Link Building FAQs
Hi again. 🙂
I've mentioned it before and I'll say it again… I love Web Traffic. It's a goooood thing. And, that's what we're going to talk about today. Specifically traffic from Google.
In fact, Google sends my websites a nice bit of traffic. Here are my stats from last year for two of my niche websites. (Not this blog. They are two of my other sites.)
This shows how many web visitors that Google sent to each site during 2009.
and
As you can see, Google sent each of these sites over 300,000 visitors. Like I said, web traffic is a goooood thing. 🙂
How on earth do I get Google (and Yahoo and Bing) to send me hundreds of thousands of web visitors each year? Simple. Marketing. Specifically link building… which we'll talk about in just a minute.
Now, you guys know me well enough by now to know that I preach quality over quantity – and building a business that lasts the test of time. So, if you're looking for automated, spammy link-building tips today, you'll be sorely disappointed.
However, if you'd like to learn more about Link Building the right way, I've got some Link Building FAQs for you. I invited my good friend, Susanne Myers, here again to chat – and this time, I'll add my thoughts, too.
And, as a reminder, Susanne teaches a course in Beginner Link Building if you'd like to learn more about this topic.
Just click here to get started -> Beginner Link Building Course
On to the Link Building FAQs…
First, What Is Link Building?
Susanne says: Link building is the process of creating (one way or another) links on other pages across the internet that point back to pages of your own websites.
Me: Link building is getting other websites to link to your website. For example, if you like this blog post, you are free to link to it from your blog. Talk about it in a blog post and link back to it. See how easy that is? 🙂
Why Is Link Building Important?
Susanne says: Links help other people and search engines find your site. In other words, links are one of the most important things to get traffic.
Me: Link building is important for two reasons.
- Sites like Google, Yahoo, and Bing look at how many other websites link to your site to determine how valuable and important your site is. So, for instance, a site like WebMD.com or CNN.com that is informative and is considered an authority site has tons and tons of incoming links to it. While you don't have to compete with those sites, I use it as an example to show that valuable sites get linked to.
- The other main reason that link building is important is that having links on other websites gives you a much better chance at having people run across the links and click through them to your website. So, it's not just about the search engines. It's about placing links on sites where real people read the info and will click through to learn more about what you offer.
The combination of the two is extremely powerful. And, if you do it right, it's unstoppable traffic.
How Many Links Do I Need To Get?
Susanne says: That really depends.
My goals for building links are always to:
- Get traffic directly from the link. (From people clicking on my link.)
- Move up in the search engines for my keyphrase for that particular page.
The more links and the higher quality the links you are building the better. For SEO purposes, keep building links until you are #1 on google for your search terms and for traffic, just take advantage of any and all link opportunities.
Me: It's an ongoing process. I recommend that you do something “Marketing-related” every single day to get links to your website… forever.
What Are The Best Ways To Get Links?
Susanne says: I have two different ways of getting links. Some I actively create and others that are generated on auto pilot. Let me give you a few examples for each.
Active Link Building
- Write and submit articles to article directories
- Write and submit articles to quality sites in your niche
- Write guest posts for popular blogs in your market place
- Participate in forums in your niche linking back where applicable and in your forum signature line. (Make sure you comply with forum rules before posting any links).
- Leave valuable blog comments on blogs in your niche.
Passive Link Building
- Create a “Link To Me” Page that explains that it is ok to link to any page on your site and invites readers to grab links and buttons with simple copy and paste code that they can add to their own pages.
- Add a Share This button to your blog. It will allow people to bookmark and email your link. There are several wordpress plugins out there that will do this and automate the process of using social bookmarking sites, twitter, facebook etc.
- Write great content that people want to link to. Answer most commonly asked questions, create a list of resources, write a report or record a video. Create something of value and share it with your readers letting them know that it’s ok to link to this page.
Me: I love Susanne's answer. The only things I'd recommend in addition are Video Marketing and doing a lot of interviews on other people's sites — like this one. 🙂
Can I Just Buy Links?
Susanne says: Yes, you can, but it’s not a good idea. In the eyes of the search engines buying links on a site is cheating and they are constantly working on finding those links and punishing the sites that are involved in link buying schemes. In other words, if you value your site and your traffic, just don’t do it.
You can however outsource a lot of link building tasks. This basically means that you pay someone else to go out and post valuable comments on blogs, participate in forums or hire a writer to ghost write blog posts and articles for you.
Me: I'm with Susanne on this one. While there are shortcuts, I don't recommend purchasing links, especially when marketing is FUN! (Well, if you're geeky like me, it is.) 🙂
How Can I Learn More about Link Building?
Again – Susanne is the queen link builder. If you want to learn the basics of Link Building, again, here's here course -> Beginner Link Building Course
I hope this was helpful!
Please let us know if you have additional questions by commenting below. We're happy to keep answering questions as long as you keep asking.
Have a great day!
