Link Popularity

If you are already familiar with why back links are so important, than we encourage you to look at our link building services. The more incoming links you have (from other websites), the better chance your search engine rankings will improve. It's not just the volume of incoming links, but the quality and relevance of the websites in which they come from AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, what words are used within the link (i.e. "anchor text") which determines how well you should be ranked for a target search term. 



While optimization efforts are foundational, you can only optimize a website but so much. If a competitor of yours is both optimized AND has a strong number of back links (with many of them using target search terms within the anchor text), they are going to outrank you. Unfortunately, link popularity has become a huge deciding factor in who ranks the highest within Google and other major players such as Yahoo and  MSN. It has become so bad that even if your website is perfectly optimized for a unique search term that no one else in the world is targeting, you may still have trouble finding it if you do not have a few back links to support it. Whereas other websites that have nothing to do with the target search term (but have a lot of back links in general) WILL show up because they merely mention a few of the words within the search term.

The Power of Anchor Text
Two of the most important elements of optimization are to place the target key phrase within the meta title tag and within the on-page content (body text). However, search for the word computers on Google and you will find apple.com on the first page of results. Guess what? Apple does even mention the word computers in their meta title tag OR anywhere in their body text. How is this possible when there are literally millions of competing websites that are aggressively trying to show up for this term by applying various optimization efforts? The answer is that apple.com has a superior volume of back links (over 70,000 in Google alone) and a large percentage of these links include the word computers within the anchor text (i.e. Apple Computers, Mac Computers, etc.).

If Link Building is so powerful, do I really need Optimization?
The answer is a strong yes. We have seen numerous cases where a new client signs up with a large number of back links, but very poor search engine rankings. While they were showing up # 1 for the name of their company, they were not showing up for their various products and services. This type of client is an SEO dream. Shortly after completing our optimization efforts, we know from experience that their rankings will explode. The more back links they have, the better chance their rankings will be at the top. As well, we have seen the opposite where well optimized client websites struggle due to a lack of investment towards link building. Bottom line... you have to work on both. This is why our optimization packages include various link building services. 

LINKS - A growing issue among Search Engine Experts
While attending various 'Search Engine Strategies' conferences over the last year or so, we could not help but notice that there is an ever increasing focus on link-related workshops, including workshops dedicated strictly to purchasing text links. Matt Cutts, a software engineer and well known spokesman for Google, shared at one of the link-related sessions that he personally felt that the best way to receive incoming text links was to offer something unique and/or helpful to the public and that this would generate free incoming text links without even asking. He gave extreme examples of very creative websites which have caused a media stir. However, the truth is coming up with something exciting to say about reverse vacuum pump manufacturing or single-mode fiber optic tool kits is easier said than done. A majority of companies do not offer a medical cure, nor are they interested in offering funny games to play. Most of our clients have small humble websites which simply offer clear information about their humble products and services. Simply waiting for other websites to give them free, one-way text links with exchanging links or paying for an ad is usually NOT going to happen.

Most common ways to improve Link Popularity:

• Offer new and helpful information on your website which will hopefully cause others to link to you without even asking. 

• Submit to directories whose listings are known to generate valid back links (we offer this here).

• Purchase text link ads from quality sites who are relevant as possible (we offer this here).

• Distribute press releases to news related sites to generate qualified traffic (we offer this here).

• Ask business partners, vendors, distributors, family members, golf partners, etc. to link to you.

• Ask non-profit organizations if they would post a "contributor" link to your website in exchange for a financial gift.

• Exchange links with quality websites that are directly related to your industry (we can help you with this).