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Before I begin, let's quickly go through some fundamentals.
- Link building is about building links FROM other websites to YOUR website, not from YOUR website to OTHER websites. You may laugh, but I have learned that many newbies may find this clarification useful.
- Next fundamental. In the SEO world, we often use the word backlink, which refers to links from OTHER websites TO your website. If you link to other websites, that's NOT a backlink to you.
- Last fundamental. Link building is not just about building backlinks. It's about building backlinks using a particular keyword phrase as the anchor text. For example, if you want to rank for 'cheap christmas present', the backlink that links to your webpage has to be using the anchor text 'cheap christmas present'.
Ways To Build Backlinks
1) Google's answer to link building
Officially, Google wants you to create great contents and/or services for your website, so that people can see the value in your website and link to you.
If you strictly follow this strategy, it may take you a long time before you can see any result. But there are ways to accelerate the process as I am about to show you in the list below...
- Create link bait. For example, write an article on 101 ways to do something or a long list of resources. This kind of article will usually arouse people's interest within your niche and thus link to that article. If you have a blog, put your "link bait" article in the Popular Article listing. The idea is to get more people to read that article and increase the chance of them linking to it.
- Provide a useful online application on your website, so that people will naturally link to you in their blogs or forums.
- Distribute free templates or scripts of any kind, such as Wordpress theme, website template, free script, free plugin etc, with a backlink to your website. When people use them, they will have to link to you.
2) Effective textbook ways to build backlinks
Just pick up any SEO ebook and you'll see these proven link
building strategies:
- Distribute articles to article directories, aka article marketing.
- Post comments in blogs.
- Post in forums.
- Create pages in Blogspot, Squidoo, Hubpages and other social networking sites.
- Adding stories to Digg, Propeller and other social bookmarking sites.
- Press release.
- Submit your link to non-reciprocal link directories.
- Exchange links with friends or other webmasters, through article exchange or blogroll exchange. Though Google doesn't like reciprocal links, reciprocal links still count. Just don't over do it. What Google frowns is EXCESSIVE reciprocal links.
3) Other seldom-mentioned but effective ways to build backlinks
- Create accounts in social networking sites and membership sites that show your profile in public (there are thousands of them out there, with high PR) and include backlinks in your profile. You can create as many accounts as you like. (This method is extremely spammy and your account may be banned. But when done in big numbers, it works.)
- Create your own linking network within your domains. This is applicable to those with lots of domains. You can divide your domains into groups and cross link them. Just make sure that they are not reciprocal links. (This method can be very powerful!)
- Create a simple software and submit it to hundreds of software directories, with a backlink to your website. Most software directories have high PR. These are great backlinks for you.
4) Buy links
Although Google says "do not buy links", buying links still work. If you want backlinks from high PR web pages (not websites), buying links seems to be the only option for most people, including those big companies.
But use it at your own risk. I doubt Google has an algorithm to catch you. In most cases, websites are caught because someone reports it to Google.
5) Participate in link building systems
- Link exchange networks
This is the earliest form of link building system, where webmasters create a link directory on their websites and link to one another. Such links are categorized under
reciprocal links (i.e. I link to you, you link to me).
This kind of link building system is infamous and Google hates it with a passion because it doesn't provide any value other than boosting search engine ranking.
There are rumours that Google ignores exchanged links (or reciprocal links). I doubt it. Google may discount reciprocal links, but it doesn't ignore such links.
Honestly, I am not a fan of link exchange and have never tried any. My advice is stay away from such networks because there are better and safer linking systems out there.
- Content syndication networks
In such a network, you will post articles to a network of blogs or websites within the system. You can view this as another form of article marketing, except that the submission process is much simplified since you are doing it through a centralized system. This is my favorite link building strategies because I can build unlimited backlinks to unlimited web pages.
Most content syndication networks post your article to a network of websites and that's the end of the story. Your article is usually buried deep in the website without
any backlink to it. Although every indexed backlink counts, if you are able to get lots of backlinks that have backlinks from other websites, such 'backlinked' backlinks will
significantly increase the value of your website.
The gurus call it 'promote your promotion'.
Although Google says "do not buy links", buying links still work. If you want backlinks from high PR web pages (not websites), buying links seems to be the only option for most people, including those big companies.
But use it at your own risk. I doubt Google has an algorithm to catch you. In most cases, websites are caught because someone reports it to Google.
5) Participate in link building systems
- Link exchange networks
This is the earliest form of link building system, where webmasters create a link directory on their websites and link to one another. Such links are categorized under
reciprocal links (i.e. I link to you, you link to me).
This kind of link building system is infamous and Google hates it with a passion because it doesn't provide any value other than boosting search engine ranking.
There are rumours that Google ignores exchanged links (or reciprocal links). I doubt it. Google may discount reciprocal links, but it doesn't ignore such links.
Honestly, I am not a fan of link exchange and have never tried any. My advice is stay away from such networks because there are better and safer linking systems out there.
- Content syndication networks
In such a network, you will post articles to a network of blogs or websites within the system. You can view this as another form of article marketing, except that the submission process is much simplified since you are doing it through a centralized system. This is my favorite link building strategies because I can build unlimited backlinks to unlimited web pages.
Most content syndication networks post your article to a network of websites and that's the end of the story. Your article is usually buried deep in the website without
any backlink to it. Although every indexed backlink counts, if you are able to get lots of backlinks that have backlinks from other websites, such 'backlinked' backlinks will
significantly increase the value of your website.
The gurus call it 'promote your promotion'.
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