What is Link Popularity?
Second only to keywords, links are critical for website success. Link popularity, in short, is the measurement for the number of links to your website from other websites. But wait—I should have definitely added the word “quality” to that sentence, because low-level links just for the sake of having links can actually hurt you much more than they will help you. Both Google, as well as some other search engines, take their complicated algorithm and rate your website based on many things, one of them being your link popularity.
High Quality vs. Low Quality Linking
In other words, each quality link which points back to your site is, in effect, a vote for your website. If I have a link on my own website which links to your site, then the theory is I believe your site to be valuable, and of high quality, thereby giving you my vote of confidence. Keep in mind, however, that if my website happens to be considered a low-quality, poorly-rated one, then my vote of confidence may hurt you more than help you. High quality links will come from established directories and institutions rather than somebody’s obscure personal homepage. In general, however each one of these website link “votes” pushes your website up the search engine ladder, and can be an incredibly important SEO strategy.
Submit to High Quality Web Directories for Successful SEO
The highest quality web directories are those which manually review your website—and charge a fee for this process. But wait, you say, isn’t Google penalizing those who acquire paid links? The answer to this is yes—and no. While search engines truly don’t like paid directory links, they don’t devalue the quality web directories which manually review websites for submission. This is an important distinction to remember when you are considering submitting your website for a paid review.
Research Your Web Directory Prior to Submission
Make sure you have fully researched the web directory you are considering, and ask whether or not websites are rejected. After all, if all websites which are submitted pass with flying colors, there is little value in obtaining a listing. Ensure the web directory has plenty of quality URL’s listed as low-quality sites will harm you more than help. Although some directories are quite expensive, if you can find the budget, try to purchase at least one quality directory listing per month.
Submit Articles Regularly
One of the best-known strategies for building backlinks on your website is to take bits and pieces of your site’s content, and re-write, adding enough quality information to submit as a standalone article. The critical factors in submitting articles is that they absolutely must be the highest quality, they must use your keywords judiciously throughout, and you must include links back to your website either in the resource box at the end, the author bio area or in the article body itself.
Where to Submit Your Articles
Ezine (www.ezinearticles.com) is considered one of the best places to submit your articles, but you can also look at www.articlealley.com, www.articlebase.com and www.articlecity.com, to name just a few. Whatever you do, however, don’t simply submit an existing article from your website, as you may run into possible duplicate content issues. Even submitting one article to several sites every two to three weeks can add up significantly throughout the course of a year.
Create Quality Website Content and Keep an Eye on Your Links
If you are consistently generating high-quality content on your website, you will establish links automatically, or organically. If you always provide content which your readers find interesting, compelling and, ultimately, helpful, you will develop a vast array of high-quality links, and you can consistently provide this level of content is you always remember that you are writing for your customer. Don’t simply write your articles and update your website with quality content and assume your links are healthy and happy. Monitor the effectiveness of your inbound links by entering your URL into the box at the top on https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/mysites. On the button labeled “Pages,” you will see the number of pages Yahoo has indexed on your site, while the button labeled “inlinks” will show the links which point back to your website.
While there are many more strategies to increase link popularity, start implementing the basics today—links can truly make or break your website, so afford them the importance they deserve.
Tags: Law Firm SEO
