Getting Your Site Out There (Part III, Links)
When you start a new site you really need to look at the links you have coming in and going out. You want to be linking to good websites and helpful websites, not to the hottest new trend or a porn site, unless that is what your site is all about. You also don’t want people linking to your site from sites that are considered bad neighborhoods or have nothing to do with what your site is about, unless it is a review, then you may be okay. In this post I am going to share with you some tips for building links.
Link Exchanges.
Search
Find forums, websites or other services that will allow you to exchange links with similar sites, remember you don’t need to look at page rank yet, you want similar sites first, this will build your traffic, page rank does not.
Talk and Time
People will want to exchange links with you more if they can trust you to keep your end of the deal. I usually keep my links up for at least 90 days then remove them if my blogs start to feel like there are too many. Most of the time though I keep them as they are relevant to my blogs.
Three Way Link
If you and the person you are linking with only have one website this may not work well for you, but if one of you or both of you have two websites that are similar then you can do a three way link. This type of link involves site A (your site) linking to site b (their site). Site C, (there site) then links to site A (your site) This tends to look better to search engines and can benefit you both with traffic in the long run.
Buying Links
Do Follow
You can buy do follow links from people, but the site you buy them from does risk losing their PR if they do a lot of it. My advice would be to not do this at first, PR does not mean the site is going to get you traffic, it just means that other sites or just one or two very high pr sites link to it.
No Follow
These you can get at a cheaper price as the website you may be buying them from will not risk being slapped by google. When you buy no follow links find out the traffic of the site and where your link will be located. If you want good traffic and are buying on a blog, I would recommend buying both a link in a post, that will be written or is already written and a link on the sidebar, that way you have a link in content and a sidbar link that will be seen on the main page of the blog. You don’t have to do this, but someone explained they get more traffic that way and I agreed it made sense. If it is just a regular website I would try to get on the main page.
Overall when building links you need to remember to look at the traffic of the site you are on, not the PR. If no one visits the site that links to you how are you going to get traffic from that link, yes it may help with keyword building, which I will talk about in another post, but it may not help you with traffic.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Aahz Says:
I read in some SEO post somewhere that reciprocal links were near worthless these days. That is was only one-way links that had any actual effect on PR. Is this not your experience?
Posted on September 17th, 2008 at 5:37 am
Holly Says:
I have heard that also, but these post are more about traffic, not pr so a reciprocal link would still help with traffic. I am really not sure what the effect it has on pr though.
Posted on September 17th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Syari Says:
I have 2 new blogs. One blog, has no links at all but has a pr of 2. It’s not even cached by Google. Another blog with a lot more links and cached every week or so, but only has a PR of 1.
Posted on September 17th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
veinglory Says:
Reciprocal links are given very little weight, and buying links can lead to a Googlerank crash if they detect it.
In may experience the main key to good incoming links is of course content of the type others will comment on and links to, also name-checking blogs on related topics and commenting on those blogs–it ‘folds’ you into the blog community on that topic.
Posted on September 17th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Holly Says:
@veinglory: You do have to be careful with buying and selling links, but if you do it with no follow your okay. I covered comment links in another post, but you do have point commenting on related blogs is a great way to get back links.
Posted on September 17th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Jules Says:
Great information!
My own personal beliefs is to never buy links. I would just rather trade links with other sites similar to mine, and participate in comment exchanges.
Posted on September 17th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
veinglory Says:
I am not thinking of creating a backlink by commenting, so much as actually connecting to your topic-community online. A small group of blogs that refer to each other periodically gets vastely more traffic to share and all of them benefit.
In the end what drives effective links that cost neither money nor time, is content. I think that should always be the primary strategy rather than getting links per se.
Posted on September 17th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
windyridge Says:
PR and traffic are definitely not related, you are right to point that out, Traffic is the key, as I have seen examples of this among my three blogs. the one with the most traffic by far has the lowest PR!
Posted on September 17th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
gina Says:
Getting your blog out there and seen is tough. I’ve learned that even more in recent months with my entertainment blog. Buying links or buying traffic has never been an option for me though.
Posted on September 17th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Breezieb Says:
I prefer to just trade links, I get just as good a return that way, as what I have with purchasing links.
Good article.
Posted on September 17th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Hellan Says:
Some very usefull tips there, thank you for sharing
Posted on September 17th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Christina thecoffeelady Says:
Building links is either time consuming or expensive or both!
Posted on September 18th, 2008 at 12:18 am
Nhuong Says:
you need money if you want to build links. money is the key in making money……
Posted on September 19th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Holly Says:
Money makes it easier, but I don’t believe you need money to build links. Commenting on blogs, posting in forums and writeing great content will get you far when building links. If your crazy about PR and want a high pr link, then you will have to have money, or exceptional content.
Posted on September 20th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Holly Says:
I love trading links with people, not so much for what it will bring to me, but it makes me feel good that they like what I write enough to want to link to me. I gave up on the PR stuff when I lost mine last fall. I write from my heart, I write about things that happen in my life, things that I enjoy, and things that I feel are important. It isn’t always an easy thing to do, but I do the best I can.
Great post, thanks for taking the time and putting out the information!
Posted on September 22nd, 2008 at 5:28 pm