The SEO PPC Pros

Internal link popularity is also a top factor. As an SEO that prefers the onpage/onsite factors I find having the ability to control link popularity a great asset to ranking efforts.

Link popularity in general refers to the popularity of a webpage and is derived within the algorithms by looking at the total number of links to a webpage, then counting the links, then running advanced filters on the links.

First look at link popularity globally for a website by using link domain in the various search engines. The exact method of doing this various from engine to engine but they are all basically the same method. There is a difference being some of the search engines, Google for instance puts more advanced filters on these links and even then only returns a small portion of the total links to a page.

There are many other tools to help obtain link popularity besides using link domain in the major search engines. However, once you have uses one of these tools take the list that you get from the results, build a master list, then subtract all the links coming from outside of your website, this leaves only the links that builds your internal link popularity.

Think of each page as having its own individual ability to vote for other webpages, this ability is based on all the ranking factors combined. It actually even ok that you own the page within your website, what is most important the established trust you have been given from the search engines. If you have established a high level of trust, it will not be hard for you to promote your own internal pages by internal linking.

My company previously worked on a corporate site for a large local retailer. They wanted to promote one part of their business and then measure the results with metrics to see how well search marketing worked as a marketing venue. So we picked one keyword and linked that internal page from the homepage of the corporate website. We waited. It took only a couple of months with just this one factor in place and other basic onpage factors, (title, meta keywords, meta description) before the targeted keywords were sticky ranked number one, and they were there for the next year without question.

Manipulating the internal link structure was so easy mainly because their website had established a huge amount of trust from the search engines over the years, they had never even heard of SEO and Search Marketing as a whole for that matter before I introduced it to them. They had a 100% clean slate to start from, and therefore altering their internal link structure just a bit, I was easily able to rank for some very valuable terms.

Great care should always be given when you alter the text of any link’s anchor text whether it be on page are off page, whether it be under your control or only slightly under your control.

One common mistake that is often made is the use of a home to always designate the homepage of the website. How many times have you seen this, click home and it takes you back to the main page? Unless the goal is to rank for home one should always try to find another way to phrase this if at all possible.