If you are pursuing a search engine optimization campaign, your link popularity will become an issue. So, how many links do you need to get high rankings?

How Many Links Do I Need to Get High Rankings?

Before I go hog wild, I should probably define link popularity. The term simply refers to the number of sites that have links pointing to your precious site. At least, this is the simplest definition. Yes, it gets more complicated.

When considering link counts, one has to realize it is a subjective game. Some sites will get high rankings with only a smaller number of links while others require far more. You should use this information as a guide, not a line drawn in the sand. Okay, so what are the numbers? Typically, I shoot for 100 links reported on Google. Google only reports a small percentage of the links it finds to your site, but 100 is generally a good number to shoot for. I have sites with as low as 40 links that have top rankings and others with as many as 300 that are not as high as I like. It just depends, but 100 is a solid goal. I believe Google may have even stated as much, but it may have been a dream.

While links counts are nice, solid things to focus on, they can be misleading. Links are not created equally. Reciprocal links have low value in my opinion, to wit, 100 reciprocal links probably are not going to get you high rankings. Inbound links from articles are better, but not as great as they used to be since blogs tend to publish articles now. Still, 100 links reported by Google that are generated through articles seems to come close to doing the trick. There is, however, an even better type of inbound link.

You can get by with far fewer links if you get high quality sites to link to you. The sites needed to be highly relevant to the subject matter of your site. They also need to have high page rank counts. Finally, the older they are, the better. How do you find them? Well, who are the biggest, baddest sites in the rankings for your industry? Which sites do you see ranked in the top 10 again and again when you check your rankings? Those are the sites you want to get links from. Buy, beg, borrow and steal them if you can…err, don’t steal them, but you get my point.

When setting a goal for link popularity for search engine optimization, the number of links you need isn’t really the issue. Instead, it is the quality of links.

Halstatt Pires is with MarketingTitan.com - providing internet marketing services.