A good off-page SEO strategy is essential to your success in optimizing your site for search engine results. As more people attempt to “fool” the search engines with black hat SEO strategies, the search engines are putting a stronger emphasis on site popularity and the number of sites that are linking back to yours. The problem for many business owners is that backlink building takes time and you must be consistent if you want to beat out your competitors. In this article, we’ll be covering ten solid strategies that you can use to build quality backlinks for your site.
Backlink Strategy #1: Forum Discussions
Participating in forum discussions is a great way to build your online reputation, attract targeted visitors to your site, and build quality backlinks. Forums are usually buzzing with traffic and have a lot of fresh content going up every day, which means that they are usually well optimized. By participating in forum discussions, you can build a lot of credibility with the search engines by linking to sites that already have a good reputation. When participating in these discussions, however, it’s important that you make a worthwhile contribution to the forum.
Backlink Strategy #2: Blog Discussions
Blogs are another great place to build quality backlinks by participating in discussions on subjects that are related to the content of your site. Blogs also usually have a lot of discussion going on and well-targeted traffic going to them which means lots of fresh content going up on a consistent basis. When it comes to commenting on blogs, it’s best to follow the same guidelines as to when you are making posts on forums. Blog owners are constantly bombarded by comments from spammers and will disapprove of anything which is not making a worthwhile contribution to the discussion, so make sure you leave comments which are interesting to read and which move the discussion along.
Backlink Strategy #3: Facebook
In spite of the fact that the links from Facebook are no-follow, they still count for something and the sheer popularity of Facebook will bring you lots of qualified traffic. The key with Facebook is to make sure that your links are being seen by the right people. You can start by creating a fan page and inviting people to your friend list who have similar interests, then inviting them to “like” your fan page. You can then make multiple posts on your fan page to generate qualified traffic to your site and build quality backlinks from one of the most popular sites on the internet.
Backlink Strategy #4: Directory Submissions
Directory sites are another great place to build links back to your site and to generate qualified traffic from people who are searching for your content. Directory sites provide web users with listings of sites which pertain to a specific topic, and by submitting your site to the proper category you can get it in front of a lot of interested visitors and build quality backlinks from a reputable site. Of course, it’s essential that you submit your site to directories that have a good reputation (page rank of 1-5 is best) with the search engines. Some directory sites are nothing more than link farms which will add little or no value to your site when it comes to building backlinks.
Mass submission tools such as Directory Submitter and Fast Directory Submitter and can be used to find the top directory sites on the internet and to make the submissions right from your desktop. Just be sure that you submit your site to the proper category in the directory.
Backlink Strategy #5: Article Marketing
Article marketing is still a good way to attract qualified traffic to your site while positioning yourself as an expert in your niche. When building backlinks with article marketing, be sure that you use your primary keywords within the links at the end of your article (usually in the “resource box”). The following are six top article submission sites:
Backlink Strategy #6: Twitter
Tweeting is a super quick way to build backlinks to your site from one of a site that already has a good reputation with the search engines. Even if you never get any traffic to your site from Twitter, the ease with which you can build backlinks makes it a worthwhile off-page SEO tool.
Conclusion: A Simple Daily Plan to Follow
To make the most of these simple backlink building strategies, you need a consistent plan that you can follow every day. The following is a simple plan that you can repeat every day to build nearly 5,000 backlinks in just six months.
- Make 10 Comments in 3 to 5 Relevant Forums (10 links-20 minutes)
- Make 10 comments on 5 Relevant Blogs (10 links-20 minutes)
- Submit Your site to Three Directories (3 links-20 minutes)
- Write One Article and Submit it to 5 Article Marketing Sites (5 links-60 minutes)
Keep to this simple plan and be consistent and in time you’ll build enough quality backlinks to gain a good page rank and a favorable position within the search engine results.
