Web Moves Blog

A Brief Introduction To Link Popularity
As webmasters research various ways to get more traffic to their site one method that is gaining more and more publicity is Link Popularity. Link Popularity is the number of links that point to your website as measured by the search engines. In theory if your site has many sites linking to it then it is considered to be a valuable resource on the particular topic so the search engines will give it a higher ranking.

The Problem
As with many rules/laws eventually people found a way to manipulate it. Sites were created solely to build the link popularity of other sites. These sites are called ‘Link Farms’ and contributed to the pollution of search engine results. They increased the search engine rankings of many sites that did not deserve the position they received.

Eventually the search engines caught on to this deception and some such as Google adjusted their algorithms accordingly. Google now penalizes websites associated with Link Farms imposing penalties they deem appropriate based on the site and the scenario. Many people that felt the effects of this penalization were fairly innocent, well that is if you consider ignorance to be an alibi. They simply did not know that what they were doing was wrong; some even paid for SEO services and were victims of bad services.

As the search engines change their algorithms aiming to reduce fraudulent activities by webmasters, more and more ways are conceived to manipulate them, and so the battle continues.

An Honest Link Building Strategy
Getting quality links to your site from related resources is not always as easy as some make it sound. The key word here is ‘quality’. It is a very time consuming process and involves the following steps:

* Search for quality sites that are related to yours.
* Contact the Webmaster of the related site.
* Wait for a response from them.
* Swap links if the response is positive.

There are also some automated methods of doing this that speed up the process, however, I would not recommend any of them and hence won’t list them in this article.

So you have started your link building campaign and are hopefully seeing the results. Now you say this is great but how can I make this process more efficient and effective without risking your good standings with the search engines.

Here is the solution.

The Smart Way To Increase Link Popularity.
One thing webmasters are always looking for, and find hard to refuse, is good quality content. If you are knowledgeable on a particular topic that is related to your site, writing informative articles is a great way to gain your website additional link popularity. If you are reading this article and are not reading it on http://www.webmoves.net/blog// then there is your proof.

If you don’t consider yourself a writer don’t worry, you don’t have to be. Get your article in the best shape you possibly can and then have others, who you consider to be better at writing than you are, look it over. Make your edits and there you go.

How is writing articles efficient and effective?
Well-written articles do take time to produce but as you write more you will get better and will find that it starts to take less and less time. This method offers several more benefits than the linking method listed above. These are as follows:

* Articles are, in most cases, permanent additions to sites.

* Writing Articles demonstrates your knowledge of various industry related topics and this helps to build credibility.

* If users are interested enough to read your entire article then there’s a very good chance that they will click on your link to visit your site in hopes of learning more or even just out of curiosity.

* You are able to include several links with articles. You can have several links in the resource box also known as the bylines as well as in any ‘appropriate’ spots in the article.

* You have the ‘option’ of including your affiliate links in the article if it includes information on that resource.

* You also get to add this content to your own website.

* If you include reprint information in the bylines then others that read the article, and feel it would be a valuable addition to their site, will add it and then it becomes almost viral. It spreads even though you are not doing a thing.

Link Building Summary
Building link popularity is a vital part to your search engine ranking and should be approached in either of the two methods listed above that you feel is more appropriate for your individual situation. The benefits from writing, however, far outweigh those of requesting reciprocal links in most situations. Hopefully this article has helped to shed some light on this and will encourage more knowledgeable people to start sharing their knowledge with others.

Author: A Duncan

From: Colleen

Hi Jill,

I am a small business owner who would like to improve my ranking. I have been contacted by a company who “guarantees” top-10 rankings on 6 major sites within 180 days for a fee. Can you please tell me if these types of companies are legitimate, and which ones you would recommend or avoid.

Thank you!

Colleen

Jill’s Response To – Legitimate SEO Company or Not?
Hi Colleen,

This is a very good and timely question, which I get asked a lot. Many companies receive numerous unsolicited emails or phone calls offering similar “SEO” packages. (more…)

More and more is being said about Pay for Inclusion (PFI) and Pay per Click (PPC). Today, there are a good number of ways that search directories and search engines are charging companies trying to get their web sites conveniently listed on the Internet. What is really important to underline when talking about this popular topic is that funds invested into most PFI programs go mainly in getting your web site indexed into the various search databases. There really isn’t much more to it. Some promise you to be listed within seven days, others tell you it may be sooner.

