Link Popularity

a key to your jewelry website's success

© by Rena Klingenberg; all rights reserved

Link popularity is one of the most important factors in getting search engine traffic to your jewelry website. Here I'll tell you how to check this important aspect of your site, plus ways to increase it - using both the traditional tedious method, and some effective new ways.

It's simply the number of other sites that link to your website. Incoming links are a very important way for people to find your site.

They're essential for bringing search engine traffic to your website, because the more popular your site is, the better it's ranked in the search engines. Also, your pages will receive targeted traffic from visitors clicking on your links that they find on other web sites.

Search engines think that if a lot of other websites link to your site, then you must have a really great site. So if all other things are equal, the sites with the most incoming links from pages related to your page (greatest link popularity) will show up at the top of the listings.

Your site will also be indexed by the search engines faster through links to you from other websites. In fact, Google's Webmaster Guidelines says, "The best way to ensure Google finds your site is for your page to be linked from lots of pages on other sites. Google's robots jump from page to page on the Web via hyperlinks, so the more sites that link to you, the more likely it is that we'll find you quickly."

Do you know how many sites already link to yours? Here are just a few of the many free online tools you can use to find out quickly how many incoming links your website has.:

free backlink checker
LinkPopularity.com
free link popularity checker

So having a lot of links coming into your website counts for a lot when it comes to link popularity - but the quality of links is becoming even more important. Factors that determine the quality of your links include:

1. How closely the overall content of the linking site relates to your site.
   For example, search engines assume that a website about beads has a well-informed opinion on which jewelry sites are worth linking to. So a link from a bead-oriented website would be a strong one for your jewelry site. In contrast, a site about water purifiers is considered to be less well-informed about jewelry websites, so its link to your site would carry less weight.

2. The context of the text surrounding your link on the other site.
   A link to a website about crystals is more valuable if it's in the middle of a sentence about metaphysical matters or crystalline structures. It would be less valuable as a stray thought in the middle of an unrelated article.

   You've probably occasionally clicked on search engine results for pages that use the keyword you're searching for, but then found out the keyword is embedded in content that's completely unrelated to the word. That's annoying, and if it happens too often, we go to another search engine for more accurate results. Since search engines' mission is to serve up the most relevant links for your search, the surrounding text affects the value they assign to the link.

3. The anchor text (hyperlinked words) of the link that leads to your site.
   Your website will win more link popularity points from the search engines if the links leading into it use keywords related to the pages. For instance, a hyperlink could say either, "see my Victorian earring collection" or "for Victorian earrings, click here". Which anchor text link do you suppose carries more value to a page about antique earrings - "Victorian earring collection" or "click here"?

4. How many other links are on the page.
   Some of the most valuable links to your site are on other sites' pages that have very few other links. If your site is one of the few links on a page, more of that page's value passes to your site via that link. It's considered to be a valuable vote for your website and it's a nice link popularity boost. So if possible avoid exchanging links if your link will just wind up on a page with dozens of others.

5. In-text links.
   Links are also more valuable if they appear in a sentence than in a list of links. Search engines assume that if your site is being talked about within a sentence on a regular content page of someone else's website, then your site is likely to be very worthwhile. So they assign more weight to these in-text links since they appear to be a strong recommendation.

   On the other hand, having your site listed along with 50 others on a page titled "Links" is a less valuable link to you. The search engines feel that "links page" links are there mainly because webmasters have agreed to post each other's links on their sites to build their own link popularity - but that they don't want to add the other's link to any of their actual content pages. That's not a very strong vote for your site, so it's not as big of a boost for your site search-engine-wise.

   However, most humans do occasionally check out the links on the "links page" of other sites while surfing, so these links to your site can still bring you a lot of nice traffic from surfing visitors.

6. Whether your website links back to the one that recommends you.
   Another type of really valuable link to your site is the one-way or "non-reciprocal" kind. This means that a site links to you because they find your content valuable, but you haven't linked back to them. To search engines, this is a clear recommendation for your site and it ranks highly. It shows that someone wanted to send their readers to you without expecting anything in return. Your link popularity will definitely benefit if you spend some time building these non-reciprocal links.

Some types of links are considered to be low quality. Search engines don't like anything that's been set up to trick them or get around their carefully laid algorithms, and they punish offending sites by giving them low rankings or even banning them entirely from the search engine.

Examples of low quality links include:

• "Link farms", sites with no purpose but to provide tons of links to other sites. These are also known as "FFA" or free for all sites.

• "Bad neighborhoods", sites that have been penalized by search engines for spammy or deceiving practices.

• Sites with "doorway pages", specially created entry pages designed for no purpose but to get high search engine rankings, using techniques the search engines frown upon. These are also known as "gateway pages" and "bridge pages".

