A simple way to build traffic to your website and gain popularity with Google is by posting links. A link is like a vote of popularity, saying this is a good website to check out. So where should you post links you may be wondering?
Going to forums related to the content of your website, making comments and leaving your link is a popular way. If you leave a short comment, people may be interested in learning more of what you have to say and click on your link. Also going to blogs or having your own blog is another easy way.
Another popular way is called reciprocal links, meaning exchanging links with other webmasters. Although time consuming, it is a very effective way to gain link popularity. You simply find other websites with similar, non-competing content and email them asking to exchange links.
There are many link directories that offer free listings, however you will want to seek out quality directories, avoiding spam-type ones or FFA (free for all) directories. Look for ones that are human edited and have other quality sites listed.
Joining social networks can also build free links. Many of them are free to join and you can post as often as you have time for. Posting videos on popular sites such as You Tube is a very effective way. If people like your video, they may want to see more of your site.
With some time dedicated to building links you will soon see your website soar in popularity
A number of sensible suggestions have emerged about good SEO practice. Here is one of the most important:
1. Don't add links too quickly or all from one or two sources -- Google wants a "natural" linking pattern.
This is not a new suggestion, but Google seems to be prepared to penalize sites which engage in blatant link buying. Clearly this is targeted at services that sell links by the hundreds (or thousands). So one month a site has no links, and the next month it has 2,000 or 20,000 links from one or two "name" sites. Obviously these links have happened because of link buying.
Is Google trying to discourage all link buying? I don't think so. Links are just a form of advertising, and Google cannot discourage buying advertising without being blatantly inconsistent. Google itself is one of the primary sources of purchased web advertising, and it would be a blatant abuse of their dominant position to discriminate against smaller advertising networks who are offering a legitimate service to webmasters.
As I read the situation, what Google is trying to do is safeguard the integrity of their search results by ruling out massive overnight link purchases. We're talking thousands of links here. Without these safeguards, search results can be dramatically skewed by the practice of buying large chunks of links. There is clearly something wrong with a system that claims that link popularity is an indicator of site quality if a site suddenly has thousands of inbound links when just a week ago it had none.
This practice makes a mockery of the importance of links. Their only purpose is to exploit the system and make a dramatic impact on Page Rank and Search Engine positioning. Google wants Page Rank and search results to flow from website quality and relevance. And virtually all SEO experts have maintained that quality and relevance come fairly gradually as a site grows and its content develops. The "natural" development of links should happen more or less in lock step with the development of content.
This does not mean that the importance of links has been diminished. Just the opposite. Google is reconfirming their position that the number and quality of links pointing at specific web pages is the most significant indicator of the importance of that web page.
Nor does it mean that a webmaster should never buy links on legitimate websites. On the contrary, it means that links should be acquired and developed consistently and steadily over time, and that the quality of your link partners matters more than ever. This applies whether your links are the result of exchanges, purchases, blogging, article publishing, or any of the other established techniques for building traffic through linking.
When you are looking for link partners you should look at the quality of the sites linking back to you. Ask yourself how relevant is the content in the pages, what is the balance between content and links, how often are these pages updated, how much traffic do these pages get, do these pages link to "authority" sites like Google, Yahoo, eBay, Amazon
All of these things matter more now than they ever have.
A while back, I read an article that explained how to get a good
google rating without ever submitting your site to their submission
forms. Like you, I was kind of shocked by this statement so I decided
to give it a try.
In the beginning, I used to submit my site all the time to Google but
soon realized the magnitude of my failure. Of course, it's a known
fact that Google relies solely on your link popularity and content.
Link Popularity?
What that means is the amount of links (yousite.com) listed on other
sites that are related to yours! The more sites that link to you, the
greater your popularity!
So again, Google depends on your link popularity! If you don't have
a google rating (In other words, is your link found on google?) some
sites WILL NOT link to yours. There are many sites that have a great
google rating and have specific regulations to whom they will accept
within their resource sections. They will specify that your site must
be listed within Google and if they type in your site in the google
search bar, your site should be listed within the top 5 sites.
Here's The Theory:
Of course you want all sites to link to you, especially the ones who
already have a great google rating because that means that your site
will be picked up by google. Some people only try to get links from
those sites but just remember, we all had to start somewhere.
My suggestion is to do as many link exchanges as possible and
especially make sure that each site is specifically categorized by
their content. You will get penalized for having one page full of
links to sites that do not relate to each other.
Another little "Timbit", try to keep your pages to 1-20 links within
each page. Once you have 20 links, add a button to a (PAGE 2) and
continue your resources that way.
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Here's an example of our "Resource Section"
http://www.smartads.info/resources
You'll notice how each category has specific sites that get listed
within them.
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Ok, so I went a little off topic with respect to this article but
you'll see how everything is connected together. Once google starts
ranking your site, you don't want to leave any stone left un-turned.
So back to getting a google rank without submitting your site. Once
you start performing link exchanges with other sites, just keep on
going and going and I promise that eventually, Google will start
picking up some of your links on other sites. Once this starts to
happen you're google rank will rise.
So just keep doing what you're doing and let Google do it's own thing.
When your ready and you're link popularity grows, then you can submit
your site to Google and reap the rewards.
So many companies do this process backwards and wonder why they don't
get listed in Google. Or like what happened to me, Google lists your
site right away but then in a couple of weeks, presto, your site is
gone from their listing and your left confused as to why!
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In this article I talked about Link Exchanges & popularity, feel free
to learn more about this in my 2 part series:
Link Exchanges, what they can do for your business, part 1
http://www.smartads.info/articles/le/10.html
Link Exchanges, what they can do for your business
http://www.smartads.info/articles/le/11.html
