Increase Links Naturally With Link Popularity Building (LPB)

Businesses can gain a competitive edge with Google and other significant search engines through relevant link building strategies. The search engines track links in ranking algorithms while crawling the Web. It is advantageous to grow the number of incoming links to your company's site alongside effective search engine optimization techniques.

There are numerous link building solutions.

1. Free and paid link directories


Link directories all provide either one-way or reciprocal links. Some are free, while others are paid only. Link directories are beneficial because Websites that place your link on their site without requesting a link back to their site are considered more valuable than reciprocal or link exchanges, in the eyes of major search engines. There are many reputable directory sites that are well trafficked by potential buyers for your product. You will find one-way and reciprocal link directories by typing into any search engine search box, keywords like "submit a link", "add a URL", or "add link".

Some small business owners will only link to sites that link back to their site. This creates reciprocal links pages and triangular link patterns. Reciprocal links do not improve a Website's rankings, and should only be done to give value to your site visitors. This is not a savvy SEO tactic or a wise link building practice. Stay clear of SEO companies who use these link exchange strategies; they are not considered real SEOs by other professionals in the field.

2. Business Blogging


This is an ever growing Internet trend gaining in popularity with businesses – corporate blogs. Blogging started as personal spaces for individuals to share their thoughts and the events around them, like an online diary. Corporate blogging is then defined as another way to publish business-related content and gain more visibility for your company on the Web. By offering information and sharing knowledge, a company can quickly establish itself as a leading industry expert, get information to customers quickly, increase sales, attract journalists seeking news releases, and attract new customers looking for relevant information.

3. Article Directory Submissions


Article directories are sites that house free reprint articles, allowing authors (people like you) to become known as experts in a field or industry. These sites help authors gain one-way link popularity because others seeking free articles to reprint on their newsletters, Websites, blogs and in print can find them here. Reprint articles can only be used elsewhere if providing a link back to the author's Website. You also receive free advertising and promotion.

4. Press releases


Submit your company's news releases to sites like PRWeb.com and PRNewswire.com to allow journalists and bloggers to find important information about your company, its products and services. These releases also build links to your site, and attract attention from prospective buyers.

5. MySpace.com


This is a tremendous opportunity for free publicity, through networking with prospects from around the world. Place your business profile, your company logo and business pictures, commercials and videos, write comments on other myspace.com profiles, receive email, instant message, and search for prospective clients. MySpace.com also has a business section that is cost effective and a great way to share your business with people searching for a certain product or service. This is another way to increase your link popularity.

6. Yahoo! Answers


This site is relatively new, and lets people in all industries become an expert in their fields. Answer questions in categories related to your expertise. Choose a subject from an extensive list of categories. Create a profile on Yahoo!, and you get to list up to 3 other one-way links. Yahoo! Geocities offers free a Website template and tools to build a simple Website. All these avenues add a host of easy ways to increase link popularity for your business.

7. One-Way Links on other Business Sites


Even with these link building strategies, having one-way links are considered much more valuable than link exchanges, also called reciprocal links. One way links from other related business sites or blogs with pertinent subject matter to the Website is an excellent way to drive traffic to your site. Although it is time consuming asking other sites to link to your site, these methods will assist in building stronger link popularity interest among the major search engines.

8. Business Networking Sites


FastPitchMedia.com and LinkedIn.com are two business networking sites that give professionals and business executives many resources under one place. These one-stop shops give professionals a lot of excellent exposure for free, by housing a database of business owners linked to each other's online networks. Try something new! Create a profile through these sites, and you will reach other decision makers, stay in touch with others in your network, fill a key position, and keep contact information current.

The Painful Truth About Getting Your Website to the Top of the Search Engines

"How do I get my website to come up on top of the search engines?" – That is one of the most frequently asked questions I get asked by clients.

The truth is, it's not easy.

With millions of websites on the internet right now and thousands being added each month, everyone is striving to do the same – to come up in the first spot (or at least on the first page).

In reality there are only 2 ways you can come up on top:

Keywords Before you embark on either of these marketing methods, you need to understand about keywords.

Keywords or key phrases are the words that visitors type into a search engine to find a service or product. The best keywords are those that are commonly typed in by your potential customers, but which aren't used much on your competitor's websites.

In other words, if you optimize your pages for keywords your potential customers use a lot, but your competitors haven't thought of, you win.

But here's the catch...you'll never get to know which are the best keywords for your website simply by guessing.

There are many tools you can use to find what keywords people are using. One is called Overture and it is a free service. It shows you how many times people have searched for a particular term during a one month period.

This does not, however show you how many competing websites there are for that particular keyword.

If you are serious about finding the perfect keywords, I would recommend using a tool called Wordtracker – www.wordtracker.com. Although you do need to pay a few dollars for this service, it is far more sophisticated and gives you much more information than Overture.

Through a series of simple steps, Wordtracker identifies the best keywords to use on each page of your website.

Wordtracker's suggestions are based on over 300 million keywords and phrases that people have used over the previous 90 days. (In other words, there is no "guessing" when you use Wordtracker. Everything is based on the keywords millions of people have actually typed into search engines.)

Best of all, their competitive analysis tool enables you to find those "best keywords" - the ones your potential customers use, but which your competitors don't know about.

Once you have identified the best keywords, you can either run a pay per click marketing campaign or optimize your website for search engines.

Pay per click

Pay per click advertising is when an advertiser (you) pays for each qualified click that sends a search engine user to your web page. PPC requires you to bid on keywords or phrases that relate to your business. The best known pay per click services are Google AdWords and Overture.

Generally you can bid from as little as a few cents per visitor. However, the more you bid the higher up in the search engine your advertisement will appear. Pay per click is a great way to deliver targeted and qualified visitors to your website at a very reasonable price.

It is a good idea to experiment with different PPC search engines to find the one that works best for you. In addition, you will need to spend time testing your keywords and ads.

There are hundreds of pay per click search engines. For more information check out:

http://www.payperclicksearchengines.com/

Search Engine Optimisation

Search engines prefer to list sites that contain good content. In order to rank high you need to create a website that has maximum content and which uses lots of relevant keywords to your service and products.

Once you decide on the keywords, use them in

(a) Your website's domain name


(b) The title of your page - This is displayed in the top bar of your browser window


(c) The heading of your home page


(d) The first paragraph of your home page


(e) Meta tags - Keywords, page title, description


(f) Titles of your graphics


(g) Alternative (Alt) tags - These appear in place of images when the browser preferences are set for text only.

Whilst it is important to use keywords as much as possible, it is also important you use them only if they are relevant and do not sound awkward. If you spam your keywords you may be penalised or even banned by some search engines.

Another important thing to consider when trying to optimize your website for search engines is to have as many relevant links pointing back to your website from other complementary sites. This can be done through link exchanges or by writing articles/posts and submitting them to article directories or forums. Ensure you include your domain name at the end of each article/post.

If this all seems too overwhelming, you can employ the services of a Search engine optimization company, who will make your website's content more search engine friendly. In fact, I highly recommend if you decide that Search Engine Marketing is one of the main ways you wish to promote your website, you do hire an expert.

Please remember, having your website listed at the top of the search engines is not the only way to promote your website. There are lots of other ways you can get visitors to your site for little or no money.