All Entries Tagged With: "inbound links"
Can An Off-Site Blog Build Inbound Links To Your Main Website?
One strategy that some SEOs and Internet marketers have used to build inbound links into their main website is to set up an off-site blog and link profusely to their main website. The question is, does this work? There are two parts to this discussion:
- First, yes, it can work to a limited degree.
- But only if approached in the right way.
The Real Purpose For Your Blog
Before you start talking about the link building aspect of your blog, you need to first understand the primary purpose for your blog, namely, to communicate with your customers and potential customers. Your blog is a marketing tool. You want it to draw in potential customers and drive them to your imporant web pages. The most effective blogs are the ones that do this using high quality, relevant content on a consistent basis.
There are three primary approaches to marketing with a blog and each of them should work in tendem to support the others. These are branding, pre-sales, and information publishing.
Let’s discuss these in backward order. Information publishing is all about delivering quality and helpful information to your readers. That doesn’t mean every blog post has to be a dynamic 1,000-word tome. Size doesn’t matter. Quality does.
Pre-sales information is not about closing. You can effectively use a blog as a sales closing tool, but it doesn’t have to be use that way. The way Blog Content Provider approaches blogging is to use each blog post as a pre-sales tool. We set up the sale by delivering useful, relevant information to your readers that interests them in more information and entices them toward your sales pages.
Branding is a term that simply means you develop a recognizable name for yourself in the marketplace. By using a blog as a branding tool you communicate an important message to your potential customers that you are professional and serous about doing business.
How To Build Inbound Links With Your Blog
Your off-site blog can be an important way to attract new business into your sales funnel. Each blog post has the potential to achieve high search engine rankings on its own with the proper search engine marketing techniques. But that alone will not be enough to drive massive traffic to your website.
Inbound links to your main website can increase your search engine positioning relative to your competition. Your off-site blog can play a part in that by adding links to your website from the body of each post as well as in your sidebar. Honestly, though, the links in each blog post – the in-text links – will be more valuable in this regard and can drive traffic to your main website as well as build links.
Another way to build links is through a signature at the bottom of each blog post.
The danger in using this method to build links is that it could be construed as a form of spam if not done properly. Mixing some outbound links into your blog posts to highly relevant, authoritative websites within your niche can assist you with your link building efforts as the search engines see this as a sign that you are using natural linking techniques. But you want to be sure of two things with regard to your outbound links:
- You aren’t link to your competitors
- And you are avoiding bad neighborhoods
The Limitations Of Blogging As A Linkbuilding Tool
Every search engine marketing technique has its limitations. Including blogging. While you can build relevant and authoritative links using an off-site blog, there are some concerns you should take into consideration before you start blogging.
No. 1, don’t put your blog on the same IP block as your website. Host it with a completely different hosting company. The search engines have been known to discount links from sites owned by the same owner just for being on the same IP block and in the same niche.
Secondly, don’t rely entirely on your blog for inbound links. This is one of the biggest mistakes that website owners make. Link diversity is very important. If all of your links are coming from the same source then you will likely cap out on your rankings, and there is a high degree of probability that it won’t be on page 1. You should also build links from other sources. This link diversity along with variation in your anchor text will bring you more search engine favor than your blog alone.
For more information about blogging, click here to speak to a blog consultant.
Should Your Blog Be In A Folder Or A Subdomain?
Where you place your blog can be critical to its SEO success. There are three places, technically, to put your blog so that it sits on a server and does what it is suppose to do. It can sit in a folder on your domain, it can be a subdomain, or it can sit on the root of a domain. Here’s what your blog URL will look like in each case:
In a folder:
http://domainname.com/blog
As a subdomain:
http://blog.domainname.com
On the root domain:
http://blogname.com
There are benefits to placing your blog on its own domain name and using it to drive traffic to your main website, but that’s a separate discussion. Let’s assume that you want your blog on the same domain as your website. Should it be in a folder or operate as a subdomain? I think you’ll get more benefit from putting your blog in a folder. There are several reasons why.
First, subdomains do not always receive the same benefits as the domain under which they sit. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. For instance, if your site’s PageRank is a 6, your subdomain may receive that same benefit or it may not. If your site has 1 million inbound links, they may tranfer to your subdomain or they may not. There is no clear policy or trend on how subdomains are treated by the search engines. Some subdomains are dismissed altogether.
A folder, on the other hand, always gets the benefit of the domain on which it sits. If your site is a PR 3 then that will benefit your blog. The blog could have a higher or lower PR than the website itself. Individual blog posts could have higher or lower PRs and each will have its own link popularity, but the link juice that flows from your main website to your blog and each page on it will be real benefits.
Another reason you want your blog in a folder and not on a subdomain is because if your blog is in a folder then it will benefit your entire rank’s search engine saturation numbers. A subdomain won’t do that. A subdomain is often treated like a standalone domain and doesn’t always carry the same benefits as a standalone domain.
There are plenty more reasons why a folder is better than a subdomain, but these are the big reasons. Can you think of any more reasons why you’d want your blog in a folder as opposed to a subdomain?
Enjoy These Do-Follow Social Bookmarking Sites
Social bookmarking is one way to promote your blog. The following list of social bookmarking websites offer do-follow links:
- http://rapidpicks.com/
- http://blogmarks.net/
- http://buddymarks.com/
- http://digg.com/
- http://ez4u.net/
- http://ma.gnolia.com/
- http://mylinkvault.com/
- http://spurl.net/
- http://a1-webmarks.com/
- http://backflip.com/
- http://bibsonomy.org/
- http://blogmemes.net/
- http://bmaccess.net/
- http://bookmarktracker.com/bt/home
- http://connectedy.com/index.php
- http://corank.com/
- http://furl.net/
- http://givealink.org/cgi-pub/bookmarklet/bookmarkletLogin.cgi
- http://mister-wong.com/
- http://mixx.com/
- http://mypip.com/index.html
- http://myvmarks.com/
- http://newsvine.com/
- http://oyax.com/
- http://plugim.com/
- http://propeller.com/
- http://shoutwire.com/
- http://squidoo.com/
- http://syncone.net/
- http://tedigo.net/index.cfm
- http://www.spicybookmark.com
Now, keep in mind that social bookmarking is not about the links. It’s about marketing your blog in such a way that people with similar interests can find you easily. But getting inbound links that pass off link juice is a nice bonus.
Use Your Blog To Build Inbound Links
A blog is a great way to build inbound links. You can use an offsite blog to build links to your static website by posting daily and using your keywords as anchor text to build those inbound links. The best way to use a blog for building links is to augment other types of Internet marketing that you do and not try to do too much too soon. You don’t want the search engines thinking you are spamming and discounting those links. In the case of linking from your blog to your static site, moderation is the key.
There are two ways to make your blog’s inbound links for you:
- Sidebar
- In-text
Your sidebar links are permanent links and won’t help you a great deal, but they do help brand your blog and drive traffic to important pages where you want your traffic to go. Your in-text in-blog-post links are the best links you can have. The search engines love those links. And they count to help push your static site up in the rankings. Learn more about how an offsite blog can help you build inbound links.
