8 Effective Link Building Strategies

A few days ago, I posted about the Google PageRank update and how IGTB moved up to PR4.

As many bloggers know, PR is a numeric value representing the importance of a website, and is largely based on the number (and weight) of incoming links. While this may not be the most efficient way of determining the value of a website, it does affect your search engine rankings, and many advertisers will use it to decide whether or not your blog is worth advertising on.

There are a lot of ways to build links to your blog, some of the most effective being:

Provide valuable content.

By valuable content, I don't mean simply writing about things that people find interesting or useful- your content must also be considered more valuable than what most other blogs in your niche are providing. If you don't present something original to your readers, why would they read your blog over a more popular one, let alone link to it?

Post often.

The more you post, the more pages you will have that could appear in search engines for people to find (and link to). But keep in mind, don't sacrifice quality for quantity. A hundred "good" posts will probably receive fewer links than five "great" posts. Write at a pace that is comfortable for you.

Display a link to your feed and encourage others to subscribe.

This is a very popular way of informing your readers of new posts. The more subscribers you have (given that you are providing them with quality content), the better your chances of them linking to your blog when they come across something useful.

Be a guest blogger.

Guest blogging is a great way to build links to your blog and expose yourself to a new group of readers. Writing for other sites in your niche may be the best way to go about guest blogging since links from related websites hold the most value, but writing on a different topic can be fun too, often leaving a blogger more inspired to write and implement new ideas into their work.

Trade links with other bloggers.

This is an old method of building links. Find other bloggers who would be willing to add you to their blogrolls, and do the same for them.

I wouldn't suggest trading links with just any blog- only link to those that are relevant to your own. Your blog will win cool points with Google if it is linked to on a page with similar keywords.

Submit articles to free article directories.

If you've got some free time, I would suggest writing some articles on your niche topic and submitting them to free article directories. You are allowed a link to your page at the bottom of your article, and if submitted to numerous sites (I recommend Article Marketer), you could receive dozens of links for a single article.

Write testimonials.

Has a website helped you in some way? Write a testimonial for it. Sometimes these testimonials will include a link to your blog, and it's a good way to get other webmasters to visit.

Tell your friends about interesting content.

Did you write a pillar article that your friends and other webmasters may find interesting or useful? Send them an email about it. Perhaps they will link to your new post. But don't advertise all your articles this way- just your best work. Otherwise, they may start overlooking your emails.

Don't limit yourself to these link building strategies alone- there are at least a hundred ways a blogger can build his or her incoming links, and I'm sure there are many that have yet to be discovered. Work diligently, get creative, and have some patience- PageRank will come with time.

What link building techniques have worked for you?

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Comments

[Rafael Miranda]

Very good post man. I think I need to make some of this because my blog doesn't leave his zero pr :(

[Clark]

Slip out the back Jack
Make a new plan Stan
No need to be coy Roy
Just listen to me
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don't need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free

Sorry I couldn't help it.

[Aurelius Tjin]

Great post! Thanks for sharing all these insights, tips and resources. You really gave me valuable information. I will surely take note of all of these. Thanks!

[brandtorrent.com]

These are all great. One other I'd like to add: Blog about other people, businesses, blogs, etc. At least half the time when I blog about someone, they'll either add my post to their press page on their website or write a quick "thanks" on their own blog for mentioning them. This has gotten me more unsolicited links to my blogs than just about any other strategy.

[Yan]

Thank you for the tips on link building. It has been really helpful. Of all the above, creating unique and original contents regularly is one of the hardest and yet it's the most effective of all.

[Khalil]

I think these are decent strategies for building backlinks. For my own strategies I mainly use article marketing, forum posts and SiteSubmit plus.