Acquiring relevant backlinks to your website is one of the most important parts of any Search Engine Optimization campaign. The search engines and especially Google value backlinks to your website as an indicator of your websites importance. If a large number of webmasters have decided to link to your content then you must be an important information hub in your target keyword marketplace.
Link Popularity Checker
lists link popularity for all major search engines.If you can manage to get a large number of links from similar or complimentary websites that are ranked high by the search engines then your website should also start to climb the search engine rankings and increase the traffic to your site. Of course the quality of links, the anchor text of the links, the total number of links, the content of the page your link is on, how many outbound links are on the page, and the ranking of the page your link is on are all extremely important factors to consider when developing a linking strategy for your business.
When adding your links to resource directories where you have control over your link remember to utilize all the tools you have available to you to get the most out of the backlink to your site.
Place your keywords in img alt tags (if you have an image with your link), link title tag, and in the anchor text for your link. You have to remember that when a search engine visits a site that has a backlink to you that they have no idea what your website is about yet. Of course the search engine spider will make decisions based on its evaluation of the webpage but you can help them (and yourself) out by applying these simple principles to all backlinks you have control over. If you are submitting to a directory make sure you place your link under a category that has your keywords in the title of the category if possible.
You also have the option of buying links to your website, a strategy that has worked and continues to work now, but the search engines frown on this practice and have a tendency to black hole websites involved in link farming techniques. Its ok to purchase advertising or to seek out strategic partnerships for reciprocal linking of course but purchasing links for the sole purposes of boosting your search rankings is against Googles Terms of Service.
Trust me when I say Google can tell with pretty good accuracy who is buying their links and who is not. It really isnt that hard to tell and does not require that much analysis to figure out. You can perform this type of analysis for yourself, and you should do this to see what the competition in your market is doing. If you do purchase links make sure these are not the only links back to your site. The search engines like to see a natural growth to the number and quality of your backlinks. Having a couple of high ranking links and no others is a big red flag. Any site that grows naturally will have a pyramidal distribution of links with the greatest number of links at or near the bottom of the ranking ladder.
So you dont want your site to get black holed but you do want to accelerate the rate at which your website climbs the search engine rankings and hence see the benefits of free targeted traffic to your website. The good news is there are several Search Engine friendly ways to improve your link popularity:
1. Write Articles and have them published
The search engines love content filled web pages since these pages are providing information not just advertising. Writing articles related to your website topic and having them published on high ranking websites is a great first step to building your link popularity.
You may not have traffic coming to your site yet, but these article sites sure do. If someone likes your article a number of these article publishing sites will allow the user to download the article for use on their site. You are allowed to include a resource box with your article which you would obviously use to place a link to your website. Submit your articles to as many article submission sites as you can, they are hungry for your content.
2. Publish a Blog
This is a similar idea to writing articles except that you will have total editorial control of your Blog content. Feel free to weave in a few product and affiliate links where appropriate in your Blog content (something many article sites frown upon). Submit your blog to Blog and Web directories to help build the link popularity for your blog. Make sure you link your blog to your main website so anyone reading your Blog will be able to find you. You can also have your Blog syndicated via RSS to really explode your exposure. Be sure to add a resource box to the end of each article with a link to your website so that anyone syndicating your article via RSS will be able to find you.
the internets most popular blogging service
run your own blog on your own website with this free php-mysql package
- great listing of sites accepting RSS/Atom feeds, or Blog submissions.
3. Submit to Web Directories
There are literally thousands of Web Directories on the internet that will provide you a link to your site either for free, free with a reciprocal link, or for a fee. The most useful listing to have would be in the DMOZ.org directory which is the largest and most respected web directory on the internet. Getting listed can take 6-9 months if at all so you will definitely have to add some other directory targets to your short term plans.
Yahoo! offers an express paid directory listing for $299 USD a year which may be worth the price for your particular website. There are also a number of Quality Free Web Directories that should be on your to do list. Remember to submit to the most relevant category and preferably one with your keywords in the title and link anchor text.
