Building backlinks - long term strategy?

[Jack Wevers]

To create more traffic to my website I like to have a lot of backlinks because I heard it can work out very good.

But I am working on it a few months now and I don't have the amount of quality backlinks that I would like to have by now.

Is it a long term strategy or is there a way to get these in a short term?

Thank you in advance.

 

[Niche48]

Building backlinks to your site is a long term thing. Just like SEO, which is why you are trying to get backlinks is a long term thing

What you want to focus on is do follow backlinks from authority pages that will last the long term
So article marketing and PR releases and maybe pillar articles that will act as link bait

Also remember that there are on page things you can do to help your position in the search engines. Like the quality and quantity of your content

Good luck

 

[losangelescar]

there many ways to get backlink. Here are some:
USFreeads
affiliates
Slide sharing (Slideshare.com)
Link Directories
traffic exchanges
List Brokers
Popups/Unders/Overs etc..
Software apps (facebook, toolbars, etc.)
Software/scripts included in CPanel/Fantastico
Pinging your pages and the pages on other sites which link to yours.
Blogs
XML sharing (PADs, Feeds, Sitemaps, RSS etc.)
Wikis
Article directories, and reprinted articles
CPA
PPV
Tell-A-Friend scripts
Twitter , myspace, youtube, facebook etc…
PRs
Sofware links (PAD)
Datafeeds

 

[David Jackson]

I am working on it a few months now and I don't have the amount of quality backlinks that I would like to have by now.

Is it a long term strategy or is there a way to get these in a short term?

It's definitely a long-term process. The websites that rank ahead of you in the search engines probably have thousands of inbound links. But they didn't acquire those links overnight.

It can often take years to acquire the number of inbound links that's required to improve your ranking. So patience and persistance are essential. Is there a faster way to acquire inbound links?

Yes, with plenty of quality content. Write articles, and publish them to your website or blog. If your website has plenty of fresh, quality, relevant content, other sites will eventually link to your site.

Also, posting in quality forums like 5 Star Affiliate Marketing Forums will increase your inbound links.

Stay away traffic exchange programs, guaranteed traffic programs, FFA's, freeads, linkfarms, etc. The only kinds of links that you'll acquire from those types of sites are garbage links.

Remember, garbage in, garbage out!

David Jackson

 

[djbaxter]

there many ways to get backlink. Here are some:
USFreeads
affiliates
Slide sharing (Slideshare.com)
Link Directories
traffic exchanges
List Brokers
Popups/Unders/Overs etc..
Software apps (facebook, toolbars, etc.)
Software/scripts included in CPanel/Fantastico
Pinging your pages and the pages on other sites which link to yours.
Blogs
XML sharing (PADs, Feeds, Sitemaps, RSS etc.)
Wikis
Article directories, and reprinted articles
CPA
PPV
Tell-A-Friend scripts
Twitter , myspace, youtube, facebook etc…
PRs
Sofware links (PAD)
Datafeeds

Actually, many of those on your list have nothing to do with acquiring backlinks, although they might help with traffic to your site.

 

[Jack Wevers]

Thanks to you all for the helpful and interesting replies!

I'm working on article marketing for my website and hopefully it is having the quality
content so I get inbound links faster!

Does anyone have any tips for quality content?

 

[victorm]

I think quality content deserved a new thread, but anyway...
Good content requires good writers, that can put the time and dedication to do research before they write. If you are not ticking all the boxes, it is better to outsource. Be very clear when stating your requirements and don't hesitate to prune candidates that don't seem reliable. Test the work for plagiarism BEFORE paying for it, and order only small batches at a time.
In my experience, do not expect to pay less than 2USD for a decent (human readable) article. Expect to pay up to 10-15USD for a well documented, keyword-rich article that required some research. Tip - you can publish on Associated Content (will need US account to get paid upfront) and leave anchor links in the body - double win.

 

[ParetoMitch]

Getting reputable sites to link to yours is never going to be a bad thing. Will getting one link put you in the #1 search position instantly in a competitive niche... very unlikely.

Backlinks are a big part of seo but there are also many things to work on as well such as the articles and content talked about in previous posts, the keywords in your url, the images and alt tags you have, as well as your own outbound links.

As mentioned there are ways to get a lot of backlinks quickly, however the question that must be asked then is: If I got these links so easily what is stopping everyone else from getting them?

Having the same links as your competitor shouldn't be the goal. The goal should be to have the most backlinks from high page ranking, authoritative sites to your page while not just spamming them. Build relationships with the pages you want links from, talk to the people who own the pages and see how you can create mutually beneficial relationships rather than just trying to appease the seo gods for a quick bump in rankings.

Another thing to keep in mind is that if you are trying to get backlinks for seo then you will want it to look natural. Although the seo rankings are based on an algorithm, I would be willing to bet that there is a part of it that looks at the age of the domain, the previous backlinks and many other aspects to see if it is natural growth or someone just trying to trick the system.

What would you rank higher: a 3 day old page with 5000 backlinks from PR0-1 sites
OR a 1 year old domain with 52 backlinks, from varying PR sites, that were added one each week?

