Natural link building
You will read in many places that writing great articles is anything you need to get a lot of natural links to your website, to get a lot of shares on twitter and facebook and to drastically increase your search engine positioning.
Well, this is the case if you have thousand of readers and visitors every day. If 1000 people read your article there is a great chance that it will be shared and linked if the article is not of high quality. But that’s not the case for you, average website that just started and struggling with only few hundreds of visitors that most of them may be search bots and spiders as well.
Write the best article that you ever wrote and publish it to a blog with 100 visitors a day, how many shares and links your article get ? There is a great chance that they never read your article to see how good it is. They will share your content only if you are a well known figure in the domain or if you have a popular blog. People will look at your website to see how many readers you have, how many likes, how many followers. If you have a lot of followers they will follow too, if not they will question your ability to write good content.
I bet you heard many stories about blogs that suddenly become very popular from day 1 of being online. These blogs are supported by other people who already have other blogs with a great amount of traffic and high popularity, it is enough to say: “hey, i’m writing here too” and his followers will read the new blog too. But again, this is not the case here.
So, what is to be done for the average starting blog or website, with no support from a very popular blogger and without thousands of dollars to spend on advertising on other websites. Do they have any change ? Yes, they have a great chance also but they need to work hard to reach the goals. And you don’t need to create spam bots to spam forums, website or article directories. You have to substitute the power of money and popularity that other might have with hard work.
What you have to do in order to get attention to your website without spending huge amount of money is to get involved in communities and discussions related to your website topic.
If you blog is about healthy food recipes you have to know what people interested in your blog topic are looking for and how they think. Involving in discussion on these topics can increase your chances that you will write content that others will find it useful, and most important occassionally you can leave a link to an article or resource on your website.
Your website is intended to solve problems, to provide info that people are looking for. What you have to do is to connect your website with people who are in need of the info or tool that your website provides. Register on forums related to your topic, visit community websites and get involved in groups and discussions about your website topic. You will see that most of the discussions about any topic are: “Where i can find a ..”, “Where i can look for..”, “How can i do ….”. There is a great chance that your blog has already answered to all this questions but they never reached to your blog to read the answers. All you have to do is to point them to your website, give a summary of the answer and tell them to read the full article for more info.
Where you can find discussions about your topic:
- Forums and Bulletin Boards ( General or topical )
- Questions and Answers websites ( yahoo answers is a great place to find people with a lot of questions that you already answered on your bog )
- Social Network groups and discussions
- Blog comments on relevant articles. Be aware, only post your link if it add value to the article topic.
It is not spam! Spam will be considered only if you don’t write anything else than the link to your website, or if you post the same thing without reading what is the discussion about. You give the answer to an actual problem and you know that not every answer can be given in fre words.
Traffic will come from these links and search engines follow people. 5 years ago when i started my first website all the traffic i got for a website was coming from yahoo answers and a blog post on a semi-popular blog where I left a comment with a link to a resource page on my website.
Providing the communities you are involved in with answers and help have other benefits too, you can make friends interested in the same topic that will share your stories and link to your website when needed.
The traffic that comes is very targeted because they expressed their intention to get an answer when they read the discussion. Solve their problems and they will like you.
Twitter: maidoesimple
says:
That’s a nice topic to talk about, after all it’s the very same reason why commenting on blogs with a similar niche is a good way to bring your own blog to the attention of the right people.
CommentLuv is an extraordinary chance to meet people with similar interests in a surprisingly natural way.
Gabriele Maidecchi´s recent blog post ..Social Media Isn’t The Most Important Thing of Your Life
Twitter: codrutturcanu
says:
hi Gabriele, I wonder… how did CommentLuv impact your blogging? Are we talking about the community or the plugin?
Codrut Turcanu´s recent blog post ..13 of the Best Squeeze Page Examples on the Internet
I just recently discovered CommentLuv. So far what I’ve seen of it, it is a very powerful way to build quality links. Quite a community also, as you have pointed out.
Michael´s recent blog post ..The Ethics of Selling Your Car – Considering the Buyers Safety
If you provide quality content, other users will easily discover your blog when you participate in communities and comment on blogs.
lucianapostol´s recent blog post ..Is Outsourcing the SEO worth it Choosing Individual- Companies or Resellers
Personally I have found forums and social network discussion groups to be great. Sites like Yahoo answers haven’t worked too well for me in the past. That’s just me though. Great post.
Adam Clarke´s recent blog post ..How to Flirt With a Girl
Thank you for your comment. Getting involved in communities with similar interest will help you to understand what people need and want to see or read in the first place.
lucianapostol´s recent blog post ..How to Save Money in Web Development
Twitter: codrutturcanu
says:
hi Lucian, that’s an interesting read… it’s first time I hear about natural link building, as 98% of the bloggers out there have put a negative label (without their intent) on this method/term.
