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How To Win the Link Popularity Contest

December 11, 2008 by admin  
Filed under Link Building

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When it comes to generating link popularity, you’ve likely heard web marketers say, “Build it and they will come”. In other words, create an excellent website marketing strategy with loads of quality content displayed on a site that’s well designed and properly optimized. This, they say, will inspire other sites to link to yours.

Oh, is that all?

Unfortunately, it isn’t.

Having a quality site with hundreds of pages of well-written, unique content is great. But for most websites, even that isn’t enough to attract the quality and quantity of links needed to boost Google rankings these days.

So what do you have to do to get quality links that will actually count for something with the search engines? Here’s Google’s answer to the question:

“Make sure all the sites that should know about your pages are aware your site is online.”  (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769)

That means don’t wait for them to find you. Put your paws to the pavement and seek out organizations, associations, and specialty industry groups… any and all sites representing groups that are considered credible and respected resources for your industry. Then get them to link to you (more on that coming up.)

Becoming affiliated with groups like these will not only shift your link popularity efforts into high gear, it will also help build your brand and expose your business to consumers in your precise target market.

How to Start Getting Popular:

  1. Search for organizations that are already established within your industry. Most have a directory that lists companies like yours (you’ll probably see some of your top ranking competitors already listed there!). Many associations allow you to join them, either for free or a fee. Select the ones that you think will benefit you the most and sign up.
     
  2. Scour your competitors’ sites and see if they are affiliated with any associations you should be connected with but aren’t yet.
     
  3. Once you’ve joined these groups and have a link on their sites, issue a press release telling the world that you are now an official member of “XYZ”. Make sure to include a link from the press release to the “XYZ” webpage that your site is displayed on as well as a link to your own site.
     
  4. Commit to writing an article (or having one written) at least once a month. Then:
    1. Upload it to your site,
       
    2. Get it crawled by adding it to your Google and Yahoo! sitemaps,
       
    3. Make a blog post about it and link to it (waddaya mean you don’t have a blog yet?!)
       
    4. A few weeks after it is live on your site and is cached, submit it to some of the organizations you contacted earlier. In the “about the author” section at the end of each article, add the link to that specific article on your site and on your blog. This will help establish your business as the authoritative source of the article. It will also build link popularity to that specific page and allow readers to post comments about it on your blog. If you have a forum on your site, mention it there too and point users to it with a link.
       
    5. It wouldn’t hurt to issue a press release about the article you wrote either. Make sure you link to the exact page where your article resides on your site as well as to your home page.

Paying For Popularity?

Since Google is so adverse to paid run-of-site links, it would be natural to assume that any sort of paid link popularity method would also be frowned upon. But luckily that’s not the case when it comes to association membership fees.

Some of the organizations you research will charge a membership fee, anywhere from $10 for a lifetime to $5,000 or more per year. Don’t let that scare you off. If your funds are limited, consider signing up for a few at a time and adding more as your budget allows.

Anyway, a few links added judiciously over time are much more credible than a flood of sudden links that appear all at once. That will get you the kind of attention you don’t want from search engines… red flags over possible link spamming.

In conclusion, nobody said link popularity was a contest you could win overnight. But if you steadfastly use the ideas outlined above, it will pay off in a gradual – and very satisfying – improvement in your link popularity, targeted traffic, and rankings.

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