How to Get Free Backlinks
Posted on 12. Oct, 2009 by NegSEO in Blog, Link Building
So there are many people out there always talking about the importance of link bait and writing good content to attract users. Well not every site has the type of content that people are dying to write about. Sure we can all come up with a cheesy (but often effective) top 10 list about the product, but if we are not getting traffic it doesn’t generate any new links. Also if you are targeting a niche that people rarely write genuine blog posts about such as debt consolidation then your link bait dreams will disappear.
So here are several ways to get free backlinks.
Social Networks and Bookmarking
One of the most common ways people attempt get backlinks is using social networks. There are thousands of sites available that can produce a quality link to your site. Social sites also have the extra benefit that they can also drive traffic, especially sites like StumbleUpon.
When submitting your links to these sites it is important that you take a few minutes to create some account activity and create a profile (upload pic, add bio, etc.) to add legitimacy to your submissions. Most people just submit their main domain but it is also beneficial to submit deep linked articles such as the link bait style post we previously mentioned. This will hopefully drive a tiny amount of traffic your way.
Remember to use your keyword in the submission title, but don’t make it look spammy. For example, instead of writing “Debt Consolidation” as the title write “5 Reasons you Should Consider Debt Consolidation”. How you write your titles could mean the difference between getting flagged as spam or hitting the front page of a bookmarking site.
- Lee from RavenSEO made a list of niche social networks.
- Use tools to like SocialMarker or SocialPoster
Article Sites
Another great method of getting great backlinks is article marketing. This topic has been beat to death by every other blogger out there so I’ll keep it brief. You should use high authority article sites to submit unique content to, with a link coming back to your site. This is very simple. Different sites have different rules about links but most allow author bio links at the end of your article so make sure you have one or two good keywords linked back to yourself.
When creating your content for the sites try to avoid coping other people. Many just find other articles, repost the content and change the links. While this worked fine in the past, Google’s duplicate content sensors have gotten much better and they are weighing the links in duped content less and less. However if you write two the three unique and relevant articles per article site you will be getting some quality, indexed links. After you write these articles make sure you run them through a social bookmarking service like the one mentioned above to make the link pass even more juice. Also interlinking the articles sparsely may help indexing and authority.
Here is a tasty list of some high PageRank directories:
Press Releases
Press Releases offer a exciting chance to build massive links and get your site tons of traffic. The key here is that you need to make it look both professional and newsworthy. PR spam is on the rise and to get your stuff syndicated by the big news sites you have to go the extra mile. You should also submit your PR to local journalist with a friendly email and see if they can syndicate it on their websites or possibly get print coverage, journalists get lazy too and they need stories!
Sean Aune has made a great list of Press Release sites. I’ll reprint it below.
24-7PressRelease.com – Free release distribution with ad-support
1888PressRelease.com – Free distribution, paid services gives you better placement and permanent archiving.
ClickPress.com – Distributs to sites like Google News and Topix.net, Gold level will also get you to sites like LexisNexis.
EcommWire.com – Focuses on ecommerece and requires you include an image, 3 keywords and links.
Express-Press-Release.com – Free distribution company with offices in 12 states.
Free-Press-Release.com – Easy press release distribution for free, more features for paid accounts.
Free-Press-Release-Center.info – Distributes your release, offers one keyword link to your site. Pro gives you three links, permanent archiving and more.
I-Newswire.com – Allows for free distribution to sites and search engines, premium membership allow graphics.
NewswireToday.com – All the usual free distribution tools, premium service includes logo, product picture and more.
PR.com – Not only will they distribute your press releases, but you can also set up a full company profile.
PR9.net – Ad supported press distribution site.
PR-Inside.com – European-based free press release distribution site.
PRBuzz.com – Completely free distribution to search engines, news sites, and blogs.
PRCompass.com – Distribute your press release with a free or paid version.
PRUrgent.com – Offers downloadable samples for you to work with.
Press-Base.com – Submit your release for free and get on their front page and the category of your choice.
PressAbout.com – A free press release service formatted as a blog.
PressMethod.com – Free press release distribution no matter what, but extra services based on the size of your contribution.
PRLeap.com – Free distribution to search engines, newswires, and RSS feeds. Fee based bumps get you better placement.
PRLog.org – Free distribution to Google News and other other search engines.
TheOpenPress.com – Gives free distribution for plain formatted releases, fees for HTML-coded releases.
Directories
There are thousands of people offering a directory submission service on many webmaster forums. There are also many programs you can buy that will do it automatically, don’t use these. You should only submit your site to directories that offer relevant categories and will do it for free (meaning no paying or reciprocal link). While I don’t recommend paying for inclusion on any directory the only exception to this is Yahoo, BOTW or Business.com but keep in mind that this can be quite expensive for those with at low SEO budget. Of course I’ve saved the best for last and that is DMOZ. You are probably going to have to wait a while before you will be accepted and don’t expect to get in unless you have a high quality site. For those really wanting in, it’s not that hard to become a DMOZ editor, just don’t expect to get a good category for a while.
For a list of frequently updated Free directories try Strongest Links or Addurl.
Guest Blogging, Blog Commenting, Remote Blogs and Mini Sites
One of the most powerful ways you can generate links to your site is by Guest Blogging. A great way to approach this is to write a high quality post targeted at a specific blogs audience (make sure it’s original!) and send it via email to the person who runs the blog. As long as the links aren’t too spammy and the person is willing to post it you just got some high quality links! As for Blog Commenting I recommend using is sparsely and only use your actual name for leaving a comment. Generally these are really low quality so don’t waste too much time pursuing them or paying an outside company for “relevant, dofollow comments”. Finally a great way to produce valuable links as well as relevant traffic is by using remote blogs and minisites. These can be built into full scale sites if you wish but I prefer to interlink them lightly and use them take generate occasional backlinks. Here’s a list:
LiveJournal
Vox
Wetpaint
Weeblee
Squidoo
Ever
Hubpages
Blogger
Wordpress
Zimbio
Wikispaces
Quizilla
Tripod
Webs
Blog
Ning
Friendster
Bloglines
USFreeAds
Fannation
Poynter
Infobarrel
Devhub
This is not an all inclusive post, there are many more ways that I will cover in the future. Hopefully this post will bring you many wonderful links and help put you on the past to SERP domination. If you have any questions please ask!
The Beginning
Posted on 09. Oct, 2009 by NegSEO in Blog, General
Hello and welcome to NegativeSEO.org, a provider of search engine marketing solutions by a slightly unstable SEO professional. I started this company to help fulfill a goal of many webmaster and marketers, rank higher in the search engines. There are a lot of other companies that do this but Negative SEO is different. Our aim is to provide a unique set of services that will increase traffic, conversions, and rank. Trust us, the results are delicious.
So stay tuned for many more posts and the official launch of a variety of awesome services! Please subscribe to the blog as it will focus on industry news, tutorials, SEO advice, and contests to win (in the voice of late Rod Roddy) fabulous prizes!
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