The Procedure for Link Building

It might be similar or completely different from what you are used to but for this job, I’d like you to use this procedure please.

If you have access to a printer, please print this document for further consultation.

I assume that you are aware of the importance of quality links that point to a site when it comes to good rankings in Google and other search engines.

The obvious question that comes after is How do I get links? or…

What are the most effective links and most effective ways of getting them?

Here we have links that in my opinion are NOT effective: links from Yahoo Answers, blog comments, forum posts, Squidoo, Hubpages, Answerbag, Yedda, submitting to hundreds of directories and most of other Web 2.0 links.

SO what are the most effective links (that once you get them the rankings and consequently traffic of your site will go up significantly)?

These are links from high page rank pages of quality related sites.

That will give you the most link juice for the effort you put in.

These links will be the 80/20 that will be driving the rankings of your site. These links are typically hard to get and it takes time and perseverance to get them.

But once you do, your rankings improve significantly and so does your traffic.

The key rule here is that your site must have high PR links from quality related sites (many of them).

The Link Building System That Works

What I have done for all of my sites that are doing well is I researched other sites in my niche, looked at where they got links from and tried to get them for myself from the same places.

I also tried to get links from the sites in my niche that ranked well.

There is your magic secret to success online.

But back to finding links that actually work…

Here Is A System You Can Follow

Using this system means you will never run out of ways of finding quality links:

1. For every keyword that you get given, do a Google search.

(note: I will provide you with the link and the keywords)

2. Check top 10 (or 20 if you have time) sites for that keyword and see:

If they accept links or whether they want to exchange links
Do they accept articles from other sites
Do they link out to other sites from within their content?

If it is Wikipedia, try to edit the text to add some external link section at the bottom of the page and add the relevant page from my website.

NB. avoid the ecommerce sites (ie. Amazon.com. These sites won’t link out).

If they do, contact them and start negotiating. Suggest a link exchange or submitting an article with a link back or something else that might get you a link. When writing emails to them please use the account matthewslinks2 [at] gmail.com (I’ll provide you with the account details in an email)

Example Email Template

You can use my name as you are doing it in my name.

SUBJECT: Re: value exchange with your site

FROM: matthewslinks2 [at] gmail.com

Hi,

I run a website specializing in printable calendars and time management tools and I’m sure my site would interest your visitors. I have some particularly useful calendars available!

I’m wondering if you could possibly add a link to me on your site?

Of course, I’d be happy to put a link up in return.

If you’re interested, I could also:
- write an article as a guest writer and include a link
- we could exchange a link (I link back to the page of your choice)
- or you could just link to my page

If you have any other ideas, I would be glad to hear them.

If you have any questions, you can reach me at this address: matthewslinks2 [at] gmail.com

I hope to hear from you soon,

Martin Hurley

If you decide just to link to my site, here’s my details:

Here's the link to use: http://www.great-printable-calendars.com (Printable Calendars and Printable Blank Calendars!)

My site description: Printable calendar resources with un-common advice on using free printable calendars and other print calendar templates to manage your time efficiently!

My site URL: http://www.great-printable-calendars.com

NB. I will give you all these details and the email template, all you’ll need to do is send it out. (The words may change depending on which website I am promoting!)

4. The MOST IMPORTANT next step: Do a link analysis in Yahoo.com (by typing link: www.domain.com) and see where that site got their back links. (Of course, do that for all top 10 (20) sites in Google that show up for your keyword search)

5. MUST DO: Download the FIREFOX extension SEO QUAKE (http://www.seoquake.com/)

The tool bar delivered by SEO QUAKE gives us important data:

PR: Google Page Rank. The higher the number the better the site. A link from this website will really increase my traffic
Google I: indexed pages from this site on Google
Yahoo! L: Inbounds links to that page on Yahoo (click on this to have a list and work to get links form the same)
Yahoo LD: Total inbound links to that domain
Bing I: indexed pages in Bing
A Rank: Alexa ranking, (important too).
Age: the date this page was created.
Delicious I: number of time this page was submitted to Delicious
Whois: site info
Source: the HTML code of this site.

Try to get links from the same places!

4. Try to get links from the same places! If those other sites were willing to link out to your competitor’s site, then they might link out to your site too.

5. And where did those other sites that link to your competitors get links from? Do a link analysis for them and see where they got links from! Go to #4 and repeat #4 and #5 as long as you want. (optional, if you have time)

6. Once you get really tired doing that start with #1 again. Every time you build a page for a certain keyword, start the process of getting links that work with #1.

That is the process of building links that significantly affect your rankings and traffic – in a positive way of course.

You may contact 10 sites and only 1 may reply. If you get a PR1+ link, it is worth it, trust me. You will never run out of sites because you can simply run the #4 and #5 indefinitely.

