Link Popularity: Improve your Search Engine Rankings
By: Talita Kindermann

What is link popularity?

Link Popularity is simply the total number of pages that link to your website. Most search engines, including Google, consider that when one page links to another page, it is effectively casting a vote of confidence for the other page. Therefore, the likelihood of you being the best source of information for their searchers is directly linked to the number of votes you have. It is therefore safe to assume that the higher the number of pages linking to your website, the higher you will be ranked on the search engines. Link popularity has become a critical success factor for search engine optimization within popular search engines.

How does link popularity work?

Good link popularity is important because it can boost your rankings within search engines, increasing the number of visitors to your website. There are 3 important factors to keep in mind:

Relevancy

An incoming link is considered to be relevant if it relates to your web page. For example, if you sell office furniture online, relevant incoming links could include: furniture manufacturers, interior designers, competitors in other states or countries, etc.

Keywords

Keywords make the relevancy of your site obvious to the search engines. Make sure that incoming links contain the keywords that best describe your site. For example: Brisbane Office Furniture Sales.

Quality

The quality of links is just as important as the number of links. Only high ranking websites can influence your visibility within search engines. You will be penalized for suspicious looking links from unrelated web pages or too many links from low ranking web pages.

How can I discover my link popularity?

Our Link Popularity Checker: http://www.kintek.com.au/tools/link-popularity-checker.php will show a summary of your link popularity in the four most popular search engines. Alternatively, another easy way to find this out is to type link: followed by your full web address with no spaces, into a search engine and you will receive a list of web sites currently pointing to you.

How can I improve my link popularity?

A few quick tips:

Talk to your suppliers and other related industry partners and arrange to cross link.

Analyse the incoming links you already have and make sure they contain the keywords that best describe your site.

Examine the link popularity of your well ranked competition. Once you discover who's linking to them, find out if you can get a link to your website as well.

Don't forget - content is king. Link popularity is only useful if your website already provides relevant, keyword rich, information.

Talita operates a family web development firm based in sunny Brisbane, Australia. She enjoys sharing her knowledge and expertise in web design, ecommerce, email marketing and search engine optimisation. Visit her business website, Kintek: http://www.kintek.com.au/