
Link Building Tips
There are many ways of building links and I've created a detailed list of all my favorite methods below. But firstly, you're probably wondering...
Why build links?
Here are my reasons: Reason #1: Links help your search engine rankings
In the past, search engines would base their rankings on on-page factors, like keyword density and information in your meta-tags. Of course, this was extremely open to abuse by internet marketers and spam artists who all wanted their websites to be at the top of the search engines. People would 'keyword stuff' their pages by putting in piles of irrelevant words at the bottoms of their sites (sometimes in white text on a white background) just to get a higher ranking on lots of search terms.
Since the sites with genuine content often weren't bothered with search engine optimization, they sunk to the bottom of the results pages. This all presented a bad experience for the poor users, who might search for "dog training" and end up at a porn site.
Now search engines, and in particular Google, look at the number and quality of links to your site in order to establish the importance and relevance of your site. Each link to your site is considered a "vote" for your page. Sites with more votes, particularly votes from highly trusted websites, will have a greater potential to rank highly in the search engines.
Links play another important role in your rankings: They help to determine which words you will rank for. If another site links to you using the anchor (link) text, "pumpkin pie recipe", then they're saying that your page is relevant to "pumpkin pie recipe". You have one vote for "pumpkin pie recipe". If you get a lot of links/votes that use "pumpkin pie recipe" then the search engines will think your page is very relevant to that topic, and you'll find yourself ranking well for "pumpkin pie recipe". Reason #2: Links can bring you more traffic to your website
A lot of website owners are struck by what I call "search engine tunnel-vision" when they start optimizing their websites. If a link isn't going to help their search engine ranking for one reason or another, they don't want to know about it.
It pays to remember what your goal is, though: You're trying to get more traffic to your page. If you can get a link from another site that will give you more traffic to your site (even if it doesn't help your search engine rankings) then it's a good link! In some ways it can even be better traffic, particularly if the other site is relevant to your site. Where do you find high quality links?
There are many places to gather links from and I've created a detailed list of all my favorite methods below.
#1: Find out which sites are linking to your competitors' websites.
Sites that are linking to your competitors are probably going to be interested in linking to you as well, (provided your site is as good as your competitors' sites, of course!).
Type in Google.com {link:http://www.sitename.com} Backlink Checker tool, it list all sites that link to that particular website. See who is linking to them, and then contact these sites to see if they're interested in recommending your site to their readers too. Perhaps the links come from directories, in which case you can submit your site as well. Perhaps the link isn't free, and you have to sell out a little cash to get your site linked to. In any case, you know that these links are helping your competitors get the top ranked spots in the search engines, so chances are good that the links will help you too.
#2: Build or provide top-quality content
One of the best and most effective ways of getting links from another website is to create some unique, high-quality content. Not only will you attract links naturally from other sites, it also makes it a lot easier to ask for a link if you can provide some sort of benefit for the other site's visitors.
You might also try offering to write a unique article for the other website in return for a credit or a link. That way you're offering them something valuable, and you get a valuable backlink. This kind of link is good because you'll probably be one of just a few links on the page.
#3: Social Media Link Building
There are a lot of different social media sites on the internet these days. These sites are great for both click-thrugh traffic and helping your search engine rankings. Some of my favorites are:
* Squidoo.com * Hubpages.com * Twitter.com * Digg.com * Del.icio.us * Wikipedia (very good if you can get links from here) * 43things.com
There are many, many more of these sites out there. They don't all work in the same way, but they can all help.
With Squidoo, for instance, you can build a page full of information on your chosen topic. These pages are typically well-received by the search engines. You can earn money directly off your lens, or use it to point to your main site.
If you can create some interesting or timely content on your site and submit it to Digg, you might find yourself facing more traffic than you know how to handle when your site makes the front page.
With 43things you can tap into targeted niche markets full of people who want to do or learn something. Start up a blog on this site and join in conversations with other people, then watch the traffic begin to flow.
The key is to provide useful content to these places. Spamming social networking sites is usually a pretty bad idea.
One tool I really like is Twitter. Google loves Twitter as well, and if you set up a Twitter profile and begin "twittering" (posting mini-blogs or status updates) then you'll find the Googlebot crawling all over it. This is great for getting your sites indexed in the search engines, or letting the search engines know when you add new content to your page or your other social networking sites. Just Twitter it, and they will come!
#4: Link building with blogs and feed directories
It's a really good idea to submit your site to all relevant RSS feed and blog directories. It is a great way of getting more exposure.
Popular directories include:
* Technorati * Google Blog Search * Bloglines
#5: Article Writing & Submission
Article sites like ezinearticles.com are another good place to get backlinks. You can submit your own articles to these directories, with links either inside your article or at the bottom of the article in what's called an "author box" or a "bio box".
