Build Your Website’s Link Popularity

Once your site has a solid foundation and has been built to be Search Engine Friendly [SE-103], now the bulk of where your organic listing shows up in the index (are you on page 1 or 2 or not) depends heavily on your Web site’s link popularity.

Search Engine Popularity, which helps to determine your Web site’s ranking, comes from how many other Web sites link TO your site – - not how many sites you link to FROM your site. The more links you have directing people to your site, the more popular your site becomes.

Each Search Engine has its own algorithm to weigh the value of each link. When using the link command below, you will only see a SAMPLE of inbound links to the Web site you are checking. The best way to get a full list of inbound links as counted by Google is to install Google Webmaster Tools. There are online tools such as LinkDiagnosis.com that will give you the number of links TO YOUR WEB SITE. You can also do this by hand by typing the following commands into the Google Search Box.

link:webaddress.com

In addition to looking at who is linking to your site, you may want to look at who is linking to those high-placing sites (your competition) and go after those links for yourself. LinkDiagnosis.com allows you to review inbound links to any URL.

It’s also a good idea to sign up for quality Free and Paid sites (those applicable to your business or area) to link to your site. And remember, it’s important to choose quality sites to link to your site.

You want to be careful of link farms. Link farms are sites that simply trade links for the sake of trading. They usually have no rhyme or reason for the data they provide; they are just lists and lists of links. Just as being popular is all about being associated with good quality sites, the wrong links can work against you and cause your popularity to decrease.

Finally, there are many other Social Media sites, such as Delicious and Technorati, that you can be included on by submitting your Web site and Blog to them.

Just remember, the more (appropriate and quality based) Web sites that link to your Web site (Free or Paid) the more popular your site will become.