A simple guide to search engine marketing (part one)
Search engine marketing is by far the most efficient and effective way to advertise your business. With over 86% of internet users using Google as their search engine, the need for your business to show on the first page of Google has never been greater.
Many people are unaware of search engine marketing and just take for granted the results that appear when they search for something on a search engine such as Google.
However, search engine marketing seems to defy to current doom and gloom of the recession. Think about this:
“The average Britain spends 164 minutes online everyday, compared with 148 minutes watching TV”
Over half the world’s population now has access to the web and nearly 90% of them find what they’re looking for using search engines. 36% of people think that the result at the top of the first page is the market leader and 80% of people make their choice from first page listings alone. With over 21 billion web pages wanting a first page position how can you get your website on the first page.
This is called search engine marketing and I have listed a few techniques and tips to get you started with optimising your website to rank well on a search engine. Remember that this is a basic guide to help to you on your way.
Link building
First we have to look at how search engines rank a website and decide which order to list them. The simple (very very very simple) version is, Google changed everything the way many search engine rank. The initial creators of Google (Larry Page and Sergey Brin) wanted to create a search engine that could rank a website for quality and list them in order of quality to the user. The way they decided to rank a website was to count how many other websites link to it. If other websites link to it then it must be good. So, essentially links mean votes. Like I said, this is the very simple version and there is so much more to it than this but it is a great place to start as it holds the most importance.
See who links to you and then see who links to your competitors and try to muscle in on some of their action. Simply go to yahoo.co.uk, then in the search box type “link:yourcompetitor.com”. This will bring up a list of websites linking to your competitors website. Then contact them and ask them to link to you too. Don’t be stingy. Make sure you have links going out from your website. Important though that you link to high quality websites, i.e. If your website is a property website, have links to the relevant governing bodies, Wikipedia or the largest property portals. Search engines will see your site as being a good place to get good content. Submit your website to online directories. This can be very boring and takes hours. But once you have had your site accepted in to a directory. You’ll have a link back to your website. Remember. The more the better. Subscribe to forums in your niche. You can include a link in your signature straight to your website. Remember though. Do not spam on a forum. Forum users will not like it and the moderator will probably kick you off. If you use a forum properly though you will find it quite engaging. Read blogs relating to you niche market. This is very educational as well as beneficial for link building. Read the blog then leave a comment about that blog. Don’t forget to include a link to your website though. Just don’t make it too obvious.
Social Media (web2.0)
“Facebook”, “YouTube”, “Flickr”, “Myspace” – These are all social media websites. They provide a means for people from all over the world to join online and share information. The way in which people communicate vary though. “Flickr” allow people to upload photos and share them with other users or even comment on pictures uploaded. “Youtube” allow people to upload videos etc. The number of people visiting these websites to share information is in the millions. So maybe you could use these social communities to spread the word about your website. Social media is a great way to connect with hard to reach people that share the same interests. There are a number of ways to do this.
Make your content interesting enough for people to want to view it. Then,unlike search engine optimisation, change the content often, This will make people want to keep visiting you. Make it easy for people to tag or bookmark your new content. Bookmarking is very fashionable at the moment. The most popular way of doing this is by getting an “addthis” button due to its ease of use, however, there are many buttons available. Use more than just text in your site. Create a video and submit it to a video sharing website like “youtube”, Create a PDF version of your content and create an audio version too. Submit it to appropriate websites. Don’t forget the link back to your site. Blog.Blog.Blog then blog some more. The simple truth is that the majority of internet users love blogs. So do search engines. Create a blog and use it. A lot. Submit it to sites like “technorati.com”. If it is good enough people will link to you and then share and tell others about your writings. Make friends. The social media community, are very social and friendly. They will want to talk to you and ask you questions. Make sure you are polite and take time to answer any messages. Negative feedback spreads faster than positive feedback.
Pay Per Click
This is a method in which you pay to get people to your website. Have you ever done a search on Google and found there are two columns. The Colum on the right is called sponsored links. They are adverts from businesses. They do not pay anything for appearing there but they do pay when you click on the advert (pay per click). This is a very fast way to get people to your website but you do have to pay. I would recommend getting a pay per click company to help here. It will save you a lot of money. However, if you must have ago your self here are some very basic tips.
