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It's Still a Popularity Race!
Subject Line: TWM Release - It's Still a Popularity Race!
The Write Market Release
Vol 2. Issue 4
It's still a popularity race!
CONTENTS IN THIS ISSUE:
1. Editor's Remarks
2. Correction
3. Getting Ranks in the Search Engines - Part II
a) Link and Click Popularity
b) Find Out Who's Linking to You
c) How to Increase Link Popularity
d) ODP (Open Directory Project)
4. What's New at The Write Market
5. Get Your Ad in TWM's Release!
6. Administrative Information
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EDITOR'S REMARKS
Welcome all new subscribers!
If you have questions or answers related to SE
positioning or any marketing or promotion advice,
visit our discussion board:
http://www.thewritemarket.com/discus/
In response to some heated debate on the discussion
board, we've put up a survey on our home page that
asks, "How long will you wait for download time?"
If you have a second, go on over and put in your answer.
You'll get immediate results.
http://www.thewritemarket.com/
I'll admit it, I was a band geek with glasses in high school.
Try to talk to me about popularity and I might just fade into
the wall, or more likely, spout something like,
"popularity isn't everything," sniffle, sniffle.
Today, I am still a geek with glasses, but now I'm an internet
geek! And guess what - popularity is still an issue!
The good news is that a website is not born with good looks
and the ability to attract visitors. It's something that you can
create over time. This month we'll talk about what makes a
website popular and give you some ideas on how to increase
your website popularity.
Next month, look for articles on "Doorway Pages".
Write on,
Renee Kennedy
rkennedy@thewritemarket.com
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CORRECTION
Last month, we published the price of getting into
LookSmart as $299. However, they've been doing a
little price testing and now they are back to the familiar
$199. The more I hear (mind you, this is gossip - no
proof to back it up) it is very important to be listed in
LookSmart. With all of LookSmart's associations
(MSN and AltaVista, to name a few) I can understand
why expert web promoters feel it is important to
get listed there.
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LINK POPULARITY and CLICK POPULARITY
by Renee Kennedy
Link popularity and click popularity are determined by
each search engine. AltaVista may calculate a high
popularity for your site, whereas Infoseek may
calculate a low popularity for your site. Each search
engine may also use the popularity information in different
ways. It will all depend on their specific algorithms.
Popularity is becoming more widely used by search
engines. Therefore, it is a very important consideration
when trying to increase your ranks. Hypothetically, if you have
two sites that have equal content and equal meta tags, then
the site with more popularity will rank higher.
Link Popularity:
1. The link popularity of your site is determined by:
a. the number of web sites that are linking to your site
(the web page that your link appears on, must be indexed by
the search engine - just using those "free-for-all-links-pages"
is not the kind of link that you're looking for.)
b. the popularity of the sites are that are linking to your site
c. the similarity of the content on sites that link to your site
2. Link popularity is used by every search engine to some
extent.
3. Ways to increase link popularity will be discussed below.
Click popularity:
1. Click popularity is the number of clicks that your site gets
when it comes up on a search. So if your site is number 3 for
a search, and it is being clicked on by people more than
number 2, you can potentially move ahead of number 2.
(If the engine uses click popularity in their algorithms.)
2. Excite and Direct Hit use click popularity. Also, engines
that are associated with Direct Hit, like Hotbot,
indirectly use click popularity.
3. You can increase click popularity by having a good title and a
good description of your website in your meta tags.
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FIND OUT WHO'S LINKING TO YOU
Here are some ways you can find out who is linking to you:
1. AltaVista and Infoseek: Typing into search box (without quotes)
"link:yourdomain.com"
will give you all of the pages which link to you, including your own.
Typing into search box (without quotes)
"link:yourdomain.com-url:yourdomain.com"
will give you all pages that link to you minus your own pages.
2. Excite: Typing into search box (without quotes)
"www.yourdomain.com"
will give you pages in the index that link to you, including those
from your domain.
3. Hotbot: Type into search box (without quotes)
"linkdomain:yourdomain.com"
Try these methods on other search engines, as well, generally
typing into the search box: "www.yourdomain.com" (without quotes)
will give you some indication of the number of sites that link to you.
