Is it just me, or am I the only one here that thinks paying for links is DUMB??? There are plenty of free links out there, you just have to know where to look... You can find free links on add url sites, blogs, forums, government, edu, etc... and these are quality enough to bring traffic and positive SEO to your site! Look I paid for links myself, and now I feel dumb for doing it.. I paid for them before I made my statistical search engine lol.. I was trying to get eautocad.com going and I was new to the internet game and didn't understand how it worked. I bought a few, spent about $400, and still lacked traffic. WTF??? The right way to do this is by focusing your efforts on your targeted audience through higher traffic, quality, popular websites with higher amounts of backlinks. The more backlinks the better, because that signifies the "reach" of each website. So save some money, and use FREE link building properly and you will see better results than losing money and getting garbage links that half the time aren't even targeted or placed on high ranking websites. Peace!
Shame you have to be more aggressive in more competitive markets Are you going to rank for "online poker" using free methods?
It all depends on where you buy the links from. For example, the Yahoo Directory link that I have is by far the best $300 that I have ever spent...not for the traffic that I recieve, but for the PR boost. So it all depends on what you are looking for.
I would only spend advertising on google or yahoo mainstream advertising services, if you must spend something. I still don't see the purpose in it when you can use organic methods of natural marketing in combination with quality content and time. If the website is really that good, time will be the key. Use any form of encouragement to help spread the word about your site. Free is usually a good way. By creating chatter and spreading your message by mouth through networks of targeted clients, you will see a much quicker and profitable reaction to your efforts. For example; Client a likes fish, so he visits fish.com Client a likes the site, so he recommends it to his friends. Typically, a persons group of friends or reach of their network capabilities of immediate degrees (first 6 only) will be closely associated if not exactly identical to the needs, likes, dislikes of client A. So do you see how this works? This is why there is no reason to pay for advertising. Regardless of content, etc, there is bound to be at least a few of each 100 visitors that REALLY like your content. They have friends, and they'll talk, especially if they can bennefit from telling their friends about it. Second example: Client a likes the fish site so much, and has found something useful that he knows his friends will bennefit from as he already has. He wants to be the bringer of good news, fortune, etc by being a good person and sharing this wonderful news that will actually help his friends out. If you can connect your website to this, this is the ultimate goal to achieve as it will accelerate the spreading process nominally. That is why free advertising is much better than paid. Paid typically means the user had to click an advertisement or something to access the site rather than finding out about it from a friend. You will not experience as many levels or degrees of market penetration, resulting in less profit from reduced traffic and increased costs.
I would examine the site relevancy and traffic data first before I pay for the fee. Most of the time, free does not mean good. You need relevant traffic and link back to help to boost your site.
it's really a waste of time buying links when you can have it for free by your own effort.surely you can rank even without spending money.
100% agree. building free links by yourself in a competitive niche might not be enough to get your site ranked high. besides, not everyone has enough time on their hands to spend countless number of hours in link building.
That's true, but for those that do... Free is the way to go. If you do it enough, you can make enough money from building / selling websites to make it a full time job!
To generate enough links manually you have to spend much time...it is better to spend some cash and dedicate yourself to create other pages...what is dumb is to do sth you can pay for!!!!!
LOL you can always pay money, but then you have decreased profit margins... and possibility of non-relevant link building!
I don't buy links for my personal sites and I've never needed to in order to get good rankings. I have bought links for clients though sometimes because forums like this keep the "All I have to do is get thousands of links and I'll be rich" myth alive. There's always people out there with more money then common sense. If people have money to spend then let them spend it. As someone said, try ranking for "online poker" for free without paying though. I could add a lot of other keywords that you literally cannot rank for without paying or using some blackhat on. Check out some results for "viagra" and tell me none of those people paid for them.
I've never bought a link and have the #1 term in a fairly competitive market. However, it was a lot of work to get there. To me it's just a matter of whether you'd rather spend time or money...or both. Most people don't need to buy links or a lot of advertising to get traffic to their site. You have to be in an extremely competitive niche before it's required to spend a lot of money. Bottom line, hard work can get you there...but it's hard work.
The only reason people would pay for links is if they don't have the time to get all the links themselves
I acknowledge that buying links is dumb - except it may be a necessary evil. I rank ok on non competitive terms but have simply hit the wall when I get to more competitive terms. Those doing well on those terms have agressive advertising programs and affiliate programs, which is a form of advertising, isn't it? I pay 15% for every sale my affiliates send me. One of my competitors gained 50, 000 links in three months and they did not do it without advertising. They are advertising on high pr sites solely. I am not saying it can't be done without advertising but it will not be as easy and I do have to have 10-15 minutes per day to run my operation as well.
i agree with the threadstarter for SOME niches and specific long tail searches, but for competitive markets with little product differentiation, it is not valid advice
It's really a cash-time trade off. If you've got the time, sure, you can linkbuild naturally and wait 6 years to hit the front-page for "online poker" 100% el naturale. Most people don't want to wait that long, and would rather at least some shorter term gains - so they buy links. I agree though, a lot of people here buying links here are just wasting their money.
I spend $1000+ in backlinks.. and I'm very happy with the results. I don't want to stay 8 hours per day and reach poor results.