All Entries Tagged With: "link building"

A Blog Is The Best Link Building Tool You Have

I love it when people verify what I’ve been saying for years. Michael Martinez back in February had a great post that discussed the three best link building tools. One of those is blogging.

Here’s what he says about the benefits of blogging:

Pros of Blogs
–They are usually easy to set up and low-maintenance
–They are more powerful and flexible than widgets, gadgets, gizmos, and plug-ins
–They allow you to populate multiple domains/subdomains quickly

And I’ll add this to the pro list on blogs as well – They achieve better search engine results more quickly than any other tool available. Yes, even better than articles. Better than static websites. Better than social media. More powerful than a speeding bullet. Etc.

Why are blogs so good for search engine optimization, including link building? Because they are crawled – like all updated content – every single time you update them. The more often you update your blog, the more it will get crawled. The more it gets crawled, the more opportunities you have of achieving great rankings. Each and every blog post you write is treated like a separate web page by the search engines. Therefore, every ranking factor that applies to any web page applies to every single blog post you write. If you have a blog with 500 blog posts then that’s 500 chances to rank for your keyword, 500 chances + for your links to build link juice and gain the age advantage, 500 chances to build anchor text links with high quality and relevance, etc. Blogging is guerrilla SEO on steroids!

I could write all day about the search engine benefits of blogging. But, do it wrong, and you can kill your rankings. That’s why it is important to choose an expert in blogging, ghostwriting, and SEO who can steer you in the right direction and keep you away from dangerous waters.

Want to know more? Get a free consult with a blog consultant.

June 29, 2009 | Allen | Comments 0

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.

June 25, 2009 | Allen | Comments 0

One Cool Directory Blog

You’ve heard of blog directories. But have you ever heard of a directory blog? Well, I found one.

Directory Blogger is a fairly new blog about directories. All kinds of directories – article directories, blog directories, niche directories, bid directories, general directories, you name it. Since June 2008, Directory Blogger has been providing excellent blog posts on directory submissions, link building through directories and a variety of other topics of interest to serious webmasters who use directory submissions as a way to build links and drive traffic to their websites.

This blog has a cool design. It’s eye-catching and appealing and seems to be well optimized with maybe a few minor weaknesses. I’d definitely recommend reading this blog to keep up with smaller directories. His search box isn’t working so I wasn’t able to see if he has any posts about DMOZ and BOTW, two of the biggest names in the directory niche. Nevertheless, I’d encourage you to subscribe to his blog feed and see what he has to say about directories.

February 20, 2009 | Allen | Comments 1

Building Links By Supporting Charity Blogs

Rand Fishkin is telling people to buy links by supporting a charity. That’s actually a good idea. We’ve advocated that for a long time now and in fact have several charity blogs that you can sponsor if you are so inclined. How does help you build links? In a number of ways:

First, by sponsoring another blog – even a noncharity blog – within your niche, you can have a back link placed on that blog that will count toward increased PageRank and assist you with search rankings.
Use anchor text and the link becomes relevant within your niche. It increases the benefit.
The higher the PageRank of the site linking to you the better the link will be for you.
Plus, you may be able to write off the cost as a charitable contribution on your taxes.

Anyone interested in sponsoring one of the following blogs we own can contact Chris McElroy at 786-317-8774 or fill out our contact form:

November 17, 2008 | Allen | Comments 2