Links are the most important aspect of SEO. They are the only thing that can truly help search engines evaluate the quality of your content, and therefore, search engines value them highly.
In this list I will go over a variety of link building techniques. You only need to apply a few of them (quality of quantity) to see some fantastic results. Remember that link building is an on-going process, a marathon not a sprint. You need to pace yourself, or you will get burned out, and the search engines will penalize you. I recommend reading Link Building is Like Acne and Your Blog's Healthy Diet to learn more about creating a successful link building strategy.
Link Building Techniques List
Read this list slowly, and apply. How useful the technique is depends on you, the amount of time you have, and your topic. I recommend trying a variety of techniques to see which works best. Not to mention, getting links from many different places looks healthy in the search engines eyes.
Remember that the quality of the link depends on these basic factors:
- How many links are on the page.
- The anchor text.
- The website's topic
- The website's page rank.
Dofollow Link Building Techniques
1. Link Bait
2. Forum signatures.
3. Write something groundbreaking
4. Freebies
5. Link to others
6. Insult another site
7. Link exchange
8. Promote another site
9. Create an eBook
10 Create great content
11. Link to yourself
12. Link to other pages
13. Become a Top Commentator
14. Guest Post
15. Form a partnership
16. Article Market
17. Build a Reputation
18. Provide a service
19. Get a Review
20. Dofollow Directories
21. Paid Directories
22. Free directories
23. Blog directories
24. Build a list article
25. Review Websites
26. Interview Websites
27. Hold a contest
28. Get sued
29. Create a plugin
30. Create a theme
31. Take a picture
32. Squidoo/Hubpages
33. Ask
Nofollow Link Building Techniques
Nofollow links won't technically help you for SEO, but here's my theory: Even though Google doesn't follow Nofollow links, they do know they exist. I think a site that has Nofollow and Dofollow links looks more natural to search engines then one with just Dofollow links. Also, other search engines might not support Nofollow.
The main point of Nofollow links are to build traffic and authority in real viewers eyes. A Nofollow link can often be more helpful than a Dofollow one because it brings in so much traffic.
1. Yahoo Answers
2. Social Media
3. Tweet
4. Trackbacks
5. Craigslist
Wrong Link Building Strategies
These may work, but they are mean and sometimes illegal. Don't do these things they are just made for your amusement. Actually, people sometimes do these sadly.
- Pay for links. (warning if Google detects this you could be banned.
- Write something mean about something and email sites that like what you wrote about. For instance, create an article about how much you hate cats and email it to ilovecats.com. If your lucky, they may post about how much they hate you. Yay.
- Do something so wrong you get in the news. Then news sites around the web will link to you.
- Sue a famous website. There's no better way to get on the news!
- Create a blog about how much you love Hitler. Everyone will link to you to spread the news so they can burn down your house.
- Threaten another website owner similarly to you publically on your site. Tell him how you are going to pwn their site.
- Post only your link on sites,forums,wikis, and blogs that clearly state you cannot post links.
- Edit a Wikipedia(or other wiki) page and put your link in huge letters.
- Get sued. If it is a company everyone hates or everyone loves your in.
- Ask if you like this product(the one you sell) on forums or in comments.
- Make sure you comment, "great post" on 50 different dofollow blogs every day that have comment love.
- Oh, and don't forget to fill you name with keywords.
- Link exchange with someone. Then, the next day change it to nofollow.
- The ultimate Pr scam: Link exchange with a ton of sites. Then, a week before the predicted pr update change all the links to Nofollow. Some may figure it out, but not all of the sites you linked to. Finally, watch as your pr climbs and theirs falls.
- Email Problogger, CNN, Boing Boing, and Youtube asking for a link exchange.
- Don't let anyone get away. If a webmaster says no to your offer, don't give up. Send him and email every day, every new post, every time you get a new comment. Don't give up if he ignores your email adress. Email him from a new one.
- Stalk him or her and mysteriously put your business card with your URl on it in his house. He might think a ghost or spirit is telling him something.
- Scratch other people's cars. Leave a note that displays your link. Tell them if they link to you you will pay them back. Who knows? It could be the owner of Lifehacker.
