Link Building: Realizations
Posted by Mike | Filed under Link BuildingMy Realizations
Link building is one of the most important factors in getting good search engine rankings, right? Yeah, we all know that. I’ve been developing links for a year (and a few months) now and I’ve realized a lot of things as time passed. I learned a lot of critical tactics and things that one must not do when building links. I just thought that I had to share them with you to help you in your link building endeavors. 
When I first started out, I had a puzzle website. I tried link exchange programs to get a few links to my site and at least get some exposure. You know, sites like LinkMarket.net. I received some link exchange requests and I actually got some successful exchanges. I built links by exchanging for a few months, because I wasn’t aware of other techniques yet. All went well until one day, I noticed that the links were removed from the sites! Useless pieces of crap they are!
On that day, I realized that link exchanges won’t last forever. Most link exchangers, as I call them, just trade links then remove the links after a few months in hopes that the other party would forget all about the transaction. I stopped using link exchange programs, but I still personally contacted some webmasters regarding exchanges. After a few months, I discovered Google’s policy on reciprocal links. Not only is link trading an inefficient way to build links, it can also put your search engine rankings in danger.
I headed over to a few forums, then put a link pointing to my site in my signature. I read before that using signature links is an effective way to build links without really exerting too much effort. I was a frequent poster in some related forums, and I was happy that my backlink number was increasing when I checked with the Yahoo! Site Explorer. I wasn’t active for a week because I went out of town, then when I came back, I was banned from four (4) forums. No, I didn’t spam or flame anyone. I just got banned for some unknown reason! Because of that, I lost quite a number of links. I then realized that you can lose lots of links anytime if you just concentrate on link building through forums. Don’t get me wrong though — I still put links in my forum signatures, but I don’t rely heavily on them to boost my SE rankings.
Then I entered the world of free directories. I submitted to thousands of them in hopes that my backlink count would increase. Well it did increase, but the directory submission didn’t really help my rankings. Using a lot of my time to submit to directories wasn’t really worth it. I could have done another thing and I could’ve been more productive. I came into conclusion that directories aren’t really as good as others see them.
After all those struggles and hardships, I never really got high-quality backlinks until I thought that I had to exert much more effort in developing my site instead of doing too much things to develop links! I started creating unique content for my website. I spent time in researching what my targeted visitors wanted so I could give them what they want and keep them coming back to my site. After some months, I just noticed my link count go up! The links were mostly from sites linking to my pages (not just the homepage) and from certain discussion boards which linked to specific parts of my site that the forum members enjoyed.
I never worked on building links for that site anymore. I just used my time to create more content for my visitors, and the links just came without me doing some boring work.
Summary
I realized that…
- link exchanges can put your search engine rankings in danger.
- directories aren’t that useful as others think.
- one shouldn’t rely heavily on forum signature links.
The best things to do to get backlinks are…
- create great content — links will come to you if you do this!
- promote your content, and if it’s good, people will help you spread the word.
- write for more popular, related sites — this will bring exposure to your own site.
Okay, I guess that’s it guys. Hope you learned something.
Some Other News
Instead of publishing another post just for news, I decided to include the “headlines regarding moi” in this post. I’d rather have a pretty long post than a post (or posts) filled with news. I think it would really bore you guys if all the recent posts just concern my life and other announcements. So here are the quite important news that you have to know about…
A Week of Vacation and then… It’s Time for Exams!
Well guys, guess what? School’s out (but only for a week) so I’ve got the privilege to post stuff and concentrate on promoting my blog. But I won’t use the whole week to brainstorm on posts, I still have to review for the upcoming exams. Can you imagine that? Right after a week of vacation, I’m going to school to take the exams and submit some projects that are due next week. I don’t really get the point of giving us a “vacation”. It’s like letting us stay home to finish all the requirements and projects that they gave us. What a bummer.
So during Monday-Thursday next week (that’s March 24 to March 28), I won’t really be focused on blogging for some obvious reasons — exams and projects to submit. I gotta ace ‘em all! I’m looking for guest posters though, to keep you guys entertained. If you’d like to give it a shot, feel free to contact me. I would really appreciate it.
It’s Almost Summer Contest Update
Erm… I just posted an update a while ago but for those who didn’t notice it, here’s the link. The contest is doing well, I’ve got a boost in my feed subscribers. I hope more people will join for the prizes are really awesome!
By the way here’s the link to the post I published just a few hours ago (for those who really didn’t notice it).
That’s All, Folks!
Thought it would be long? Sorry to disappoint you! Well, yeah, that’s all. I have to write two (2) papers, conduct an experiment which in my opinion is not really worth doing, compile my files, and of course, study for the exams. I’ve got to review the twelve (12) chapters of my Biology book in order to -ase (Yes, I love enzymes too.) the exam. I’m expecting the Mathematics exam to be quite long as well, but I hope that it would be as easy as 3.14. 
