Having a safe and effective link building strategy for your web site or blog is now more important than ever. With the recent search updates and changes by Google, link building networks such as BuildMyRank are shutting down their sites and services all together. BuildMyRank was a massive blog network that people could get link backs to their web site after they had submit original content. Long story short, Google de-indexed their whole network and completely wiped out their business and they closed shop next week.
With Google making the rules up an we continue to jump through ropes to try and keep our sites at the top of the search engines, it’s best to play by the rules and build an effective and safe link building structure that will continue to benefit our sites in the coming years and months. Sure, you can buy cheap links through services like Fiverr, or maybe even jump to the new BuildMyRank alternatives like Link Authority, but the quality and future of these traffic and link sources are surely up in the air.
For times like these it’s best to focus on quality and real back links that will stand the test of time. Below are three safe and effective ways for you to start building out your web site or blog through content and link building methods.
Guest Blog Posting
At the top of any site’s link building list should be guest blogging. The concept of guest blogging is not only extremely effective, but it’s also free. When writing quality content and guest posts for blogs like this one, you are not only gaining a link back but also relevant traffic and real people. When you are “buying” links through other networks or services, you are usually just getting the link. With guest blogging you are not only getting inbound links to your sites, but also people who are actually reading your content then maybe even visiting your site afterwards. Out of the free link building methods out there, guest posting is one of the best and most effective, but it also takes time to search out the best and most relevant blogs that you can start writing high quality content for.
Article Marketing
Gone are the days when you could setup an author account on EzineArticles, publish a few articles and rank really well in the search results. It did work for many years, but once Google put one of their updates into affect last year it pretty much wiped out the content farms and article directories that they once had. Still, many people do rely on article marketing and when done correctly it can still provide quality backlinks that will be around for a while. There are still plenty of high Page Ranking sites that offer do-follow links in their articles and author sections, so if you like writing or outsourcing, this can still be a quality addition to your link building strategies.
Press Releases
There is always an ongoing debate about the power of press releases and how effective they can really be. Some people say they have little to no effect on SEO, while others say they can bring in a lot of traffic and attention if you write them properly. Through press releases and submission services you can get news out there about your web site and blogs on some of the most well known sites on the internet. All of these press releases will include information and backlinks to your web site, though most of them will be no-follow.
Depending on the advertising budget you have, there are a few different options to choose from. PRWeb is the most popular service for press releases and distribution, but they are also pretty expensive. An alternative solution is 99CentArticles.com, which will write your press release for you, then manually submit it to over 150 directories. The prices comes out to around $1 per submission. Again, like article marketing you might not find immediate or the best results from press releases but it will add a nice mixture of incoming links and traffic to your site over time.
Creating the Best Link Building Strategy for Your Sites
When it comes to link building, there is no secret and magic bullet. Many programs out there will sell the dream of a one click solution for ranking at the top of the search engines, but they never work. The best way to find great results and build an authority site over time is to focus on great content and natural links. Along the way you can focus some effort on the link building methods above, while also using social media and bookmarking efforts.
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