Link building strategies

How to increase traffic through link building
After you have set up a blog, gaining traffic through link building is one of the most important things you can do to drive traffic to your site. No one knows exactly how google calculates the popularity of a site but link popularity is certainly one of the most [...]

How to increase traffic through link building

After you have set up a blog, gaining traffic through link building is one of the most important things you can do to drive traffic to your site. No one knows exactly how google calculates the popularity of a site but link popularity is certainly one of the most important things.

Essentially, link popularity refers to the number and quality of the incoming links that are pointing to your site. In the old days you can easily build links by using link farms or link exchange programs, but google has got smarter and if you try this your site is likely to get punished or banned. What you really need to do is get links from other sites which have a similar focus to your own or from authoritative sites.

Below is a list of linking methods you can use:

1) Write emails to sites similar to your own which are not directly competing with you. Before you do so make sure they have a Links Page.
- do a search in google  and list up sites which are similar to your own. They should have links to sites which are similar to your own. Type in search terms which are relevant and important to your own site when you do this.
- write to the webmaster or main contact on their page outlining the benefits of linking to you . Make sure you have content which will genuinely be of interest to them
- find out who is linking to your competitors and send a request to them as well
- if possible, put a link up on your site first if possible and tell them you will leave it there if provide a link
-  suggest the location on their site where you think the link should go
- send them the exact link text to use. You should also provide the HTML if you can so they can simply cut and paste it into the appropriate place
- send a Thank you note if they provide a link

2) Create a links or resources page on your site
- in order to create a link to other sites you need a specific page on your site to set this up. This is usually done by creating a ‘Links’ or ‘Resources’ page.

3) Cross link other sites which you create
- Another great way to increase links to your site is to make mini-sites which focus on one related area to your core site and then link back to your site from those mini-sites.  You don’t necessarily need to stick with Wordpress and can even use Blogger if you like.