So go with your gut or just simply keep trying. I know that I got a few lucky links like that and that got me PR3 from a PR0 in a few months. Once I had PR3 it was much easier to negotiate a better link exchange. Other sites started to contact me for link exchanges and I had many more options.

Please provide me with a list of URLS to the site you created a link for/ submitted a request to in a text document (on a daily basis).

Keep the goal in mind while you get no answers from 10 emails you sent. Keep trying and looking for ways to get quality links to your site because once you do, the work stops.

The system you see above is the real key to getting links.

Other Methods You Can Use

The first one is to find a link to get in touch with the owner of the site and send him a message.

You’ll need to look around the site for ‘contact’ details. Send them the email template above.

Another one is to combine blog commenting with link exchanges.

Comment on a related blog to your niche 5 or 6 times so that the owner gets to know you. They will check your website because they need to approve comments on their blogs.

Provide high quality content in your comments and establish a relationship with the owner.

After that, email them suggesting to link to their site if they agree.

If they do, link to them and ask whether they find your site useful to their visitors too and that you would appreciate a link back too.

By now you’ve given them 5 or 6 quality comments and a link and they’ll find it very hard to reject you.

I get almost 50% success rate with this strategy. A typical link exchange email gets 5-10% success rate.

Go to mozilla first and download the SEO quake tool. That tells you the PR for all sites listed on a Google search after you type in the codes. Then you pick the high PR sites and find ones you can leave a url in the comments.

You just cut and paste these codes exactly (adding your own keywords) into your browser in “Google Search”. It will only work on a Google search. I came up with some great ones and found sites with PR of 5-10. You only need a few of these to increase your rankings.

Here are the codes:

site:.com inurl:blog “post a comment” -”comments closed” -”you must be logged in” “ADD YOUR KEYWORD”

site:.org inurl:blog “post a comment” -”comments closed” -”you must be logged in” “ADD YOUR KEYWORD”

site:.edu inurl:blog “post a comment” -”comments closed” -”you must be logged in” “ADD YOUR KEYWORD”

site:.gov inurl:blog “post a comment” -”comments closed” -”you must be logged in” “ADD YOUR KEYWORD”

site:.com “powered by expressionengine” “ADD YOUR KEYWORD”

site:.org “powered by expressionengine” “ADD YOUR KEYWORD”

site:.edu “powered by expressionengine” “ADD YOUR KEYWORD”

site:.gov “powered by expressionengine” “ADD YOUR KEYWORD”

site:.com “Powered by BlogEngine.NET”site:.edu inurl:blog “post a comment” -”comments closed” -”you must be logged in” “ADD YOUR KEYWORD”

site:.org “Powered by BlogEngine.NET”site:.edu inurl:blog “post a comment” -”comments closed” -”you must be logged in” “ADD YOUR KEYWORD”

site:.edu “Powered by BlogEngine.NET”site:.edu inurl:blog “post a comment” -”comments closed” -”you must be logged in” “ADD YOUR KEYWORD”

site:.gov “Powered by BlogEngine.NET”site:.edu inurl:blog “post a comment” -”comments closed” -”you must be logged in” “ADD YOUR KEYWORD”

The top four codes are designed to locate WordPress blogs that allow for commenting. The middle group is designed to find Expression Engine blogs, and the bottom group is designed to find BlogEngine blogs.

Expression Engine and BlogEngine are both popular among academics and some government agencies for some reason, which is why we like to focus on those in additional to WordPress. Since WordPress is the most common blogging platform, however, we’re usually able to get our 10 links without going beyond the first 4 “Authority Codes

PLEASE WRITE IN YOUR OWN WORDS WHAT I WANT YOU TO DO (about 100 words) and submit it to me to complete the interview process.

QUESTIONs?

Q: I know that if any site exchanges links with others, they will have an option called exchange links/links. But how will i make sure they accept articles from other sites?

A: Just have a good look at the sites. usually you can see
if they accept articles. here’s a good example:

http://www.lovetoknow.com

Look right down the bottom of that page where they say ‘write for us.’ It’s a perfect PR5, Alexa 2000 ranked site…

So you would tell me about that site!

Q: And what will be our benefit if they link out from within their content? As the content of the site has already been written.

A: Some sites are happy to link out because they are giving their
readers good information. But usually they link from a ‘links’ or ‘resources’ page or from the sidebar. But often they will want new content, and I offer to write new content (articles) for them. The article would have my link in it somewhere. They get new content, and I get a link to my sites…

Q: What is meant by link analysis in yahoo ? is it same as analysis in SEO QUAKE?

A: Link analysis in Yahoo just means to find out where the other site got their links from too… then we go to those other sites and send an email to them…. all we are doing is trying to get links from anyone who will give us links.