Link Building Using Blog Posts
The most important thing to understand about SEO is that building links to a site is extremely important for ranking highly in search engines. The number of links pointing to a site (the link popularity of a site) and the quality of those links (the anchor text used, the page and site the link is on) impact directly on how a site ranks in the search engines.
One great source of links is from blog posts. They have several advantages over traditional sources of links such as directories and text-link ads.
- They are often indexed quickly by the search engines because they love the new content they find in blogs.
- The links appear more ‘natural’ because they are embeded within text and don’t have any of the tell-tale paid link signs (e.g. a list of links under the heading ‘sponsors’).
- If the whole post is about your site, the links are in context and can naturally use keyword-rich anchor text.
- If the whole blog is about the same theme as your site, the link becomes even more powerful.
- Posts first appear on the front page, so a site is initially linked from the the page which gets the most traffic and usually has the highest PageRank.
- Posts are then usually archived into categories, which means it will be on the same page as lots of related content and links.
- Finally, a post usually has it’s own page, where the links to your site will remain forever.
So where do you find blogs willing to review your site? There are brokerage sites that act as middlemen between bloggers and advertisers. A couple of examples include http://www.reviewme.com/ and http://payperpost.com/. You pay a premium for this type of service, but the available blogs are of good quality and will usually provide traffic as well as link popularity. Another advantage (or disadvantage) is that the blog posts are clearly identified as paid reviews.Another source is specialised site review blogs like this one at digitalpoint.com. These are often cheaper than blogs found through a middleman andsome allow you to write your own post. Good ones have a number of categories for posts, which keeps them with relevant content once they are off the home page. PlanetStrange is one that has categories ranging from building and construction to food and drink.
Another approach is to use blog networks. These are groups of blogs , sometimes containing hundreds of sites where a posts are published automatically. Sometimes the post is written by the network owner or can be provided by by the site owner. The problem with blog networks is that they could be considered spam and can contain links to poor quality sites that you would not like to be associated with. There is also the issue of duplicate content. The search engines may identify posts on the network as being duplicates and discount the links from them. Some of the more advanced networks allow you to submit a number of different versions of a post or can automatically generate variations. It is probably better to use these networks or to only use small networks, for example 10 or 20 sites.
Probably the best, but most time consuming method is to search for relevant blogs and directly approach the blogger. It may be neccessary to be more flexible about your requirements, i.e. the number of links to your site, the anchor text used and deadlines, but it could be worth it for a very natural link back from a highly relevant site.
Posted: February 10th, 2008 under Link Building.
Comments: Leave yours - 15 so far
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Comments
Comment from JB
Time: February 11, 2008, 4:30 am
finding quality places to advertise is crucial. if you are using blog advertising to get the word out about your site and start your link building campaign, you have to know that not all blogs are created equal.
Comment from rob phinn
Time: March 15, 2008, 11:58 pm
really usefull information made clear for everyone to try and understand, my company is only small and to pay for seo is really expensive so i need all the help i can get, hopefully i can start to get some results from this…….
Comment from Building Skills Academy
Time: July 8, 2008, 12:02 pm
In total agreement with rob phinn – seo is expensive and for what small companies can afford they are actually better off trying to do the work themselves. Thank you for your helpful advice.
Comment from Islamabad Property Guru
Time: October 20, 2008, 1:41 pm
Great article with some helpful advice for small business owners and personal pages. The big guys pay their way to the top but us little guys just can’t compete and it’s often the little guys that have content that surfers are actually looking for. I’d add one more thing. Try and keep a niche as you will then rise through the rankings more easily. I focus on Property in Islamabad, not even all of Pakistan and using these tips my site is getting quite popular. Thanks for the extra advice.
Comment from UK SEO Company
Time: October 28, 2008, 11:56 pm
Yes… SEO is expensive, and I think for a small comany, where they have time on their hands, then a key member of staff, or the director if possible (and if the company is small enough) should invest in an SEO course (2-3 days intensive training). Now I am an SEO so this does not benefit to me, and other SEO’s. However do we really want to be working for peanuts? The anser is no! If they are small enough, and their market is small time, then they are proberbly best to be left alon.
Comment from D3Marketers
Time: November 8, 2008, 2:46 pm
Does leaving comments on other blogs relevant to your blog’s topic will really matter in SE ranking?
Comment from Typical English
Time: April 26, 2009, 2:49 pm
The trick is to minimise the right side of google ( paid google ) and maximise the left side.
Comment from Graham
Time: May 15, 2009, 6:32 pm
Very interesting ideas. We are a very small company with zero budget, so any tips are warmly recieved !
Comment from Rizzy
Time: August 14, 2009, 12:37 pm
gotta agree there, blogs are vry effective!
Comment from Jonathon Forshaw
Time: August 19, 2009, 7:11 pm
SEO (link building)Is the most proactive way of building your website into a real winner.
Doing this is hard, but once you have the core fundamentals of building links to your website its just keeping up with your competitors on a weekly basis.
Jonathon Forshaw
Smoothwebdesign.co.uk
Comment from kb
Time: September 8, 2009, 1:54 pm
this is great for those just starting out! Its taking an age this link building stuff!! Hopefully I’ll get there soon!!
Thanks for the article !!
Comment from Seo NYC
Time: February 3, 2010, 11:52 am
Great blog ..
thanks for sharing useful information with us
Comment from Dave
Time: February 17, 2010, 8:24 am
I’m no expert but over the last 12months, i’ve been loking in and out of seo stuff, and inputting things here and there, I have now dropped all advertising I have to pay for. For small buisness this is the way forward I feel. Sites like this one are great for picking up little nugets of great information. And there are more around.
As mentioned concentrate on your niche, what makes you different. get some books. The price of a couple of books and doing it yourself is a lot cheaper. Or as mentioned, go on some courses, this is my next intention.
It can be done……..
Comment from Fishpig
Time: April 11, 2010, 4:25 pm
I think the best way is to write content that is actually valuable. This way, people will write reviews/comments on your site naturally.
Comment from John Hazelton
Time: May 17, 2010, 6:29 pm
Link building is very important. This includes inbound and outbound. When you check the links associated with sites by typing in Google search Link: http://www.yoursite.com you can see who is linked to your site or your competitors. it is only through persistance we can build up these links on a daily basis. There is a lot of tools out there for link building and keyword researce. It is very easy to buy snake oil trying to find the right products. I think it is best to do as much Search Engine Optimisation, Search Engine Marketing before digging into your budget.
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