Link Popularity Guide - How to build up links to your website - Part 2

This is the second part of our Link Popularity Guide - Part 1 can be found here.

The Google Pagerank Effect on Link Building

The Google Pagerank system is integral to the operation of the world's favourite search engine. It is a system for ranking all web pages indexed by Google. So important is the pagerank system to the performance of web pages that there are hundreds of sites dedicated to analysing it!

The Pagerank of a site (or webpage) can give a good indication of how "important" Google regards it. Links gained from higher ranked pages back to yours will therefore be more beneficial than links from lower ranked pages.

To get started, and to see where your sites (and others) rank according to Google, you will need to download the Google Toolbar. Whenever you visit a site on the web, the toolbar will show how "relevant" that particular page is - anywhere between 0 and 10.

In your link building campaign, you should try to target sites with good Pagerank, although some sites may be unwilling to trade links with newer sites with a low ranking (or none at all). You should continue to target relevant sites regardless of Pagerank as all links will add to the "importance" of your own site, but a few links from highly ranked pages can work wonders for your search engine ranking.

You can also read our guide to the Google Pagerank.

How should you structure your links?

Once you have agreed to exchange links with another site, you will typically email over a "Title" and "Description" for the link, as well as the URL itself. A lot has been written about "anchor text" (the words used in the link itself). You should take this opportunity to use your chosen keyword phrases when exchanging links, as this will help with your search engine rankings. Rather than having backlink to your site with the words "PCAudioonline.co.uk", a much more useful title would be "Online PC Speakers", or something similar. Your description (if this applies) should also contain words relevant to the products or services you are providing.

On a side note, many site owners forget that the structure of their own site's internal links can have a profound effect on its search engine ranking. Intelligently structured site navigation will do your site's link popularity (and Google Pagerank) no end of good. Try not to bury your pages too deeply into your site structure, build a site map (linked to the home page), and place your chosen keywords within your internal as well as external links.

Summary

Having set up and run many content-rich sites since 1998, we at Bytestart are great believers in organic web marketing. That is to say, that if you do the right things with your site and grow it steadily and intelligently, you should reap the rewards. There are no “quick fixes”.

A well constructed site, with well written, relevant content is essential. Take time to prepare your web page meta tags, and don't waste time trying to spam or "cheat" the search engines - they'll always win.

Now, more than ever, you should dedicate a large chunk of time building up relationships with other sites in your market area. Exchange good quality well thought-out links, with other sites in your industry, and view the link building process as an ongoing one. Sites come and go over time, so always look at link building as an ongoing and essential process.

Helpful Resources

• Marketleap - Counts the number of incoming links across a variety of key search engines.
• Incoming Links - 12 Powerful Link Building Strategies
• Wikipedia's no-nonsense definition of link popularity
• SearchEngineWatch - How to measure Link Popularity (a 2001 article, but just as relevant today).
• Reciprocal Links and Visitor Retention - Bytestart article