Season celebrations officially just finished as I got back from the “supposedly last” Christmas party. I can finally get back to full-time blogging, that’s until New Years comes around in a few days time!
Anyways, as per usual I was over at DigitalPoint this morning scrubbing the forums trying to help anyone I can or just join in on general discussions — when I noticed the staggering amount of questions asked about “Link Building.” I just wanted to cover this topic, simply because its a significant part of SEO and cannot by neglected!
What is Link Building? Well, in a nut shell — Link building is the process of creating long-term inbound links to your website. It can take many years and undoubtedly will be your number one SEO technique to improve your PageRank and SERP.
Okay, enough of the crap. Let’s get down to the basic fundamentals that I never forget to utilize which guarantees good inbound links over time and ideal for higher SERPs;
~ Comment Posting — Commenting on Do-Follow blogs on similar niches can be a great way to build strong back links and a steady follow of traffic. Many blogs these days reward top commentators with various gifts and offers, so take the time to read the author’s content and respect it by commenting with a suitable reply.
~ Forum Posting/Signatures — Participate in forums that relate to your niche and take part in discussions. This can bring in a lot of targeted visitors because most members will have a common interest.
~ Article Submission - Submit your articles to programs such as eZine and GoArticles for authoritative back links and targeted visitors over time. Don’t expect a million page views overnight from Article Submission, but the key here is that the articles you submit will be there forever (as long as you follow the rules), a permanent link is the best link.
~ Submit a Press Release - I’ve discussed this before and it’s a great way to promote your product/service. Follow the link and the benefits await your attendance.
~ Directory Submissions — This technique can be titled as the “slowest yet most effective method of link building”. It can provide you with a juicy back links from authoritative directories but can take ages to get accepted into, especially DMOZ. You can always pay most of the sites and get submitted quickly but if you don’t have the overflowing pot of cash, don’t get downhearted because it still works as good.
Here’s a great list of popular directory submission sites;
http://www.dmoz.org
http://www.lii.org/pub/htdocs/home.htm
http://www.femina.com
http://www.gogreece.com
http://www.sacentral.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfmhttp://www.worldhot.com/
http://www.123india.com/
http://www.elib.org/
http://www.ezilon.com/
http://www.epooch.com/
http://www.christiansunite.com/
http://www.toronto1.biz/http://www.canadianeh.com
http://www.aardvark.co.za
http://www.nzs.com/http://www.aigam.com
~ Guest Post — This can be feasible for both parties because your host gets free unique content, and in return you get a juicy ONE-WAY back link, which is always a bonus. Take the time to write unique content for your host and treat it as it were your own blog.
~ Social Bookmarking - Social Networks like Digg and del.icio.us can give you a lot of exposure in a very short time. I’ll be covering how to make the most out of such networks sometime in the future.
~ Contact Webmasters for Link Exchange — Get to know your fellow webmasters/bloggers in your niche (AKA Competitors) as you can help one-another and rise to the top together,
~ You can also check out the Official Google SEO Guide for better insights to conquer the Google SERPs.
That’s about it! I’ve been following those techniques for nearly two years now and it’s worked out pretty well!
29 Discussions
The simplest way of getting some one way links in the beginning are from web directories. The key is submitting to the web directories when they are very new and offer free submissions. Some of these web directories will be become paid. So soon your site will be listed in paid directories for free.
I find signature links to be the most effective out of all the things listed here. I usually post at Digitalpoint a lot. I think DP is dofollow?
Kalyan, your idea sounds pretty good but I haven’t tried that technique before. It make sense though, but the only thing I would have an issue would be that from when it started to when it goes to a “paid service” it could easily take years.. but still since it’s a freebie won’t hurt anyone.
Alex, TeenProBlogger has its share of traffic from DigitalPoint and quite a fair bit. I think it’s all about targeted traffic. Since my blog here is about SEO and Blogging – I can find interested members from DP. However when I had my gaming blog posted over at DP most of the visitors from DP had a very high bounce rate and almost no return value.
If you can find an active forum for your niche, it’s a goldmine waiting for your site!
Regards
TeenProBlogger
About social bookmark, I just focus to submit my articles to digg, stumbleupon, care2.com, propeller. And also, To get high serp rank fastly, I usually post articles using niche keywords with low competitors, below 10.000 competitors.
Thanks for sharing.
Hi, Some directories turn paid in just a few hours. They open free submissions only for a few hours and after that they will become paid. You can find such announcements at digital point forum. And some directories though do not make such announcements too become paid in a few days while some become paid after getting some page rank. You cant say which directories will become paid and when but some directories will do become paid.
Pretty much the well known methods. I am not a big fan of link exchanges
You really don’t think these are good directories for submissions.. do you?
dmoz.org
lii.org/pub/htdocs/home.htm (did you open the directory at all?)
femina.com (directory?)
