Archive for Linkbait
September 24, 2008 at 9:43 am · Filed under Linkbait
Last week I was doing a search in Google under ‘ezine advertising’ and was amazed to find one of my own websites on the first page of results (position #4 out of 271,000).
So then I went to Yahoo and got another shock - there it was again at position #4 out of 274,000 results.
If you’re wondering how I did it, the answer is I’m not entirely sure.
But my guess is *link popularity*.
What is link popularity?
Some years ago the major search engines realized that the best way to decide if your website has valuable content (and is therefore worth a high ranking) is to see how many other websites link to your site.
Link popularity was pioneered by Google but has now become a key factor in the algorithms used by most of the major search engines.
Would you like to know your current link popularity?
Here’s a free tool that will check your link popularity in Alltheweb, AltaVista, AOL, Google, HotBot and MSN. This tool will also compare your link popularity with your competitors’: http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/
Now that you know your link popularity, you may be wondering how you can increase it.
Here are some commonly used strategies - some effective and some not:
==> FFA Sites
Free For All sites are websites that collect your email address (and send you a lot of junk email) and in return allow you to post a link on a website.
FFA sites are rather like a conveyor belt - new links are constantly being added and old links being pushed off. On Many FFA sites your link will last an hour or two at the most.
Even if your link stayed on an FFA site long enough to be indexed by a search engine, it is unlikely it would increase your link popularity. Search engines regard FFA sites as spam and they’ll either ignore your link or penalize your site.
==> Link Exchange Programs
As with FFA sites, you need to ask yourself the same question the search engines ask.
Did someone link to your site because you have valuable content? Or did they link to your site as part of a mutual ploy to artificially raise each other’s link popularity?
The search engines know how to tell the difference and some of them (Google for example) will actually ban your site for engaging in ‘link farming’.
Another problem with this method is *link relevancy*. If the sites linking to you have content that is not related to your content, the search engines will not give much weight to those links.
==> Reciprocal Links with Individual Webmasters
This will definitely increase your link popularity, especially if you seek out link partners whose websites share the same theme as yours.
But this approach is time consuming - first you have to surf around looking for potential link partners, then you have to email them, then you have to confirm that they added your link and so on.
==> Writing Articles
This is the technique I use for increasing link popularity and it works very well.
Write short articles of 300 - 800 words and then submit them to the article announcement lists and the online article banks.
There are thousands of webmasters out there who need free content for their websites and you’ll soon find your articles appearing on dozens, even hundreds, of different websites.
At the bottom of your article is your Resource Box containing a link to your website. It might look something like this:
—————————————————————– ——— John Doe is the webmaster of yourdomain.com where he offers cutting-edge tips on all aspects of web marketing. To find more advice, tools and resources to help you succeed in online business, visit: http://www.yourdomain.com —————————————————————– ———
Most webmasters will make the URL in your Resource Box an active link. If they don’t, you should insist on it because it’s part of the deal - they get free content for their website and you get a free link.
This technique has two important advantages over other methods of raising link popularity:
(1) You don’t have to clutter up your website with reciprocal links
(2) You don’t have to invest huge amounts of time searching for link partners and then emailing them to request a link. If they like your article, they just add it to their website.
Happy writing!
(c) 2002 by Michael Southon
September 19, 2008 at 11:22 pm · Filed under Linkbait
Article writing and distribution creates free one way incoming links back to your web site. Link building in this manner increases your web sites exposure, visitors and you overall search engine rankings. By using the following techniques you can dramatically improve your web site traffic in a very short period of time.
1. Create Viral Content For Your Web Site - Add your own resource box/byline to your articles and post them on your web site. You could allow your visitors to publish the articles on their web site if they also include your resource box and keep your hyperlink active. This will spread your link around the internet like a virus and increase your link popularity fast.
2. Submit your articles to free content web sites for other webmasters to reprint for publishing. When you include your resource box at the end of the article with your website URL you will not only get free advertising but you will get a link back to your site. This will increase your link popularity and cause your site to rank higher in the search engines.
3. Combine your articles into a free e-book. You can place your business ad and hyperlinks back to your site in the e-book. E-book creating software is inexpensive and easy to use. By giving your e-book away to visitors and allowing them to link to your site to give it away to their visitors will multiply your web site traffic, exposure and link popularity.
4. Create an article directory on your web site. People will visit your web site to get the free information. By allowing them to reprint your articles with the stipulation that they keep the resource box and hyperlink active you will increase your link popularity. Also allow your visitors to place a link on their web site that links back to your article directory. By providing your free “instant article directory” to their visitors you will increase your web site’s exposure and receive a percentage of their visitors as well.
5. Offer other web sites, that are relevant to your own, free content articles about your area of expertise to post on their web site. Include your link on all of your content. Your article should be related to your web site because it will bring you visitors that are interested in your product or service.