- Ask every new person you meet if he has a site. If he does say "If you were my friend you would link to me."
- Kidnap webmasters and force them to link to you.
Expect more info about the different link building techniques in later posts. Have your own link building tips? Please comment
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Oh the wrong link building section has just had me in tears of laughter. The sad thing is though many people do those techniques.
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Jake O'Callaghan (14 comments) Reply:
March 5th, 2010 at 8:15 pm
Haha, glad someone appreciates my sense of humor. It was really fun to right the wrong link building techniques section.
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I loves to do link building, i think forum signature and top commentator is so effective tips than others.
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Very good list
some dont make that much sense though
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kidnapping a webmaster, i could’nt just stop laughing.
But you have put a nice long reasearched post here.
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I haven’t been working on SEO for long so there are a lot of things that I still don’t know. Even recently, I’ve moved onto different aspects of link building that I hadn’t even known were considered SEO. I appreciate this resource of link building resources, thanks!
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Jake O'Callaghan (105 comments) Reply:
December 3rd, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Your welcome. Good luck link building!
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Taruhan Bola (1 comments) Reply:
December 7th, 2009 at 12:19 am
Ya same like me lol, this advice is so complete!. The point is find quality backlink to our site right?. But to build link like that not free and fast
, am i right?…
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Since I’m a humor-blogger, I search always how to improve page ranking. After visiting your excellent site & reading link building techniques , I learn too much and improved my backlinks.
I got PR3 due to your sites great articals. Thank You So Much To Help Me.
Malia Obama´s last blog ..Tribute to Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Shaheed
[Reply]
Jake O'Callaghan (105 comments) Reply:
November 17th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Great, that is exactly what this blog is about: helping people. Good luck with your blog!
[Reply]
Great tips, really great advice.
Thanks,
Ben
Ben Lang´s last blog ..Contest – Win 5 Great Prizes!
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I don’t know about several methods of links,before reading your blog, but now I have good knowledge about those all techniques.
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Jake O'Callaghan (105 comments) Reply:
August 31st, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Great, glad I could help.
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This is a great list. Well done.
Jacob Yap´s last blog ..Funky Lunch – 15 Pieces of Amazing Sandwich Design
[Reply]
Jake O'Callaghan (105 comments) Reply:
August 18th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
thanks…
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yes these tips are helpful and you mentioned some new techniques that are valuabe
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Jake O'Callaghan (105 comments) Reply:
August 15th, 2009 at 6:18 am
Glad it helped
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wish i could use the wrong strategies & get away with it..LOL..
kittu k´s last blog ..21 Free Keyword Density Analyzer tools to optimize your website
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Jake O'Callaghan (105 comments) Reply:
August 7th, 2009 at 5:32 am
Lol, yea
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This is a great article, thank you for sharing.
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Some pretty good tips here. The only one I would disagree with completely is putting your link in the source for Yahoo Answers. Yahoo Answers staff is very strict and will almost certainly delete your answer.
The Gooroo @ Finance Advisory Stop´s last blog ..Has The Bad Economy Effected You And Your Family?
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admin (284 comments) Reply:
July 23rd, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Really? It didn’t happen to me. The important thing is that you put in more than one link and you give a good answer.
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The Gooroo @ Finance Advisory Stop (2 comments) Reply:
July 23rd, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Yeah, I think the staff at Yahoo Answers continue to become more and more strict. They used to never delete answers. Nonetheless, it is still possible to promote there I guess — but like you said, the answers must be of really good quality.
The Gooroo @ Finance Advisory Stop´s last blog ..Has The Bad Economy Effected You And Your Family?
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admin (284 comments) Reply:
July 24th, 2009 at 5:44 am
Yea, I guess they don’t want it to become a spammy place where all the answerers just promote sites. I’m going to try and find out more and then write a post about it.
Yahoo Answers really can generate a pretty good amount of traffic.
I know about many link building techniques but your this post is provide me some other methods, actually your are doing very good,congrats.
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admin (284 comments) Reply:
July 23rd, 2009 at 8:32 am
Thanks for the comment. I hope the techniques help you.
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