• Cross-linked sites belonging to one webmaster. If you own more than one website, be careful about linking them to each other, even if the content is closely related. Search engines tend to assume that if we webmasters link our own sites together, we're trying to artifically increase our link popularity. So be careful here - if you have a link from your own website A to your own website B, don't link back from B to A.

It's important to be selective about sites you link to, and to check them out carefully before linking to them. Although you'll likely be penalized if you link to any of these types of low-quality-link sites, you won't be penalized if they link to you, but you don't link back. After all, we can't control who links to us.

But we are held responsible for the links we choose to put on our sites, and search engines don't hesitate to penalize your website if you link - even accidentally - to what they consider to be a bad site.

To bring more traffic to your jewelry website, you'll need to have some sort of "link campaign" - an ongoing action plan for getting lots of high-quality incoming links. Your goal should be to go after links from sites that have high traffic plus visitors who would be interested in your jewelry. Here are some ways you can start getting other sites to link to yours; your link campaign can include a combination of these:

Old fashioned reciprocal linking means trading links with another webmaster. This strategy typically involves finding other jewelry-related websites, contacting their webmasters, and asking them to trade links with you. It's more efficient if you add their link to your site before contacting them, so you can show them where on your website you linked to them.

For the best results, make it super-easy for them to link to you. Give them the exact HTML code for your link, so they can just copy and paste it into their site. You might even suggest the page of their site that you'd like your link to be on.

Reciprocal linking in this old fashioned way does work, but it's time consuming, brings slow results, and sometimes feels grueling. It's also becoming less effective, search-engine-wise.

If you do reciprocal linking, you'll need to check back with the other webmasters in a week or two if your link hasn't appeared on their site. If they still don't add your link after you've emailed them twice, then remove their link from your site and contact someone else for links.

You'll also have to check periodically to be sure they've kept your link on their site.

If you're worried that you'll send your customers to your competition by reciprocal linking to other sites, then find jewelry-related but non-competing websites. For example, if your site features your handcrafted bead jewelry, you might link to sites about things like jewelry armoires, Australian opals, metalwork, arts organizations, diamonds, beaded purses, crystal mining in Arkansas, antique brooches, gemstone lore, etc.

However, I wouldn't worry too much about sending visitors to your competition. If they've arrived at your reciprocal links page, then they already know your site exists. And if they like your site, they'll come back. You can also make all the outgoing links on your website open in new windows, so your site stays on the visitor's screen.

For more valuable link exchanges with other websites, you can try to arrange for an in-text link on each other's content pages instead. However, many webmasters will be reluctant to give you any space on their main pages, so you may have to settle for being on a "links page" if you want to be listed on that site. If that's the case, just be sure there aren't too many other links on the same page, or it may not be worth the effort of going after that link. Also, some webmasters call their Links Page something else, like "Resources" or "Related Information", etc.

Okay, now you're psyched up about getting a lot of links coming into your website - but you're getting bogged down with the snail's pace of the old-fashioned link exchange method.

Here's a neat way that technology can vastly speed up the link exchange process for you:

Value Exchange

A free and easy way to find related websites to trade links with is to register your site with Value Exchange. It's a great resource for quickly connecting with high-value, similarly-themed sites, who are also eager to swap links. What makes this resource especially helpful is that most of the webmasters who register for this free service also understand the importance of in-text links and content-page links in building link popularity.

That means you shouldn't have any trouble finding related sites whose publishers are happy to put your link on a "real" page (not "links" page) of their sites.

Here's a tip for quick success with Value Exchange: When you sign up and fill out the Keyword box, use one-word keywords to get the best results. Use a variety of generic, specific, and complementary keywords that are related to your site topic. You'll get a lot of site matches fast that way. For example (depending on the content of your site), in your Keyword box you might enter:

jewelry,bracelets,pearls,fashion,bead,silver,wedding, ... (etc.)

I highly recommend Value Exchange as an effective tool for building your link popularity.

You can write informative articles and submit them to other sites related to your niche. Your "resource box" or bio at the end of the article should contain a link to your site, which will send both human and search engine visitors to your pages.

There are dozens of article libraries such as Ezine Articles that also welcome article submissions with your link at the end.

And don't forget that you can receive permanent, high-quality links to your site by submitting a jewelry business article to be published here on Home Jewelry Business Success Tips. The links I give you here in exchange for your article are all relevant and in-text. These links are a big help in building your link popularity.

In addition, the link to your website that I put on your article page will be one of only a very few links on that page. Additional links to your site will be in my high-traffic Jewelry Business Blog page and my newsletter. Links on my blog page get indexed very quickly by the search engines because I add new content to the blog several times a week.

You can see why link popularity is one of the most important ways of making your jewelry website successful. Once you've built your beautiful site, get lots of good links coming into it and you'll start receiving a nice flow of targeted traffic. Your link building campaign is an ongoing effort that brings great rewards!

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