Link Building Basics

Okay, so you have your first blog or website and you are ready to put your link out there. First, you need to know the best way to go about it, and why some links can actually do you more harm than good. Here are a few of the basics when it comes to building links:

1.  Some links can be harmful. Search engines are not stupid. They want to see your site linked to sites with similar niches. What that means is, if you are selling weight loss pills you don’t want your link on a site that sells dog food. Links for a weight loss site would be appropriate on sites that deal with exercising, good nutrition, or home gym equipment. The search engines will notice if you link is out of category and will take away points from your ranking.
2.  Make a goal. The average website obtains 3,000 inbound links per year. You can use this information to create a goal for yourself. Each day of the year work on getting a certain number of links back to your site. It may sound like a lot, but it breaks down to 8.2 links per day. That is totally reachable and can be done in less than 30 minutes.
3.  Make good use of Forums. Forums are a great way to get inbound links to your site. You could easily get the 8.2 links per day we talked about above with forums. You place your link in to the signature file and then every post you make displays your link. Now visit the forum and find 9 discussion you can contribute to. You don’t have to stick with one forum either. I am a member of 20 forums. I don’t post to all of them everyday, but I do post to them quite frequently. This is also a great place to learn.
4.  Don’t forget the articles. While you can’t always add links to your articles, you can add them to the author’s box. What you need to do is submit your article to as many sites as you can. There are many software programs that will make this process a little easier and faster. I have submitted articles to over 150 sites. That is nothing compared to most website owners. My mentor submits his article to over 300 sites each time. Not only will search engines pick up your links, but others may like your content enough to place the article on their website or blog. They have to include your author box. So submitting your article to article sites can end up getting tons of extra links in the long run.
5.  Ask for a review. I heard about someone who asked people to write a review of their site. They weren’t as concerned with whether the report would be bad or good, but that it would bring them a link either way. I can say from personal experience that this works. I write reviews of sites all the time and I always place their link in the link category. So I basically am gaving them free links. It can’t hurt to give this a try.