It is always time-consuming, often frustrating and occasionally successful. I am talking about link building. Before proceeding with the article, I will like to share with you my view about why most bloggers ignore link building. If you write more articles, you can see an increase in traffic immediately. Doing keyword research and writing about hot topics will increase your traffic immediately. Most bloggers ignore link building, because it does not give immediate result.

Getting links is like sharpening your axe before cutting a tree. While your progress is zero while sharpening your axe, your speed increases significantly once you start using it. Similarly while you shall not get an immediate increase in traffic because of backlinks, traffic per post increases if you have some good links. If you write about a hot word, you now start ranking 1st rather than being in the 10th place.

  • Start with sites that allow you to add links for free. You can find such sites by a simple google seach. Try some of the following searches on google to find these sites. intitle:add+url “keyword phrase” , intitle:submit+site “keyword phrase”, intitle:submit+url “keyword phrase” , intitle:add+site “keyword phrase”, intitle:add+your+site “keyword phrase”, intitle:directory “keyword phrase”, intitle:list “keyword phrase”, intitle:sites “keyword phrase”. This method is useful when you are just starting out. Helps in getting your site indexed and you can rank decently for long-tail keywords.
  • Add your site to relevant social bookmarking sites. Prefer the ones that provide a do-follow link. You can find some of these social bookmarking site here. Never spam. Add others’ pages to bookmarking sites. The best way to get a positive attention from me is to digg or stumble this article. :) That holds true for many other bloggers.
  • Comment on relevant blogs. I know most of the comments are no-followed. Target dofollow blogs, blogs with commentluv plugin and blogs with top commentator plugin.
  • Identify some influential bloggeres who blog on similar topics as you do. Then link to their posts from your blog and make sure you send atleast 20-30 referral visiors from your blog to their blog. Eventually 5-10 of the bloggers will notice your blog in their referral logs and will either link you back or mention you on their blog.
  • Search for pages that are no longer available but are linked to from other blogs/ websites. Then find to who is linking to these pages and contact them pointing out the dead links and request them to link to your page which offers the same service.
    For finding sites which no longer offer a service or have expired:
    ? “service no longer available” [keyword]
    ? “service no longer available” inurl:.co.in
    ? “no longer available [keyphrase]”
    ? “site no longer available”
    ? “site no longer available” [keyphrase]
    ? “site has been taken down”
    ? “site has been taken down” [keyphrase]
    For finding sites which no longer sell a specific product:
    ? “no longer offer [keyword]”
    ? “no longer sell [keyword]”
    ? “stopped selling [keyword]”
    ? “stopped offering [keyword]”
  • Contact the blogger who you think can link to you and ask him/her to provide a link to you. A good example of email to get a link :

“Hi _________________,

______________ here from the [blog name] and I wanted to drop you line and just compliment your site. Nice layout, good info, good resources. I was looking around at a few different sites for _____________ information and I definitely thought your’s was one of the best.

That being said, I also noticed you guys have some great content related to _______________. I currently maintain a website that ______________________. You can view it at [link to site]. Request you to check out some of my posts especially [link to post1],[link to post2], [link to post3] and introduce the concepts to your readers as I am confident that these informations are quite relevant for your readers.

Thanks,
____________________

  • Be active on a new forum, social netowrk etc in your niche. Contribute positively. I learnt this from indiblogger. While my participation was purely voluntary, they rewarded me with a link from forum homepage.
  • Syndicate a press release. Submit to PRWeb, PRLeap, etc.

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