SEO Hosting Blog

Finding new opportunities for backlinks is one of the most challenging parts of running an SEO campaign. Sure, you can always use the old standbys like guest blogging, article marketing, and press release distribution, but these can be very taxing as they involve content creation. That’s why it’s also important to look for easy linking opportunities that others might be overlooking.

Here are 6 creative (and easy!) ways to get more backlinks.

1. Submit testimonials for products and services you love—On my website, I have a testimonials section where I allow some of my satisfied clients to submit a brief testimonial with a link back to their website. Obviously, I’m not the only one who does this. There are a lot of companies that will give you a link back to your website when you submit a testimonial to them. Just remember, you’re putting your name on the line, so only submit testimonials for those services and products you truly love.
2. Ask employees who have blogs and websites to link to you—With hundreds of millions of blogs and billions of websites online, there is a pretty good chance some of your employees have their own web presence. Ask them if they wouldn’t mind linking to your website, but never try to force them to do so.
3. See who’s linking to your competition—Backlink Watch is a neat little tool that makes it easy to see not only how many backlinks competitors have, but also where they’re getting them from and what the quality of the links is. By seeing where your competition is getting their links, you may be able to discover new backlink opportunities for your website.
4. Look for company mentions that don’t include a link—Not only should you set a Google alert for all future mentions of your company name, but you should also do some digging around for old brand mentions that don’t have a link to your website. When you find these, simply email the webmaster and ask them if they would turn them into a link for you.
5. Get interviewed on podcasts—You already know about guest blogging, but many people overlook the power of podcasting. Podcasts are still very popular, and if you can land an interview on a podcast, not only do you increase your visibility, but you’ll also likely get a link back to your website.
6. Become a speaker or sponsor at industry events–In almost every industry, there are big conferences and events all throughout the year. If you have the opportunity to speak at one of these events, you’ll be listed on the conference’s website with a link back to your website. But landing a speaking gig isn’t always possible. In that case, most events accept sponsors, and they give their sponsors listings and backlinks typically.

What are some other creative ways you get backlinks? Share your best tactic by leaving a comment.

Link building is one of the most important aspects of any SEO campaign. It’s time consuming, and it can be a total pain in the butt, especially if you’re making any of these 5 link building mistakes.

1. No keywords in your anchor text—There’s nothing worse than getting a high quality backlink that has completely useless anchor text like “click here” or just your actual web address. It’s crucial that you build keyword-rich back links. Why? Because the keywords in these links tell the search engines (and humans for that matter) what the target page is about. As a result, keyword-rich backlinks can improve your page’s search rank for the terms being linked.
2. Getting links from low-quality websites—Whenever you get links from websites that are viewed as spammy or that have bad reputations, you become associated with them. Some people call it hanging out in a bad neighborhood. If you’re connected with a bunch of low-grade websites, the search engines will start to see you in the same light as those websites. So, watch who you hang out with.
3. Focusing on quantity instead of quality—I’ve always said that I’d take 10 quality links over 100 bad ones every time. Sure, quantity does matter, but link building isn’t strictly a numbers game. If all your links are from low-grade websites, they won’t carry much weight, and much of your link building efforts will be wasted. Instead, focus on getting links from relevant, trusted websites.
4. Ignoring websites with a low PR—Too many link builders get too caught up with trying to get links only from websites with a high Page Rank. This is a bad idea for many reasons. See, PR isn’t everything. Just because a site has a low PR doesn’t mean it’s a bad website. Remember, a website that has a 0 PR today could have a 5 PR a year from now.
5. Not linking out—You have to give if you want to receive. You can’t expect everyone to link to you if you never link out to anybody. And whatever you do, don’t buy into the myth that you lose link juice whenever you link out. That’s BS. Linking out will attract links in return, and it helps you build your network with other bloggers.

What are some other costly link building mistakes? Leave a comment with your thoughts.

If you’ve been on Twitter for more than 5 minutes, you’ve undoubtedly seen people dropping links in their Tweets. Do you click on them? If not, why don’t you? Better yet, are people clicking on the links you Tweet out?

Here are some tips for getting those links a little more attention.

1. Don’t be a Spammer- Try your best to be altruistic with your links. In other words, make sure they add value to the user experience of those following you. This means every link you drop shouldn’t be back to your website. Sure, you can link to your own content, but do so sparingly lest everyone think you’re a spammer.
2. Don’t Link without a Title- This should be common sense, but based on what I’ve seen, it’s not. Don’t just Tweet out links without including a title or brief description of the link. There is absolutely zero chance of me clicking on a random link. (more…)

This week produced quite a bit of excellent content around link building. In this week edition of SEO Friday, we’ll recap some of these excellent articles and references that were published during this week. As you may know, link building is a very important aspect of improving your visibility in the search engines.

Ann Smarty, author of the successful Search Engine Journal, wrote an article titled, How To Build Links and Awareness by Pitching Bloggers. In this article she addressed that bloggers can be an excellent resource towards building links for the fact that most bloggers are always on the hunt for new material to write about and they are connected with many friends which gives your links the opportunity to go viral. The article was submitted into Sphinn, so be sure to help Ann out by casting your vote.

The author of a blog titled, Link Building Best Practices, wrote a very thoughtful piece that distinguishes the difference between SEOs and Link Builders. It is stated that there is a clear difference between the two skilsets and it is noted that commonly most people are either one or the other but not both. Understanding the difference between the two very well might break the boundary and expand the skilset from both professions. You should take a moment to help out by casting a vote on Sphinn. (more…)

Make no mistake folks, link building is a very important aspect in getting traffic from Google. Many of you guys and gals read my personal blog and I spend quite a bit of time talking about building micro niche blogs and targeting keywords that don’t require backlinks. While that is true, in a way that also limits you from capitalizing on prime keywords. Ranking for prime keywords are definitely in your reach; however, this can not be archived without launching a well thought out and well researched link building campaign.

So how do you launch an effective link building campaign? Well, really for many of you reading this, the problem is finding sites that will willingly add your link to their pages. But if you think about this for a second, you very well may already have a huge source of sites to use at your disposal. How many web sites or blogs do you have? Is there any reason why you’re not using your own web sites or blogs to help build backlinks to another blog or web site of yours?

I do this all the time! Granted, I have friends who’ll add my link to certain blogs posts upon request, but a large percentage of my link building comes from my own internal fleet of blogs. There is nothing wrong with using your existing blogs or web sites to help build up the number of backlinks to another blog or web site that you own. (more…)