Companies can pay these directories as much as they feel like it, but PFI will not yield those web sites higher placement in the engines. It would be foolish to believe that the mere inclusion of a URL in such directories will propel any web site in the first position. Business people should be extremely careful of hyped promises to be at the top, with just a directory inclusion. As you are about to find out, it takes a lot more than that to be at the top in the search engine results pages (SERP’s) of any major search engine. (more…)

Staying Ahead Of Your Competitors
Speaking of competition, have you checked the websites of your top competitors recently? While making fine adjustments to your campaign is great, they cannot be successfully accomplished without reviewing the efforts of your biggest competitors. Which products are they targeting; what press releases have they issued? Knowing your competitors’ movements will not only help you with your SEO efforts but also prepare you for theirs.

If You’ve Added Content, Did You Optimize It?
Chances are, you have added or will add new content or products to satisfy your visitors over the Christmas period. While your older, established pages have probably received attention; it can be difficult to keep all your new pages optimized. Take time now to review them to ensure that they at least have unique, keyword-rich title and Meta tags. (more…)

Professional Search Engine Positioning
If you need to write for the search engines and your site visitors too, the following nine tips can be of good help. Always remember that all search engines are like humans: they want good relevant content that will help everybody in the end.

Step No. 1:
First, start by writing attention-grabbing tag lines, written using H1 or H2 tags. This will help you a lot with the search engines. Google gives additional importance to title tags in bold H1 or H2 tags. Additionally, most people are overwhelmed with information from just about everywhere they look, so they “scan read”, particularly on the Web. Always remember that if your headline doesn’t get their focus and attention, everything else you write may go unread. Your title and headline must highlight the features and benefits of whatever product or service you are trying to sell on that particular page. (more…)

The Google Dance
Just how does Google update its whole index? This is a rather broad question, but we will explain each and every step that Google takes every month to ensure its database is the most relevant and of the highest quality.

Quite a good number of people and companies realize that, in order to obtain the best Google rankings early in their search engine optimization (SEO) campaigns, it is important to take all the necessary steps before and carefully plan ahead. In respect to non-fee search engine submissions, Google happens to be one of the very few left. It’s also one of the earliest to include it in its database. As/of July 10th, 2003, it is widely estimated that the worldwide Google database consists of over 3.4 Billion pages! And that is only a fraction of all available web sites, as some of them are not open to Google, ie: those sites are not to be visited by a search crawler or spider. (more…)

For the past two or three years, many search engines such as Google and a few others have given less and less attention, and in some cases, no attention at all to Meta Tags. The sole reason for this is simply because in the past, in the go-go days of the Internet, ie: before 2000, many web site owners and webmasters stuffed their meta tags with useless information, basically spamming the search engines. It wasn’t long for the engines to realize they were victimized and since that time, many of them now pay little if no attention at all to most Meta Tags.

However, what if some day they come back? What if, at a future date many of the major search engines decide that the “penalty” has served its purpose and that its now time to remove it? Not putting any meta tags in a website may not be a good idea, since it only takes a few minutes to write them in the first place. (more…)

Way Back
Alexa started out as a project to archive the Internet; to keep a history of the then nascent World Wide Web as it developed. While that certainly was an interesting concept, it probably never would have paid the bills. Remnants of that project still exist: Alexa has a “Way back machine” that lets you see older versions of some pages on some sites. You can see some of my old pages at http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.aplawrence.com/ for an example.

Alexa now also offers a search engine (Google powered, of course). Their added value is to offer additional site ranking and related site information that Goggle doesn’t provide. Alexa compiles that part of its data from users of its Alexa Toolbar. Unlike Google’s Page Rank, which is a simple 1 to 10 scale, Alexa ranks position: first most popular and on up, presently seeming to end somewhere close to the four million mark. (more…)

If You Build It
But popularity isn’t easy. Oh, you’ll get spam that tells you it is- “We’ll submit your site to thousands of search engines and your web counter will go BALLISTIC!!” and so on. Or you may be advised that you need to pay Yahoo a whole bunch of money to get your site “indexed”. Under some circumstances, you might consider paying Yahoo or Google for context based advertising, but most of us don’t need to. The only folks who should even consider paying for site promotion are those who need to come up to speed extremely quickly. Even if you do pay, don’t ignore the techniques discussed here- paying is only going to give you a jump start; it won’t keep you in the game. (more…)

When a company or individual needs to rank high in the major search engines, a number of important steps are necessary in planning a good content strategy. To be really efficient, a good corporate web site needs to effectively communicate the content it offers its visitors. That content should describe the topic, information sections and the purpose of the site. Visitors will want to come to a company’s web site more than once if the content it offers exactly matches the topic or subject of their initial search query.

Experience has taught us that good, relevant content always prompts users to visit time and time again, thereby generating additional, quality traffic. Traffic isn’t everything- you also need targeted traffic to be really effective in your optimization campaign. Good, detailed content that is on-topic and relevant to search is the actual heart of any good corporate web site. Studies have shown that visitors leave a site if the vital and essential information they are looking for is not available. (more…)