Budget. Make sure you create a sensible budget and stick to it. Don’t get in to a bidding war. Don’t just rely on pay per click as the be all and end all for your business marketing. PPC is great for promoting specific products and services very quickly but you always have to pay for the result. Analyze your cost per click and cost per acquisition closely. Then compare it to your other marketing activities. See which one works best. Remember that sites such as Google take into account the quality of your website content being marketed more than how much you are bidding. PPC is my favorite part of search engine marketing due mainly to the sheer speed of return on investment BUT make sure it is done properly other wise it can be devastating. Always have two ads running at the same time for each product but with different ad text. Google will use the most successful advert for you and show that advert more often, helping you gain more traffic. Change to poorest performing advert and see if it improves. Keep repeating. This will eventually lead to you having the best possible advert showing.
Search engine optimisation
Remember the two columns we just mentioned. Search engine optimization is the are of optimizing your website enough for Google to rank it on the left hand column. This list is ordered on how relevant your website is. And you don’t have to pay for these listings. Ever noticed how all the big companies appear at the top of the first page. Now we should as “which came first – The chicken or the egg?”. Search engine optimisation is generally split into two categories onsite optimisation and off site optimisation. The first, when done property is very important but it will only get you to the starting line. Offsite optimization is the race itself. A good search engine optimisation campaign should include all the search engine marketing techniques mentioned and when you really get into it you can learn the more advanced techniques. Below are a few basics.
Include your keywords in your domain, title, meta tags. The first thing a search engine spider will read is your domain name. i.e www.yourdomain.com. This doesn’t mean anything to a search engine so ideally use www.yourdomain.com/your-key-words, or even better www.your-key-words.com . Then the next part is your title. Don’t just have “home Page” or “Front Page”. I would have “your domain – your key words”. This also matches the domain name. Then repeat the same in your meta data. And sprinkle it throughout your web page. Keep it readable though. Make each page different. This helps search engines differentiate them and should lead to them indexing each of your pages separately. Get a site map and submit it to major search engines. Don’t pay for this service though. It amazes me that people actually charge for this. Just type into Google “sitemap” and you should be presented with website that will generate you a sitemap for free. Keep going. Older sites generally rank better than new sites. It is believed that older websites must be more reliable. As there is nothing we can do about this just focus your time on other offsite optimisation such as link building, social media optimization and if you just can’t wait, Pay per click. Search engine optimisation is a long term solution but boy is it worth waiting for. Validate your HTML code. Visit “validator.w3.org/ “.This will ensure that web browsers show your website correctly and helps search engine to index your site. There is no point in optimising your website if it doesn’t work properly.
Other useful tips
Get Google analytics. It is one thing having a website but you need to know what people are doing when they are on it. Google analytics is very comprehensive and FREE but it does not report in real time. Woopra however does report in real time. The choice is yours. Before doing anything else you should get one of these other wise how will you know your efforts are paying off. If you decide to use a company to undertake your search engine marketing campaign (recommended) make sure you choose your search engine marketing company wisely. Don’t just go on recommendation. It is going to be a long working relationship so the important thing is that you get on with them. Do your own research on the industry. Think twice about search engine marketing firms that say they can guarantee a first page listing in a short time, the methods they use WILL end up in your website being banned. BMW found this out the hard way.
Search engine marketing is not an easy option but when done properly will bring untold rewards.
This is by no means an exhaustive list but it will give people new to the concept a few things to get on with and research. Look out for more articles that will start to break the subjects down into more detail.
A web video that showcases background information regarding search engine marketing. WordUp Online is search engine marketing company, specialising in paid search on the Google, Yahoo and MSN networks.
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Related Search Engine Marketing Articles
7 Steps to Greater Link Popularity and Higher Search Engine Rankings
Copyright (c) 2008 Noble River Marketing
Link Popularity is one of the most important factors affecting your Search Engine rankings. When your site is popular with other web-sites, the Search Engines love you, but if you are the new kid on the block, they ignore you; totally. Its great to be popular; and improving your Link Popularity will also get you higher rankings on the search engines.
Why is Link Popularity important for higher rankings?
Search Engines are just software programs that try to analyze the utility and validity of your content with regard to certain keywords. It also tries to understand the importance or ranking of your site against all competing sites in its index.
