When planning a link building campaign for my Web Tracking Guide website, I decided to catch up on the latest trends in this field. I looked through the expert blogs, read the recent articles, analyzed some well-performing websites, asked around in forums. I wanted to find the techniques that produce the best results for the time and money invested. And I wanted to know what works today for real live people. So here are the top link building methods that I discovered.
1. Article submissions
This technique is old, but still very effective. You can get dozens of quality, in-context links for each article you write. There are only a few details you should keep in mind:
- Dont overdo it. Dont submit the same article to 2,000 obscure directories. It can do more harm than good. Google may consider this a form of spamming. Focus on a few top quality article directories, and several smaller ones, preferably targeted to your market.
- Dont submit the same article to the directories and to your own website or blog. If you really want to share the same article on your website, write an extended version with some added value, and link to it from the authors resource box in article directories.
2. Press releases
Press releases are a great way to get publicity. They are most useful for branding and bringing general attention to your product or company, but sometimes, you can also sneak in a link in there. Some publishers are conservative and will hesitate to include your live link, but some may just go for it. Any way, if you are lucky and a good publisher picks up your press release, you will get great exposure.
As with other techniques, dont try too hard. Make 4-10 press releases a year for best effect.
3. Directory submissions
Submit your website to as many quality directories as you can. Dont look at PageRank as much as at directory quality. You want a lot of links from different well-established websites. If possible, try to find directories specific to your industry.
4. Forum posting
Forum posting is a controversial subject because of how much it is abused by spammers. Many forums decided to mark all links nofollow to discourage link spamming.
I suggest that you consider community connection and your reputation as the primary benefits of forum posting, and accept any links you get as a bonus. Many forums will still allow live links after you prove yourself as a valuable contributor.
5. Blog comments
Making comments in blogs is very similar to forum posting. You also need to avoid spamming, and concentrate on contributing to the community. If you worry about link building aspect, check if the links are nofollow. If you are a regular and valuable contributor, you may develop good relations with the blogger, and he may give you a direct link somewhere.
6. Guest blogging
An even more effective way to get exposure in someone elses blog is to offer a guest post for them. You need to prove youre worth listening to, you need to put some effort in writing the post, and you probably need to establish some relation with the blogger before you can get such a deal, but then its a win-win scenario. The blogger gets an interesting post with zero effort, and establishes his blog as an important industry hub. And you get great exposure to blog visitors and subscribers, and a top-quality contextual link to your website.
7. Link baiting
Link baiting is a technique where you create a unique and highly valuable resource on your website to attract incoming links. It is one of the hardest and the most time-consuming ways to get links, but when it works, the payback is unlimited. You can get thousands of quality links for one successful link bait, so its worth a try.
For one small example of a link bait, see my free online statistical significance calculator.
8. Social media
Social networks, social bookmarks and other Web 2.0 sites have millions of users, and provide great opportunities for web promotion and link building. Sometimes they may give you direct links, sometimes help you to promote your link bait and get other people link to you.
At the very least, add the bookmarking buttons to your pages, and consider creating a Twitter feed and a Facebook page for your website or blog.
9. Link exchange
Contrary to skeptics, a lot of people still report great success with link exchange. The key here is to get it right. Keep your link exchange program firmly focused on your target field, only accept high-quality websites, and never take part in automated link farms. This way, your link directory will add value for your visitors and the Internet as a whole. Then, you will receive targeted traffic from your link partners, and Google will value their back links, and also rank your directory pages.
10. Video marketing
A relatively new trend is the use of video marketing techniques for link building. YouTube is a very popular service, Google gives it great rankings, and some people like watching videos more than reading text. Videos are also a great link bait.
You can use this to add another component to your link building and promotion mix. Create your own YouTube channel, make some instructional or entertaining videos, and use them to give additional exposure to your website.
Try some of these link building methods if you dont use them yet. They are reported to work well. I used most of them myself, and Im looking forward to try the rest. The more different link building methods you use, the more stable your web presence will be, both in direct link traffic and search engine rankings.
Now learn a ton of Article Marketing Tips and Techniques
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