My initial search while creating blog have taught me that, there isn't any particular or fixed "Link Building" technique which dominates the top#1 blog or site. So pick out the one that you think
you are best at and stick with it. In the long run, it will be more
beneficial for you to master one method of back-linking tactics before moving
onto the next.Pick out a few of these link building techniques, find one you like the most, and become an expert at it. This list will still be here when you’re ready to master another one.
Ben’s Link Building Techniques
1. Article Marketing
Despite the Panda update, article marketing has and always will be an one of the effective link building techniques to use. The only reason people ever fail with article marketing (for SEO) is that they write for the article directories and search engines. If you write killer content for people, other webmasters will find it and publish it on their sites giving you much stronger backlinks. Here are a few of the top article directories:
www.ezinearticles.com – PR 6
www.articlecity.com – PR 6
www.articledashboard.com – PR 5
www.ideamarketers.com – PR 5
www.goarticles.com – PR 3
2. Blog Commenting
Blog commenting is another great way to build links to your site. You can get high PR back-links with blog commenting and also build your reputation in your niche at the same time. Here’s a free program for finding blog pages to comment on:
http://www.commentkahuna.com/
Another great resource for finding blog pages with more SEO value is www.dropmylink.com.
You can build a list of dofollow blogs to comment on and also network with others in your niche at the same time.
3. Forum Posting
Forum posting is on of those Link Building Techniques better suited to indexing links. If you add a link in your signature on a popular forum and make a post it will get the page you’re sig links to indexed VERY quickly. You can find a popular forum in just about any niche here: http://www.big-boards.com/
Another example is to visit the Warrior forum and ad a link in your signature there. This is a great place to learn as well as get a back-link.
4. Web 2.0 Blogs
Web 2.0 blogs can be a good place to post content linking back to your site. A lot of SEOs opt to use free blogs as hubs for riskier links. In other words, they will traffic mass amounts of links through their web 2.0 properties which then in turn link to their money site. This way they don’t risk getting sandboxed or doing a wild “Google Dance” because there aren’t tons of links being built directly to their main website. Some call this a link wheel. Here are the most popular platforms for free blogs:
www.wordpress.com
www.Blogger.com
www.weebly.com
www.squidoo.com
www.HubPages.com
5. Press Releases
Press releases can get your site a lot of exposure very quickly. Unlike article marketing, they need to be somewhat timely and based on a recent event. If you take the time to learn the ins and outs of press releases you can always be prepared to create an effective PR whenever something news worthy captures your attention. Here are some sites that will distribute your press release for free:
www.prlog.org – PR 6
www.Webnewswire.com – PR 5
www.clickpress.com – PR 5
www.1888pressrelease.com – PR 5
www.pressmethod.com – PR 4
www.prurgent.com – PR 4
www.freepressrelease.com – PR 3
6. Profile Backlinks
Rather than neglect to include profile links, I decided to add it but warn against them. Profile links are junk backlinks and not really worth the time. Some marketers still report success with them, but they are usually competing for very uncompetitive search terms. Also, if you’ve ever wondered why they became so popular, think about it from a service provider’s perspective. Unlike articles or even blog comments, no real content is needed. They are very easy to blast out or collect and sell as packets.
7. Website Directories
There’s all sorts of commotion in the SEO world about whether or not listing your website in directories is still effective. To take a moderate approach on the subject: listing in some is helpful, but avoid software or services that place your site in hundreds of directories. Here are a few of the most popular directories to list your site in:
www.dmoz.org- PR 8
www.dir.yahoo.com – PR 8
www.vlib.org – PR 8
www.botw.org – PR 7
www.zeal.com – PR 6
www.HotVsNot.com – PR 6
www.rdirectory.net – PR 5
www.directoryworld.net – PR 5
8. Blog Carnivals
A blog carnival is a collection of blog posts on a specific subject collected and combined from many different blogs. They can be a good way to get links and consistent traffic to your website. You can visit www.blogcarnival.com to get started with blog carnivals.
