SEO Basics: Building Link Popularity Through Content Optimization

Building link popularity is one of the SEO basics that many blog and website owners struggle with. By its very definition, you know that the term “popularity” plays a key role.

Attracting visitors to your blog or website, building a list of followers, and providing quality optimized content, all assist in your efforts to increase your own popularity and that of your site.

As people come to know you and gain respect for your expertise, they will hopefully also want to link back to you. Providing irresistible content may help make that decision easier for them.

Inbound Link Building

Inbound links or backlinks as they are often called come in two varieties, reciprocal and organic. Of the two varieties, organic link building has the highest value for your site. Let’s take a closer look:

Reciprocal Link Building

A reciprocal link is built when two web sites agree to list each others website link on their own site. This may come as a result of swapping links with a friend, another website or blog owner in a related niche, or sometimes it might even be between another of your own sites that are related to the niche you are in.

You will find that as your site gains popularity, your contact address will begin to receive requests for link exchanges that promise you a link to a high PR site in return. These requests for the most part are valueless to you and often result in your having a link to a site that may degrade rather than enhance your site’s popularity. Most of these requests, particularly ones that promise you more in return than you are able to give, should be trashed.

If you do use reciprocal link building, be sure to keep an eye on those you exchange your link with. You will want to verify the site or page your link will be displayed on.

One request received by WBOBR came from an email address that appeared related to online business building. The actual page where they were offering to add the link was for some sort of online pharmacy, which may apply well to the Viagra niche, but did nothing for WBOBR. In order to have any value, the link needs to appear on a page that is related in some way.

Keep an eye on any reciprocal links that you agree to with a reciprocal link checker. It is also common for these types of links to be offered and placed for a short time. Once the other party feels you have moved on to other interests, they remove the link and thereby gain what appears to be a link of organic origin.

Also keep an eye on the availability and reputation of sites you are linking to. Broken links and links to sites that have been blacklisted will only decrease the overall value and popularity of your site.

The best way to go about building reciprocal links if you are determined to use it, is to build up a reputation of expertise and helpfulness in forums or other online communities within your niche. As your own popularity increases, the people you deal with will be more inclined to make or consider a reciprocal link request with your site.

Organic Link Building

Organic link building occurs when your site is able to attract links in a natural manner. These are unrequested links to your site that other bloggers and website owners may make in order to add to the value of the content they are presenting on their own sites.

For example, I am not a business tax consultant, nor do I play one on the Internet, so if I provide general content on the subject of sales tax, I also have the option of creating a link to a website that has more authoritative information for my readers.

My content may make my readers aware that this is an area they might want to pay attention to, but the real expertise will come from someone other than me. When I add a link of this nature, I am creating an organic link for the site that is being linked to and I am doing so because of the value of the content that site is sharing.

Check your progress with organic link building from time to time by using an inbound link checker.

Building Link Popularity For Your Website

Now that we know the difference between the two forms of link building, how do you, the site owner go about obtaining links with popularity? Here are some link building tips to get you started:

Use Your Content – Optimizing your content with keywords to help take it to the top of the search engine results where skimmers are more likely to find and select it to be read is one of the key ways to increase the popularity of your site. Follow this strategy up by providing seo content that your readers are looking for and that is highly applicable to your niche to gain and maintain a following in your niche.

One link building tool that is popular amongst WordPress users is the All-In-One SEO plugin, although it appears this plugin may be making the move from being freely available to a paid version.

The All-In-One SEO pack allows you to further optimize your content by providing you with the ability to create a unique, keyword optimized description for your post that will be shown in search results, rather than the first few sentences of the post itself.

Have you ever noticed that when you try to submit a post to a social site, the name of the blog is appended to the title of the post? The All-In-One SEO pack also gives you the ability to remove this appended name so that only the post name is shown.

Establish Expert Status – Write quality articles for posting to article directories, guest posts for other sites, and allow people to get to know you by participating in forums related to your niche. These are 3 ways to grow your reputation as an expert in your niche and since everyone likes to be associated with the experts, it will also build your following and popularity.

Comment On Blogs – Take part in the conversation on other blogs within your niche. Use commenting to add your own insight or views on the material being presented. Be polite, be helpful and above all, make your comments applicable to the topic at hand. Comment spam is never welcome and will decrease rather than increase your popularity.

Building link popularity through content optimization is one of the most solid and rewarding methods open to you as you work towards increasing the number of organic backlinks to your blog or website that the search engines will love. While it involves a fair amount of work on your part, it can be done over time, and be scheduled in as part of your daily efforts.

To Your Success,

SherryD
http://www.wbobr.com