The whole point of SEO is for the engines to give their customers, the searches, the best possible experience so keep that in mind when/if you decide to work on SEO based sales. Don't try to trick the robot, try to make the visitor happy....

 

[victorm]

Hi, ParetoMitch, and welcome to the conversation.
I agree with most of your points, except maybe for the oversimplification of your comparison example. My 2c:
- 5000 backlinks from various domains will not be indexed overnight (but yes, they would look spammy on a new domain).
- realtime search is ruining the well-established concepts regarding SEO and traditional link building - you can legitimately get hundreds of backlinks from multiple domains over a few hours and feature on the 1st page in Google; the update they deployed in December makes it possible, I tried it and it works. A little similar to the digg effect from two years ago or so.

I fully agree with making the visitor happy - I take a returning visitor over a bunch of casual bouncers any time. The failure of search engines is that no matter what they are doing, there will be exploits and SERP manipulation. Viral marketing and social media are worth investigating as alternatives to SEO in the current environment.

 

[ParetoMitch]

Hi victorm,

I fully agree with you and apologize for not stating that it my example was a gross oversimplification. I also fully agree with your views on the realtime search that is coming into effect now.

And lastly I agree with you about the fact that as long as the algorithm is run by robots that do not have the ability to evaluate without being told what to look for that there will always be a chance for gaming of seo. However, I believe that if you do keep your goal to make the visitors time on your page the best you can you will not go wrong and will survive changes to that the search engines make to their equation as to what they are looking for as far as seo goes.

 

[djbaxter]

As mentioned there are ways to get a lot of backlinks quickly, however the question that must be asked then is: If I got these links so easily what is stopping everyone else from getting them?

And getting a whole bunch of links quickly will get you flagged as a high probability for purchasing links and may very well get you "sandboxed".

 

[ParetoMitch]

Excellent point, and for those that don't know what a sandbox is... just think in real life no one wants to be trapped in a sandbox, so you don't want your website to be in there either...

 

[TerryTurner]

Backlinks are like votes for your site by other persons and that's one way the search engines determine which are the greatest sites to offer on the SERPs

 

[harrysmith]

Backlinks are vital for getting your website indexed and top ranked. If you try to get huge number of backlinks in very short period then there are chances that Google bot may treat them as spam/paid links and may devalue then, hence it's better to gather them gradually !!!

 

[dmward50]

My experience has been that the IM community has all kinds of tricks to get your site indexed, but that that only takes you so far. We can look for directories, link wheels, squidoo lenses, whatever- and in the end, you're trying to trick Google. Having dated a senior analyst at Google for 5 years, I've seen the belly of the beast, and these people aren't dumb. Those tricks will get caught eventually.

So after getting all wrapped up in the link wheels and lenses and social marketing, I paused and realized that I was spending time that could be spent on making my content worthwhile trying to find relevant links. Then I looked at my website and realized that I had put relevant links to other people's sites without them asking. Give enough good content and you'll get good links. I'm particularly opinionated about this, though. I won't launch a site until it's something I'd like to look at for at least a few minutes.

Now- with that said- if no one looks at your site at all, you'll never get a link. So using those tricks to get started is a good idea, but the long-term strategy should always be creating good content. And it's not a bad idea after you post content that is useful to also put it on other people's blogs (with permission of course) and some directories. But the key is always content in my mind.

 

[DrMarie]

Just wanted to add my 2 cents. I have worked hard on my content. I have done a little bit of work at creating backlinks and would say I have in the neighbourhood of 50 links. I also have written about 5 articles that are on Ezine.

I recently wanted to rank higher for a certain keyword and figured I would need to build LOTS of backlinks as the sites above me had thousands of links to their site.

I started by adding my keyword in a few strategic places on my front page. Then, I created about 5 new backlinks using that keyword as anchor text.

Imagine my surprise when about 10 days later my site ranks at number one for that keyword!!! And my traffic is really increasing.

So, keep at it. Don't try any of the spammy techniques. Build good quality backlinks. They don't have to be from high PR sites. Think of which links will drive more traffic to your site. These are the ones that are most likely to be relevant to your site.

Marie

 

[dmward50]

Wow- I have to admit that I was losing faith in on-page SEO. Not that I ever stopped doing it to test this, but people keep talking about how Google's started only caring about back links. Thanks for the story!

 

[harrysmith]

Wow- I have to admit that I was losing faith in on-page SEO. Not that I ever stopped doing it to test this, but people keep talking about how Google's started only caring about back links. Thanks for the story!

Nahh... Onpage SEO is most vital for getting better ranking, According to me content relevant, unique, fresh content rules Google try to sprinkle all your targeted keywords throughout your web content.
Make sure you try to get relevant backlinks enclosed with your targeted keyword

You may find usually blogs have better ranking as they are updated regularly with fresh content.

 

[yanamk]

On page seo is still very important. I don't think it will ever become useless, 'cause then all the spammy sites will pop up in first 10 search results.

I guess, purchasing links is alright, but it needs to be done graduately. Don't get listed in hundreds of sites in one day.