- excellent listing of free web directories
the holy grail of free directory listings
- information on Yahoo Paid inclusion
4. Purchase links or seek out Link Partners
As long as you are continuing to build your links naturally utilizing the techniques above you can supplement your backlink count with a few carefully purchased links on high traffic sites. This can give you a double benefit of helping you boost your link popularity and also provide you a stream of traffic from the website itself if you have targeted your purchase correctly. If your site is about real estate, consider purchasing links in a real estate directory that has a large amount of traffic.
5. Post in relevant Forums
Search engines love forums because they are moderated by humans and have a lot of ever-changing content on them. These types of sites are indexed regularly and can be a great place to spread the word about your site and gain link popularity. Every time you post your signature is attached to your posting which should contain a link to your site if you have set it up correctly.
6. Provide valuable original content or tools on your website
Writing articles or having unique tools that people would find valuable on your website are great ways to build up backlinks without having to expend effort. If you provide a great tool on your site for free other webmasters will link up to your site without you having to solicit them. The internet is an information source for most people, so give them what they want.
7. Seek Out Complimentary Link Partners
If you find resources that compliment the services you offer on your website, consider contacting the owners of these websites and trading links with them. Do not make these judgments based on the sites page rank but rather focus on how relevant the other sites content is to yours.
excellent program to manage your links directory
Google Tools (type these into the google search form)
Allinurl: keywords tells you all sites with keywords in their site URL
Allintitle: keywords tells you all sites with keywords in the site title tag
Allinanchor: keywords provides a listing of WebPages that contain keywords in the anchor text of links on those pages
Link: www.competitordomain.com tells you who is linking to competitordomain. These sites may want to link back to your site as well (also works on ).
For Yahoo:
Linkdomain: www.competitordomain.com same as link: for Google, MSN
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About the Author
Michael Lawrence is the webmaster for providing Free Web Traffic and Free Website Promotion .
He also publishes a Blog which can be found at containing articles on website promotion and internet marketing.
DMOZ is known all over the internet as being the largest open source directory online, but is it really worth your time and effort to try to get your website listed in their directory
You must remember when submitting your website to DMOZ that this directory is one of the human powered directories which means that a person must go over your submission, your website, and determine if your website is worthy of being in the directory from their own standpoint of view. All of the editors at DMOZ are volunteers just like you and me that have applied to become editors and reviewers in their special field of interest.
It does not cost to have your site listed in DMOZ, so that is a plus, but they do have certain standards that they expect but once again the volunteers are just people and they must also stick to these high standards to ensure that DMOZ keeps its high regard for submissions.
DMOZ wants to achieve a high quality, content rich resource in which the general public will consider useful and indispensable. DMOZ expects their editors and reviewers to keep this high standard and only allow websites with original, unique and valuable informational content that contributes something unique to the categorys subject. So, before you submit your website go over this check list to ensure you have the type of website they include and then remember the rest is up to the editors and reviewers.
1. Do not submit websites that have identical content but have different URLs.
2. Do not submit websites that have similar content to another website you already have listed in DMOZ.
3. Do not submit your URL with each page as a separate submission.
4. Do not submit websites that have pages that are not working properly, are under construction, have broken graphics, or broken links, or are redirecting to another website.
5. Do not submit websites with illegal content such as child pornography, libel, fraud, or violence.
6. Do not submit websites that are just a bunch of links to affiliate programs.
None of this will ensure your inclusion into the DMOZ directory but it will help. The wait to get into DMOZ can be a very long wait if indeed you are ever included.
I would not submit to DMOZ and then wait around for something magical to happen. DMOZ is not the only directory out there. I would submit and then forget about it. Submit to all the directories you can and do not worry if DMOZ does not include your website. I believe having your website listed in the major search engines is much more important than a link back from DMOZ. It would be nice to find your website in the DMOZ directory, but you are relying on the integrity of the volunteer editors and reviewers which have their own opinions as to what makes up a quality website. If your website meets the criteria of DMOZ and you do in fact get an editor that agrees with these standards then you will be lucky enough to have your website included.
Cant wait for directory backlinks Try the authors site. Lee Munson has huge lists of free, niche and paid directories at