Warmly,
Nicole
Susanne
May 27, 2010 at 12:04 pmI’ll let Nicole chime in too, but here are my two cents.
I’m a big fan of one way links and unique content, so I would suggest posting the interview (especially if it is text) on just one site.
If it is an audio interview, feel free to post the audio file on both sites, but be sure to write new text around it to make the content unique.
walethia aquil
May 27, 2010 at 11:46 amNichole, another great article. Simple and easy to understand (I’m a newbie).
I especially like the ideal of doing interviews, since I’m in the process of conducting an interview via e-mail.
My question is, should the interview be posted on my site or theirs or both sites?
With Grace and Charm,
Nicole
May 27, 2010 at 12:22 pmI’m assuming you’re referring to a text interview like the one above since you’re conducting the interview via email.
If you’re the one conducting the interview, the interview would normally be posted on your blog.
However, you can certainly give the final interview to your guest expert, as well. In fact, it’s good manners to do so.
Just be sure to add an introduction and a closing to your own blog post (like I did here) so that, if your guest posts it on her blog, too, then your versions will be slightly different. But, I wouldn’t worry about it at all for two reasons.
1. If your guest posts it on her blog, then she’ll likely link to you in the interview. That’s good.
2. If your guest posts the interview on her blog, then you’re getting your name in front of her audience. Again, that’s good.
It’s one of those things where I wouldn’t sweat it at all. Give it to your guest with your thanks and then move on to your next one.
Hope that helps!
Jamian
May 27, 2010 at 12:46 pmNice Post! Well link building is perfect task for outsourcing, it’s repetitive and time consuming. I personally outsource mine it cost me $3 hr which is not bad and results are amazing.
walethia aquil
May 27, 2010 at 12:29 pmNice to meet the both of you.
Thanks, to the both of you for the quick response, I didn’t expect to receive feedback so soon!
Susanne, I had not even considered audio, thanks.
Terry Retter
May 28, 2010 at 10:19 amHere’s an additional idea. After the interview is posted, create an audio file of the interview (you could read it and add editorial comments along the way) and post it as a pod cast.
This will create even more links with the same content.
Susanne
June 4, 2010 at 2:38 pmGreat idea Terry, the more ways you can recycle your content the better. You could also group several related interviews into a pdf report and either give it away for free on a page (which will likely create tons of links to that page), or giving it away if someone signs up for your list, or even sell it as an infoproduct.
Laurie Kristensen
May 28, 2010 at 1:20 pmI noticed that you did not discuss the issue of worrying whether the backlinks are “no follow” or not… how much do you worry about this?
I am especially concerned today because I outsourced for someone to get 10-12 .edu backlinks for me to one of my sites, but when I used SEO4FireFox to check the, all but one are No Follow links.
I had heard they are no good, but I’ve done more research on this and I’ve seen really mixed opinions!
Thanks for any additional advice on this.
Susanne
June 4, 2010 at 2:41 pmHi Laurie, I don’t really worry too much about follow or no-follow, unless I were to pay for a link (which I don’t do btw).
There may be a little trickle of link juice that comes through even with the nofollow links, but mostly those links will bring you traffic. I mainly run into this with social media (i.e. a Twitter post) or blog commenting. In those cases my main focus is traffic and getting my name out there and I’m not to worried about the link.
As far as those edu backlinks go, unless they bring you some traffic they won’t do you much good. Instead of paying someone to do this kind of work, why not have them comment on high traffic blogs or forums instead or hire someone to write some articles or guest blog posts for you.
Nicole
June 4, 2010 at 3:02 pmHi Laurie!
I agree with Susanne. (Surprise, right?)
I honestly don’t sweat it over “do follow” vs. “no follow” links. My main goal is to get exposure on relevant sites that, hopefully, are already reaching my target audience.
For instance, if I was getting links for my “mom recipe” site (which I’m in a number of other niches and that’s one of them) – I’d look for sites that reach people interested in cooking or mom sites.
Like Susanne, I don’t pay for links. If I did, I may feel differently. I wouldn’t mind if a few of those were “no follow” but nearly all of them? Unless they stated that up front, I’d communicate your displeasure with the company that placed the links and see if they make it right.
Hope that helps!
walethia aquil
May 28, 2010 at 1:34 pmHi Mr. Retter,
Thank you for such a good ideal. I really appreciate the ideals and suggestions.
Have a Grace and Charm weekend.
Mark Ward
May 28, 2010 at 2:27 pmNicole: I sure do enjoy reading your posts. You give info that people can use. Most of these sites I signed up for are ALWAYS just trying to sell and not give anything back. Thanks. Mark
Nicole
June 4, 2010 at 3:02 pmYou’re VERY welcome, Mark. Thank you for the kind words. 🙂
Jernej
May 29, 2010 at 4:08 pmThese are some pretty good tips. We’ve been working hard lately to get our company’s pagerank higher, hopefully our efforts pay off.
But it’s a competitive world…
Still, thanks!