Just how do Search Engines learn about the utility and the validity of your content?
Search Engines just love sites that users love to visit. They love it even more if users spend more time at the site before they browse away. Now how do they know which sites humans love? Obviously with the billions of web pages on the world wide web, the Search Engines cannot manually go to each site and check their content. They let other humans do that work for them. Then they watch as others link to your site. They watch your LINK POPULARITY.
Link popularity simply means how popular are you on the World Wide Web. And your popularity is determined by the number of people linking to your web-site. The greater the number of external links pointing to your web-site, the greater is your ranking. Simple, isn’t it?
Here is how to find YOUR link popularity: Go to Google.com and type in link: followed by your URL. This returns all the sites that link to you in the Google index. eg. link:http://www.yourdomain.com.
How do you get a lot of people to link to you?
Getting people to link to you is easy if you establish your presence. Show that you are a master of your domain. Even if you deal in manure, and there are people out there wanting to know more about it, you have an audience. And if you establish your presence well enough, the links will automatically follow.
Here are a few ways you can increase your inbound links.
1) Articles : Almost anybody can write articles. This is the easiest way to get started on your way to Search Engine manna. Its just the question of putting down your thoughts in a coherent manner. As long as the information you are providing is useful and valid, your articles are sought after by publishers out there. There are also hundreds of article directories on the net.
To find article directories, Google ‘Article Directories’. You get nearly 2 million hits. There are also some awesome free tools available for this.
For those with a morbid fear of writing, you can find ‘Ghostwriters’ as well as ‘Virtual Assistants’ on the Internet. Search on Google for those terms and you will find many a link to sites that provide you suitable services. You may also use sites like Elance.com and RentACoder.com for people who will write articles for you.
2) Blogs: Blogs are not as easy to do as Articles are. But they are a very useful tool, nevertheless. When you have a blog, you have an audience. It like a fan base. They have certain expectations of you. They want you to churn out hit singles or albums. But they want you to give them more. Even though they started out as mere diaries or daily jottings of a few people, currently they are excellent link building, content management and search engine optimization tools.
In fact almost industry may have its blog portal. As always run a search and you will find something in your industry. Or you may go to blogger.com or wordpress.com to start your own blog free of charge.
3) Free Products: The easiest way to do this is to write a tool and offer it for downloads. Or may be even provide a service for free. The greatest example of building a business with free service that comes to mind is hotmail.com. Once your service becomes a must-have, its only a matter of time before you can start making money from it. Also you can have people point to your site to give their customers access to your tool.
4) Trackbacks: This is the easiest way to get your links out there. What you do is go to other blogs(Authority Sites) in your industry and become a regular contributor. Or comment on the blogs. Along with your signature, most people offer a link to your web-site. And the more links you have pointing back to you, the more popular you get. Also, when you become a major contributor/commentor, people start valuing your opinion more.
5) Syndications : You can offer your articles to other sites for publishing for free or for payment. Your article links back to your site.
6) Reciprocal links: You offer a link to another peer site, in return for them linking back to you. This is a good way to get your target industry users to come to your site. Also you introduce your users to other sites that they may be interested in visiting. They will be thankful to you for pointing them in the right direction. And they come to trust you more.
7) Partner links : Your local Chamber of commerce, Suppliers, Resellers, Affiliates, Sites selling complementary products etc.
Study your competition: Google your product and study the linking strategy of top ranking sites. There are tools that help you do this. Webposition.com has a good tool but I prefer EliteSEOTool.com as it has some additional features that I love. These tools help you conduct an ongoing study of your competition and their rankings thereby helping you beat them consistently.
Of course, no amount of link popularity will help you if don’t have the content to keep visitors at your site. So start with good content.
A note of caution! Make sure that you are being linked to by Authority sites with a Good PageRank. Also the linking sites should somehow be relevant to your industry. If not, it only serves to confuse the Search Engines and your rankings will suffer.
How To Increase Your Link Popularity
Search engines are the gateway to the Internet.They are the first tool that potential customers use to find the products and services they need. This is why link popularity is so imperative. If the customers do not find your website, you have no possibilities of making any sales.
Link popularity refers to the ranking assigned to your website by the search engines, and it determines the ranking your page gets when keywords are entered into a search engine. So, how do you make your link popular?
