Why is Link Popularity a key in good rankings?
Search Engines are just software programs that try to rank your website based on the content they scan. They use a series of algorithms to give your content a ranking score. Then they compare that score to all the other websites they have in their database and display the results. But content alone is not good enough to determine who is the most relative to a set of keywords. They also try to analyze your link popularity and combine that rating with your content to produce a final determination of your sites relevance. Link popularity is defined by the quality and quantity of inbound and outbound links of your web page. By quality I mean the reputations of the websites that link to you, the titles of the pages that link back to you, the text used to link to your website and a few other factors. By quantity I simply mean the number of links on the internet which point to your website and links which you point to other sites. Want to know your link popularity, try going to Google and type this; “link: followed by your URL“. This will return all the sites that link to you in the Google index.
How do I develop my link popularity?
Well before we discuss that lets briefly talk about the different kinds of links you can use on your site.
Inbound: This is when someone links to your website but you do not link back to them.
Reciprocal: This is when you link to someone and they link back to you.
Outbound: This is when you link to another website and they do not link back to you. The opposite of Inbound.
Internal: These are links on your website that link to pages on your website.
I listed these in the order of importance. Getting quality inbound links are the best route you can take but care should be taken to get links from all these types. Consequently not only is this the order of importance it is also the order of ease. Inbound are the hardest links to obtain.
Getting Outbound Links
The key to getting people to link to you is establishing a dominant presence. If you become the authority in your marketing area (Westwood New Jersey) people will naturally want to link to you. Here are a few ways you can grow your inbound links.
1) Articles: Articles are a great way not only to develop good quality content but also a great way to get good content into the search engines. So what so I do after I write an article, you submit them to an article directory. To find article directories, Google ‘Real Estate Article Directories’. Wondering what to write about? Well that is simple, write about something you know - REAL ESTATE. Also try to focus that in your marketing area. New Jersey Home Trends, Schools in Essex County, etc.
2) Blogs: Blogs are like virtual journal that are organized by categories. In the beginning people used them to write diary type notes. Now a days people are using them as a content driving presence to propel their Real Estate marketing. Excellent places to get started in blogging are; activerain.com blogger.com or wordpress.com. These sites are all free. They do however have some paid upgrade services.
3 ) Trackbacks: This is the easiest way to get your links out there. What you do is go to other blogs (Authority Sites) in your industry and become a regular contributor. You can also comment blogs. When you do comment also provide a link back to your website or blog. The more links you have pointing back to you, the more popular you get. Also, when you become a major contributor/commenter, people start valuing your opinion more.
4) Listing Syndication: Syndicate your listings. By doing this you are getting inbound links out to the world and also exposing your listings to a greater audience.
Reciprocal links
Reciprocal links are another good way to gain link popularity. You provide a link to another peer site, in return for them linking back to you. Remember to link to relevant sites in your marketing area (maybe local businesses) and/or relevant sites in your business (appraisers, mortgage companies, real estate portals).
Outbound Links
In addition to inbound and reciprocal links you can also put a series of outbound links on your site as well. These are not as important as the other two and should not be your primary focus. But linking to Realtor.com, local business, or large relevant companies is a good choice too. Most sites are OK with you linking to their home page while others require permission. Always check the sites terms before proceeding.
Internal Links
Internal links help provide a link road map to your site. By linking your keyword to a page relevant to that keyword you help road map to the search engines what is important in your website. For example linking the words “Westwood Real Estate” to a page called “Westwood-real-estate.htm” with content about Westwood Real Estate shows a clear path on what you think is important relevant information on your website.
Study your competition. Google other sites in your marketing area.
One good tool to help you with this is Webposition.com. Remember no amount of links can replace quality, original and relevant content.
A final word of advise.
1. When possible link to an authoritative site with a good page rank
2. Link to relevant sites
Good luck. If you have any experiences or ideas please share them with us.
Comments(10)