P.S. Are you from Romania too ?:)
Codrut Turcanu´s recent blog post ..13 of the Best Squeeze Page Examples on the Internet
Hello Codrut.
Thank you for your comment and yes, I’m from Romania.
Link building is not only about directories, spam comments or creating thousands of blogspot or wordpress hosted blogs with your link. Link building should be natural, as it is in offline.
Think about a personal trainer that speaks at TV about weight loss, then at some point recommend his personal private consultations. This is the “guest posting”, a natural way to let people hear about you.
lucianapostol´s recent blog post ..Is Outsourcing the SEO worth it Choosing Individual- Companies or Resellers
Yes there all good points, but depending on the niche there is only so many articles you can write before you start repeating yourself. Also this tactic of social media marketing is more targeted for blogs in my opinion, what about a strategy for sites that don’t lend themselves to viral interaction?
jimmycook´s recent blog post ..Heathrow Comes in For More Criticism
Few years back I was used to promote “tool” websites. A website made for a specific tool. There was not much traffic from social media, digg or something else but the secret that brought the website into first page of google was involving in communities.
I registered on forums related to the topic, started to talk and when I had the chance I left the link to the tool. Then they started to tell to their friends when they wanted to use something similar, then they posted on their blogs when they wanted to write about something related. it went somewhat viral, but it started from small communities.
lucianapostol´s recent blog post ..Is Outsourcing the SEO worth it Choosing Individual- Companies or Resellers
Twitter: fredtracy
says:
I’ve found forums to be especially helpful. Yahoo answers, not so much, but maybe that’s just me.
I’ll have to try more on social community sites.. hmm.
Fred Tracy´s recent blog post ..Why Nice Guys Finish Last
Yahoo answers contains a lot of spam, and it works only on some topics. For example if you want to answer a question about health in yahoo answers you can see that there are already about 10 answers to every open question. If you want to answer a question about web development or wordpress a lot of questions are without any answer.
There are other answer-like community sites, like quora, ask, answers, they have a better anti-spam policy but this don’t have to worry, if you provide a great answer and the link is on-topic they will appreciate and people will start to follow you.
lucianapostol´s recent blog post ..Is Outsourcing the SEO worth it Choosing Individual- Companies or Resellers
Obviously, natural link building is much better than paid links, since it’s easy for Google to catch on to those, and give them very little value. Plus, if you get good links from popular websites, your site will not only get more visitors, but will also get more credibility, since your website was linked from there. But to get those links, you’ll need to write something of value, that those sites can easily recommend to their readers. Writing good content once or twice might not get noticed, but writing quality content in the long term will ensure that you will get noticed more often by more popular websites who are interested in the topic you’re writing about, and thus you will eventually get more and more quality links.
The goal is to be linked from popular blogs or website in your topic. To achieve this you should participate in communities where webmasters of popular blogs ans websites are, but as you said this can be achieve only if you provide great content.
lucianapostol´s recent blog post ..Is Outsourcing the SEO worth it Choosing Individual- Companies or Resellers
I have been marketing on Ezine for quite some time now but ever since the big Google slam, I reverted to blog commenting. It’s a great way to build readership and like you said, relevancy is very important.
This is one reason why I love CommentLuv. I had used it before but they really have some wonderful opportunities!
Oxbow Herald´s recent blog post ..Gorilla Trekking through the Rainforest
CommentLuv is great because you can see what people who comment to the same story you do are writing, and they ( and post authors ) will see what you are writing about.
It happened a lot of times to receive a message from the blog owner after I left a good comment telling me that he liked the comment and would like to see me again commenting.
lucianapostol´s recent blog post ..Is Outsourcing the SEO worth it Choosing Individual- Companies or Resellers
It’s funny i ran over this article right now, because in the last week i’ve seen several people asking how to do natural link building the easy way. Unfortunately there is no easy way to do it, it takes time and dedication, but the rewards are equally satisfying.
Maria Pavel´s recent blog post ..Certified Nursing Assistant Practice Test
This is so true, there is no easy way. You have to provide some quality and get involved in communities and let others know that you really care about the topic.
lucianapostol´s recent blog post ..Is Outsourcing the SEO worth it Choosing Individual- Companies or Resellers
You write about a lot of things that 95% of website owners have not fully understood. It can be seen extremely often that a website owner or blog owner for that matter, sits down in a weekend and hammers submitions of links to link directories, comment on blogs and xx number of articles.
Whereupon he expects that as the work is complete, but after 1 month when nothing happens on his website. So it is that he begins to read the real articles on how to do a natural link building.
And as owner of a link directory, I see it every day sadly enough.
Jimmy´s recent blog post ..Naturlig linkbuilding- hvordan laver man en linkbuilding rigtigt
That’s why only 5% of the blogs stand out while the others are giving up after the first month.