Talk about having a nice vacation. Oh well. Ciao for now.
Wow Juggler, this is quite a long post. It’s long prolly because of the news. Anyway, I learned from your realizations and I should say “keep it up!”. You’re doing great in blogging, others stop after a few months…
Regarding the news, good luck with the exams. Liked the way you presented the news. “ase” and “3.14″ eh? You’re one of my fave bloggers.
Yes me too, I liked the way you presented your news. It’s my first time on your blog and in my opinion it’s one of the blogs with a great design. I just sold my site, and I agree with your points about link exchanges, forum links and web directories.
I subscribed to your rss feeds. I hope to read more from you.
I’ve built links to my site via unconventional ways, deviating far from the regular habit of posting in forums just for the signature links or submiting to some directory I’ve never seen before. Nonetheless, while getting a good link (e.g. a related PR6 link) is difficult, it is not impossible. In fact, it’s pretty easy once you learn how to get hold of one.
Another great strategy for building links to a site is article marketing. When you submit an article remember to put a link in the bio box pointing back to your site. For added effectiveness remember to vary up each bio box slightly with each article submission.
I like your post very much and I totally agree with you that link exchanges and submitting to directories is not so efficient and is practically a waste of time.
>>> directories aren’t that useful as others think.
Not always Jug, as there are really good directories(few though) out in the web and many webmasters rely on those for backlinks and traffic, or one of those. Mentioning of a few directories here would just be spamming :p but really all directories are on the same level.
i not think this good post. The most blogger just talk about what google need.. but the google always make a new rules and what i realize for that? they just make money and manipulate blogger for what they need. My stupid question Why bloggers must follow they rulez? What it cause only google(search engine) have in this world? I don’t know why we must follow the google rules. But the most important think How a new company to grow they business if to many bloggers follow the stupid rules. So, how blogger to make they profits now? since no pay per post or text ads. So you think yourself…. the poor only be the same and rich keep winning they games, right?
p/s: bad english sorry…. i comment for open our eyes for this scene.
So many times I have wanted to give up but I do keep going at it! I am starting to get a small steady stream of viewers coming in! So many places I have been working on link building!
@gamesdo Sorry? Didn’t understand your comment, haha. Anyway, I think you got the post wrong. Juggler was just talking about his realizations about link development. Hehe.
I was once confused between using my time more to create content instead of building a community. But after you and Tina from ThinkSimpleNow said that content comes first, I don’t have to worry anymore.
But I also remind myself that I should pay a decent share of promotion for my blog besides busy on content.
@danandmarsh: Maybe you can try joining social networks like blogcatalog or mybloglog. so when you post a new article, you can broadcast it to your friends, and if they’re interested, you’ve got yourself extra traffic.
?
if you post a lot of posts interesting for them in the future, those traffic could be permanent.
that’s what i’m trying to do now. or maybe you’ve done it first
Louis Liem: Hey, thanks for making me as an “inspiration” or something like that,
@gamesdo
i know what you think. most people adhere to google’s rules coz you said it yourself, it’s people’s gate to the internet.
bloggers don’t have to follow G’s rule, they want to get listed on G, they’ll need to do what G says.
i myself don’t always play by G’s rule, but I also practice SEO in order to improve my SE placements. since the beginning I already set my blog to not too depending on G’s traffic and always looking for alternative sources
@Chetan
Hi, Chetan, mind sharing with us what directories are they?
I’m looking for some, hehehe…
@seo pixy
well, not completely useless, i think.
if you got a new site, getting listed on those directories can help your site get indexed on search engines.
but of course it’s not the only way to get your site indexed, y know what i mean?
@Louis, Juggler, and everyone else Can you post a list of those social networks for bloggers? I desperately need new readers. Haha, kk, thanks.
@sam
Article marketing is by far out of my top 10 referring sites, but I’m sure they’ll get to top 5. I think I need to write more articles on the popular categories of an article directory, which of course related to my blog
@multippt
I happen to read about commenting on .edu sites with hi-rank. But I often don’t know what to say there…:p
Louis Liem: LOL You’re not alone man. There are .edu blogs that are kinda “cool” though.
@yuhu
There are tons of them. You can go to my blog and read my latest post (yesterday) on mass social bookmarking.
You have wrote an exhaustive post man! Really worth reading.
Great post! I agree with you, link will come itself if we could build qualified site.
yes,i agree with your opinion. It’s worthless to build link if the blog content
is suck. Reader will only stick to a blog when they found the blog content is
useful for them
@myTC, I second your opinion. After building links for SEO, and getting search engine traffic - it’s very imp to have good content to have people reading it with interest.
Without link building, my website would never have had taken off. Seriously. No advertising, only working on to get top in google. Works like magic
For a new site, building some links is important. With quality content though, I agree link building may not be needed. It really depends on the niche.
This is a good post because it is a reminder to focus on your visitors and build a quality site they will return to.