In my last article, “Discover The Easy Way of Building Link Directories” I told you about how search engine optimized directory pages can attract more traffic to your website, when people search for those related products or services that you have listed on those directory pages. I also told you that by maintaining well laid-out and organized directory pages, you could get reciprocal links from those websites. Or, in other words, you can get more inbound links to your website.

Link Popularity Means High Page Ranks!

Let’s face it - the greater the number of links pointing to your website, the higher is your page rank with most search engines! Google, AltaVista, HotBot - they all use the number of inbound links parameter as a very important factor in determining your page rank. As such, link popularity still plays a vital role in getting those top ranks and search engine positions for your websites.

Moreover, if those links are coming from high quality, related websites, then there’s nothing better than that! Search engines will love your site if all your links - both inbound and outbound - are completely relevant to the content of your web pages! And if your inbound links come from pages having a high ranking, then that automatically increases your page rank too! If such high-ranking pages consider your site worthwhile enough for linking to it, then your site must be offering some really good content!

The Catch

The only catch here is that acquiring a decent number of legitimate inbound links, from good-quality, related websites, requires a considerable amount of ingenuity and expertise. You don’t want to irritate the search engines by accumulating generic links, so that they throw you off their grid completely! Neither do you want to end up linking to a banned website!

As we discussed in the previous email, accomplishing this task can consume a lot of energy and leave you tired, even more so when you have to maintain more than one website! Besides, there is always the time factor that is essential for gaining the upper hand over your competition.

Use Of SEO Software For Link Maintenance

Using a reputable SEO software program, for establishing and maintaining your link partnerships, can greatly ease the burden off your shoulders! It can accomplish within days what would manually take months to achieve! A good link maintenance program -

• keeps track of the locations you’ve already submitted your site to
• prevents being linked to banned websites and thus, keeps you out of trouble
• allows you to manage information about all the sites connected from your website
• generates highly targeted directory pages automatically, based on the information specified for your outgoing links
• automatically uploads the link files to your web server
• customizes the structure of your link pages through automatic category creation and management
• has an internal link check feature, that easily and conveniently ascertains whether your link partners still have reciprocal links to your site or if they have been dropped
• effectively manages all your link email campaigns - handles all email tasks of contacting and managing prospective link partners, and also keeps them notified of any updates

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A well designed link building campaign can rank your site high with the search engines, and also increase traffic to your website. When you link to quality sites, you will build your brand and receive a lot of exposure, with webmasters wanting to link to your site.

Back links or incoming links are links at other sites that lead to your site. They are one of the most vital components in the search engine optimization process. This is because search engines assess the importance of your website based on the quality of back links coming into your site. Link popularity tells you how many websites are linking to yours and you can check this with a free tool.

If there are a large number of links from related or complementary sites that already have a high search engine ranking, coming in to your website, then your website will also automatically rank high with the search engines.

To develop an effective linking strategy, the following will play an important role:

• The quality of your links
• The anchor text in these links
• The total number of links
• The quality of content on the page that has these links
• The number of outbound links on the page
• The page rank of the page your link is on

Search engines smile upon natural incoming links to your website. But how do you build incoming links naturally? How to make webmasters want to link to your site? There are sites that will offer to link to yours if you link to theirs, but this does not always work. Instead you need to focus on getting productive one-way links, since the idea here is to make the search engines happy. Here’s how you can add ‘link value’ to your site:

• Get related sites to link to you because your site offers value to their traffic. This is hard work but when you accomplish it, you can enjoy unprecedented traffic, better conversion rates and therefore, profits.
• Offer value to the website that can link to you by offering complementary products or services or useful information that the site can link to.
• Add special reports or guides to your website so that you can address a specific need.
• Publish articles, hints and tips based on what customers want. This material must be link worthy to your target market so that they want to link to you.

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