When my team leader introduced me to the vista of ‘Link building’, I had hardly any idea that my childhood habit of making pals would help in such a big way. I’ve always had this strange habit of making friends wherever I go, and I have always given credit to my mental structure that I think helps me to catch the right vibe from a person and create the chemistry. And I think this very habit anchored me out of the overwhelming jungle of ‘anchors’. So folks if your characteristics matches mine, its an advantage ‘you’. Of course its not a must to have this friend making skill to be a success in link building, but it definitely helps and it helps in a big way.
This is very much like real world, where the more contacts you have the more powerful you are considered as a person. So how do you build contacts?
It is definitely not a over night process. It takes time, so patience often plays a key role. Here I’ll be discussing about the diverse link building methods, some of which I follow, some of which I do not follow and some of which I wish to follow.
Methods that I follow:
- Forums: This is the first name that popped up in my mind, because I’m so much into forums. I just love them. Whenever I need some help regarding any issues, forums are the place that I first visit. They are such a vast resource of information and such a fantastic platform for getting in touch with the masters of the trade that you simply can not afford to be oblivious about it. Get your self registered in forums like v7n, digital point, webmasters world and get started. I personally use v7n and DP a lot as they have good crowd in their dedicated link exchange segments. Apart from these two you can also try link exchange forum, daniweb.From these forums you not only get direct link partners, but also a huge list of webmaster’s ids that can be great help for you.
- Groups and Communities: Joining groups and communities is one of the practice that I always relish. It not only provides you a huge resource but also gives you immense exposure and the platform to share your ideas, very much like forums but just in a broader scale (broader if you consider thousands of groups spread across several social media networks and others). I personally use all my contacts that I have been building in groups and communities like, Google and yahoo groups (specially link building and web masters groups), blog catalog groups, facebook and okut communities,
- Twitter: With the rapidly growing popularity tweeting is one habit that you must master as a link builder. You must master the tricks of increasing your follower’s list as well as the tricks of inducing them to follow you dedicatedly.
- Guest Blogging: If you have a decent writing skill (at least as decent as mine!) you can write articles that will be published on a different website with the anchor text of your choice. And for this you can approach other webmasters and persuade them for an article exchange. This is a very efficient method, because it not only provides you multiple back links from single source but also in the form of content links that search engines like the most. A good network in blogcatalog can come in handy here.
- Directory Submission: I’m definitely not talking about the tens of thousands of pathetic quality directories that are spread across the web. But submitting in a few chosen directories can still do a great job for you. Unfortunately most of the quality directories apart from a few like DMOZ and Jayde most of them are paid. But I think some of them are worth paying. So you definitely can go for a few paid ones if your pocket (or your company’s) permits.
- Social Bookmarking: Its one of the best methods of getting one way links if you have quality content to offer and have designed the campaign strategically. With the easily available social bookmarking widgets, your job has really been made easy. All you have to do is just installing them.
- Emails: I would be lying if I say that I do not send link exchange mails any more, I do send, but not like the bulk ones that I used to send during initial days. I only send mails directly to the webmasters, where it can matter. Sending mails without knowing where they are heading is just bullshit.
- Direct chatting: This is probably the most efficient and fastest method of building links. At least this has been the most effective method for me. Simply collect gmail, yahoo, msn, icq, skype ids of the web masters (from forums, groups and communities as I mentioned earlier) and talk to them directly. It's efficiency stems out of its direct and no fuss approach.
- Dropping links in forums and blogs: I just hate dropping links in forums and blogs without any reason. This not only seems to be really dirty to me but also a very in effective as most of them get converted into no follows. So not a single drop of link juice they extract. It also harms your reputation as a webmaster that can really hurt in the long run.
- Bulk emails: Sending bulk emails is another such bad habit that really annoys me as a webmaster. Its also not just dirty and ineffective but can harm your reputation in the long run.
- Free Widgets: ‘Free’ is one of the most typed words in the search boxes of all the search engines. People just love free stuffs, and if its free, they can compromise with the quality with a surprisingly large extent. So giving away free stuffs is one helluva method to engage your viewers. A useful widget with a back link, if gets proper exposure, can do the job that months of tiring link building efforts might not do. So they really attracts me a lot. Just build some small widgets like, some useful social bookmarking ones and distribute targeting the proper domain, and see the result.
- Giving away awards: We just love to get recognized. It is not like that, if we do not get awarded or praised, we will stop doing our jobs, but a simple pat of appreciation can really accelerate the process. So we love getting such pats! So giving away awards can simply magnify your follower’s list. It can be simple and small awards like, the most creative blog of 2009 or the emerging blog of the year 2009 and stuffs. Believe me, they really engages and increases your follower’s list like hell and provides you the chance of cashing on that craze of engagement.
