Link Popularity

SEARCH ENGINES USE LINK POPULARITY TO RANK YOUR WEBSITE"

Building Link Popularity
Obtaining a higher link popularity is the key to obtaining higher rankings. Many search engines use link popularity (number of inbound links to your website) in their ranking algorithms. They give considerable weight to the quality of your inbound links, placing importance on the fact that the inbound links are relevant to your industry. Establishing and maintaining a quality linking strategy will help improve your rank and raise your positioning.
The G3 Group provides linking building plans that can enable us to find quality link partners and automate the creation and tracking of your inbound links and link pages. We use a mixture of reciprocal, directory, and other one-way links from relevant sites to help achieve the goal of establishing your website as a strong member in your industry's Internet "community."

Linking and SEO
One of the most important parts of any search engine optimization (SEO) effort is link management. In case you do not know, a link is defined as follows:
"Using hypertext, a link is a selectable connection from one word, picture, or information object to another. In a multimedia environment such as the World Wide Web, such objects can include sound and motion video sequences. The most common form of link is the highlighted word or picture that can be selected by the user (with a mouse or in some other fashion), resulting in the immediate delivery and view of another file. Also called hypertext link and hyperlink... Links are what make the World Wide Web a web." (Source)

Since links are so important to the web, search engines give links that lead to relevant content more value than those that do not. "Hypertext links" are the most important type of link for SEO purposes. An example of a text link: search engine optimization services. In this example, the link leads to our SEO page and uses the "anchor" text "search engine optimization services." You will notice that the link led to a separate window, which is by design.
how links work to help ranking
Links are very important to search engines because they have one goal in mind: to provide content that is relevant to the searcher's query. Sites that are well linked-to from other sites that provide relevant content, especially if the links are text links, tend to perform better in search engine results pages. Google™ uses something known as PageRank™ as part of its ranking algorithm, which is based on how many inbound links a page has from other popular pages. The websites own navigational structure is important too: many websites that do not properly link to other pages within the site are losing valuable link popularity.
G3 Group devotes considerable resources to ensure that our clients are well linked within the web. We research and discover directories and other websites that would be likely candidates to help a client increase and maintain a high link popularity.




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SEO "Search Engine Optimization"

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results for targeted keywords. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results or the higher it "ranks", the more searchers will visit that site. SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.

As a marketing strategy for increasing a site's relevance, SEO considers how search algorithms work and what people search for. SEO efforts may involve a site's coding, presentation, and structure, as well as fixing problems that could prevent search engine indexing programs from fully spidering a site. Other, more noticeable efforts may include adding unique content to a site, ensuring that content is easily indexed by search engine robots, and making the site more appealing to users. Another class of techniques, known as black hat SEO or spamdexing, use methods such as link farms and keyword stuffing that tend to harm search engine user experience. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques and may remove them from their indices.

The initialism "SEO" can also refer to "search engine optimizers" or "Search Engine Optimizician", terms adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign. Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site, SEO tactics may be incorporated into web site development and design. The term "search engine friendly" may be used to describe web site designs, menus, content management systems, URLs, and shopping carts that are easy to optimize.

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Directories "Listings"

Major Directories

Although Yahoo! has tended to de-emphasize the Yahoo! Directory more and more with each website makeover, it still remains an important place to get listed.

While a Yahoo! listing may not bring the traffic it once would have, there's a certain credibility and prestige attached to being listed on Yahoo!, and it also provides a useful yardstick to measure the popularity of competing sites (since sites within each category get ranked by their popularity in terms of visits from Yahoo! users).

To get listed on Yahoo!, navigate to the most appropriate category (the closer you can get to your site's main theme, the better) and choose the "Suggest a Site" link. If your site is non-commercial, or time is not important, you can choose the free submission route - otherwise, it's time to fish out your credit card.

The other major directory to focus your attention on is Dmoz. Navigate to the most appropriate category and choose "suggest URL". Read and follow the submission instructions very carefully as you only get one chance!
Niche Directories

While Yahoo! and Dmoz are high-profile, obvious targets to attack in your link-building campaign, there are niche directories on just about any subject you can imagine. The majority of such directories pride themselves on their completeness and coverage of their chosen subject, and will offer a listing (and hence a link) free or for a nominal fee to any quality site in that niche.

Tracking down such niche directories can be a real chore, which is where this site's Directory of Directories (DoD) comes in. It contains listings for many hundreds of niche and topic-specific directories that accept external submissions, divided by subject matter. The DoD should be your starting point in your quest for appropriate niche directories with which to list.

Beyond the sites in the DoD, you can find more places to list your site by methodically searching Yahoo! and Google for submission opportunities. Here are some searches to get you started. In each case, substitute a word or phrase that identifies your particular niche market for the word "widget" in the following...

* "add your site" "widget" Google Yahoo!
* "add a site" "widget" Google Yahoo!
* "submit your site" "widget" Google Yahoo!
* "submit a site" "widget" Google Yahoo!
* "add your URL" "widget" Google Yahoo!
* "add a URL" "widget" Google Yahoo!
* "add an URL" "widget" Google Yahoo!
* "submit your URL" "widget" Google Yahoo!
* "submit a URL" "widget" Google Yahoo!
* "submit an URL" "widget" Google Yahoo!
* "suggest a site" "widget" Google Yahoo!
* "suggest a URL" "widget" Google Yahoo!
* "suggest an URL" "widget" Google Yahoo!

You should also explore the results for a search for "widget" "directories" in the Yahoo! directory (again, you'll want to customise the search for your particular niche).
Sites Which Link to Your Competitors

One major yet frequently overlooked source of potential links is the universe of sites and pages that currently link to your competitors, but not yet to you.

Before you can hunt such sites down, you first have to establish who your competitors are. Once you've drawn up a shortlist of the competitors that most closely match your own site's offerings, record the URL of each of those competitor sites. You will need that information for the searches that follow.

To find the sites that link to a competitor on Google, enter link:example.com (where example.com is the URL of the competitor you want to research). Note that there should be no space between link: and the URL.

The syntax for a Yahoo! competitor search is a lot more complex, but the results you can obtain are also much more targeted, so the extra effort involved in formulating your query should be rewarded.

To find the sites that link to a competitor on Yahoo!, search for...

link:http://www.eg.com/ -link:http://www.eg2.com/ -site:eg.com

... where "eg.com" is the URL of your chosen competitor, and "eg2.com" is the URL of your own site (saves having to wade through your own pages). This will return a list of all the pages that link to your competitor, but not to you.

Repeat the above process with each of the main competitors you identified, and you'll have a great list of target sites to approach in search of links.