South Florida Web Marketing Blog

Link building is a process that never ends. You may want to spend as much time as you can looking for opportunities to place a link on other websites to yours.

There are many ways to conduct link building, But be warned – there are the right ways and wrongs ways to build incoming links.

1. The best way to build links is to hand submit to the main search engines,  directories and other websites willing to exchange links. This is the easiest way and it can take time, but the links can be well worth it.
2. Create an XML files for the major Search Engines to get all your web pages submitted at one time – this works very well. The XML file is a common formatted file that can be submitted via a ping or you can set up an account for each Search Engine to submit to.
3. Start your own Blog and supply your own content – if your blog is configured correctly it will drive more traffic to your website.  Search Engines do enjoy fresh content and other websites may  link to your articles – creating the type of links you want.
4. Commenting on Blogs and Forums with a link in your signature file is another nice way to garner incoming links – if the blog or forum  does not block with a rel=”no follow” for their links
5. Writing articles and posting on many of the free article distribution websites is an excellent way to build incoming links, be sure you include your website link in the article.
6. Of course th Social Networks are very good to use, but caution needs to be made not posting a lot of spammy posts, twitter, Facebook and Myspace are the larger audience sites
7. Press Releases are very effective. The major issue is being careful on how it is written and which service you use to post it. I would look at other press releases for similar subjects to get an idea of the layout before writing one.
8. I guess the latest in incoming link marketing is Video. YouTube is the big video content provider, but there are many new ones popping up. Create your video and be sure to ad a link back to your website when posting.

Places to avoid:

1. Avoid Link farms – they seem easy to use and post, but this has a double edge cut, first the search engines dislike link farms – so it could just lower your ranking being on those sites. The other cut – is that you just signed yourself up to a ton of spam. Your e-mail address will be on every marketing list from here to China.
2. Guest books use to be a big attraction – like 10 years ago, but became a bullseye for every automated bot to post drugs to porn. Avoid them – they will not do much for you.
3. Google does not like paid listings with other websites – although I find that quite hypocritical, because Google offers Adwords which is a paid listing on theirs. Although some paid listings work fine on other sites – so just use caution and good judgment.
4. If you have a Social Network Account – avoid spamming you friends and people that are following you – your followers will leave – no one likes getting spammed.
5. Avoid automated linking building software that will post your site everywhere.  It will hurt your rankings. Search engines like seeing a slow progressive building approach, not suddenly having 2000 incoming links – big red flag.

Check each site before posting or consider before placing your good name on a website. This part of web marketing is getting abit more complicated each month with the changes to the Main Search Engines.

Market Your Web Site Wisely…

Other websites for more information:

131 (Legitimate) Link Building Strategies – http://searchenginewatch.com/2160301

101 Ways to Build Link Popularity – http://www.seobook.com/archives/001792.shtml