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Author
Alyice Edrich
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Is Link Popularity Still In?
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Link popularity is a term used to describe how many other websites are linked to one particular website. In other words, the popularity
of the site is based on how many incoming links it receives.
A few years back, swapping links was key to showing search engines that your website was worthy of visiting and gaining higher ranks in
the search engines. The more websites linking to your website, the more “valuable” your website was—thus, the creation of “link
popularity.”
But as time passed, link pages became nothing more than glorified spam pages. Link pages no longer held relevant information related to
the topic of the website it was linked on; instead these pages contained hundreds, if not thousands of links to useless or irrelevant
information. And those looking to manipulate the search engines began to use Free For All (FFA) link pages and specially designed
software programs to increase their rankings in the search engines.
Have you been wasting your time searching the Internet for “qualified” websites to swap links with? How have your efforts helped you in
ranking higher in the search engines? What about bringing targeted traffic to your website? How about an increase in traffic?
If you’ve spent the last six to twelve months asking other website owners to swap links with your website, but haven’t seen any results,
you could feel as though you’ve wasted both your time and your money. I know I did!
When I first developed my website, I spent hundreds of hours looking for websites that related to my website’s theme. While I do
believe it’s a great way to start bringing traffic to your website, it isn’t the best tactic for developing a constant stream of
visitors and to be honest, that was my intention.
I would first send a letter of request to swap links with the owner of a particular website, and then I would use the Google toolbar to
find out what other websites were linking to that particular website. Then I would send an email every owner of those websites and ask
the owners to consider swapping links with me, too.
My letter went something like this,
“Dear (Name of website owner),
I found your website on the Internet and believe it would be the perfect candidate to swap links with. Would you be interested in
recommending my site to your visitors via your links page? (Or whatever name that website owner gave his/her links page. i.e.
recommendation, link partners, sponsors, etc.) And in exchange, I will refer you to my visitors.
You can visit my links page at: http://thedabblingmum.com/links.htm
For your convenience, I’ve included a brief description of my website for your links page.
The Dabbling Mum™ is a national publication for BUSY Parents with centers in home business, Christianity, parenting, writing, book
reviews, contests, and yes, even e-books! Subscribe to free newsletter. Click here: http://thedabblingmum.com
Sincerely,
Alyice Edrich
Website Owner”
What I found, however, was that less than 5% of the websites I contacted even swapped links with me. It was frustrating, time consuming,
and humiliating. So I stopped requesting link swaps and found more productive ways to use my time.
The moment I stopped concentrating on finding “qualified” websites to swap links with and concentrated my efforts on more important
tasks, such as writing and buying quality content, marketing and promoting my website through traditional means, and
developing articles for the explicit purpose building outside links, my
traffic began to increase on its own.
Instead of spending all your energy, money, resources, and/or time hunting down websites to swap links with, use your time more
productively. Here are a few tips to help you increase your website’s traffic with link popularity:
- Offer quality content on your own website. Content that relates to the theme of your business will often get linked to by other
websites, without your asking.
- Write articles about your business, on the topic of your business, and
related to your business, and distribute your articles to other websites and/or e-zines.
- Submit your website to search engines, such as Google.
- Submit your website to directories, such as DMOZ.
- Submit your e-zine to directories that list newsletters, such as
The Free Directory of Ezines.
- If you must link to someone, do so based on the fact that the other website relates to your website’s theme.
Finally, don't:
- Pay to get linked on another website, but do pay for advertisements.
- Host link pages off your main website.
- Link to Free For All (FFA) link farms.
- Accept swaps with those who will place your link on a FFA links page.
- Link to websites that do not relate to your website’s theme, unless it’s in the byline of an article, written by the author.
- Use submission software programs.
- Send your website’s address (link) to thousands of unwilling participants.
About The Author
Alyice Edrich is a mixed media artist, freelance writer, and aspiring photographer. She enjoys creating things that bring joy
to others. Visit our her blog, Coming Home, to check out her latest art. Or
stop by her resume site, AlyiceEdrich.net to learn how you can hire her for your next project.
Reprint Rights
This article may NOT be reprinted without monetary compensation and written permission from the author. For reprint rights or comments/questions about this article, please contact the author.
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