Posted on August 5th, 2009Links are a big part of SEO and the process that allows your site to be found by internet users. They work hand in hand with search engines to make finding web content more efficient. Link popularity is something that can either make or break your website. This article will explain the importance and what you can do to obtain “link juice.”
Focus on Quality, Not Quantity
Achieving link popularity is not just about linking up with a lot of other sites. This particular element of SEO proves that quality is far more essential than quantity. Those who are simply after quantity will be glad to know that link farms are widely available. However, they typically make your quest for link popularity a failed venture, all because their methods do not fall in line with the rules of the major search engines. Your best bet would to look past these horrible, endless pages of irrelevant links and focus your efforts on pure quality. This is something that can’t be stressed enough as these sites make a lot of promises but tend to never deliver the results needed to help your efforts.
There are many steps towards link popularity and one of the first you should take is getting your site listed in a popular online directory. Yahoo and directories in the Open Directory project make excellent choices. Yahoo charges for business orientated sites but submission is free for sites centered around other aspects. Open Directory is the more attractive option because it is free regardless of what your site pertains to. With any directory, you want find one of the major categories to get your site listed in. Although smaller sites are serviceable, they often take much longer to help reach your goals. When it comes to link popularity, you need to think big to get the best results.
Networking and Link Exchange
After getting some quality directory listings, it is time to seek out other sites on the web that are similar in nature to your own. Related sites in the same niche help to better ensure a higher degree of link popularity so this is important to keep in mind when doing your homework. The time and effort you invest in your website will pay off when linked up with others in the same field. Linking is a powerful networking strategy that truly help everyone involved. Just remember to do your research and exercise patience because not all sites will be interested in linking up with you. For this reason, it is best to investigate and find out just who in your niche is trading links, and who is not.
Check Out Your Work
Once you have taken the steps to get obtain quality inbound links, visit the search engines every now and then to determine if your efforts are paying off. If not, don’t get discouraged, just remained focused on the task at hand. If you absolutely believe that you have done all it takes to achieve link popularity, examine some of the other aspects of optimization and make the appropriate adjustments where needed.