All you need to know about Link Building

A couple of years back a link building campaign consisting of forum posting, blog commenting, article marketing, link exchanges and buying a few links would have done the trick, but a lot has changed since then. Link exchange is dead, article directories have been hit by Google Panda, and buying links is more dangerous than ever before. So it leaves us wondering what one should do to build links? I have written this post to cover some of the ways which you can use to build quality links for your site. Most of the advice I will be giving throughout this post is most likely available from a large number of sources but I felt it would be great to bring everything together under one simple post.

Is your site good enough to get a link?
This is a question which I think everyone should ask themselves before trying anything on link building, because if your site is not worthy enough then why should someone link to you? Remember a useful site always gets a link, so if it is not then first make it one.

Link Placement
In recent times Google has started giving value to link placement, it has been observed that links within the content gets more value and links from sidebar and footer the least.

Nofollow & Dofollow
After many of the search engines started to ignore the links containing the no-follow attribute a lot people go out and source dofollow links, but in doing this they do more harm to their link profile. Every website should have a good balance of dofollow and nofollow links both so that your link profile appears to be natural.

Authority Links
I always believe most of the search engines place a great value on the links coming from established and authority sites. Links from sites that are considered as an authority within your niche are the ideal links to have.

Anchor Text and Internal Pages
The most common mistake that a lot of people commit while link building is that they focus most of their time in building links to their homepage and that too with the same acnhor text. Your link profile to look natural must contain links to internal pages with varying anchor text.

Directory Submissions
Directory submission is an important task in any link building campaign. These links make up the numbers when it comes to authority links. Submit to the right directories and they will improve your overall domain trust. A lot of people waste their time in submitting to thousands of free directories when hardly any of them matters much.

Blog Commenting and Forum Posting
Blog commenting and forum posting for links is seen as spam and has been devalued due to many people taking advantage of unprotected blogs and forums. If blog and forum commenting is part of your link building campaign then put some effort in it. Instead of spamming forums and Blogs with “Thanks”, “Nice Post” and other unrelated stuff provide something useful in your comments and posts so that you contribute something to them.

Blog commenting and forum posting should be viewed as more of a reputation building rather than link building. This type of link building is best for increasing the number of nofollow links to your website as most of the popular blogs and forums use a nofollow.

Guest Blogging
After the rise of a lot of Guest Blogging communities like My Blog Guest, it can be viewed as one of the most natural ways to get a link. The idea is to look for related blogs accepting guest posts and offer them your informative posts in return of a link from that post. A well written and informative blog post featured on a popular blog can get you loads of traffic and links.

Link Bait
Link bait is any content or feature, within a website, created specifically to gain attention or generate links to the website. Link bait could be anything from an article to an event or a special feature that can gain people’s attention. A Link Bait can be created either by writing about some topic that has been hardly written on within your niche or offering some useful stuff like free services or coupons to your users or even writing about something controversial.

Conclusion
Although link building is a tough task in itself but a properly planned link building campaign and tracking the progress will make the job easier with time.

Just remember link building is an ongoing process and every link building campaign is different from others.

How to start Link Building?

1. Directory Submission

Many people feel that links from directories don’t carry enough of weight these days as they used to a few years back. That’s true, but not with all of them. There are too many directories on the internet now and most of them are just a waste of time and money because they don’t maintain their quality. So you have to be very picky investing either your time or money in these directories.

There are thousands of free directories on the Internet but that doesn’t mean you need to submit to all of them, because most of them maintain a very low qaulity so its a complete waste of time even if they are free.

Even if a directory is a paid one that does not guarantee the quality because most of them are too busy making money that they would accept any site into their database.

You can submit your site to Dmoz, STPT, Yahoo and Business (very expensive, submit if you can afford!), UncoverTheNet, BOTW, JoeAnt, Gimpsy, GoGuides, Skaffe.

2. Blog Commenting and Forum Posting

Blog Commenting and Forum Posting used to be very useful in generating links sometime ago. The best thing about blog commenting and forum posting is that you provide your useful comments and information and you get a link in exchange from those sites. They were one of the most simple ways of generating links thats why they have been exploited so much by the spammers that they have lost their value.

“Links from Blog comments and Forum signautures don’t have value”, true fact! But that does not mean that they are useless, because every link counts but yes they are not the most ideal links you can have.

I always feel you need to interact with people within your niche via popular blogs and forums specially if you have just started your business, because that way you not only get to learn things but you also have an option of being known as an authority in your niche. If you share your views, knowledge and experience with others people will treat you as an authority.

So if your sole purpose of posting and commenting is to get links then yes they don’t add much of a value. But as I said esatablish yourself as an authority.

3. Article Marketing

Article marketing used to be one of the best ways to generate high quality one-way links. A properly writen and marketed article not only gives hundreds of backlinks but also tons of traffic. But there has been a lot of discussion over the importance of article marketing after the Google’s Panda update.

In article marketing whatever articles you are going to write and publish on the article hubs are going to be all over the internet. So when you write an article make sure you first add it to your site and let Google index it first so that Google would you are the original author of the article. After it gets indexed submit the article to popular article hubs with a link back to the original article.

A well written article can provide you loads of quality backlinks and tons of traffic.

4. Link Exchanges

Link exchanging is dead as many people think but it can be benificial it all depends on how you utilize always exchange a link to provide your visitors a resource instead of just getting a link. Be very specific about the niche you are exchanging links with exchange links with only related sites. Limit the exchange to only 20-30 links and make sure that the site you are exchaging the links also does that that.

