Internet Lifesytle: Link popualrity

Link Keywords

It is important to name your internal and outgoing links carefully. Since keywords are important in determining the relevancy of a page, it is essential that they are used throughout a page.

The page title, headers and links should always include the keywords describing the page.

Therefore, I suggest that you always name a page using the keywords relevant to the page. In turn, the visible link text used on other pages to link to the page should use the same keyword phrase as the page name.

For example, if the title of a page is "Link Popularity." Then the page name should be "link-popularity.html," or "link_popularity.html."

Make sure you include a hypen or underscore between each word. This will ensure that search engines index each word as a separate keyword. There's no difference to using a hypen or underscore.

Do not pack all the words together. For example, "linkpopularity.html."

You should also make sure that all links to that page use the link text, "Link Popularity."

You notice how everything fits together?

Link Quality

Studies have shown that the quality of the links is just as important as the number of links to your site.

The types of sites you should concentrate on getting links from include major search engines (Google), popular web portals (MSN), web directories (Yahoo! and the Open Directory Project), high trafficked sites (eBay and Amazon), news sites (CNN), weblogs, and sites related to your site's topic.

Search engines consider links from major search engines and web portals as big votes of confidence for your site.

Incoming Links Mistaken As Link Popularity Boosters

There are two types of incoming links that some people mistake as links that will boost their link popularity;
# Pay per click advertising links, such as Overture and Google AdWords Select.
# Affiliate program provider links, such as Commission Junction.

Such links never link directly to your site, so they will not help your link popularity rating. These types of links actually point to their own site, which then redirects the visitor to the correct site. They are used for tracking purposes.

However, if you host the affiliate program software on your own server and the affiliate tracking links point to your web site, then those links will count towards your site's link popularity.

Link Exchanges And Farms

A word of warning! Never ever use links from link exchange sites and link farms.

Link farms are networks of heavily cross linked pages on one or more web sites, with the sole intention of improving the link popularity of those pages and sites.

Many of the top search engines consider such links as spam, so stay clear of these types of links.

Conclusion

Do not underestimate the influence link popularity plays in the ranking of your web pages. It is actually possible to achieve top rankings almost entirely on link popularity alone. So, spend time improving your site's link popularity.

If you want to save time and effort, I recommend using a link finder and management tool, such as Arelis.

Good luck with improving your link popularity!