4. Linking Strategy Part I: Link Popularity - how do you score?

The amount of time and effort you invest in a linking strategy depends on what you expect to achieve. You may decide to spend a few days, a few weeks or even a few months. No matter how long you decide to spend, the steps you follow should be the same � it is just the level of detail that will be different. So here�s the outline process and the resources you will need.

Workbook

A collection of 10 worksheets to help you plan and implement your linking strategy is available here. The best way to work is to quickly read through the process, then download the workbook and then spend time on each of the steps.

(i) Who links to you now?

You can find out easily using either Google or AltaVista or one of the online link popularity checkers.

In Google, enter:

Then click �Google Search� and the pages that link to you will appear.

It�s a good idea to download the Google toolbar that will allow you to check the link popularity of any site you are visiting.

In AltaVista, enter:

Alternatively, go to a site such as LinkPopularity.com that will test three search engines at once and will send you monthly emails if you wish.

Now check the results by visiting any sites that link to you. What type of sites link? Why do they link? What other links do they provide?

By trawling through sites that already link to you, you�ll learn to understand why and incorporate this into your linking strategy.

(ii) Who links to your competitors?

Now, have a look at who links to your competitors. One way to do this is to use a piece of free software you can find at www.checkyourlinkpopularity.com Download the software, enter the web addresses of your competitors and you�ll get a chart like this:

What can you learn from looking at your competitors?

A lot.

• First, you�ll see how many sites link to them, the quality of those links and from that you can get an idea of how good they are at online marketing. From these scores you can set a benchmark against which to measure your own improvement.
• Second, you�ll be able to draw up a target list of sites that link to your competitors and should be a good potential source of inbound links for your own site.
• Third, you�ll get a good idea of external sites that play an important part in your industry. By doing a link popularity test on top sites that link to your competitors, you�ll find even more potential link partners.

You can use the software to check the links of each competitor on each search engine. Just select a domain, right click and select the search engine you want. You will then find a listing of the inbound links.

The links that you find will be of different quality. How do you evaluate them?

To demonstrate, let�s look at one example.

Suppose you own a small luxury hotel in London. You have drawn up a list of direct competitors online and decide to do a test on each.

´One Aldwych´ is one hotel that offers facilities similar to your own.

You can use the free software to check all your competitors at once or you could go to Linkpopulairty.com. You decide to go to Linkpopularity.com and find they score 23 on AltaVista, 74 on Google and 15 on Hotbot.

Click on the hypertext and you�ll get the addresses of the sites that link to onealdwych.com.

On Google, this appears as:

How valuable are these links?

Take the first one:

This turns out to be Wealth24.com which describes itself as "the only wealth management and luxury shopping directory on the web". The site not only links to hotels but also many other luxury goods and services.

Moving down the list of sites, we find one from ntlworld.com:

This turns out to be a �celebrity fridge� profile of author and broadcaster Alan Titchmarsh. Scan the article and you find he lists the Indigo restaurant at Onealdwych as his favourite restaurant.

Yet another link is:

This turns out to be very interesting. A web site set up by over 70 travel writers to inform and inspire travellers. Scan the home page and you find comments such as:

"Articles written by extremely well-informed travellers who nominate their favourite places as well as their new discoveries. An invaluable and constantly illuminating site which makes both planning and taking journeys more exciting" The Telegraph

How would you rate these three competitor links? Google PageRank will give you an indication but the most important thing is to review the sites yourself - you need to visit those that look interesting.

• Wealth24.com offers lots of links to luxury services only one of which is hotels. It would be probably be easy to get listed but unlikely to produce much traffic.
• Ntlworld.com has very little to do with hotels and the link only appeared as part of a celebrity interview - unlikely to be of link interest.
• Travelintelligence.net on the other hand is an online magazine directed at a specific travel audience. Provided the site itself has quality traffic, a link here would be very valuable - but probably would take a bit of PR effort to secure.

So you create a worksheet like:

Web siteDescriptionPage RankPrioritywww.wealth24.comGeneral wealth portal6/10Mediumwww.ntlworld.comTelecommunications company8/10Nonewww.travelintelligence.netTravel magazine7/10High

Your Progress At the end of this stage, you should have completed worksheets 1 and 2. You will have a good understanding of who links to you and your competitors.

All worksheets are available here