6. Use an article distribution service that distributes articles to thousands of web sites, newsletters and ezines at one time. Your article will be published on dozens of web sites almost immediately. I used this technique with an article distribution service called thephantomwriters.com and got literally thousands of links from only four articles. Distribute your articles several times and you will increase your exposure. Change your article’s title and redistribute it several times more to maximize your article’s potential.
As you can clearly see, writing and distributing articles can have a profound affect on your web site’s exposure. There is absolutely no better or faster way to increase your web site’s exposure, link popularity and search engine rankings.
© Copyright 2005 Affordable Concrete Cutting, Inc.
September 19, 2008 at 12:02 pm · Filed under Linkbait
Gauging link popularity is a practice that most search engines use when they rank sites for specific keywords and phrases. In order to keep their clients happy, search engines are always developing ways to make their results more relevant. In the last couple of years, Search engines start giving more weight to Links between sites with similar themes because they see links as a vote of confidence and trust for your site and, consequently, they tend to have a positive effect on your site positioning.
What’s Link Popularity?
Link popularity is the measure of inbound links to your web site. Your Web site’s link popularity is calculated by counting the number of links coming into a particular page, and gauging the quality and relevance of the links. This includes pages linking from within your site as well as from pages on other sites.
Link popularity is an important factor in determining your site’s importance and it’s a decisive factor in your web site’s ranking in major search engines like Google, MSN, AltaVista, Inktomi, and HotBot.
There are two ways on how to increase your link popularity.
1 - Link exchange or as known also reciprocal link or link swaps.
Link exchange is an agreement whereby two webmasters agree to link to each other from their respective sites.
There are many ways on how to exchange links such as:
- Exchanging small ads with other related web sites - This method is a good way to promote your product or service and yourself also.
- Articles Exchange - It’s the most valuable method and becoming a very popular mean of exchanging links in a more natural fashion. Writing quality articles and exchange them with other websites’ partners will do a lot to your business success.
How to Find Link Exchange Partner Sites to Improve Your Link Popularity?
Look for sites that are related to your site theme in some way but not necessarily similar, and see if they might be interested in exchanging links.
- You may do searches at your favorite search engines for keywords like ” link exchange”, ad swaps”, “link trade”, “articles exchange”, etc. plus your most relevant keyword phrases to the product or service you offer. Example: ” link exchange + dog training”. Don’t forget to include the quotation marks to narrow your search.
- Find targeted sites in the web directories, such as Yahoo!, LookSmart, or the Open Directory Project.
- Visit articles and ezine directories and find publishers for articles exchange.
How Get Webmasters to Link to Your Website?
- Select some websites related to your area of interest.
- Make a list of the sites and publishers you want to contact.
-Contact your potential partners and inform them that you have linked to their sites and request a link in return. Don’t forget to use a personalized email explaining why a link exchange would benefit both sites.
2 - Inbound Links or as Known Also Natural Links or One-way Links.
Inbound links are links from other websites pointing to your website without to have to link them back. One-way link building is a great way to improve your link popularity and ranking in the search engines. One-way links are more difficult to obtain than traditional reciprocal links, but pay off in securing solid long-term search engine ranking results.
How to Get Inbound Links?
- Submit your website to the major directories - A listening in the directories will help you increase your link popularity and they have a lot of influence over search engine results.
- Become an authority in your industry - There are a number of specific ways you can show your expertise. One of the best ways to show your expertise is to write about your subject of interest.
If your site will be really interesting and valuable it will get links natural way. Other webmasters will link to your website, discuss about you and refer to you.
When another website votes for the quality of your website by placing a link pointing back to it, you are obtaining natural linking. The more you can build upon helpful articles, quality content, FAQs, free service, white papers, etc. the better reason for webmasters to link back to your website because of the interesting information.
- Submit articles to ezine/newsletter publisher and articles directories - Write high quality articles in your area of expertise and allow others to post them in their sites or publish them in their newsletters will increase your inbound links.
- Participate to forums and discussion groups - Participate in the discussion groups or forums as an expert who gives good advice and place your website link in your signature file at the end of your postings. If these forums postings are realized and remain online, search engine continue to see them and the links they contain.
- Build blogs - Blogs are good places where online users find good content. Building a blog will benefit you in many ways such as…
Search engines love blogs for their fresh content. If you build a blog with quality content, frequently updated and you host it on your website will boost your pages rank (PR) and will attract webmasters to link to.
You may also build as many blogs as you want and host them with a hosting service. Increase your inbound link by providing links from your weblogs to your website.
- Submit your blog(s) to weblogs directories - Submitting your blog(s) to weblogs directories will increase your inbound links dramatically.
If you follow these steps you will get trusty websites to link to your WebPages, your link popularity increases and enhance your over all search engine positioning each time the search engine robots or spiders come to index your web pages.
The best thing about this form of web promotion is that it’s literally FREE and is the most cost-effective way to improve your link popularity.