Not only do you get one backlink then and there from the article directory itself, these sites are also places where website owners come to find free content for their own sites. The website owners can take your article from the article site and publish it on their own site, so long as they keep your bio box (and all its links) intact.
What does this mean for you?
It means that by submitting one article to an article directory, you could end up getting hundreds of backlinks when your article is picked up by other websites. IMPORTANT: Write quality articles!
It's important that you write relevant, good-quality articles for these directories. Firstly, the article site moderators might reject your article outright if it's particularly poor. Secondly, other webmasters won't use your article if it's terrible, so you won't get many backlinks. Thirdly, by creating good, unique content, you give your article a chance for ranking highly in the search engines. Yes that's right.... your article can be picked up by the search engines. You might even find that it outranks your real site! This is great because people will click through to your site from the article, but only if they're interested in what you have to say - another reason to write good, interesting articles!
There are hundreds of article sites out there, here are some of my favorites:
* www.goarticles.com * www.ezinearticles.com * www.articlecity.com * http://www.thewhir.com/find/articlecentral/suggest.asp * www.amazines.com * http://www.netterweb.com/articles * http://www.articleinsider.com
I strongly recommend that you submit your articles to these article sites manually with a tool like Article Submitter (which also comes with hundreds of article sites pre-loaded, so you just have to plug in your article and go), or pay someone like Submit2Edge to submit them for you.
Much like with directory submissions, automated software might not work very well because many article directories block these tools. (Article Submitter isn't an automated software... it just streamlines the process!) #6: Local Link Opportunities
Submitting your site to any relevant local directories can provide valuable links and may help you to rank higher in regional searches.
For example, if your business is located in New Zealand, you should submit your site to http://www.nzs.co.nz
Or if you are in the US, you might submit your site to your local Chambers of Commerce, or to the Better Business Bureau. #7 Link brokers and purchasing links
It is possible to rent links from other websites, but be careful: Google is starting to clamp down on people caught buying links. The red flag is often raised when you rent a link for a period, and then your link disappears when you stop renting it.
I personally prefer to purchase permanent one-way links rather than renting.
You might also try this new angle on link purchasing: Paying a blogger to write about your product or website. This can be a great way to get relevant links. Sites like ReviewMe can arrange these deals for you.
You may come across link brokers at forums.digitalpoint.com, or sites like www.textlinkbrokers.com. Even if brokers don't explicitly offer permanent one-way links, you can often negotiate something. #8 Forum & community links
Interacting in public forums and communities can be a great way to get links to your site. Many people engaging in forums and blogs will post links to their website in their footer or profile. So long as you're contributing to the community in a positive way and not just spamming... these links are usually well tolerated.
Unfortunately these links aren't the best for improving your search rankings. Many sites implement "nofollow" tags on their links, which effectively blocks the search engine spiders from counting the link as a vote, or passing on PR. (Note that this is true for Google, but other search engines might not pay much attention to "nofollow" tags, so the links might still help your rankings in those search engines.)
The real benefit with forums and communities lies in getting targeted traffic actually clicking through on your links. If you're a genuine contributor to the community, people will be interested in what else you have to say. You might find that this offers your business a bigger boost than slogging away on your search engine optimization. #9 Press releases
If you have something very newsworthy going on on your website, then you may wish to consider submitting a press release about it. If it gets picked up by major news organizations like cnn.com, this can be a very powerful source of links and visitors.
#10 Social media and Web 2.0 links
We'll look at this strategy in more detail tomorrow, but in short you can gain a large number of links from sites like www.squidoo.com, simply by setting up your own presence there and linking back to your main site. As with most things, you need to create some good quality content for your Squidoo (or similar) site, but this can be a very powerful tactic since these sites are often highly regarded by the search engines. #11 Private blog and article networks
I really like this method of gaining high quality relevant links because you have the ability to access sites and links that very few of your competitors will bother with.
There are some good quality blog networks out there: Portal Feeder, for instance, has over 50 blogs in its Blog Network. If you're a Portal Feeder member you can write a relevant blog post and submit it to the appropriate blog(s) in their network. You can get some really good backlinks to your site through these posts. It's a particularly good way of getting deep links to your content. #12 Blog/article networks that I recommend:
* PLR Pro-A private label article site that also comes with a blog network. * PortalFeeder-A site packed full of tools to help you gain higher search engine rankings. * Article Underground-Another private label article site that comes with a great blog network. (I actually don't use the articles in this site and feel that their blog network is more the value here.) * Linkvana * Unique Article Wizard-I've only just recently started using this resource and it seems to be producing great benefits.
That brings us to the end of this part 3 of our 5-part. Tomorrow we'll be looking at Web 2.0 SEO secrets.