Increasing Link Popularity (Part 2)

First step: get a listing in a popular directory like Open Directory Project and Yahoo. If your site is business-related, you may wish to be listed on Yahoo, and in spite that it will cost you around $300 a year, the money will be well spent. The listing will only be free for non-commercial site, but it will take time and follow-up to actually get it listed.

On the other hand, Open Directory gives you free listing whether you are business-related or non-commercial, but you will have to make a lot of follow-up inquiries before you see your site listed. Your goal is to get listed in the highest level of suitable category.

Second step: To find other quality sites that will increase your link popularity after you have achieved directory listings. Finding sites that are in some way relavant to yours, will help to boost your link popularity and at the same time your customer base may also be extended. Do look for sites that are useful to your site's visitors but not your competitors.

Do some research first when you are looking for possible linking partners as not all sites want to link to other sites. You may want to use Google for your search and entering keywords that you think quality customers will also enter to find your own site.

keep in mind that your criteria are quality, highly ranked, non-competing websites that have a resources or links page. Visit these sites and objectively evaluate them. Look at the quality of the product, ease of use and the graphics. Then check out the other sites they are linked to and decide if your own site would blend in with the crowd.

Once you have a good prospect, start off with adding a link on your own links page to their site. After you have added their link, contact their site's webmaster since this is always done by email, you want to be sure that your message is not perceive as a junk mail.

Next, be sure to emphasize that that you appreciated and have actually visited their site, and their site is not a random pick. Give them the address of your links page, and invite them to check out the link for themselves. It's a good idea to specify to them that not only will they benefit from the increased traffic your website will direct their way, but you will also increase their link popularity.

Finally, tell them you would greatly appreciate if they would jointly add a link on their own links page to your website. Go through this process with as many suitable sites as you can find. Be sure to check these website regularly to see if they have added a link to your page. If after a month your site is still not present on their links page, then it's time to remove their link from your own links page.

You may need to check on your ranking in search engines on a regualr basis to see if your link popularity has improved. It will definately take some time and a good deal of work until you achieve link popularity stardom!