The Importance of Link Popularity -by Patty Oates

With all the information out there about Search Engine Positioning it is difficult to sift through it all. Everyone want you to believe they know the secret to getting you that #1 rank you so dearly want and they are only too willing to charge you as much as they can to reveal this ultimate truth. Link Popularity, Content, Title Tags, Meta Tags, Keywords, Google Adwords, etc. have all been revealed as the way to get your site to the top of the list. But the truth is there is no ultimate Search Engine Positioning truth. Each Search Engine has it's own algorithm for ranking sites and the only proven method of achieving good ranking is a little bit of everything.

The first in a series of articles exploring the not so ultimate truths of Search Engine Positioning, I will focus on the importance of linking to rank and site traffic and dispel some of the myths of linking.

Since search engines are constantly upgrading and refining their algorithms to determine the ranking of sites it is very difficult to keep your site up to date with all the new requirements. Because of this constant upgrading in search engine technology, linking has become a very important part of achieving and keeping good positioning. But, link popularity is not just important for ranking it can also increase your qualified site traffic, create top of mind awareness in your brand, and increase the value for your visitors.

Linking and Search Engine Ranking

About 5 years ago, when banner ads still got clickthroughs, Google introduced their Hypertextual Web Search Engine functionality; and other search engines have followed suit because, lets face it, Google is #1. Now AltaVista, AOL, HotBot, MSN, and Yahoo all use link popularity in determining rank. This Hypertextual functionality makes searches more relevant. Search engines separate the results of their spider crawls into two groups of results; first those from text links, titles and URL; and those from everywhere keywords occur. When a search term is entered the search engine will first look in the first list to try to return enough relevant results, then it will search the second list of everything if needed.

Now that I have bored you with the technical explanation of the functionality, let's discuss the reality of linking and search engine ranking. Search engines will rank you much higher if there are relevant links to your site. Now what do I mean by relevant link? This is best explained by an example. If I was to place a link to 3 rd -I Designs on one of our client's sites it would be more effective to use a text link Web Design Powered by 3 rd -I Designs than to simply use 3 rd -I Designs . Using keywords within your link will increase your positioning for that term.

Linking and Increased Qualified Traffic to Your Site

One of the most important results of engineering an effective Link Popularity Campaign is the amount of qualified traffic to your website from those links. You can find a statistic for just about anything, and this is no exception. External Linking can account for 21 - 54% of total traffic to your site (depending on who's report you look at). I know that is a very large range, but even on the lower end it is an impressive number and one that cannot be ignored in the quest for a successful site.

Every time you establish a new link from an external site it is another avenue for a qualified user to find your site. You may be asking yourself what exactly is qualified traffic and how do I generate it through linking? Well, simply put, a qualified user is someone who is specifically looking for your services or the information your site provides. Keep reading and we will explore How to Develop An Effective Linking Campaign later in this article.

Linking and Creating Trust in Your Brand and Top of Mind Awareness

Kleenex, Javex and Scotch Tape have all achieved top of mind awareness and brand trust with their companies. This is one of the most challenging tasks that every business faces, especially with a small budget and over saturation in many industries. An effective way of doing this is through the Internet. Selecting the correct sites to be associated with can go a long way to establishing your reputation.

For example, a medical information site would want links from medical journal websites, hospital websites and medical portals. Associating your website with respected organizations and website within your industry can really strength the trust in your brand. Even in the Internet industry it is often not what you know, but who you know .

Linking and Creating Value for Your Site Visitors

You can get 500 sites to links to your website from external websites but if you do not offer any value to your visitors they will not become return visitors or customers. Sometimes to provide value you will need to include external links to the information and services your visitors need.

Now just to clarify, I am not saying that you should include links to your competitors' websites. Unless of course you are really cocky! What I am saying is to provide valueable content driven external links to websites that will aid your visitors in making an informed decision to use your services. For example, 3 rd -I Designs has a Web Design Resources section that features links to informational websites for the novice web designer and internet marketer. This drives return traffic to our site as we are constantly updating this section and directs our customers to resources that will help them develop a sucessful website strategy. An informed customer is a happy customer.

How to Develop An Effective Linking Campaign

Now that we have established the importance of Link Popularity, if I do say so myself, the next step is actually creating the Effective Linking Campaign. The number one, most important, be all and end all of all campaigns is Research. When doing your research there are several areas to look at:

Websites that have good content that is valueable to your visitor
Websites that are interested in providing content and not just random collection of links to improve ranking
Websites that can strengthen your own brand and top of mind awareness
Websites that are willing to do reciprocal linking
Websites that have an easy to find external linking page and if they have multiple links then they are categorized and user friendly
Websites that you share keywords with

Now that you have come up with a comprehensive list of the websites to approach for linking you need to now look at your own site and ask the following questions?

Does my website look professional?
Are there any broken links on my website?
How many outbound links are there on my site and is each one of them providing valuable content to my visitor?
Do I have valuable content on my site that will keep my visitors on my website and keep coming back? (There will be another article in this series about content so keep coming back and checking out the articles section!)

A lot of people reading this article may think, that is a lot of work just for a bunch of links. Well the work doesn't stop with just your initial research and linking campaign. This is an ongoing process of checking that all your links work on other people websites, looking at your web statistics to see which sites are generating traffic and researching new sites you can link to and have link to you.

If this is something that you just don't have time to manage on your own then it is a good idea to contact an Internet Marketer to manage you Link Popularity Campaign. A well-managed campaign can increase your traffic and consequently your sales. Here comes the shameless plug for 3 rd -I Designs . Of course we offer this service. See our Services Page for more information or contact me at patty@3rd-idesigns.com .

Dispelling some Linking Myths

Myth # 1 - It's the Number of Links to Your Site That Matters

This is a common assumption. But the reality is that it is the quality of your text links, not just the number of links, which affects rank. As I mentioned in the previous section, Linking and Search Engine Ranking relevant links are very important. A company with 100 text links with Click Here to their website may not rank as high as a site with 50 relevant keyword rich links like Web Design .

Myth # 2 - The Search Function "link:" in Google will Show You all Websites Linking to You

This function in Google actually returns all the links that are relevant to the website's ranking, not every external link to your website. It would not be realistic for Google to provide a list of all the links it knows about. That would be way to taxing on their database and the results would not be very relevant.

Myth # 3 - Link Farms Can Lower Your Ranking

Search Engines rank a website based on a number of factors. One of which is the number of outbound links that are on the website. Link Farms are going to receive a much lower rank than a website with a selection of relevant links. This means that registering your site with a Link Farm will not negatively affect your rank, but will probably not do much to improve it either.

Wrapping Up

Search Engine Positioning is one of those marketing tools that is ever changing. You never know, tomorrow Google may come out with brand new functionality that makes linking obsolete and everyone looses their coveted rank (like when they introduced their Florida Upgrade in November 2003). Research and never keeping all your Search Engine Positioning eggs in one basket is the key to maintaining your rank.

Keep watching for more articles. If you have any questions please feel free to email them to me at patty@3rd-idesigns.com .

Patty-Lynn Oates
the connector