Building back-links 3 ways

October 5th, 2011 |

In every SEO campaign, there comes a time when your copywriting has an SEO focus and the web content is pretty much optimised. That leaves very little on-the-page SEO revision left to do.

Sure, you’ll continue adding new web content and tweaking existing copy with new SEO keywords. But you also need to develop and off-the-page SEO focus.

Not that you should wait until this point to look for link opportunities. You just need to make a concerted effort now. How do you go about doing that?

Stick with your niche

Now you could go about submitting your website to thousands of online directories. Or outsource to some bookmarking or link service. But what you’ll get is:

Low quality links
No follow links
Poor ROI

If you’re going to spend the time, effort and dollars on creating inbound links, stick with your niche. There are solid SEO reasons doing this. Not the least of which is context. The fact is, quality niche sites develop good search engine reputations. Back-links from these locations reflect a little of that standing onto your site.

Opportunities for quality back-links include:

Niche directories – like the environmental Eco Sustainable or Pet Directory for all things pets
Industry bookmarking – like Tip’d for finance or BizSugar for small business
Themed article sites – like Gardening Know How for green thumbs

Have a viewpoint

Well written, engaging web content is always in demand. So, two of the best opportunities for creating online presence and driving traffic to your site are writing online articles and submitting guest posts.

One word of advice though … have a perspective. It’s easy to develop bland, say nothing web content. With so many online resources available, why do that?

Example

Let’s say you came across this Mashable article: iPhone 5 A No-Show: Did Apple Fail To Manage Expectations?

You could develop a whole ‘My take’ perspective or create a standpoint on consumerism.

This approach creates a link into online commentary and lets you take an active, legitimate part in discussion. That’s not only good for your website traffic. It builds online reputation that can ultimately convert to real life connections … and sales.

Own your comments

You’ll come across many blog, article and other sites chock full of link fodder comments. You know the sort of thing …

get-free-ipad says:
Thanks for the godd info. My new top site get free iPad 2

Here’s the rub. Would you want prospects to find that link to your site? Probably not.

Much better to develop a high credibility comments policy. Do that by owning your replies. Yes, as shocking as it sounds, comment as yourself. It’s authentic, believable and worth much more to your SEO effort.

That’s not so say you can’t identify your business or brand in the process. For instance, you might have seen that digital marketing guru post as:
Mitch Joel + Twist Image

Remember when leaving replies or making comments, links are actually your secondary consideration. It’s really about building online presence and reputation. Develop that and you’ll have searchers actively looking for you anyway.