I've been working on building links to my website. I don't know if I am going about this in the right way because when I look at yahoo site explorer I haven't been seeing much of an increase. I would love some advice on my method if any of you have the time to help me out. Basically I have been posting comments (they are getting approved) on blogs that relate to my field which is wedding photography. I have been creating ads on free classified sites like craigslist with a link to my website. I have been spending a lot of time on social bookmarking and online directories. I have submitted a few articles on wedding photography but haven't had much luck in getting them approved and posted. I've submitted my blog feed to every feed directory I can find. Am i missing something or going about link building the wrong way? Am I expected to see too much of a change in too little time? (I've been very agressive for the past two weeks). Should I throw in the towel and pay someone to do this for me? I am running out of ideas and places to place links to my website that are related to my field, whether it is wedding photography, weddings, or photography. Any advice or ideas would be great. Thanks for reading. Melanie
Craiglist has a nofollow rule so the search engines will never see those links. This is probably true of the blogs you've been commenting on as well. This is why people pay professionals to do this mundane work for them so they can focus on tasks that will make them money Sounds like you did good with the social networking. You also need to do reciprocal link exchange. Paying someone to do this will allwo them to do 3-way link exchanges for you as well. Submit your site to directories for more one way links back (this does not produce immediat results) We use lots of free article submission and press release sites that will get you links and traffic immediately. We also have access to premium submission services that get ranked immediately and produce one way links to the site as well as traffic. For cheap ($100-$200/month) you can have someone pulling out all the stops for you. If you want to do it youself you should Google the topic and spend as much time as you can soaking up the free info that is out there on how to do it properly.
Im not sure about yahoo, But i do know that google doesn't show you all the links to your site when you do a link:domain.com Also google only updates the back link searches every 6 months or so. but keep trying to create new backlinks over time you will see results.
Google's webmaster tools are much more accurate than doing a link:// search. It's at: google.com/webmasters/tools Melanie, if your articles are good, I run a fairly popular photography site at thelensflare dot com and am always looking for good content to add to the blog.
You seem to be doing all the right things. It doesn't happen overnight man, it takes a bit of time. How long have you been promoting? GD
Youre going about it the right way. I think Craiglist is nofollow so I think youre wasting your time there. About blog comments, are you entering relevant anchor text in the comments? I know some might get deleted, but imho, its the better to get some high pr links with anchor text having keywords you want to rank for, then say many with anchor text you dont. Also, remember, its the pr of the blog post that counts Not the Pr of the blog, so find high pr blog posts ( you can look at the link in my sig for help ) . Other than that, the techniques you are using are good. If you run out in your niche. Look at related niches. Love, Dating , Design maybe some related niches. Hope this helped.
I just stated using a service called Linkvana.com for link building. It is really cool. Unlimited posts per month for $149 mo
I write article for my cleint -- Weddin Planning Institute - and they rank really well for wedding related terms (i.e. wedding planning). Blog reviews and SELECT directory submissions also work.
Here is a second vote for Linkvana (link in signature). An important factor to remember in link building is anchor text. Make a list of keywords that you want to rank for on your photography website and use appropriate link text to link to your website. That being said, it does take time, but with the system I have been using, it is not uncommon to get on page one of Google for rather competitive keywords in just a few weeks. I would suggest against hiring an outside source to build links for you. I have had bad experiences with this. You can do it all yourself without too much effort and you will know what works in the long run. Just make sure the links you are making are dofollow. Contact other photographers and ask for links or do some link exchanges but don't do too many of these. Google does not like a lot of reciprocal links. You can try some article submissions some more but these links are getting less value lately. The best links are from high PR blogs and that's why I use the system in the link below.