Did you know there’s a hush hush online currency that very few people talk about – that those in the know spend hours or dollars on, and all to get links back to their web site.
Web links truly are like the hidden currency no one talks about on the web, unless you’re privy to a certain crowd.
Think about it: with everyone and their mother creating content online, there is more than enough information to captivate people’s attention. The problem then is to stand out from the crowd and be found by people who are looking for your knowledge, at the right time and place.
That’s where search engine optimization comes in. You can learn Wordpress SEO all you want, but unless you understand the fundamentals of getting links back to your web site, you’re just one of millions of hardly visited blogs out there.
Things to Understand Before You Get Links to Your Blog or Website
Before you get links – here’s what you need to know
- If you want a link to improve your search engine ranking, it must be “follow”… that means that the “rel” tag must not be set to “nofollow”.
- By default the link to your blog when you leave a comment on a Wordpress site is set to nofollow. This is not to discourage you from commenting, but it is to make sure you don’t think of blog commenting as an SEO strategy. It’s not, it’s more a social thing. :)
- Likewise links on Twitter are nofollow, but again this doesn’t mean you should stop tweeting.
- The content and context of the web page where a link is place is also important. So if you’re blogging about ballerinas and you get a link from an electronics blog it’s not going be as useful as a link from a ballet site.
- The anchor text of a link helps determine what the search engines think your page is about… and thus how it will rank your site. The anchor text is the part of the link that is clickable, so try to make it a useful keyword.
- The page rank of the site that links to yours will tell the search engines how much to trust the link. So the higher the page rank of the site linking in the better.
How to get links to your new blog or web site
What is my absolutely, most spectacular, super secret tip to get links? Write amazing content.
Okay, so that might seem overly simple. But it’s true that when you create something worth sharing, people are more likely to link to it from their blogs and sites.
Can you create a guide (like my video marketing guide for example) that acts as an evergreen piece of content that people will refer to over and over again?
Make your blog posts useful and people are more likely to link to them. Simple concept, not always easy to implement.
5 Places to get links
But what if you’re just starting out and you feel like you’re blogging on a deserted island with no one to jumpstart the linking process?
If you don’t have anyone linking to your web site, that lowers your chances of having search engine spiders find your site and rank it well. That’s why I think it’s important to get links to your site as soon as possible, so that search engine optimization can start early.
Here are a few starting places to get links to your content if you’re just starting out.
- Get links by creating great lenses on Squidoo
- Get links by writing useful Ezine articles
- Get links by offering quality guest posting on other blogs in your field
- Get links by submitting your site to a directory like dmoz
- Get links by asking for what you want – tell your readers you’d love for them to link to your site or articles, or have a “link to us” page with copy and paste-ready links
So now you know…
Now that you’re in the know on this hidden currency, and how to get some. Now hop onto the free weekly “Getting techy with it” newsletter to get more tips for your online business.
Let me know how you personally get links, and what your best tips are in the comments below!