Also use the tool:
http://www.linkpopularity.com
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HOW TO GET MORE POPULARITY
Here are some suggestions on how to get more sites to
link to you, which will improve your link popularity.
1. Reciprocal Links
There are varying opinions on whether or not to get reciprocal
links and if you do, where you should put them. Here is our
opinion - The internet is a web and it is joined by links. If you
are offering good resources, people will bookmark your site
and come back. If you aren't, they won't. Part of offering
resources is suggesting other places to find information.
We're not suggesting that you put links off your site on your
home page, we're not suggesting that all you do is to provide
a directory of other links.
We started with a one page resource directory. From there,
we built it up to over 10 pages of links that go to sites
that have content similar to our own. We started by simply linking
to anything related to us. Now we are more fussy. We will
only link to a site that will place a reciprocal link to us and we
only link to sites that have quality content. (Yeah, it's a lot
of work to maintain that small directory.)
For more on reciprocal linking strategy read this:
http://www.thewritemarket.com/promotion/reciprocallinks.htm
2. Content:
The fact is, once again (I know you are tired of
hearing me preach about it, but...), CONTENT IS KING. No
one will want to link to a site that is simply a promotional avenue
for an affiliate program. You must provide original content.
If you provide original content, you'll find sites linking to you
all over the place.
3. Online Directories
The major online directories today are:
http://www.Looksmart.com
http://www.go.com/Help?pg=InfoDirc.html#submit (Infoseek)
http://www.dmoz.org (ODP - the next article is all about ODP)
http://www.yahoo.com
http://www.snap.com
Getting listings in these directories will not only boost
your traffic, it will also increase your link popularity. It is
especially relevant to link popularity because these directories
are mega popular (remember the more popular a site is
that links to you, the more popular your site will be rated).
A quick side note: directories are not the same thing as
search engines. Directories are compiled by human beings,
search engines are compiled by machines. For more
explanation of the difference see:
http://www.thewritemarket.com/search/spiders.htm
4. Meta Tags
You will be able to increase your click popularity by
having a good title and description of your website.
You can write these into each individual web page
using meta tags. For a better look at meta tags,
please read:
http://www.thewritemarket.com/search/metatags.htm
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OPEN DIRECTORY PROJECT (ODP)
http://www.dmoz.org
One way to increase your popularity, as mentioned
above, is to get yourself into the online directories.
One of the easiest directories to get into is Open
Directory Project (ODP). You don't have to pay any
money to get into ODP like you do at LookSmart or
Yahoo.
Also, because this directory is free for any
website to use - it is widely used. (Lycos, Hotbot,
AOL Netfind, and AltaVista all use ODP to help them
rank web pages.) A couple of listings in ODP will do
wonders for your traffic.
Here's how it works:
ODP is generated by thousands of volunteers who edit
the directory. When you submit your site to ODP, you
are asking a human being to place your site into the directory.
You will help yourself by being extremely polite (these editors
have bad days, just like the rest of us) and by following this
advice:
1. Find the appropriate categories:
The deeper the category, the more likelihood that you will get
your site listed (if your site is appropriate.) Find 3-5 appropriate
categories. Submit your site to these categories one at a time.
In other words, try to get listed in one category, when you are
listed, then go for the second category and so on. Trying to
apply for more than 5 categories may get you bopped down
to one. Submit carefully; think before you submit. Keep track
of what you are submitting. ODP has a very good tracking
system of your submissions and your listings. In other words, if
you are denied placement, don't keep submitting a site that
you have done nothing to improve.
2. Title:
Don't try to cram too much info into the title. What is the title
of your website? Leave it alone, don't try to do anything fancy.
Our title is "The Write Market", although it doesn't say much,
we're stuck with it. If you try cramming in a lot of keywords, you
risk not only being edited but never having your site looked at.
3. Description:
A one or two sentence description is all you're going to get.
Try for one or two keyword phrases. Again, if you spam with
20 keywords, it will be edited.
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WHAT'S NEW AT THE WRITE MARKET
Some great new articles in our
ever growing "Articles" section
http://www.thewritemarket.com/articles.shtml
Have you checked out our new web products section?
http://www.thewritemarket.com/products.shtml
Great tools for webmasters - some free, some
you pay for.
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