Search engines are discretionary, giving status and ranking to sites that have links to their pages from related, quality sites. It’s a simple formula, but a very important one. Google created the system, and now virtually all the most popular search engines employ it to rank your web pages in their indexes.
The more commonly used your keyword is, the harder it will be to achieve link popularity, but without achieving this step, it is almost certain your site will never rank highly on any search engine. But don’t be discouraged; there are tried and true ways of achieving link popularity using the most competitive keywords.
There are a few things you should be aware of. The first is that just linking up with a large number of other websites will not achieve link popularity. In fact, it may have quite the opposite effect. This is particularly true when pertaining to websites that are nothing more than “link farms” – pages containing line after line of indiscriminate links. Search engines may aggressively discriminate against your website if you are associated with a link farm, so steer clear of them!
The next thing to bear in mind is the quality of the site you are linking to. Never link to a page you have reservations about your visitors seeing. The last thing you want your website to appear as is indiscriminate and cheap. Linking to sites of poor quality will only lessen your link popularity, if not completely destroy it.
The next step after you have attained directory listings is to locate other quality sites that will increase your link popularity. Try to find sites that are in some way related to yours, so not only will your link popularity increase, but your customer base may also be expanded.So where can you find such quality sites? Early Planet offers you Free Links to 100s of its own network of high pagerank sites.
The first thing to do is to add a link on your own links page to their site. This is an essential first step, it shows good faith, and ups your chances significantly of their reciprocity. After you have added their link, you must contact the webmaster of their site. Since this is almost always done by email, you want to make sure it is immediately clear that your message is not junk mail. This requires that you tell them right off the bat that you have added a link to their page on your site. A hook like this almost always insures the reader will read on.
Next, be sure to be flattering and let them know how much you appreciate their website. Make sure you emphasize that you have actually visited their site, and that their site is not just a random pick. Give them the address of your links page, and ask them to check out the link for themselves. It’s a good idea to mention that they will not only benefit from the increased traffic your website will direct their way, but you will also increase their link popularity.
Then set up a schedule to check your ranking in search engines frequently to see if your link popularity has improved. This is not achievable in the blink of an eye. It will take some time and a good deal of work. There is no way around the labor-intensive quality of improving your link popularity, which is why search engines regard it with such importance.
By the way – make sure you have a beautiful, streamlined site or you will never persuade anyone to link up to you. Be prepared to keep plugging away at this process, as long as it takes, until you achieve link popularity stardom!
The Successful Internet Marketing Business Plan Exposed
You have probably been looking for a internet marketing business plan, which is complex and confusing and had no luck. I will give an overview of what to do every day to succeed with your internet marketing business plan. There is a four-step process that follows the success of each distributor. You must have a product and other products for use as a means to achieve additional sales. Most people who come online looking to start marketing online with affiliate marketing to promote any other product. It is preferable to start creating your own product, because it gives the opportunity to follow the internet marketing business plan.
The internet marketing business plan is the first to generate traffic. There are three main ways to generate traffic. The first method primarily through affiliates promoting your product. Members can bring floods of traffic to your site. The second main way to generate traffic through pay per click advertising. Paying for keywords on search engines like Google or Yahoo. The director of the third generation of traffic is through search engine optimization. That means you have to do a keyword research and keyword in making web pages and links back to web pages. The second stage of the internet marketing business plan is to channel visitors to your homepage email capture.
Do you want to capture the email as much as possible to your target audience and build relationships with them is to earn their trust. The third phase of the internet marketing business plan to be channeled to a page describing the product label. When a person buys a product in your initial step for the other products are designed to offer more value and make additional sales.
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5 Result Driven Link Popularity Strategies
Link popularity is one of the biggest and one of the most important search engine rankings factors. The search engines allocate authority to a website or web page based on the number of quality links pointing to that site or web page. Link popularity refers to the number and quality of incoming links that are pointing to your site. To build quality links to your web page is hard work that can become monotonous and time consuming. In this article we take a closer look at 5 result driven link popularity strategies.
Questions to ask yourself about your incoming links:
• Are the sites that link to you from the same field or community?
• Do other sites within your field or community link to the sites that link to you?
• Are any of the sites that link to you seen as experts or authority sites within your field?
• Are your web pages optimized for your keywords and is an internal linking structure in place?
