Link Swapping Is Unnatural
Copyright 2006 John Jantsch
While there are lots of little things that add up to getting a
web site to rank high for search terms, high quality, keyword
rich content and incoming links are the two most important
variables.
Every search engine has a page of some sort that allows you to
submit your website to be indexed, but using them is probably a
waste of time.
Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL and Ask Jeeves all prefer to find
website by following links. This strategy theoretically gives a
site more credibility. The more relevant sites that link to a
site, the more importance the search engines assign to the site.
The best way to get your site noticed is by acquiring high
quality links. (Don't misinterpret that above statement to mean
get and swap links from anywhere you can - below are some proven
ways to acquire links that won't be seen by the search engines
as link spam.)
In fact, most of the search engines look down on the most
commonly accepted linking strategy, the practice of link
swapping as little more than link spam.
One-way links to your web site are where it's at.
For today I want to focus on proven low-cost, high impact ways
to build one-way links to your website. These are not secret,
magic bullets - they are strategies that you must practice on a
consistent basis to build natural links to your site.
Press Release
Another way to generate some inbound links is to submit a press
release about your site to PRWeb. This site distributes press
releases to major news outlets and syndicates it's feed to
thousands of websites. http://www.PRWeb.com
Forums
Many forums allow you to register, add a relevant comment or
thread and sign your comment with a website. Again, another way
to generate a link. Some forums are so popular that search
engines visit them often and can find your link in a new post.
Here are couple places to find forums http://www.itch.com
http://forumhaven.com
Online Articles
Writing and distributing articles to online article directories
is another very good way to create links to your site. These
aren't always particularly high quality links but they can
provide volume.
Here's a list of some the most popular article directories.
http://www.ideamarketers.com/
http://thewhir.com/find/articlecentral/ http://goarticles.com/
http://ezinearticles.com/add_url.html http://amazines.com
http://www.articlecity.com/ http://bpubs.com/
http://businessknowhow.com/
http://www.certificate.net/wwio/ideas.shtml
http://www.promotionworld.com/ http://promotenewz.com/
Blog Comments
Posting relevant comments on blogs is another way to create
inbound links. I hope you know that I'm not talking about
posting just for links. Adding commentary where you can is a
great online networking strategy and can have the added benefit
of creating links if done properly. (Media outlets are great for
this.)
One of the best places to find blogs that are talking about your
keywords is at a blog directory called Technorati -
http://www.technorati.com
Testimonials
Sending testimonials to other website owners endorsing a
product, book or service can be a great way to pick up a one way
link. Many site owners love to post testimonials right there on
the home page - prime real estate!
Create a free tool
Another great way to create a flood of inbound links is to
create a free tool that other think is worth linking to.
Buy Links
There are lots of link brokers out there waiting to sell you a
link from a high ranking site. These may have value but I like
to look for well established, relevant newsletters that sell ads
AND archive past issues on their website. If you can find a
newsletter like this you can purchase an ad, get the value from
advertising in the newsletter and then benefit from the link in
the website archive.
Some newsletter directories: HEzine-Universe.com -
http://www.ezine-universe.com Zinos.com - http://www.zinos.com
BestEzines.com - http://www.bestezines.com The E-ZineZ Search
Engine - http://www.e-zinez.com/ InfoBotTTH -
http://www.infobot.net/ Echelon's Newsletter Exchange -
http://www.bizx.com/newsletter.html The Directory of Ezines from
Lifestyles Publishing - http://www.lifestylespub.com/