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The Link Factor

There are many different approaches and techniques required when optimising a website for a high ranking in your chosen search engine. In most cases loads of informative, relevant content is required as well as plenty of outgoing links to separate you from the cat like competition.

But one of the most important factors that the search engines consider when reviewing your site is the amount of other webmasters (the owner of a website) linking to your website. The reason that this is considered vital is because it is an off the page factor, meaning that it is not directly under your control. Therefore it will be an indication of your sites popularity when another site links to you via their web page. However it is not enough to submit your site to any webmaster in the hope they incorporate a link to you in their site.

The search engines look for links from websites of relevance to yours, popularity of that linking site and keywords relating to your site included in the link text. Google is unique in terms of how it evaluates a page. It uses a process called page rank which will give a website a rating of between 0 -10 in accordance with its popularity.

To find out the page rank of a website all you have to do is download the google toolbar and it will display on a green bar what the websites page rank is. This is an important factor but it is not an indication as to where a page will rank as google will analyse many other factors including the title tag, content, prominence etc.

The best way to increase you page ranking is to either add further content or find others to link to your site, both of which I will explain further down. To identify your link popularity visit addme.com and click on popularity. This tool will display all the sites that link to your or your competitor's website, all you have to do is type in your web address. If you are finding it difficult to find websites to link to then visit linkpartners.com or type your competitors address into the link popularity tool and this will display all those that have linked to your competitors.

Where to place your link

There are many different ways that you can publicise your site on the internet, but below I have included 2 of the more popular methods.

Reciprocal Link

This involves you literally trading links with another webmaster and therefore increasing both web sites' popularity. It is important that you target the correct web site, as a site that is not listed within google will not increase your popularity and will only consume more of your time, therefore it is best to target sites that have a page rank of 4 or above. This does not mean that you must reject all below this ranking it just means that you will have most success in increasing your popularity if you aim for sites with a page rank of 4 or above as these sites are already considered as popular sites by google. Treat your outgoing links like precious gems as you do not wish to be spotted linking to irrelevant sites. If your site has a low page rank then do not take it into consideration as most people are not aware of the page rank system, so you only need to inform webmasters if your site has a good page rank.

Approaching Webmasters

Once you have identified a relevant, popular site you will need to approach the webmaster. This is the most important part of your link campaign as it will determine whether or not you site is accepted. When approaching webmasters you should include the following:

• Your web address in the subject line

• Inform the webmaster that you particularly enjoyed reading a certain article or that you enjoyed browsing through the user-friendly forum or anything else that indicates to the webmaster that you have actually visited their site. This will show the webmaster that you are not just spamming masses of sites in the hope that your link will appear.

• Tell the webmaster why he or she should link to your site. Make sure that you state similarities between the two sites and other important information that will help sway his or her opinion.

• If possible include the webmasters name

• Inform the webmaster that you have placed a link to their site on your home page in a prominent position (do this before you approach the webmaster).

Promote your articles

If you enjoy creating content then you may consider writing an article and distributing it so that others can include it on their site. When the article is included on someone else's site then it will include your link, therefore you receive another link to your site. You may want to set restrictions on the distribution of the article, such as:

• The article must include your name and link at the bottom of the page

• It must not be modified

• It can only be used on sites that have a page rank of 4 or above

• You retain copyright of the article

This will prevent un-suitable websites from displaying your article.

About The Author

Article copryright allfreehomebusinessdirectory.com and written by Gareth Mailer. Please visit for further, more comprehensive articles.

garethbusiness@yahoo.co.uk