The link building process involves two steps: integration and accretion. Integration requires the consolidation of relevant elements into a whole Web site, while accretion is the use of several methods in order to increase links to your site and boost page rankings. The end result of any link building campaign is increased link popularity and better search engine rankings.

• Link Popularity

To understand the relevance of link building, it is crucial that we understand exactly what search engines are looking for in a site and what factors influence a site’s page ranking and link popularity. The theory of link popularity assumes that if search engines view other sites linking to yours, your site must be a winner and consequently, deserves an upperhand in rankings. After all, people are more likely to link to sites they find interesting or relevant. It is a common misconception that the Google Page Rank is equivalent to link popularity. In reality, Google PR is merely a subset of link popularity.

PR focuses on the quantitative side while link popularity emphasizes on the qualitative factors. Building link popularity is considered one of the most tedious tasks in SEO. Unlike before, search engines now have quality control mechanisms in place that boot out “artificially created” or useless links so that today, strategies that result to artificial links can earn penalties or point negations in a web site’s rankings. Search engines today require links that come from authoritative sites or sites that focus on the same areas as your web site. Major search engines consider link popularity in their ranking algorithms to measure a site’s importance.

There are two types of links that give a boost to link popularity:

1. Links from other sites using like keyword phrases as your site
2. Links from relevant categories from industry-specific portals and major directories

Experts warn about paying for submission on free-for-all, or FFA, sites that are not viewed as quality links by major search engines. Moreover, getting links from sites that are completely outside the range or field of interest of your Web site will not earn you high points on the rankings.

• Link Acquisition Strategies When launching a link building campaign independently or when you are using a link building service or hiring a link building company, you have to take note that while many strategies exist that could help you acquire links, abusing these strategies will downgrade your search engine rankings.

Among the top SEO techniques that have been prone to abuse or manipulation include:

1. Link Buying. Many bloggers and webmasters buy links in order to boost their page rankings. It is also the easiest way to build link popularity. Link buys are frowned upon by major search engines like Google and SEO experts advise against link buys. However, some have found ways to buy links without getting into the search engine’s radar and others find link buying useful in launching viral, social media campaigns that have a specific end date.
2. Link exchange. A link exchange is a network of websites operating as a web ring by registering under a central organization running the exchange and in turn, receiving an HTML code to be inserted into their web pages. This HTML code runs a display of banner advertisements on member web sites. Link exchanges, or reciprocal linking, are the most common link acquisition approach for bloggers and webmasters.
3. Link Farming. Link farms are made up of a bogus network of blogs, and from that fake network, they create links to their web site. Though an effective link popularity builder in the past, stricter quality control mechanisms of search engines have prompted an avoidance of this strategy.

Effective methods in getting links include link baiting, directory submissions, comments, article submissions, and writing testimonials or reviews. There are several specialized SEOs and link building service that are capable of helping you perform some of the above-mentioned strategies.

• Ideal Link Profile There are ideal ways to ensure that your web site is rated positively by the search engines. Among the important things to consider are:

1. One link per linking domain. Try getting one or two links from a website that wants to link to yours.
2. Fewer Reciprocal Links. Reciprocal links are easily detectable and subject to point negations. It is best to keep reciprocal links below 5% of your site’s total linkage.
3. Varied Anchor Text. Vary keywords in the anchor text to avoid red flags from search engines.
4. Related Links. Acquire links from web sites that share relevant content to get better page rankings.

Link exchanges are an easy way of creating link popularity, defined as the quantity and quality of the inbound links pointing to your site. By swapping links with other site owners, you increase the potential targeted readership of your site, thereby giving it more exposure. Since getting noticed by the search engines require the quantity and relevancy of incoming links leading to your site, a link building campaign must incorporate link exchange as one of the methods used for gaining link popularity. However, like all off-page optimization strategies, there are pros and cons, and points to consider when leveraging the power of link exchange to boost your link popularity and search engine rankings.

What can be expected from link exchanges? A big advantage from link exchanges is highly targeted readership, a pivotal factor in building link popularity. By focusing on exchanges with relevant links or doing thematic exchanges with other sites, you can attract a large, quality and highly targeted traffic your way, increasing exposure for your web site. If you can get an authority website that enjoys huge traffic to link to your site, some of that traffic will undoubtedly come your way. Link exchange remains an important part of the link building process because it still is a leading factor in improving search engine placements. It is the easiest way to increase your site’s link popularity, which leads to higher traffic, and ultimately, a better position in the rankings.

What are the types of link exchanges? There are several forms of exchanging links: one-way, reciprocal, and three-way.

