How many links do you guys submit to web directories, social bookmarking, blog comments etc...etc...? Wondering how many you would need to submit in order to actually see a good difference in your website traffic? I've submitted my site to around 150 web directories and 30 social bookmarking sites and commented on serveral blogs, but I cant say my traffic is great at the moment. Also how long do you spend on link building in a day/week? Thanks. Andy
It's not just the number of backlinks. It depends on their quality, anchor text, etc. Research a bit and focus on 5 keywords and try to improve your SERP for them.
Zexy has it right. Good quality backlinks are a big help. So are directory submissions, blog comments, social bookmarking, etc. Did you do some keyword research as Zexy noted? If not, here's a free windows keyword research tool. Good luck!
Thanks for the keyword tool. Just downloaded it and am playing with it now. How should I best use this data? Target the highest search number or mid range? I am quite prepared to put in whatever work is needed to get the backlinks and hence good traffic but am lacking in a little experience in this! I'm not after a "quick fix" or "magic formula" as I know this doesnt exist. Its all hard work!! Thanks again all!
Also remember that not all backlinks go "live" at the same time. This is really a long-term game, and if you just keep at it you will see traffic begin to increase. I split my time between building links and writing content to keep it even. Some directories wont approve your links for months, so you wont see any benefits from them for quite some time.
I never really found directories to be all that helpful to boosting my PR. Most of them are junked up directories anyway. It is a good starting point, but now focus your time on getting your link in published Articles related to your site. And, like said before, blogs are very useful, too.
It does take time indeed. Patience is the key. I'd say you need as many links comparable to your competition. Most sites on the 1st pages have anywhere from thousands to hundreds of thousands of links. Hard work pays off too!
I've been working on it for months now (obviously incorrectly) and it is nearly impossible for me to get links that google recognizes. I've got 4 which is absurd considering the amount of effort I've put in. The site I'm talking about has been going for about 4 months now. So I'm getting around 1 a month.
For a more accurate External Link count from Google, sign up for Google Webmaster Tools (GWT)...its free! In my case, google shows only 86 links when you do a typical "Links: www.xxx.com" search for my site. GWT shows 2,182 External Links, and will give you a pdf file of all of them!
Thanks DJMC, I have been using gwt for a long time but never checked the external links. I have 650 so far. I'll get some sleep tonight for a change.
It's not just about finding the keywords, its about analyzing your competition. If you target "dog training", you are going to have a huge amount of competition, and move mountains to rank well. But if you target "dog training in chicago" your competition drops significantly. The key is finding keywords that: 1) Have a decent amount of traffic 2) Have a good potential in converting into a sale 3) Have a low amount of competition, the lower the better! Feel free to check out my free keyword tool (see signature). It pulls data from wordtracker but then also checks the competition in google, yahoo, and msn. I also made some videos that explain how to find the best keywords. Matt
Exactly. I've found that it takes about four to six months before my new sites rank well for anything but very long tail keywords. Just continue to build some links every day. I try to spend about 85% of my time on content and 15% on link building.
Try to vary your link sources. All of your links coming from one or two different sites doesn't seem to help much. A few deep links every now and then will help to boost inner page ranking also.
to give you some numbers; 150 dir subs is nothing ... order 1.500, we have a package of 250 homepage +5x50 deeplinks, that are 500 subs per month, that we do for 2-3-4 months for most of our clients and they do see the results from that of course it will take more then just dir subs, but it's a good way to get started also, most directories take about 2-3-4 month before they actually review your site, so you get a steady flow of new links for many months don't expect too much of it; it does work, don't worry, but it's just 1 of the 10 ways to get links make an order for dir subs and move on ...
Hey that's a great tip about the Google Webmaster Tools, DJMC.. I'd been using the service for a while but for whatever reason never managed to check my backlinks.. now that I have I noticed one pointing to a no-longer-there page! Corrected that, thanks to your tip!