This article will show you the importance of link popularity and how to improve your
webpage's
link popularity utilizing a few different techniques.

Link popularity simply is the number of links that point to a webpage
and is a crucial factor
used by almost all of the search engines to rank websites.

With the every increasingly popularity of Google, web site owners
marketing efforts have had to change to accommodate what Google is
looking for in a quality site. One way to prove that you have a
quality site has been with link popularity. Good quality
incoming links
coupled with good quality page content will bring highly targeted
traffic, and a lot of it. Just keep in mind that quality is key.
The saying less is more really applies here. Just because your
website has five hundred incoming links doesn't mean that they are all
relevant. Ensure that the links you are getting are relevant to
the content that your page is offering. This is extremely
important.

1. Directory Listings: Ensure your site is listed in the Open
Directory Project (ODP)
and also in Yahoo's Business Express ($299 yearly) and LookSmart
Express Submit ($299) or Basic Submit ($149). Directory listings boost
popularity because they rely on human editors, known to only select
relevant websites. You may also try searching for other
directories to submit to. Do a search for "search engine
directories".

2. Cross Linking:
Or you may hear it referred to as internal linking. Make sure you cross link your important related pages. This
technique tells the search engines that these are the more important
pages within your website therefore they will increase in ranking.
Cross linking your pages also helps the search engines find and index
your most important pages quicker, especially if you have hundreds of
pages and some of them are four and five levels deep. Internal
linking is a great way to increase the amount of keywords in your visual
text links.

3. Publish articles: Write up some informative articles your
audience is interested in, then submit these articles to online
publications in your industry. Provide a brief bio which includes
your web sites URL and make a condition that the article must be
published intact with your bio. Over a short period of time you
should gather some quality links.

4. Request Links:
Open up an Excel spreadsheet and list all of the possible linking
partners that you have gathered.
Now that you have a list of possible link partners put a link on your
site to their site and then email each site owner telling them that
you've linked to them and respectfully ask them to link back to you in return. You would be surprised by the amount of response
you get. Make it as easy as possible for the other site to link to
you. I've found a that actually providing a form so the site owner
can just copy and paste your link code into their site makes linking to
you extremely easy. This can save a lot email-tag for the both of
you.

There are essentially two important factors in increasing your
webpage's link popularity. Studies have shown that the quality of
the link is just as important as the number of incoming links to your
site.

1. Quality of link - Link popularity will skyrocket
when popular sites link you such as Yahoo and the Open Directory Project
(ODP). These sites are considered authoritive sites and receive a
high amount of traffic. Also, you should concentrate on getting
links from major search engines such as Google, MSN, and also sites that
relate to your sites theme/content. Most search engines will see
your website in a much higher light if you have a incoming link from a
major search engine, thus greatly increasing free search engine traffic.

Try to find websites that link to your competition. This does a
couple of things for you. First and utmost you know that links to
your competition usually will be relevant and on topic. Also, this will
greatly reduce the amount of time you have to invest in finding incoming
links.
Finding sites that link to your competition is actually quit easy.
Try typing "link" and then the competitors domain name like this:

"link:www.competitors-domain.com."

Another technique in finding quality links is by finding sites that offer
site submissions. Go to Google and type in:

"add url" "your keyword phrase"

Also try replacing, "add url" with any other these search phrases::

add site, add link, add a url, add a site, add a link, submit url, submit site, submit link, submit a url, submit a site, submit a link.

2. Keywords in Link

Another very important factor is the keyword being used to link to your site.
When asking a site owner to link to your site make sure that you ask
them to link with the keyword that you are optimizing that page for. Keywords are very important in determining the relevancy of your webpage so
ensure that they are sprinkled throughout them as well.

Nearly 25 percent of the #1 web pages on Google result pages used the queried keyword in link texts.
For example, if the keyword is "computers", the following link text contains the keyword once:


Computers

Nearly one out of four web pages is a very high number so it looks like Google ranks web pages higher if they contain keywords in their link texts.

If you would like to automate your link building efforts, I recommend
using a link management tool such as Arelis.
It will save much time, I know it has for me :)

About the Author:
Ron Hollingsworth is an Internet Entrepreneur and
Internet Marketing professional and has
been involved with e-commerce in one way or another for over five
year. You can find many reviews of software
marketing
tools and

marketing tips at his website.

Publishing Rights: Those who are interested in republishing
this article on your website may do so as long as you agree not to
alter the article, the authors name, or any links within this page.

Click here for instructions on linking.

About the Author

Ron Hollingsworth is an Internet Entrepreneur and Internet Marketing professional and has been involved with e-commerce in one way or another for over five years. You can find many reviews of software marketing tools and marketing tips at his website.