anything to produce an additional copy of
digital goods like software and ebooks.
Link
contests work best if you run the contest
on a continuous basis and if you declare new
winners frequently. If you run the contest
for a few months, and then stop it, the webmasters
who had linked to you will all remove their
links. However, if you run it on a continuous
basis, and declare new winners every month
or so, the webmasters will have the incentive
to keep their links to your site.
Also,
make sure that you require all participants
to have a link to your site either in their
home page, or in an internal page of their
site which is linked to their home page. Also
ensure that the page which contains the link
is no more than two levels deep from their
home page (i.e. it should not take more than
two clicks to go from the home page to the
page containing the link). If they don't do
this, the search engine spiders may not index
the page which contains the link to your site,
and hence, may not find your link.
8)
Writing articles and allowing them to be re-published
This
is by far one of the best ways of improving
the link popularity of your site, and one
of my favorites. Whenever I write an article
on search engine placement, I first publish
it in my newsletter and then I publish the
article in my site as a separate web page.
I also submit it to the following article
submission sites:
http://www.ezinearticles.com/add_url.html
http://www.ideamarketers.com
http://www.marketing-seek.com/articles/submit.shtml
http://certificate.net/wwio/ideas.shtml
http://www.web-source.net/articlesub.htm
Many
webmasters and ezine publishers frequent these
article directories in search of articles.
Submitting my articles to these directories
gives them the opportunity of re-publishing
my articles. While I have had some success
with each of the above directories, by far
the best among them is the ezinearticles.com
directory.
Now,
at the end of each article, I mention that
people are free to re-publish the article
as long as they include my resource box (i.e.
my bio) at the end of the article. I always
include the URL of my site in the resource
box. This means that whenever someone publishes
one of my articles in his/her web site, I
have another site linking to my site. Also,
many ezine publishers archive their ezines
in their web sites. If they have re-published
my article in a particular issue, I again
get a link.
Writing
articles is also an excellent viral marketing
tool. As some webmasters and ezine publishers
publish my articles, other webmasters and
ezine publishers will read my article. Some
of them, in turn, will publish my article,
which will again be read by other webmasters
and ezine publishers, some of whom will publish
it... and so on.
Also,
since only web sites related to mine would
be interested in publishing my articles, all
these links tend to come from related sites,
which, as I mentioned earlier, are more valuable
than links from unrelated sites.
Writing
articles, of course, has another very important
benefit - if you write good articles, it makes
you known as an expert in your field. This
helps to improve your credibility, which makes
people more comfortable about buying your
products or services.
Some
notes about writing articles:
i)
I have learnt through experience that some
webmasters will publish other people's articles
and will display the complete resource box
but will not link to the URL mentioned in
the resource box. In order to prevent this,
you need to explicitly state that the article
can be published only if the URL mentioned
in the resource box is linked to your site.
ii)
Your resource box should not be too long -
it should be no more than 6 lines long, formatted
at 65 characters per line. Otherwise, other
webmasters and ezine publishers will hesitate
to publish your article.
9)
Starting your own affiliate program
This
is another excellent way by which you can
improve the link popularity of your site.
When you have your own affiliate program,
you give other webmasters the incentive to
link to you. In this case too, since most
of these web sites will be related to the
industry in which you are operating, these
links will be more valuable than links from
unrelated sites.
Now,
when you start your affiliate program, you
need to decide whether you want to run the
program yourself, or whether you want to outsource
it from a third party. While outsourcing your
affiliate program has a number of benefits,
doing so will not help you improve the link
popularity of your site, because affiliates
are going to link to the third party's site.
In order to improve the link popularity of
your site, you need to ensure that the affiliate
links are pointing to your domain.
The
affiliate program software that I highly recommend
and have used for the affiliate program of
our search engine positioning services is
Kowabunga Technologies' My Affiliate Program,
which is available at http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?3761&affiliateprogram/.
Although this software is hosted in a domain
owned by Kowabunga Technologies, they give
you the option of having the affiliate links
pointing to your own domain.
10)
Submitting to the directories
This
is by far the most important step as far as
improving the link popularity of your site
is concerned. As I mentioned before, what
is important is not only the number of links
to your site, but also the quality of the
links to your site. No links are as important
as links from some of the major directories
like Yahoo!, the Open Directory etc. However,
Yahoo! currently requires a payment of $299
per year in order to list any commercial site.
Paying them $299 per year just to improve
your link popularity is probably not cost
effective. But, the Open Directory is free,
and you should definitely get your site listed
in the Open Directory.
Also, you should submit your
site to as many of the smaller directories
as possible. You can get a list of such directories
at http://dir.yahoo.com/.
11) Analyzing the quality of links
As mentioned
earlier, what is important is not only the
number of sites linking to you, but also the
quality of the links that you have. Until
now, there has been no easy way of checking
the quality and relevancy of sites that are
linking to you or the quality and relevancy
of sites that you are thinking of asking for
links from. You could have done it manually,
but it would take a tremendous amount of time.
However, a new software product called Optilink
automates this process to a large extent.
In addition to doing an excellent job in helping
you determine the quality and relevancy of
sites that already link to you or might link
to you, it also does the following:
i) analyzes the
link structures of your top ranking competitors
and tells you why they rank well, so that
you can emulate the same tactics that your
top ranking competitors are using.
ii) allows you
to do "what if" analysis - it tells you what
sort of rankings you can expect if you adopt
a particular linking strategy.
iii) monitor
the sites that you have exchanged links with
to ensure that they are still linking to you
and are linking to you the way you want them
to.
If you are thinking
of improving the link popularity of your site,
or are already doing so, I highly recommend
that you obtain this product before you proceed.
You can find more information on Optilink
at:
http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?3761&optilink/
Article by Sumantra
Roy. Sumantra is one of the most respected
search engine positioning specialists on the
Internet. To have Sumantra's company place
your site at the top of the search engines,
go to http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?3761
For more advice on how you can take your web
site to the top of the search engines, subscribe
to his FREE newsletter by going to http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?3761&newsletter.htm
|