1. One-way link exchange. This is the most favorable type of link exchange that enhances link popularity because major search engines place great importance on inbound links when evaluating page rankings. When performing this type of link, the output link becomes: Mysite1 -> Mysite2
2. Reciprocal link exchange. This is a mutual link performed by two websites aimed at generating mutual traffic. Reciprocal links create permanent back links for partner sites. SEO experts typically frown at reciprocal links in general but recommend doing so-called relevant linking, which is a derivative of reciprocal linking that links only to relevant and quality sites. The Output Reciprocal link here is: Mysite1 <-> Mysite2
3. Three Way link exchange. This is a variation of reciprocal linking that is advantageous to all parties and attempts to replicate organic link building for the search engine rankings. The Output Three way link becomes: Mysite1-> Mysite2 -> Mysite3 -> Mysite1

Pointers for performing link exchanges: If done properly, link exchanges can deliver excellent results for your link building campaign. Here are a few pointers:

1. When exchanging links, always consider the Google mantra: “quantity, quality, and relevance of links count towards your rating.” Delimit your exchanges to links that are relevant and high quality.
2. Stay away from link farms and link trading hubs or networks because the possibility of exchanging links with off-topic link partners will prove disastrous to your link popularity and your rankings.
3. Search for relevant websites on search engines. Use Yahoo or Google and search your targeted keyword/s. Target the sites on the upper part of the search results. Visit these pages and ask the owner to link to your site, but do not assume that everyone will say yes. If you succeed, you get inbound links from pages that rank well in the eyes of the search engines, a very advantageous thing for your link popularity. If simply asking for a link does not work, you can offer incentives such as commissions or free advertising.

Link exchange is the most popular method to acquire link popularity, but for large web-based promotional campaigns, exchanging links can be very tedious. Fortunately, you always have the option of hiring a link building company to handle your link exchanges or your link building campaign for that matter.

Web directories are Internet-based resources that specialize in categorizing websites and linking to them. They could either be a general directory or a specialized directory. General directories contain a large range of categories while specialized directories contain just one or two topics/areas. When choosing web directories to submit or register to, quality is the most important thing to look for. Quality directories are a fantastic link building resource that generate potential for user traffic and create link popularity.

The difficult part is choosing which directory to choose for submissions. There are literally thousands of web directories sprawled over the Web and you need to pick those that will augment and not derail your link building campaign. It is important to sort out which of them is of high quality and which is of low quality, to achieve link popularity for your site. Here are tips to help you judge quality in web directories and decide whether to skip or keep:

1. Direct Links. Ideally, links in web directories must be direct, meaning that when you click the link, it leads directly to your website. Check a directory page’s source code and examine the link coding used. Direct links follow the a href="" HTML link. Check whether the directory incorporates a rel="nofollow tag in the code. If it does, submitting to such a directory would be wasteful since it yields nothing as far as Google is concerned. Moreover, check if the directory redirects using javascript and if so, skip it since this renders the link impossible to follow by search engines.
2. Accessibility. You can check whether a category in a web directory is inaccessible to search engines. Make sure to read the site’s robot.txt file by typing the site address, followed by a slash and robots.txt – http://www.directorysite.com/robots.txt Also, check the image and images folder because this is what websites usually use to make the site off limits. If in the Arts folder or category you see: Disallow: /Arts, this means it is inaccessible. If you see Disallow: /Arts, then it’s a keeper.
3. Pagerank. Although not the most important criteria in ranking a directory, PR reveals a directory’s search engine exposure and clue you in on a site’s link popularity. It tells how frequently a site is crawled by Google. A search engine manifests its love to a site by indexing many of its internal pages.
4. Site Design and Maintenance. Generally you can judge the quality of a directory by simply looking at it. If a site is designed and maintained well, the more likely it is to attract traffic and build link popularity. Quality requires time, effort, and serious thought. A quality site is regularly maintained, free from typos, broken pages or dead links. If the site offers obsolete information, it means its maintenance is sub-standard. Another way to check for maintenance is to look for a “newest links” listing and determine when these links were added. Owners of quality directories update and add new links on a regular basis.
5. Quality Control. Ideally, quality directories that build link popularity are those that are not clogged with spam and ads. It is better to submit to directories that have quality standards in place when considering listings for submission and do not approve every website unless it passes those standards. Search engines dislike low standards in sites. If you want to build link popularity, it is better to skip these directories. Also look out for directories that list MFA or Made for AdSense sites; these sites are sure to sink your ratings.
6. Category Structure. Check for a directory that offers a top level category that is related to your website. Relevancy is a top criterion in link building. If you find that there is a sub-category that fits your site, then this is a keeper. What’s better is that some directories offer a “suggest category” field in case an appropriate category does not exist. If a directory does not contain that option, you better skip it. You have nothing to gain from submitting to a category that is irrelevant to your topic.
7. Links. Examine the number of links present in a directory. If there are over 20-30 links a single page, that number may be unreasonable. Avoid directories that are loaded with too many links because this is a sure indication that a directory has too few sub-categories. Look for a directory that features categories broken down into as many sub-categories as appropriate.
8. Reciprocal Links. Bear in mind that quality directories never ask for a reciprocal link in exchange for listing. Stay away from directories that impose such a condition because clearly, that directory seeks inbound links more than it does great sites. Linking to so-called “bad neighborhoods” will injure your link popularity and search engine rankings.

These are some of the most important criteria to consider when judging quality directories. Submit and register to a quality directory, use other helpful link building methods, and seek help and guidance from a link building service or a link building company to be on your way to a great spot at the search engine rankings.