Where’s the first place you go to look for a product or service you need? If you use the internet at all, your answer is probably a search engine. Search engines are what help us find information online. This is why link popularity is so important. If a customer can’t find your website, then you have no chance of making a sale.

What Makes A Link Popular?

So, the question comes up – what makes a link popular? Plenty. Link popularity is the rating given to your website by the search engines. Your website’s rating determines where in the listing your site comes up when a certain keyword is entered into a search engine by a customer. Is your website on page one or page 5,000. It is imperative that you know where you website stands.

How Do I Make My Link Popular?

Search engines give ratings and status to websites that have links to their pages from quality, related websites. This is a simple system, but a very important one. Google created this system, and now virtually all other popular search engines employ it to rank your web pages in their indexes.

It is difficult to achieve link popularity when your keyword is a highly searched keyword. But without it, your site will never be seen in the search engines. Don’t get discouraged if you have a keyword that is one of the most used. There are methods that the top marketers use everyday to achieve link popularity on any keyword.

In your quest for making your link popular, be sure to stay away from what are known as "link farms". These are just sites with pages and pages of links in any category. You want to research the site that you are linking to. Just any link will not increase your link popularity. In fact, it could harm it. Search engines do not like link farms, and they may discriminate against your website if you are associated with one, so steer clear of them!

The next thing that is important in your link marketing strategy is the quality of the website you are linking to. If you are not sure you would want any of your customers or site visitors to see a certain website, then definitely do not link to it. You don’t want your site to look cheap. You want your visitors to know that your site only has quality information on it. Linking to poor quality sites could completely destroy your link popularity.

So what do you need to do to achieve high link popularity and improve your website’s ratings on the search engines? The first step, and a great starting place is to get a listing in a popular directory like Yahoo and Open Directory Project. Be aware that if your sight is business-related then it will cost around $300 a year to be listed in the Yahoo Directory. This is a great step toward linking popularity, so I strongly suggest paying this fee with yahoo. If your website is non-commercial then the listing is free, but it does take some time and follow up to assure your site actually makes it in the directory. Open Directory’s listing is free no matter what type of site, but as with Yahoo it does take some follow up to get listed.

Your goal should be to be listed in the highest level of the appropriate category for your website. This just takes a little bit of common sense. For example, if your company ships recycled paper from a paper plant located in tiny town, tiny state, do NOT submit your listing to "Retailers from tiny town, tiny state." This is a Big Mistake! Instead, if you look deeper you will find that you can submit your listing to the "Recycled Paper" category. You will not only have a quality listing for your site, but you will also be listed in a national category.

After you have achieved your directory listings, then the next step is to find quality sites that will increase your link popularity. In finding websites that are related to your site, you will not only increase your link popularity, but you will also be able to expand your customer base. Don’t link with your direct competitor, but instead find sites that will be useful to your customers. Looking at the recycled paper example, linking up with a pencil or pen manufacturer would be useful to your customer and the manufacturer would probably want to link with you as well. However, it would not be a good idea to link with another paper company. Even if you think that your paper is better quality and a better price, you may end up losing customers instead of gaining them.

Not all sites want to link with other sites, so you will have to do your research when you are looking for possible linking partners. A great starting place would be to go to a popular search engine and type in a keyword that you think quality customers would enter to find your website. Remember, you are looking for related sites, not in direct competition with your site. Your criteria is quality, high rated sites with a links or resources page. Visit these sites and look at them as if you were the customer. Is the site easy to navigate? What is the quality of the product? Do the graphics look professional? Then look at the other sites they are linked to. Would your site fit in with these?

How Do I Get A Link Back To My Site?

Once you have found a site that you feel is quality enough to link to, the first thing you must do is set up a link to their site on your links or resources page. By doing this you are showing good faith and this will increase your chances of them linking back to your site. After you have their link in place you need to contact the webmaster. Since this is usually done by email, it is very important that you make clear that your email is not junk mail. Tell them right in the beginning that you have added a link to their page on your website. This is a great way to get their attention. Next, be sure to compliment their website. Be sure that it is clear that you actually visited their website. Tell them you appreciate the value of their product, or you like the ease of navigation on their site. This is important, do NOT lie. If you don’t believe what you are saying to them then maybe you should rethink linking to their site. Give them the address to your links page, and ask them to visit it to see the location of their link on your site. Mention that in linking with your site, they will increase their own website traffic and also increase their own link popularity. Finally, tell them that you would greatly appreciate if they would reciprocally add a link on their own links page to your website.

Continue contacting as many webmasters as possible, keeping in mind your criteria for a quality link. After you have sent all your emails, continue to visit each website frequently to check if they have linked back to your website. If a website has still not added your link after a month, try sending another friendly and positive email. After another month if they still haven’t linked to you then it is time to move on. The only time that you would pursue a webmaster further is if you feel their site is crucial to your link popularity. Even so, always keep your communication friendly and non-confrontational.

I Have My Links, Now What?

Now that you have your linking system in place, set up a regular schedule to check the search engines frequently to see if your link popularity has increased. This will not happen overnight. Be patient. It takes time and a lot of hard work to improve your link popularity. That is why the search engines hold it up as very important.

One last thing is to make sure that your site is of higher quality than what you expect from your linking sites. If your website is hard to navigate and does not have professional graphics, you will never convince other webmasters to link to you. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t get answers right away, or even if you get some no’s. Link popularity takes time, but you will be thrilled when you see the results of your hard work: Your website high on the search engine listings.