More, the “submitters” are so desperate to get links and they forget that everything should be about quality and with that mentality they often pass a great opportunity to get a great, quality, related link because they are used only to gain quick automated links without value. I don’t say that a webmaster should never submit his website to directories, but it is just a small portion of what link building should be.
lucianapostol´s recent blog post ..Is Outsourcing the SEO worth it Choosing Individual- Companies or Resellers
Absolutely, submissions to link directories should never be an essential part of a link building.!
I have lost count of how many times I’ve written it on the blog associated with the directory. I usually say that from 5 to max 10% of your links should come from directories, but you also are on the more desperate a blog owner is the more reason is thrown out!
Jimmy´s recent blog post ..Find relevante blogs at få backlinks i form af kommentar eller link bytte
The worst is when new websites are submitted first to directories. There is not a better signal for Google to mark the website as suspicious or even spam.
lucianapostol´s recent blog post ..Is Outsourcing the SEO worth it Choosing Individual- Companies or Resellers
Twitter: GrowOnlineBiz
says:
Hi Luciana,
Great article. I have been seeing great results by participating in the niche social community sites.
You’re right, the key is to help people solve their problems.
Thanks for sharing and good luck with the contest.
Mavis
Mavis Nong´s recent blog post ..How to Beat the Changes to Organic Traffic Generation Rules
Thank you Mavis for your comment. Btw, my name is Lucian
lucianapostol´s recent blog post ..Is Outsourcing the SEO worth it Choosing Individual- Companies or Resellers
Hi there Lucianapostol,
Wow, I liked your entry revealing the old but most useful secret in generating traffic. Thanks for bringing this up. I super agree with you to create an appealing content to build links. However, you haven’t mention the natural link building method is called “Link Baiting”. It is where readers naturally link up your article to their newly created or an old post article. This makes your article as their reference making you an authority of the shared information.
Anyway, you made it great in other way. Kudos!
Thanks,
Kira Permunian
kirapermunian´s recent blog post ..Content Farms- Spam and Googles Algorithmic Changes
Yes, it is link baiting, but what I wanted to point out is that it is not enough to write great content. You have to let others to know that you are writing great content, and that can be achieved trough participating in topical communities, forums and engaging with other people interested in the same topic.
lucianapostol´s recent blog post ..Is Outsourcing the SEO worth it Choosing Individual- Companies or Resellers
Writing good content that could be easily shared by those who appreciate it will bring you the most exposure, the most natural links you can get and the most value. When doing the so called “manual link building” you tend to always place your “perfectly targeted anchor links” here and there and this cannot be gamed too far. Search engines are really good at this now. When contributing with an excellent article on a topic, you will typically get targeted relevant links, with close anchor texts but not exact as you intended, making your link building efforts to look more natural that you think. I think this is the way to go.
You’re right, in content links are the most valuable, and having most of the links with the same anchor will raise a flag for search engine algorithms. Naturally, a lot of people will link to your website only using the link with no anchor or an anchor that is different from your targeted keywords.
lucianapostol´s recent blog post ..Is Outsourcing the SEO worth it Choosing Individual- Companies or Resellers
Twitter: cazort
says:
I think your point about Q&A sites is one of the most often-overlooked ways to help people learn about a site. These sites are doubly valuable, as they also provide an outstanding way to get ideas of what topics would be useful to write about. If you find an interesting question that you are knowledgeable about and no one has yet answered, what better topic to blog about than that question?
I want to add one other useful idea that has worked for me. Use tools like StumbleUpon to discover blogs and websites in your niche that you may not know about. You may discover other bloggers and webmasters that you can network with, and you might also find relevant sites that you would want to link to. I’ve discovered a lot of great stuff in this way. Often, one of the best ways to promote your own blog or site is to stop thinking exclusively about your site and start looking at what else is out there.
Alex Zorach´s recent blog post ..Neighborhood and Community Gathering Spaces
Thank you for your comment.
I tried stumble upon for a while but 90% of the websites I receive are landing pages or some tool homepage websites that I’m not interested in at that point.
To discover new blogs in the same topic I write about I either look into topical social bookmarking websites or I see what people who comment here or on other blogs that use comment luv plugin.
lucianapostol´s recent blog post ..Is Outsourcing the SEO worth it Choosing Individual- Companies or Resellers
Link-building is a Vast topic and a very good topic to debate. Thanks for sharing
anish´s recent blog post ..PCPedia Giveaway- Hello Bar Invites
Thank you. Natural link building is a great topic to debate.
lucianapostol´s recent blog post ..How to find a SEO Company
Twitter: wpbloggingtips
says:
Nice tips about link baiting also called natural link building. Its not easy thing to do. commentluv is a nice plugin to bring good content among readers and may be if somebody likes it, they will link it. Writing high quality content is very important for link baiting.
Amit Sharma´s recent blog post ..How To Make Money Online
Twitter: techcrates
says:
Truly said that writing a great article that hasn’t been read attracts a lot of links and viewers
Salman´s recent blog post ..Nokia C101 Review- 32GB Expandable