Everything Wind Power & Wind Mills

By: Ron Brown
Link popularity, by definition, is a tool that search engines use to measure the quantity and quality of websites that link to your site. Search engines feel that if your website is mentioned on other sites, that gives it credibility and therefore should reflect positively on your ranking. This is the foundation of how Google determines where to rank websites on their search engine.

So the first thought that should be going through your head is how many websites currently have a link to your site.

Using Google Search Field, type in (link:www.yourdomain.com) you can do an analysis of the largest search engines to see what websites they find that link back to your website. Could there be more out there that the search engines just didn't pick up? Yes, but they don't matter because you only get credit from the search engine if they can find it.

You might be pleasantly surprised to find websites on the list that you've never heard of before and have no idea how or why they decided to link to you. But more often than not, you will find the number is probably low or possibly even zero.

So let's get the wrong way to approach link popularity out of the way first. Many years ago, when website designers and SEO companies caught wind of how search engines operate, they started adding their clients' website link to as many other sites as they could. Some even went so far as to create websites for the sole purpose of adding a client's link to them. The only content on these sites would be website links, and they came to be known as "link farms." Link farms are now frowned upon by the search engines because they aren't real indicators of popularity. The search engines will penalize you and perhaps kick your website off of their listing!

Another approach that you should shy away from is having your link displayed on any website, irrespective if it's content. It's not just about quantity, but quality. Search engines will look for how relevant a website is to your business. For example, let's say you own a catering company. A search engine will give you more credit for your link to be on an event planning website than on someone's car website. So to give yourself the best chance of being deemed popular by the search engines, you'll want to have you link on multiple websites that are real sites and have some sort of relevancy to your business.

Tips for Success

1. There are multiple ways to have your link added to a website. For example, you can write an article to be used as content for a website, and then place you link at the end of it.

2. You can submit a press release announcing something new about your business with the local press.

Create a page on social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and or Diggs.

3. The Chamber of Commerce is a great resource when looking for websites to add your link to.

4. You can also offer a testimonial to a website whose product or service you've used, with, of course, a link to your website included at the end of it.

5. Remember, the popularity of the websites that link to you is also important. If you know of some websites that receive a lot of traffic, make those a priority!