I've been doing SEO for a couple of years now and am by no means an expert. But, I have gained a fair amount of experience and read hundreds of posts here. There is a lot to learn here, but I think a fair amount of people look for too many shortcuts and it sometimes gets counter productive. Link building is a HUGE part of SEO. I have tried every possible method to build links and I have learned that a targeted and meaningful link building campaign works a lot better than just trying to build hundreds of links and hoping that something works. I'd like to list out a few things that I have learned. Please feel free to add to this or to critique it, as I am always looking to learn new things. 1) Build quality links: I have tried services that build hundreds of links within hours. For me, that just doesn't do it. Instead, I focus on building 5 quality links per week. I do this by finding blogs that are closely related to my niche but don't directly compete with it. I link to them from my sites and send a polite email asking the web master to link back. Initially, 2 out of every 10 emails I sent got a positive response. Now, i'm up to about 3 out of 10. 2) Article marketing: In the past, I posted spun articles to 100+ article directories. Again, my success rate wasn't good and it took a lot of time. Now, I write one good article per day, 3 days per week. One article goes on ezinearticles, where I have an average of 20% CTR, one goes on Hubpages where I have a 7% CTR and one goes on squidoo, where I have a 5-7% CTR. This gives me quality backlinks too, as I have written enough to be a trusted writer on Hubpages and Squidoo. 3) Networking: I am active on Hubpages and Squidoo. I read and rate other peoples articles, so it helps my profile too. It also gives me ideas for developing my own niche and provides me with a list of other people blogs. I write to them for link exchanges. 4) Forums: For each niche, I am a member of 3 forums. I post 3-4 times per week in each. This takes about an hour per day. I have my link in my signature. 5) Blogs: Just like forums, I go to blogs with DOFOLLOW links and post 3-4 times per week. As a result, i am known there and respected, but I am not spamming either. Where possible, I use anchor text for my links. 6) Anchor text: I have a huge list of keywords for my anchor text. For each site, I focus on 3 keywords per month and all my posts have one of those keywords as anchor texts for that full month. 7) Social bookmarking: While the good ones don't have a DOFOLLOW link, I post relevant articles to these. If I don't have anything relevant, I don't post. This brings me some decent traffic and a good list of followers. 8) Twitter: Like the previous point, this doesn't help with backlinks but I still get traffic from here. I post about 15 tweets per day and 5 of them have a link to my sites. I use Twellow to get followers and actually went from 50 to 450 followers within a week. 9) Link to us: I offer visitors a chance to link to my site. I have had limited success with this, but it takes a few minutes to set up and then there is no work from my side. TIME: I spend between 5-8 hours per week in link building. Having a full time job, I don't get much more for my website projects. So I try to be as efficient as possible. This is where picking a few sites and building a reputation in them has helped me. I get a higher conversion rate. I do one hour per day on week days and spend a little more time on weekends. Every month, I analyze my traffic and if a site is not working well for me, i replace it with another. So that is an additional 2 hours per month for analysis and research. GOAL: My goal is to get 5 good back links per week. If I get more, that is fine, but I am for a minimum of 5. By good back links, I mean links from relevant sites and sites that have a PR3 or higher. Many forums and blogs have a PR4-5, so that is good. TRAFFIC: My goal is to increase traffic by 10% each month. With persistent link building, i get direct traffic plus my page rankings increase on search engines, so this is realistic. Lessons I have learned: 1) Be persistent 2) Set attainable goals 3) Plan, but make sure to execute my plans 4) Prepare for failure: Everything I do doesn't go according to plan. But I learn from it and make sure not to repeat my mistakes. 5) Look for new opportunities: DP has great resources and I am always willing to try them. I subscribe to interesting posts and see how people review them. If there is a good tool or idea that people recommend, I try it. I am not averse to mass link submissions, but I still stick to my methods above. I give myself 2 hours per month to try out new stuff. If it works, I incorporate it into my routine, or else I move on. 6) Don't get emotional: While I like my methods, and have had decent success with them, I am not emotionally invested in them. If I find an idea that works better, i use it and don't mind dropping something that I am already doing. Because of time constraints, I can't spend more than 8 hours per week doing link building, so I pick the best possible methods and drop the weakest link. I am always open to new ideas and would love to know your thoughts on how you do effective link building.
I think the key point you have missed is in the first point you make. You mention building quality links, then talk about RECIPROCAL linkbuilding (I link to you, if you link to me). Google has downrated the benefits of reciprocal linking, and may even penalize for what they describe as "excessive" reciprocal linking. The links you need to build are non-reciprocal inbound links (one way backlinks), ie they link to you, you do not link back. This is not mentioned in your otherwise excellent post, and is something everyone should be focussing on.
Hmm.. You're first time experiences. I experienced it too. Setting attainable GOALS based on the limited time a human have. From 3rd month - 4th month, i have change my attitude fully and do my web projects as if its a corporation.
Good point. I have recently reduced reciprocal links. I have tried 3 way link building through JV partners where I link to Partner A, ask partner A to link to partner B and ask partner b to link to me. Since both partners are getting something and I am doing all the ground work, it has been more successful.
I was wondering about the same thing. How can a single person work like a corporation without the use of those expensive automated softwares which I have never supported. Please clarify, sir.
Good post.. I like forum posting and blog commenting as we i will also learn some new things apart from my link building .. BTW the one thing that concerns me is that i cannot use keywords as anchor text during blog commenting coz many time even though my comment is related to the point and good , due to the presence of keyword in my anchor text my comment is not approved
Here is one thing you can do. Email the blogger and ask them to put a link to your site. In exchange, link to their blog but NOT directly from your site. Either use another site of equal or higher PR or ask someone you know to do so for you. We've talked about it in this thread, 3 way link building.
Hi, adithya I do have the same experiences with you! For topic-relative, you would like to comment on relative blogs, but this would look as spam! Really puzzled!
Here is how I do blog posting. I get into the topic, so it's not just a link, it is a meaningful post. I add a link, but NEVER ask people to click on it unless it has something to add. That is why I pick few blogs and post there often. My attitude is to contribute to the topic, not add a new back link. If you have quality posts, you will get traffic. Many people go to blogs with the attitude of spamming and that hurts them.