Susanne
June 4, 2010 at 2:43 pmIt still is and if you look at how page rank is calculated, it’s getting harder and harder the more pages are indexed overall.
Building links and page rank which we are ultimately doing to get more traffic, is something we’ll have to do consistently on a daily basis.
To take some of the pressure off, work on some of the passive link building strategies I mentioned in the blog post above.
Deb
May 30, 2010 at 7:51 pmThanks for this article. I was confused about link building until I finally took the time to read this. Sometimes it seems like a person could be on line all day trying to promote their business. Whew! Nicole I read a lot of your stuff and have bought PLR material too. I’m especially looking for PLR that relates to cleaning.. As you can see I put my husband cleaning business website in my comment. I just need to get started on this linking stuff.
Thanks,
Deb
Susanne
June 4, 2010 at 2:46 pmJust do a little something each week. An easy thing to get started with is article marketing.
BTW, instead of trying to rank for cleaning and general terms like that, go after local search terms like
“cleaning service St. Louis”, “maid service St. Louis” etc. since you are mostly interested in local clients.
Nicole
June 4, 2010 at 3:11 pmRemember “link building” is nothing more than marketing your website. 🙂 Try not to over think it too much. Just do one thing every day to get your website in front of new people and you’ll be doing great!
Kellie
June 1, 2010 at 4:24 pm🙂 Thanks for sharing your knowledge, I’ve done all of the mentioned tips for creating active links except participating in forums. I’ve just ventured into article marketing and can’t wait to see the results. I guess I need to expand my horizons and jump on some forums.
Susanne
June 4, 2010 at 2:47 pmKellie, don’t worry about doing all of these. Stick with the ones you like and that are getting you results. The more important thing is to do this consistently. Build as many quality links as you can and make sure your pages are optimized well and you’ve done your keyword research.
Nicole
June 4, 2010 at 3:09 pmDitto Susanne again. 🙂
You won’t want to do only ONE method of link-building, because we don’t want to ever rely upon one method of marketing.
BUT choosing a few that you enjoy doing, will help you to stick with your plan. I always teach to “Do what you’ll do” – so pick a handful of methods that you enjoy and do them consistently for best results.
Hope that helps!
Abraham
June 2, 2010 at 4:16 amI work at SEO optimization company and I must say you wrote correct things for “google optimization”.
Clay Franklin
June 3, 2010 at 12:32 amHi Nicole,
Great article.
I have never done article marketing just yet. I can see the value in it though.
I also find that links from some social media site profiles have helped by showing up as incoming links.
I also need to spend more time linking to my sites and my clients sites or I will fall behind.
Wow 300,000 visits. that is awesome. I get about 6,000 to my main blog.
All the best,
Clay
Susanne
June 4, 2010 at 2:49 pmClay, that’s a great start. Give article marketing a try, it’s actually quite simple, but very powerful. As is guest blogging. Both of these methods will give you some more powerful links than those you tend to get through social marketing. Plus it’s always good to have some variety in your link profile (in other words have links coming from many different sources).
Jeanie
June 4, 2010 at 7:16 amAnother great one! I appreciate the great down to earth thoughts and ideas. I am trying to be one of the ones that takes the ideas and puts them into practice.
Jeanie
Susanne
June 4, 2010 at 2:51 pmThanks for bringing that up Jeanie…it’s a very important point. Here’s what I do when I come across a good piece of content where I’m learning something:
1) Take Notes
2) How does this apply to me and my sites
3) Come up with action items. Those are things I can implement on my sites.
4) Get to work and make those changes.
If you do that, you’re light years ahead of everyone else.
Neil
March 25, 2011 at 8:48 amGreat information, I have wondered about outsourcing link building because I absolutley loathe it. Awesome stuff.
Natasha
September 29, 2011 at 5:49 amThanks for the good tips. I’m still learning and have always thought that do-follow were vital. However, it makes sense that your building links for exposure and relevance….Thanks
Bonnie
October 16, 2011 at 1:20 pmThis is a great article and I do implement some, but I need to work on more. I let my blog sit for a few months, and I’m finding it harder to build my site back up. It will get done with a little marketing daily. Thanks for all the great tips.
FreelancingMom
October 17, 2011 at 3:48 amI’ve just started building backlinks to my blog, and what I’m most curious about is the dofollow vs nofollow debate. Does it really matter whether the backlinks to your site are dofollow or not? I’ve noticed that when I do a backlink search on Yahoo, I only see the ‘dofollow’ links, but can nofollow links still count towards your search engine rankings?
Trung Nguyen
April 29, 2012 at 9:07 amThanks for your post, it helped me knowing much more about link building, and why it’s important for a website/blog 🙂 thanks so much.
chad s.
June 22, 2012 at 7:56 amHi Nicole – I’ve purchased many of your PLR products in the past. So I’m a loyal subscriber. I just wanted to know what you are doing differently with link building with all Google updates? any suggestion or thoughts are always well appreciated.