Spruce Up Your Link Building Strategies With These Tried And True Methods
While press release writing and article marketing are great methods to incorporate into your overall link building strategy, there are quite a few other tactics to consider to make sure your strategy is complete.
Directories
Large directories like DMOZ and Yahoo! Directories may not drive major traffic to your site, but they can help in making sure that your site is found by the search engines faster. Niche directories related to your field, or directories that rank for keywords that you want to rank for, should also be considered. You can use a free tool like SoloSEO to find directories that are relevant to your niche or keyword.
Press Releases
There’s the regular process of submitting press releases to paid distribution channels, then there’s the SEO process of distributing to paid distribution sites. Partnered with a pitching strategy, the paid distribution sites are great for getting media attention, but it’s the free distribution sites that will help you earn some backlinks. While a paid distribution channel, PRWeb also offers an SEO Package that will get you backlinks. If you regularly submit press releases to the paid channels, take a few minutes each month to also distribute them to the free press release distribution sites.
Article Syndication
Article marketing can consist of submitting articles to directories, social media sites, or even guest blogging or writing an exclusive feature article for another site. By submitting articles to a variety of sites, you expand your traffic base and receive backlinks from relevant sites. Sites like Ezine Articles and Hub Pages are great when you have unique content to distribute, but also consider re-writing one of your popular blog posts and submitting to a site like Unique Article Wizard. Your article will be distributed to over 500+ sites depending on the topic, and a large percentage of those sites will give you a one-way link back.
Profile Creation
It seems simple enough, but creating social media profiles can be a quick way to earn backlinks. Some of the social media sites will give you a dofollow backlink to your site, while others aren’t so generous, although the traffic you get might still be worth it. Check out sites like KnowEm for an extensive list of social media sites that allow profile creation.
Blog and Forum Commenting
Finding a blog that will follow your comment is a dime a dozen, but blog commenting is still a great way to receive links, especially if you are commenting on relevant sites. While a software blogger commenting on a food site may not make sense, commenting on blogs in your industry does. Forums also generally follow backlinks via the signature field and are a great way to earn additional links.
Reciprocal Links
While reciprocal links are frowned upon, they can still make up a small portion of your link building strategy – just don’t depend on it for your entire link building strategy. You can get reciprocal links from vendors and partners that you do business with, friends and family with web sites, directories and sites that offer a reciprocal exchange, or by emailing sites you’d like to appear on, asking them for a reciprocal link. Try a tool like Link Assistant to help find reciprocal linking partners and to monitor your link popularity over time.
Emailing Relevant Sites
If you think your web site might be relevant to another web sites target market, email the webmaster of the site explaining who you are, what your request is, and how it would benefit them. Don’t send blanket emails though – make sure to thoroughly research the website, find out their needs, and then pitch accordingly.
Link Bait
Similar to article marketing, link bait consists of writing an article or blog, but instead of submitting to a variety of sites, you’ll keep this on your own web site. With link bait, you’re looking to write an article that will spike the interest of your industry peers, social media sites, or verticals that you’re interested in entering. Link bait articles aren’t always planned – a blog post that took you 10 minutes to write may end up driving thousands of visitors to your web site, while a post that took you hours of research and time may not get a single view. Posts that tend to get the most links and views offer a different viewpoint to a common issue or problem, describe how to do something (a 101 posts of sorts), are top 10 (or 7, 6, 3…) posts or roundups of a popular topic, consist of breaking news or trends, or even just supply a picture, humor, or thought on something that is unique to your industry. You can also use a tool like Bookmarking Demon to bookmark your site or post on hundreds of sites automatically, creating both backlinks from the social media sites and targeted traffic if the post goes viral.
Additional Reading
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Thanks for posting, I very much liked reading your most recent post. I think you should post more often, you evidently have talent for blogging!
Thanks for the post. I actually think that link building is one of the hardest part of being a blogger.