I know you’ve heard that phrase you are what you eat, well on the inter-blog-web-o-sphere you are what you link.

Search engines are the gateway to the Internet; and they hold all the keys to your future fame and fortune.

This is why link popularity is so imperative. If I cant find your blog, you have no possibilities of selling me anything, or informing me, or entertaining me, In short you have no traffic. I’m pretty sure there are many if not millions of great bloggers and content producers out there, who are are stuck on page 10,000 of google all because they disobeyed the laws of linking.

But before we even try to talk traffic, we need to talk link.

LINK speak 101

You’re probably wondering what the blazes is popular about a link! And why it’s so important. Well, in a word - plenty! when the link is done right. This is the all important part of Offsite optimization for your blog or website.

Here’s 2 great posts on page rank and link popularity and how to properly format a link.

Why the value of links is here to stay even if the PageRank theory is dead  - performancing.com

Forget About Page Rank and Build a Better Blog - problogger.net 

Are You Using the Five Types of Links Properly?  - copy blogger

Did I say 2 posts ok I meant 3. Don’t say I never gave you anything.

Link popularity is one of the factors that determines the Search Engine positioning of your blog/website, as it determines where your page gets placed on the search engines when keywords are entered into a search engine. (think i can use search engine any more in one paragraph?)

So, you’re probably wondering,

How do I make my link popular?

Search engines are discretionary, giving status and ranking to sites that have links in-bound to their pages from related, quality sites. It’s kind of like survivor  - its a popularity contest!!

It’s a simple formula, but a very important one. Google created the system, and now virtually all the most popular search engines employ it to rank your web pages in their indexes.

I see this mistake being made all the time and I do it myself every now and again.

Ok so you’re trying to rank for your keyword right? - Good.

So why are you commenting on high PR blogs using your name?

Don’t do that

When commenting on a blog use your keyword you are wanting to rank for. Google spiders these blogs and sees your link. Unless you’re trying to rank for anne of course.

Heres proof of what I am talking about:

The commenter name i used is my keyword How To Scrapbook

Heres the comment I placed on problogger to show you this as a proof of concept

The result is Page 2 on google for my keyword.

Whats a back link

Your blog will live and die on a diet or rich content and quality back links. And this is what you must feed the search engines. The spiders are hungry little critters so you MUST FEED THEM.

Every time the search engines “see” a link to your site, it makes them think, “Wow, that site must

be pretty important, seeing as there are so many other places linking to it.” When the search engines think your site is important, they will make your listing appear higher in the results. These are called backlinks, and the more you have, the better.

The more commonly used your keyword is, or the more often it is searched for, the harder it will be to achieve link popularity on its own, but without achieving this step, it is almost certain your site will never rank highly on any search engine.

Heres another mistake I see often:

Understanding this, you probably realize how important it is to make the WORDS that link to your web site be the right ones! They have to have your keywords in them its as simple as that.

I can’t tell you how many times I have seen people link to their sites like this:

“For more information, visit my website here.”

That means their site is getting credit for the word “here.” TOTAL INSANITY!

It’s much better to get credit for words that actually have something to do with your website.

There are a few things you should be aware of.

1.) Quantity That just linking up with a large number of other websites will not achieve link popularity. In fact, it may have quite the opposite effect. This is particularly true when pertaining to websites that are nothing more than “link farms” - pages containing line after line of indiscriminate links. Google will pound the crap out of your website if you are associated with a link farm, so steer clear of them!

VS 

2.) Quality The next thing to bear in mind is the quality of the site you are linking to. Never link to a page you have reservations about your visitors seeing. The last thing you want your website to appear as is indiscriminate and cheap.

Linking to sites of poor quality will only lessen your link popularity, if not completely destroy it.

 

“Ideally Speaking - The best inbound links have three main qualities to them:

1. they are from higher ranked sites than your own
2. they are relevant to the topic you are writing about
3. they link to you using relevant keywords to your page”

- darren Rowse (problogger.net) Search engine optimization for blogs