Link Building 101 - The Basics

[mjtaylor]

Whether links or content is King, we see enough questions on forums about link building techniques to know that backlinks are central to success in the SERPs (search engine result pages).

Link Bait. The most powerful technique, hands down, is to create content that will attract links. The rest of the "self service" links - those that you can create yourself - have some value, but there is nothing like the "citation links" that come from other webmasters. Where to start with link bait:

• Freebies - Give away an e-book or a tutorial or?
• Review products in your industry
• Write about news in your niche
• Develop a tool and share it (another freebie, yes)
• Interview someone famous in your industry and publish the article on your own site
• Start a controversy
• A Contest or Award Program
• Create a Resource: lists of the best the books in your industry, a glossary of terms for your niche
• Report on Statistical or Financial trends in your industry.

Here's a very popular and comprehensive resource for link bait ideas: http://www.copyblogger.com/increase-web-traffic/.

Social Media. Not all links are created equal. Some links from social media are followed, some are not. But as in many things in life, you get what you "pay" for. Twitter links may not be followed, but if you put in the effort and post useful information, the traffic will come. With the right information in your Tweets and on your website, you will attract more links from your visitors.

• Make A Facebook Page not a Group for your business. Groups have some advantages - you can send a message to your members' inboxes, for example. But Pages are indexed by the search engines and Groups are not.
• Use Social Bookmarking to Drive Traffic. When you publish a new post or article, use your favorite bookmarking sites to get the viral ball rolling.

Article Marketing. If you write well, this is a powerful tool in the 'self service link" genre. Article on top sites, such as Ezine, Go and Isnare, can actually rank well in the SERPs and drive significant traffic to a site in addition to providing a link.

Directory Submissions. Directory links are not the amazing boost they once were, but there are lots of good directories. Try to get into: Yahoo! DMOZ (submit ONCE and then forget it about); Jayde, JoeAnt, GoGuides, and directories specific to your niche. (See: http://www.webproworld.com/webmaster...es-and-Indices.)

Forum & Blog Commenting. Forum links are useful, but like most self service links they are not all that powerful - believe me, I have thousands and while they are helpful in SEO they are not a be-all end all. They can drive traffic, though! If you participate in forums in a truly helpful way, you will drive traffic to your site, you will gain the attention of other professionals who may link to your site or help you promote your site with Tweets or other mentions, and you will attract business.

Blog commenting, to be truly effective, requires the same sort of effort to be a powerful source of traffic and link juice. If you take the time to offer unique and helpful information, you will gain the respect of other professionals, clients will find you and you may end up with a guest blog post on a regular basis.

Press Releases. Not my favorite self service link strategy, but I have use it and find it highly effective when a client has newsworthy information to share.

Link Exchanges - No, Make That Article Exchanges. There is a place for link exchanges - even reciprocals. The key is relevance. If you have a tourist attraction in Podunk, then trading links with a local hotel is highly effective. Forget PageRank or link juice in trades and think traffic.

I also favor article exchanges. When you provide useful content to another relevant site, the link juice is only part of the equation. Traffic completes the picture.

I want to encourage others to offer more helpful link building techniques in this thread. In addition to a link, you will gain respect from your peers.

[kgun]

First of all, great thread mjtaylor.

• Start a controversy

Your speciality? I agree as long as you don't use your moderator power to get rid of persons you disagree with Be careful as a moderator.

Directory Submissions. Directory links are not the amazing boost they once were, but there are lots of good directories. Try to get into: Yahoo! DMOZ (submit ONCE and then forget it about); Jayde, JoeAnt, GoGuides, and directories specific to your niche. (See: http://www.webproworld.com/webmaster...es-and-Indices.)

I would not even try, since it seems that some directories, especially dmoz, prefer adult content to professional content.

[Bauer]

These are some pretty good tips, although some of the link bait ones apply more to some industries than others. I've utilized all of these at some point and they are all necessary for a complete link profile.

[jannmirch]

MJ, great post. Thanks.

I didn't realize that FB Groups aren't indexed but Pages are. There are other disadvantages to Groups as well, but this helps make the case to clients who are weighing the merits of each. Tx.

[mjtaylor]

These are some pretty good tips, although some of the link bait ones apply more to some industries than others. I've utilized all of these at some point and they are all necessary for a complete link profile.

Thanks. Good point. How about offering some ideas that would fill in some of the link bait gaps, if you could, please. Thanks!

[aattwood]

I have had good success with articles. For products that are specific I find its better to position a more general site that pre sells the product and links to its own site and then to create linkbait to the more general site. I do this as its not always so easy to create the hook for the link baiting to happen with to specific a product and the more general site (portal) its really easy.

[nickoran]

Awesome post MJ, I love absolutly everything to do with linkbait, gets you content to your page and links to your site, great!
I find with linkbaiting, actually creating the link code on your site and saying, "to link to this click here" can really swing the decision for someone to copy and paste the code into their site.

[morestar]

As for link-building, I have a little technique for link building that use which I can summarize here.

One of my techniques when building links to my websites is by trying as much as possible to place a link to my site in the first paragraph of the content I've written, without looking spammy. I make sure to use the keyword I'm competing for as the anchor text but from time to time change it up so I can win and rank for other long or short-tail keyword phrases too.

I stay away from linking to the same page twice within the same content and I always feel free to link out to a source that is generally considered as a part of the same genre I am writing in. If I write 50 articles, 2 of them won't have a link to my site.

Aside from the main link I always (96% of the time) place in the first paragraph, I try to make everything look nice and natural ie. I rarely bold links and only italicize them if applicable.

[gotabiz]

Whether links or content is King, we see enough questions on forums about link building techniques to know that backlinks are central to success in the SERPs (search engine result pages).

[B]Link Bait.


[LIST][*]Make A Facebook Page not a Group for your business. Groups have some advantages - you can send a message to your members' inboxes, for example. But Pages are indexed by the search engines and Groups are not.

Facebook modified the Fan page to the Like Page. Are you saying this isn't as good as a personal page for companies?

[morestar]

Facebook modified the Fan page to the Like Page. Are you saying this isn't as good as a personal page for companies?

Could you rephrase the question gotabiz? and yes the Facebook Like page is indeed a page for 'fans'.