9. Video Marketing
Video marketing is more effective as a means of promotion and traffic than for back-links. Here are the most popular video sharing websites.
www.Youtube.com – PR 9
www.vimeo.com – PR 9
dailymotion.com – PR 7
www.metacafe.com – PR 7
The best way to garner further SEO benefits from video is to embed the video on your site as well and encourage other people to embed the video and link back. This way people will post your video and you will get links. Also, it’s a good time to mention that you should brand all of your videos so if someone uses it and doesn’t link back you still have obvious ownership and traffic potential from the video.
10. Document Directories
Document directories are another source that doesn’t produce very effective back-links but can be great for consistent traffic. You will only get “nofollow” links from the following directories, but people will read and download your docs leading them back to your site.
www.scribd.com – PR 8
www.docstoc.com – PR 8
www.slideshare.net – PR 8
www.docshare.com – PR 5
Those are the most popular directories, and some of your documents will even show up in the SERPs due to the authority these sites hold.
11. Software Directories
If you have any software to give away or even an article to turn into a pad file, you can take advantage of software directories and the backlinks they provide:
www.brothersoft.com – PR 8
www.download.com – PR 8
www.sourceforge.net – PR 8
www.softpedia.com – PR 7
www.winsite.com – PR 6
www.softwarevault.com – PR 5
12. Yahoo! Answers
You won’t get to make links right away with Yahoo Answers since level 1 participants don’t get hyperlinks. However, once you get to level 2 through answering questions, getting selected as the best answer, and just logging in, you will have opportunity to post links to your site. These are “nofollow” links, but I like to think they might pass some level of trust or SEO value since it takes a commitment to be able to post them in the first place. Once again, regardless of the SEO value, Yahoo Answers is a good traffic source for two reasons. It will send you internal traffic and it also ranks very well in the SERPs so you could easily end up with a best answer sitting on page one of the SERPs.
13. Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is a great way to get loads of targeted traffic and powerful one-way back-links. The links you get will be in a space only edited by the webmaster which makes a difference, and they will also be dofollow with anchor text. It’s best to study the current posts and community on a blog before posting. Make sure you take the time to craft a well-written, unique, and relevant piece of content to post that highlights your own talents as a blogger/writer.
Here are two sites that are very helpful for finding blogs in your niche to write for:
www.myblogguest.com (See the free blogging book)
www.bloggerlinkup.com
14. RSS/Blog Submission
RSS/blog submission is a decent source of back-links, but is limited in it’s use. Submitting your blog once to many of these directories is a good idea, but there is little point in resubmitting or spamming submissions. Here are some directories you can submit to:
www.bloglines.com – PR 9
www.plazoo.com – PR 6
www.icerocket.com – PR 6
www.blogcatalog.com – PR 6
www.bloghop.com – PR 6
www.portal.eatonweb.com – PR 6
www.blogged.com – PR 6
www.bloggapedia.com – PR 6
15. Google Knol
A lot of bloggers and marketers are entirely unaware of Google knol. Basically, you can use it like another web 2.0 site for posting content and linking back to your website:
http://knol.google.com/k – PR 7
16. Social Bookmarks
Social bookmarks won’t get your site ranking at the top of the SERPs alone, but they are a good way to notify the search engines of new content and get a quick splash of visitors to a webpage. You can use free tools like OnlyWire or Pixelpipe to automate your social bookmarking tasks.
17. Social Media Link Building Techniques
Google has stated that they are looking at social signals now when ranking webpages and has also introduced its own Google Plus button. Getting your content tweeted by someone with a lot of Twitter followers or a lot of people in general could actually increase the ranking of your webpage in the search engine results. Make sure to share links on Twitter and Facebook to get more visitors to your site and build backlinks. Using Social media buttons on your website is one of those must have link building techniques.
18. CSS Galleries
This lucky last of the link building techniques is rarely talked about, but for good reason. It’s a bit difficult to use since most of us just have premade template for our sites or use common themes for our WP blogs. If you have designed your site’s CSS or if it is custom, you should definitely consider adding your website to one of these sites for some more free back-links.
www.cssdrive.com – PR 9
www.cssbeauty.com – PR 6
www.unmatchedstyle.com – PR 6
www.webcreme.com – PR 6
One thing all of the above link building techniques have in common is that they can be done for free. This means you don’t have to nail it on your first try. Your first press release might flop, but you will gain new insight through the experience that you can apply to subsequent submissions and it hasn’t cost you anything. All it takes is a little initiative and some virtual elbow grease
