Link Popularity for a Successful Website: How (Not) to Go About Getting It

A classic way of getting seen and noticed on the web is to make sure your site is linked to as many other sites as possible. The strategy of link-exchange has been so overused and abused that search engines are now wary of it and may penalize sites that are linking to "link farms", or to any other sites with non-relevant content.

This is the way it should be. We all want our web browsing experience to be smooth and pleasant. We don't want to get frustrated by stumbling over irrelevant content while following links between sites. On the other hand, webmasters all want more traffic to their sites, and get frustrated when they don't get it. There are two types of benefits from having many links to your website:

- Get improved ranking by the search engines - if you are popular, you are probably worth a visit

- People (not just search bots) actually follow the links and find your site!

If done properly, link popularity improvement is an extremely important strategy to make your website successful. Broadly speaking, you can achieve this in a number of ways:

1. The classic link exchange (link swap) method; two webmasters agree to swap links

2. You pay to get incoming links from high-ranking websites

3. By writing articles and getting them posted on other websites; including a link to your own site

4. By getting your articles published in E-zines, with links back to your site

5. You participate in online forums, where a link to your site may be included with each post

6. You start a blog/RSS feed, and get it spread to many subscribers!

All these methods involve work, in varying amounts. Method #2. costs you money, the rest may be essentially no-cost. Method #4. will probably not contribute to search engine ranking, but may give you droves of targeted visitors.

The problem with method #1. is that it's tedious. But you can get software that may automate it by helping you find link partners and manage your link collection. I am aware of these software tools:

ARELIS I have tested this tool, and it seems very promising. It goes out and searches for link exchange partners according to different search methods which you specify. For me, looking for incoming links at sites similar to my own gave the best results. The program then quickly returned many relevant sites. Next, it helps you contact webmasters and keeps the link collection neatly organized. It also creates the link pages.

Zeus A bit similar to ARELIS, but I find it much clumsier. The only way it can search for link candidate sites is thru a list of 100+ search phrases. In my hands, this method produced very low-quality results. At the time of writing, I am trying to get a refund from the company that sells Zeus. They seem very reluctant to honour their money-back guarantee. Buyer beware!

Links Manager This program does not go out and search for link partner sites; it only handles swap requests and organizes the link collection. I have not tested it myself.

When building a link swap strategy, note that the search engines are getting increasingly sophisticated in judging the quality of your links. Some things to remember:

- Outbound links ONLY to quality sites with content relevant to your site; never "link farm" type sites

- Make sure the sites that you link to have not been penalized. This would affect you also!

- Incoming links that are placed on the same page as 100:s of other links won't help you; their value gets "diluted"

- The anchor text in the incoming links is very important. It should contain relevant keywords; but all links should not have identical text - this looks artificial in the virtual eyes of the search bots

If you follow these guidelines, I believe link swap can still be an important strategy for building a successful web presence.

Conclusion: Link popularity improvement, if you do it the proper way, is still of enormous importance for a successful website. But if done the wrong way, it may backfire. If you want to try the classic link swap method, I recommend using ARELIS ( www.axandra.com ) to make it less tedious.

Kai Virihaur runs The Hosting Finder ( http://www.thehostingfinder.com ), a web hosting directory featuring articles and RSS feeds on web development, website promotion, and online marketing.

---

How to Approach Potential Link Exchange Partners

Exchanging links can be a great way to build relations... Read More

Is There Such A Thing As LAZY Way To TRAFFIC?

Nowadays there are just too many people trying to give... Read More

How to Quickly Gain Traffic to Your New Web Site

Have you spent a lot of money on advertising with... Read More

Importance of Keywords - Wrong Keywords Means No Traffic!

If your new to the internet marketing world, you might... Read More

Reciprocal Linking Overload - Any Old Link Back Will Do?

Are you attempting to become a Google junior by adding... Read More

How to Cheat Traffic Exchanges

There are many ways to cheat traffic exchanges and generate... Read More

Ten-Step Guide To Boosting Your Sites Traffic and Revenue

1. Hunt for Catchy Domain Names and Get a Quality... Read More

3 Ways to Build Your Web Traffic Quickly

It's a common story. Someone builds a great site, populates... Read More

Do You Need to Marry The Daughter?

For the sake of this article let's forget about search... Read More

Sources for Targeted Web Site Traffic

Qualified traffic is the lifeblood of any web site today,... Read More

Reciprocal Link Building That Works

We all know the value of getting links to our... Read More

Traffic Generation Tutorials - Article 1 of 10 Bi Weekly Articles

This article will be continually updated with your feedback and... Read More

Search Engine Submissions That Boost Link Popularity!

"Submit to 10,000 Search Engines" or "Submit to over 200,000... Read More

Sales Marketing: Secrets To Using Cross Promotion To Increase Your Business For Maximum Profits

What is cross promotion?Cross promoting is when two or more... Read More

You Dont Have TIME to Sit and Wonder When The Traffic Will Come!

There is so incredibly MUCH you can do to successfully... Read More

Traffic Genereation: The Number One Skill That Will Generate Cash Flow (Part 2 of 3)

If you're feeling a bit of confusion and frustration about... Read More

How to Get Your Traffic to Take Off in a Hurry without Paying a Dime

The desire of every webmaster and in fact anybody with... Read More

Finding Quality Link Partners

Every webmaster knows the importance of incoming links to a... Read More

10 Ways to Increase Your Website?s Traffic

1. Trade links with other websites. Websites that are related... Read More

Wacky Test Marketing: Part 3

Once again I used my wacky test marketing strategy to... Read More

What Can Lots Of Content Do For Your Site?

Today there are so many web sites on the web,... Read More

The Truth About Traffic Exchange Programs and Guaranteed Traffic

It's about time someone let the cat out of the... Read More

Get More Visitors to your Website using Free Traffic Exchanges

Trying to get traffic to your new website or to... Read More

A Simple Guide to Analyzing All Those Web Traffic Ideas - Part 3

Just to recap - Parts 1 and 2 of this... Read More

Website Traffic Generation?7 Great Ways to Increase Your Web Site Traffic

We all know that the secret to success on the... Read More

7 Things You Must Do If You Want To Increase Your Traffic

Gary Halbert once said that the ONLY advantage he wanted... Read More

Does Traffic Exchange Programs Really Worth The Trouble?

It's been several months now since I've been promoting my... Read More

Internet Promotion: 10 Uncommon Freebies That Can Increase Your Traffic And Sales

It is an open internet promotion secret that the more... Read More

Reciprocal Links: Look Before You Link

A reciprocal link is when a web site links to... Read More

Using an e-Signature to Guarantee a Boost in Your Web Traffic!

Using an e-signature is one of the easiest, most effective... Read More

Winning the Traffic Exchange Game

Winning the traffic exchange game can be done. I was... Read More

Link Building That Makes Sense: Who To Link To

When you are building links to increase your link popularity,... Read More

Build Your Inbound Site Links Without Requesting Reciprocal Links

A funny thing happened to me three months ago. I... Read More