Search engine optimization comprises of On Page Optimization and Off Page Optimization. As of now Off Page optimization has higher significance than On Page optimization for search engines like Google, Yahoo & MSN.

What is Off Page Optimization?

. Improving Link Popularity
. Using keyword rich anchor text
. Improving Google PR

What is Link Popularity & why is it required?

Link Popularity is defined as the number of incoming links your site domain has in each search engine. This is like the number of positive votes your site domain has on the internet. So, higher the number should be your primary goal. But you should make a note here that having a higher number of incoming links is not just enough. The quality of the incoming links matters a lot.

Search engines like Google, Yahoo & MSN would rank your website higher or lower in the search engine results depending on your link popularity.

How to check your Link Popularity?

In the search bar of any of the major search engines like Google, Yahoo or MSN type the following and press enter:

link:http://www.yoursitedomain.com (Please replace "yoursitedomain" with your website's URL)

This would give you an idea as how many websites on the internet linking to your website.
What is link building & what are the different types?

Link building is the off page optimization strategy to improve your link popularity. There are basically two types of link building.

. Reciprocal Link Building
Reciprocal linking means there is one incoming and one outgoing link, i.e. there is link exchange between your site and the linking site. You first link to the other website and request the webmaster if they would like to link back.

. Non reciprocal Linking

Non reciprocal linking is to have only the incoming link without your site linking back. This would carry more value than the reciprocal link. But, this does not mean that reciprocal linking is not worth to do. It has it's importance. Non reciprocal linking is better but a little tougher to achieve.

How to do reciprocal link building?

You need to find the websites which has similar theme as yours but not direct competition and request a link exchange. Once you find the right websites then you add a link to these websites on your links page and send an individual email to each one of these website owners.

Now, you should take care of the anchor text, also known as linking text. This is the text which is displayed on the other website linking to your website. This is how the HTML tag looks like:

Example:<a href="http://www.yoursitedomain.com">anchor text</a>

The anchor text should be the best keyword describing your website and it has high value attached to it.

These are the three basic things you would need before you request a link exchange with the link partner websites.

Title: This is the anchor text
URL: The webpage URL you want the link to.
Description: Describing the purpose of your website in brief and do not forget to mention your keywords.

The next thing you should look into is the Google PR (Page Rank) of the linking webpage. The higher the Google PR the higher link value you get which would be converted to higher rankings in Google search engine.

Now, internet is an ocean and finding these websites, their Google PR and emailing them is a tough manual process. You can do this but may take years before you can build decent link popularity.
Is there a way out?

Yes! you bet!

There are quite a few SEO Software tools which would help you implement reciprocal link building. But making the decision as which SEO Software tool is right for you is the BIG question.

Each SEO software has it's own limitations as what they can achieve. The best thing to do is if these SEO Software companies have a trial version, feel free to download and test it out. One another way is to read the honest SEO Software reviews at http://www.seo-softwares.com/seo-software-reviews.html. I personally recommend http://www.seo-softwares.com/seo-elite.html

Look out for my next article where I would talk about the easy ways to get a lot of non reciprocal links.

About the Author:

Andy Jones -Media Relations,
http://www.seo-softwares.com
Ezine articles expert author

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