Link Popularity Strategies:
1. The Joint or Reciprocal Link Strategy:
• Search for high ranking and popular websites in your field or niche market that are complimentary to your website
• Contact the Webmaster of the site and ask him or her if they would link to your website
• Outline the benefits of linking to your website or content
• Place a reciprocal link to the site that you want the link from on your website
• Keep your link request email personal in order to grab the attention of the Webmaster
• Specify the anchor text and description of the link to your site that you want them to add
• Do not place more than 50 outgoing links on one of your web pages
• Do not spam prospective link partners
2. The Link Visibility Strategy
• Engage with discussion lists that allow links and that are related to your topic or niche market (Yahoo Groups is a good place to start)
• Place a link to your website in chat rooms and guest books
• Join and post questions in forums that allow links
• Post to newsgroups and place a link to your website in the post
• Place a link to your website in your email signature
• Offer a contest or sweepstakes on your site and submit your site to the contest and sweepstakes directories on the Web
• Offer a discount or gift to anyone that links to your website
3. The B2B Strategy
• Require resellers, partners, subcontractors and vendors to link to your website
• Check that all employee speaking engagements at tradeshows are listed in the online brochure for the show and ask for a live link back to your site
• Submit technical papers to websites that are interested in the subject matter or that offer technical papers for a fee
• Submit your site to all the business directories on the Web
• Apply for awards programs and nominate your products
4. The Social Media Strategy
• Open a Twitter account and post tweets daily with links back to your site
• Start a Facebook Fan Page for your business with links back to your site and content
• Start a Blog and post your blog entries to your Facebook Fan Page or Twitter profile
• Submit your site URL to social bookmarking sites
• Ping your blog regularly using a service like Ping.fm
• Make it easy for users to share your web page content by installing a share button
• Install a Facebook “like” button on your website
• Comment on relevant Blogs or forums and place a link to your website in your username.
5. The Content Strategy
• Write keyword rich original and unique articles about relevant topics
• Submit your articles to article directories and/or blogs
• Place links back to your website in the article body or resource box
• Use your main keywords in the anchor text of the links back to your site
• Become known as an expert in your field
• Stay on top of new developments and product launches in your field and be the first to write about it
• Contact high ranking blogs and forums in your field and become a guest blogger
• Start an E-zine and publish all of your articles online with links back to your website
• Allow Webmasters to post your articles on their websites for free as long as they include a bio with links back to your site
All of the above link popularity strategies will improve your website link popularity if used correctly. For the best results it is advisable to use a combination of all 5 strategies as part of your search engine keyword optimization campaign. Remember to monitor the results of your strategies and to check that your reciprocal link partners are still linking to you on a regular basis.
seoexciter.com Back Links are so important for elevating the profile of your website. Discover methods of getting the best backlinks and get your website highly indexed by the search engines.
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Increasing Link Popularity
Search engines are the gateway to the Internet; they are the
first tool that potential customers use to find the products and
services they need. This is why link popularity is so
imperative. If the customers do not find your website, you have
no possibilities of making any sales.
You’re probably wondering what the blazes is popular about a
link! Well, in a word – plenty! Link popularity refers to the
ranking assigned to your website by the search engines, and it
determines the ranking your page gets when keywords are entered
into a search engine. So, you’re probably wondering, how do I
make my link popular?
Search engines are discretionary, giving status and ranking to
sites that have links to their pages from related, quality
sites. It’s a simple formula, but a very important one. Google
created the system, and now virtually all the most popular
search engines employ it to rank your web pages in their indexes.
The more commonly used your keyword is, the harder it will be to
achieve link popularity, but without achieving this step, it is
almost certain your site will never rank highly on any search
engine. But don’t be discouraged; there are tried and true ways
of achieving link popularity using the most competitive keywords.
There are a few things you should be aware of. The first is that
just linking up with a large number of other websites will not
achieve link popularity. In fact, it may have quite the opposite
effect. This is particularly true when pertaining to websites
that are nothing more than “link farms” – pages containing line
after line of indiscriminate links. Search engines may
aggressively discriminate against your website if you are
associated with a link farm, so steer clear of them!
The next thing to bear in mind is the quality of the site you
are linking to. Never link to a page you have reservations about
your visitors seeing. The last thing you want your website to
appear as is indiscriminate and cheap. Linking to sites of poor
quality will only lessen your link popularity, if not completely
destroy it.
