Link Building is one of the most important aspects of Search Engine Optimisation, something which you can’t neglect. Link Building purely for rankings sake (or to game Google) isn’t an ethical approach and in the long run, Google will catch you out. When building links back to your website, you have to ask yourself a few questions
- Is this link relevant? (for example if you are leaving a link on a forum, will the people using the forum find your link helpful)
- Will this bring the right kind of traffic to my website?
If you can answer yes to both those questions then it’s probably OK to leave a link to your website. If you are building an ethical white-hat link profile for your website, you need a diverse link profile. You can’t simply get links from directory websites or from blog comments. Too many of one kind of link is bad. A few types of links you should consider getting are :-
Links from relevant discussion forums
If you are a personal trainer and are engaging with your community online (which you should be) then you should be participating in discussion forums, if you see a topic on weight gain supplements or the best leg exercises and you have content on your website that is relevant and the forum would find interesting, feel free to drop your link. You will probably notice a lot of traffic from these kind of links because they are relevant and they should be what the user is looking for. One hint though, don’t just register on a forum and start dropping links, you have to build up trust over time by actually engaging with the forum and providing useful information, forum administrators will have spammers day in and day out so they can spot somebody simply dropping links.
Directory links
If you come across a directory which you think your website should be a part of, make sure you get listed. Don’t just submit your website to every directory on the internet, it won’t help your rankings and will probably harm your rankings. The directory has to be relevant to you (so either your business niche or a local area directory).
Remember, the harder it is for you to gain entry onto the directory, the better the directory probably is because it’s not simply letting every person sign up.
Blog Comments
Blog comments are not my favourite way to gain back links to your website but they still serve a purpose in some industries. The bad way to approach blog commenting is to simply go and search for blogs that are accepting comments and leave a link back to your website. Don’t do this, it won’t help and is simply a waste of your time. Your links have to be natural and authentic, if the blog is related to your website and you are providing a useful comment and there is a reason for your link then don’t hesitate to leave the link.
Be very selective with your links, spend the time to look for quality link opportunities that will actually bring quality traffic to your website. If you ever think you are simply leaving the link to build “back links”, don’t leave your link.