Don’t link to just any one for the sake of a link. Make sure that these sites you are exchanging links with provide useful content and that they follow Google’s guidelines.

Remember every link counts so do they. So you will have to be very specific and picky while looking for potential link partners.

Google Plus is here – why is it better than Facebook?

Google has just launched a new service named Google Plus (Google +). When it first started it appeared to be yet another social network but it proved out to be more than a social network.

Google Circles - It allow you to filter content by circles. Think of these circles as a ring or circle where one can simply tune into the acts and people for which they have an interest. The best part is that the user controls who is in or out of the circles.

By default, Google+ has five Circles – Acquaintances, Family, Following, Friends and Work. You can add the same person to more than one circles.

Sparks - Sparks make it easy for people to find interesting information to share with their circles. Sparks also filters information, providing you relevant content about your interests. An example may be an organization or a topic using sparks to find new information on Google Plus and then starting a conversation about how that news affects you.

Hangouts - With hangouts you can hangout with friends on video chat, the best part is that you can have a video chat with a group of friends. You can hangout with upto 10 people at once. Google plus lets you tell specific people about the hangout and invites them to hangout on a particular day.

Huddles - Huddles is the group chat option which shows up as a separate app on your device. Using huddle you can ask people to join group chat and can invite them by finding them via name or email. The best part is that whether you are a creator or just a participant you can always add more people to Huddle. Every Huddle is like a conversation session and it stays there until you leave the conversation. Do note that simply closing the Huddles app doesn’t remove you from conversations. In Huddles, you can see the list of participants on top.

Conclusion - Google Plus thus proves out to be a real plus than Facebook, with time we will have to see how it proves out to be when more and more people get to use it. For now Google plus is just under a test and you can join only if you get invited by someone. So if you get an invitation go for it and let us know your reviews.

Link Exchange – Is it still worth it?

In the earlier days Link Exchanges were considered to be one of the easiest and effective way of link building. Site owners simply used to list the links of the related sites on their site and asked them to do the same. At that time even this type of links were awarded a high value by the search engines. But we have come a long way forward from those times and search engines have become a lot smarter and they are now looking for natural links.

So is link exchanging dead?

Well not really, if effectively done it still can be a good way to get some good quality links to your site. The idea should be to limit these link exchanges and as much relevant as it can be to your niche. Here are few tips for exchanging links.

1. Limit the link exchanges
Make sure that you limit the exchanges to a certain number like 20-30 for a site. Do not go on making a whole directory out of it. Also look to get links from sites who do the same.

2.Relevancy is very important
Do not exchange links with unrelated or spam sites as it can get you penalized. Search for your keywords in the search engines and request them to exchange links with you.

3.Quality of the sites you link to
The sites you link to affects your reputation, so make sure who you link to. Don’t just link to a site just for a back link the quality of the site you link to is equally important.

Conclusion – Link exchanges can still be a side weapon in your link building arsenal as far as you follow relevancy and quality. But mainly focus on other ways for link building like article marketing, directory submission, forum posting, blog commenting,  social networking are just a few examples.

5 tips for getting listed in Dmoz

Getting listed in Dmoz (http://www.dmoz.org) has always been a major concern for those webmasters who know what difference a Dmoz listing can make to their site’s search engine positioning. As Dmoz is a free volunteered directory, it requires your site to be the best in your industry, if it is not then make sure to make it.

But many people are not aware of the things that are responsible for getting a listing in Dmoz, there are some dos and don’ts that make your site into Dmoz but what are they? what things you need to follow? and what things are to be avoided? following are few tips which would help you out.

1. Submit your site to a proper category.
Most of the sites submitted to Dmoz are rejected due to having submitted to improper or wrong categories, so you must find out the most relevant category for your site before submitting it to Dmoz. If you are unsure about which category you should submit to then just do a search in Dmoz for the sites similar to yours and note down the category to which they have been submitted to. If you have done this one correctly then you are having the most relevant category for your website. Now just go on and submit to the category you have got.

2. Make sure that your site has original and quality content.
People nowadays are looking for more and more quality content and they get annoyed with the sites having nothing more than a bunch of affiliate links or sales letters. If your site lacks in content then you have no chance of making into the directory as the directories nowadays are looking for the sites which have a strong base of original and quality content, if your site doesn’t has sufficient content then make sure to add a few reviews, articles and other additional information about your services and products.

3. Get your web site professionally designed.
If you have done the above two steps properly then your site is already deserving a listing in Dmoz and it adds more to your credibility if your site is professionally designed. You might have seen many unprofessionally designed sites making into Dmoz, so this not really a factor for your inclusion in the directory but as we know that the editors of the Dmoz directory are also human beings so a professionally designed site does make a good impression on them and thus increases your chances for inclusion in Dmoz.

4. Be sure to put your contact information on the web site.
Now just putting an email address is not enough. If you are doing a business you need people to trust you by showing them your physical address, so that they don’t think that you are a run away business. Many times the editors reject sites if they don’t see any physical contact information on the site, so it is very much necessary for you to put up at least your phone number on your contacts page, also putting your physical address would be much better.

5. Check your site for broken links and spelling errors.
Before submitting your site to the Dmoz directory make sure to check your website for broken links and spelling errors, though the editors are looking for quality but they are also human beings and will be annoyed by lots of errors and clumsily designed sites, so be sure to check and correct the errors if any before you submit your site to Dmoz.