Link popularity should be an integral component of your search engine optimization strategy. Since there is so much information to cover on link popularity, we're devoting a four-part article to educating our clients on this cost-effective tool.

If you are new to the search engine optimization arena, you've probably heard about links and how beneficial they can be in the search engine optimization process. What is a link? By our definition, a link is a hypertext connection between two points of reference that, when clicked, takes the viewer to a different Web page.

There are three basic kinds of links: internal, outbound and inbound.

Internal Links

An internal link will take you to another location within your own web site. It may be on the same page or a different page, but you will remain on your own Web site pages.

Outbound Links

An outbound link will connect you to another site from your own site.

Often times, Web site owners don't like using outbound links because, in essence, the visitor will be leaving their site to go somewhere else and they may forget to come back or find something more interesting. And, let's face it-you want to keep visitors on your site as long as possible in hopes of generating a sale.

So, let's turn this negative into a positive. We know that users have tons of resources available to them, but if you provide them with other resources, they're going to spend less time on search engines where they really could get side-tracked. By providing relevant resources, you help to keep them focused while at the same time increasing the relevance of your site. By providing site visitors with high quality references, you are actually adding credibility and value to your site, increasing your chances that users will visit your site in the future.

Inbound Links

Inbound links send visitors to your Web site from other sites. If you are wondering who is including a link to your site on their Web pages, you can easily conduct a search for inbound links. Go to Google and type in the following: link:www.yoursiteURL.com. This search will generate all links to your site.

The more links you have pointing to your site, the more search engines will deem your site as a valuable resource. That's where link popularity comes in. Building inbound links through a reciprocal link exchange program is an easy yet powerful search engine optimization tool. In Part 2 of this article, we'll talk more about why link popularity is important and how it works. Stay tuned…