In the last newsletter you learned why links to your site are important. In this issue we cover exactly how to build those links.
It is important to note that Traffic Travis can’t actually go out and build links for you. But what it can do is find high-quality link opportunities for you.
Here’s what we cover in this issue:
- Getting links from blogs and blog commenting.
- Getting links from Forums.
- Directory submissions.
- Article Marketing.
- Discovering where your competitors get their links.
- Using Traffic Travis to find high quality link opportunities.
1. Getting links from blogs
Blogs are a fantastic source of links for your site. They are often frequently updated by their owners and can sometimes have quite high PageRank.
The easiest way to get links back to your site from blogs is to use what is known as ‘blog commenting’. At the bottom of most blog posts you will find a comment submission form, like the one pictured below:
You can leave a useful and insightful reply or question to the original blog post, and then add your website address in the ‘Website’ field. Some blogs will also allow you to add anchor text links in the body of the comment, although you will have to check other comments to see if this is possible. Remember. Don’t spam the comments. Not only is it not fair to the poor blog owner, most blogs moderate their comments and you won’t end up getting the link.
Another way you can get links from blogs is to guest post. This means that you writing an article or post for the blog owner, which he or she then posts on their blog. Inside your article you can add an anchor text link or two back to your website.
The easiest way to do this is to contact blog owners in your niche and offer them a free, quality article for their site- on the proviso that you get to include at least one link back to your site. WPMU have a great guide to guest posting on blogs to build links (and visitors) to your site.
2. Forum posting links
Forums, also known as discussion boards, are places online where people meet to discuss certain topics. If you are a regular Internet user you may already participate in an online forum. They are also great places to build backlinks to your site.
The most common method of building links to your site from forums is to add your website address to the ‘signature’ file of your profile. This way, whenever you comment on a discussion (also known as a thread) your link is posted automatically.
Here is an example of a typical forum signature, and signature editor:
You can also write a useful reply to a discussion thread and include your link at the end of your message. This is useful for forums that do not allow clickable links in the signature.
When forum posting and commenting for backlinks it is important that you:
- Follow the rules of the forum.
- Make a useful contribution to the discussion.
- Do not try to spam your links all over the forum without adding value first.
3. Directory submission for links
Submitting your website to a directory of sites is a time-tested and popular way of getting links. There are numerous directories online, both free and paid. When starting out it is better to focus on some of the bigger free directories. But don’t waste your time with the numerous spammy directories that really only act as ‘link farms’ full of links to poor quality sites.
Probably the highest quality free directory is the Open Directory Project, also known as DMOZ. It has a PageRank of 8, so if you can get your site listed in there it’s well worthwhile.
Read this guide to DMOZ directory submission to learn how to increase your chances of being accepted.
For a comprehensive list of free directories go here.
4. Article submission for links
Another great method of building links is to submit content to article directories. In exchange, you usually get to place a link or two in the resource box of your article. This comes at the bottom of the page and will allow readers to click through to your site.
For example, if you wrote an article about “German Shepherd training for beginners” then you could have a resource box that says something like Want to know more about how to train your German Shepherd? Visit my German Shepherd Training resources.. And remember, you want to try and make the anchor text of your link include the keyword you are trying to target.
There are literally hundreds of different article directories online, and it would take countless hours to submit to all of them. But really, you should focus on the big names listed below, beacuse they will give you the best results.
- Ezinearticles.com
- Goarticles.com
- Articlesbase.com
- Infobarrel.com
If you need more, read this comprehensive list of article directories (and Web 2.0 content sites that allow you to submit content) ordered by Google PageRank.
5. Using Traffic Travis to boost your link building
There are a few powerful ways you can use Traffic Travis to really ramp up your link building efforts.
First, you can use Traffic Travis to actually find link opportunities for keywords you want to rank for. Rather than having to manually trawl the Internet for possible links, you can save a lot of time using the ‘link finder’ feature of Traffic Travis.
Open the Link Finder by clicking the SEO tab of Traffic Travis. You should also open up the advanced settings. This will allow you to pick more potential link sources like blogs, forum guest posts, resources, and directories. As shown below:
If your keyword was ‘dog obedience’, like in the example above, Traffic Travis will return potential links that are suited to this keyword.
You can see the Traffic Travis link finder at work below. Notice that you can also learn the PageRank of potential links, how many other links are on that page, and the Page Authority of the page (the higher the page authority the better).
Another neat thing you can do with the Traffic Travis Link Finder tool is find government and educational (.gov & .edu) link opportunitites.
Simply open up the advanced settings of the Link Finder tool and check the Government Domains and Educational Domains boxes like below:
But perhaps THE most powerful link finding strategy you can use in conjunction with Traffic Travis is to actually find the backlinks your competitors are using.
Take the keyword you are trying to rank for, in the example below it’s ‘dog training problems’. Plug it into the Competition tool in the SEO tab of Traffic Travis and hit Analyze. After Traffic Travis has worked it’s magic click ‘View Details’.
You will then see a page that gives you the top 10 results for that keyword. You can see the PageRank, number of backlinks to both the page and site, and how many .edu or .gov links the page has. For now, we want to focus on the top competing result (the one that shows up first on Google).
What you do then is copy the URL of the number one site for that keyword into the ‘Backlinks’ finder of Traffic Travis (available under the SEO tab).
In the example below, you can see a list of the links that the top site for the keyword ‘dog training problems’ has.
To do as well (or better) than them, you will have a very good idea of the number of backlinks you will need, as well as a very good idea of where to get those links from.
To recap, we have covered some very powerful link building strategies in this issue. They were:
- Using blog commenting and guest posting to get links.
- Forum commenting for link building.
- Directory submission to generate links.
- Article directory submission for link building.
- Using Traffic Travis to help you find link opportunities, find high PR links, and discover the backlinks of your competition.
The importance of building links to your site cannot be understated. Follow this guide and use Traffic Travis and you will be well on your way to higher search engine rankings.
In the next newsletter, you’ll learn how to keep track of your results and make sure you are heading in the right direction.
Wishing you every success, ‘til next time,
Traffic Travis
Source: Traffic Travis http://www.traffictravis.com/newsletters/0493