So let’s get to what you need to do to achieve supreme link
popularity and improve your rankings to stellar status on all
the popular search engines.
The first step, and the fastest way to get your foot in the
door, is to get a listing in a popular directory, such as Open
Directory Project and Yahoo. If your site is business-related,
you will want to be listed on Yahoo, and despite the fact that
it will cost you around 0 a year, it will be money well
spent. If your site is non-commercial, the listing will be free,
but it will take time and follow-up to actually get it listed.
Open Directory is gives you a free listing whether you are
business-related or non-commercial, but be prepared to make a
lot of follow-up inquiries before you see your site listed.
You are aiming to get listed in the highest level of appropriate
category, and this just takes some common sense. For example, if
your company ships Alpaca wool from an Alpaca farm located in
the middle of Nowhere, Tiny State, do NOT submit your listing to
“Retailers from Nowhere, Tiny State.” BIG MISTAKE! All you have
to do is look a little deeper – and submit your listing to the
“Fine Alpaca Wool” category. You will not only associate
yourself with culture and quality, but you will be listed in a
national category.
The next step after you have attained directory listings is to
locate other quality sites that will increase your link
popularity. Try to find sites that are in some way related to
yours, so not only will your link popularity increase, but your
customer base may also be expanded. You want to avoid your
competitors and look for sites that are useful to your site’s
visitors. Let’s look at the Alpaca Wool site example. Linking up
to a site that sells knitting supplies would be helpful to your
visitors, and the chances of the knitting supply site wanting to
link up to your site are also greater. By linking to a related
site that will be relevant to your website’s traffic, you are
increasing both of your site’s business prospects – and both of
your sites’ link popularity.
Not all sites want to link to other sites, so you will have to
do some research when you are looking for possible linking
partners. Google is an excellent starting place for your search.
Make sure you enter keywords that you think quality customers
will also enter to find your own site. Remember, your criteria
are quality, highly ranked, non-competing websites that have a
links or resources page. Go to these sites and objectively
assess them. Look at the quality of the product, the graphics,
and the ease of use. Then check out the other sites they are
linked to, and determine if your own site would fit in with the
crowd.
When you decide you have found a good prospect, you must set out
to woo them. The first thing to do is to add a link on your own
links page to their site. This is an essential first step; it
shows good faith, and ups your chances significantly of their
reciprocity. After you have added their link, you must contact
the webmaster of their site. Since this is almost always done by
email, you want to make sure it is immediately clear that your
message is not junk mail. This requires that you tell them right
off the bat that you have added a link to their page on your
site. A hook like this almost always insures the reader will
read on.
Next, be sure to be flattering and let them know how much you
appreciate their website. Make sure you emphasize that you have
actually visited their site, and that their site is not just a
random pick. Give them the address of your links page, and ask
them to check out the link for themselves. It’s a good idea to
mention that they will not only benefit from the increased
traffic your website will direct their way, but you will also
increase their link popularity. Briefly, explain why link
popularity is so essential, but do this in a sentence or two so
you don’t sound like a professor! Finally, tell them you would
greatly appreciate if they would reciprocally add a link on
their own links page to your website.
Go through this process with as many appropriate sites as you
can find, bearing in mind the criteria of quality and
non-competitiveness. After you have emailed all relevant sites,
be sure to check these website frequently to see if they have
added a link to your page. Give it about a month, and if no link
appears, try another charming email. Then give it another month,
and if your site is still absent from their links page, it’s
time to remove their link from your own links page. The only
time you want to pursue a link further than this is if you
believe a site is crucial to your link popularity and your
business needs. Just remember to keep all your communications
complimentary and cordial.
Then set up a schedule to check your ranking in search engines
frequently to see if your link popularity has improved. This is
not achievable in the blink of an eye. It will take some time
and a good deal of work. There is no way around the
labor-intensive quality of improving your link popularity, which
is why search engines regard it with such importance.
By the way – make sure you have a beautiful, streamlined site or
you will never persuade anyone to link up to you. Be prepared to
keep plugging away at this process, as long as it takes, until
you achieve link popularity stardom
An introduction to link building. How to go about building links ethically to help link popularity.