Link popularity has become a buzzword in the SEO industry lately. Everyone is desperate to exchange links and increase their link popularity especially after Google announced it was one of the single most important factor that affected rankings.

So does it work? I decided to try it out a few months back, and I must say... it did wonders. This site was an e-commerce site and hence had hardly any spider friendly static pages with lots of spiderfood and text. I was given some space to add optimized text to but that’s about it. This is what I did - created around 10 static pages and a links page.

After optimization and an initial round of submissions to the directories and search engines, I surfed around looking for suitable link partners. My criteria : Their links page should be indexed by Google and their website should have a decent pagerank.

I got around 50 links and then I waited... I needed Google to pick up these links. And luckily it did. Next months refresh I had them incoming and I had the site in the top 10 for all but one of the 12 keywords I was aiming for, the 12th keyword was #11 on Google. So 2 months after the site was first added to Google, 1 month after optimization and link exchange, the site was right up there.

So what are the steps you need to follow to get most out of your link exchange programs? Look for the site with a good pagerank. Make sure their links page is indexed by Google Use text links and no banners. Make sure your link text consists of your keyword. Optimize your website. Link popularity without optimization does not make sense. Be patient - Link popularity sometimes takes more than 1 refresh to show results.

Author - Vishal Sampat

Convonix Inc is a search engine optimization firm that offers customized SEO optimization and PPC campaign management solutions. We manage hundreds of SEO and PPC campaigns. Our clients include Web design firms, adveritising agencies, fortune 500 companies and SMEs. Other internet marketing companies can also Outsource SEO to us in India.

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