When was the last time ezilon accepted a submission? I have remove that from my directory list !!
Came here from DP, have subscribed, so waiting for more of your useful post.
Hmm @ Kalyan – I’ve never witnessed such a thing ever happening, but sounds pretty feasible. Might go for some “about-to-be-paid” directory hunting later tonight! Thanks for the heads up.
@Jeet – They all work for me, I’ve just listed directories that have been around for some time and with good healthy PageRanks.
~DMOZ – Takes time, but submitting only takes a few seconds. So, no harm right?
~http://www.lii.org/pub/htdocs/home.htm – Has a PR of 8 and is the “Librarians Index”
~Femina – I do have female subscribers too, so nothing wrong with that.
Lastly, Thank you everyone for the positive comments and subscribing! Had a sudden boost of RSS Subscribers after this post was posted!
Regards
TeenProBlogger
I apprecieted the directories you have published
Thanks!
Nice post, however, I have to disagree with Directory Links.
Directory Links are now a horrible way for links. Most directories require either reciprocals or cost money. If you do what they ask, you do get a link, but it gets buried ten pages deep, where search engines visit once a month, and the PR is 0.
Humans rarely search Directories at all, why would they? So directories are horrible places to advertise as well.
This is all very informative, thanks for posting the link to this.
Writing articles to promote your business services has always been a popular marketing tactic, and Link building is not about search engine optimisation, it is not about boosting your Google PageRank, it is not about publishing a link directory and it is not about swapping links with as many other websites as possible. Link Building is key to any comprehensive Web site promotion strategy,
thanks for providing those good sites
I still can’t beleive your 16 years old!
W**?! lol -It’s just that I’ve learned more from your blog in these past week more than I’ve learned over the last six months – when I started blogging.
I really appreciate what your doing and trust me when I say this; you have an excellent future in this!
Anyways, from the list – I think Guest Posts works best for me. You make new friends with other webmasters, test your writing skills, expose your site to readers and get comments (if a popular site) all in one go!
Keep up the good work
SERPGenius
@SERPGenius
he is writing great articles to be just 16 yo.. that;s amazing! I have learned many things from here also… the only thing i don’t do is guest post unlike yours lol.. comment posting and directory submission is the best for me 
We are in the same status lol
ya these are really very good ways to get high traffic…
in this way you can get very high traffic…
thanks for guide
It is really good article for increaseing traffic. I had read many articles on “how to increase traffic” but they are not useful.
Thank you…
I really heavily on commenting alone to bring my blog to where it is now and yes, commenting alone and nothing else. I use article marketing mainly for my niche sites though.
Yan
Very nice article.
Would appreciate if you could list some good press release submission sites as well.
A informaive article about the link building. These will follow in the seo steps as per website required.
This is a lot of nice information. In terms of articles, I find that a strategy that works for me is to write one article on ezine, squidoo, hubpages, and a wordpress blog which takes a couple of hours if done well. Then I inter-link them and all of the webpages become stronger. Finally, they are all linked to my original blog post which now has several sources of traffic as well as one way back links.
Richard’s last blog post..Building Links With Article Directories
I strongly recommend that you turn the No Follow off in your comment section.
I’ll watch Google Webmaster Tools, and if the links don’t show up after a couple of weeks — I won’t go back to that blog again.
Another suggestion: you should have a Top Commentator widget installed.
Do Follow and Top Commentator will ensure that you have a successful blog with lots of readers!
You have a great blog here and it is Nice to read some well written posts that have some relevancy…keep up the good work
Thanks for the tips these are some great ideas.
shaunjudy ´s last blog ..Link Love Tuesday 09-01-09
I’ll definitely use some of these resources, starting today. I’m planning to submit to some of the directories listed above.. Some are well known, some are new, but certainly will add some value and link juice to my website..
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Social media marketing and web 2.0 is having more and more impact on internet marketing but the traditional methods should not be neglected as well. Link exchanges with quality and related websites are also very beneficial for the traffic alone. Thanks for the tips and resources.
Thanks for providing the best link building techniques.
Some good points here. I agree with your comments relating to forum signatures. I ran an experiment by adding anchor text to an ‘unrelated’ forum where I had about 500 posts. Within one week my rankings for that particular keyword shot up in the SERPS. Of course to get any kind of real boost you’ll need to leave the link in tact within your signature but as Google crawls and indexes all these posts that contain your sig it will add weight to your page in terms of ranking.
I have registered my url on dmoz for almost a year now and yet i still could find my url on DMOZ directory….very dissapointed.
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There is no free lunch and the more work you put in the more benefits you can expect. However, my advice is don’t bother if you don’t write good content. It’s simply not worth the effort as the returns will not match the hard work needed to promote the site.
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