The Link Medic - Free Blogging Resources

Showing posts with label Link Building. Show all posts

What is Link Diversity and Why is it Important?

News Flash: Links pointing to your website is good for your rankings!

Now that we got that obvious bit of news out of the way, let me give you some insight to what I've seen google doing lately. For many years, a link was a link. That changed sometime around 2007. No longer are all links created equal. More important, not all types of links are created equal.

If you can get 50,000 spam comment links, do you think those links are just as valuable as 50,000 links from bloggers writing about your website? Absolutely not! There are three reasons why spam comment links aren't as valuable.

1. Plenty O' Spam

I firmly believe that Google has the resources to find spam links and devalue them. Notice that I didn't say "penalize". That is the most common misconception in the SEO community. You won't be penalized for spamming, but your links can be rendered useless by Google's algorithms. Spamming millions of links is easy to find, the reason is because everyone is using the same software and the same search terms (operators like "powered by wordpress" inurl:2011/03 make it easy to find blogs to spam to). If you think it's easy for you to find and spam these sites, how easy do you think it is for Google to find these same sites with 200 spam comments and devalue all outgoing links on the page?

2. Unique footprints

When bloggers (and other non-spam) websites link to you, many are using different scripts to run their websites. You've got hundreds of different content management systems (CMS) that each have a unique footprint. On top of that, most CMS's have themes that can change a footprint even further, or remove it completely. Many sites such as Ezilon are developed from scratch and don't contain any traceable footprints, links from sites without footprints are always ideal!

3. Link diversity

When you use software to spam links, you're getting links from one type of site, whether it's vBulletin, Wordpress, PHPbb, or whatever the latest software spam tool is spamming. With this type of link building your links are extremely easy to find and devalue, they're all coming from the same type of site! If every single one of your links comes from a url with member.php?u=82840, you're spamming vBulletin, plain and simple. Without any type of link diversity, you're links are easy to find and devalue.

What Can You Do?

If you find yourself never breaking the top 10, or getting stuck in the middle of the first page try these few simple fixes to boost your ranking even further.

1. Create Some Diversity

Create links on websites that you're not normally creating links on. Talk to your friends with blogs, network with other bloggers who write about similar but not competitive industries. Twitter is a great place for making contact with other bloggers and eventually trading posts or just asking if they would take a look at your site.

2. Nobody Needs More Spam

Spamming links to your main site isn't going to help boost your rankings. There are millions of the exact same type of link being created each day. It's easy to recognize and devalue, and I guarantee that Google already has algorithms in place to find and devalue your spam links.

3. Hire an Ethical Link Builder

Before hiring a link building, ask what types of links they build. Do they just spam links and hope it helps? Do they have their own websites to test their link building strategies, have they been link building for 8 weeks or 8 years? If they've been around for a long time, it's likely they've learned to adapt to what works.

TL;DR - Build links from multiple types of sites for maximum effectiveness.

Brandon Hopkins is a freelance link builder and recently started a link building service that focuses on building a diverse link profile each and every month.

Backlinking Boot Camp, Effective Link Building Strategies You Need to Know

Backlinking Bootcamp - How to gain effective inlinks

Step in line and get ready to learn some link building techniques! Before this article is over you will be link building machines and ready to go out there and make your website proud. Your mission is to gain quality backlinks and increase search engine rankings. Your enemy is all the junk websites that won't get you anywhere! Alright, I will stop yelling at you, but let's get this underway, shall we?

Over 20 great sites to submit your articles

Looking to do some article marketing?

Submitting your posts as well written articles is a great way to gain some back links in conjunction with search engine optimization.

Here are some excellent recommendations for places to submit your articles and start generating some traffic. I have ranked them based of the Alexa ranking. The ranking is proportional with how much traffic they get. It's not to say though that the ones with the higher number aren't great sites, they just don't get as many hits.

EzineArticles is on top and for good reason. It is widely known as one of the best article directories on the internet. If you only wanted to sign up for one site this may as well be it. Goarticles.com and Articlecube.com are two other great sites I have to mention.

For more information about articles: Build incoming links with articles

For additional blog promotion: Over 25 great sites to submit your blog and get it noticed

Updated Sep 14 - 2010

Remember to bookmark for reference.

Top Picks

EzineArticles	GoArticles	ArticleCube

Article Directories	Alexa Rank
EzineArticles Submission - Submit Your Best Quality Original Articles For Massive Exposure, Ezine Publishers Get 25 Free Article Reprints	121
Free Articles Directory \| Submit Articles - ArticlesBase.com	340
Buzzle Web Portal: Intelligent Life on the Web	687
Article Directory - Free Expert Article Directory - GoArticles.com	1,637
ArticleSnatch Free Article Directory	1,808
Article Dashboard Directory \| Submit Articles \| Search Find Free Content \| Author Submission	3,174
IdeaMarketers \| free content directory	4,273
Free Articles at Amazines.Com - Author Publishing and Free Article Database	4,905
Free Content Articles Directory and Search Engine for your Ezine or Website - Isnare.com	5,256
SearchWarp Writers' Community for Do It Yourself and Current Events Commentary	5,500
ArticleCity.com - Free Articles for Reprint. Free Articles for your web site and newsletters. Submit Your Articles to Our Articles Directory.	5,756
InfoBarrel - Crowdsourcing How To Guides \| Earn Money Writing	6,482
Free Ezine Articles Directory \| Submit Articles - ArticleRich.com	6,904
Free Articles \| Submit Articles \| Article Directory - ArticleCube	7,513
Free Articles, Free Web Content, Reprint Articles	10,737
Free articles - Article collections - Article database \| Free Article Submission	15,123
Free Articles Directory \| Submit Articles - Articlebliss	15,539
ArticleMotron Article Directory	18,146
Article Land	57,209
Submit Your Articles \| Get Free Content \| Add an Article to Article Showroom	61,986

Did I miss your favorite one? Let me know in the comments.

"Get Unlimited Supply Of High PR Backlinks And Laser Targeted Traffic From Article Marketing... All Done In Minutes On Autopilot!"

Build incoming links with articles

...and gain pagerank in the process

If you're just starting your blog a great way to gain pagerank which will in turn increase visitors is submitting articles. In the world of SEO this method usually gets swept under the rug, mainly because it takes a bit of hard work. You actually have to write some content. The truth of the matter is Google loves articles. They also like seeing links to your site from various related website sources.

Why are articles good for building pagerank? Well, Google spiders are smart, sophisticated little critters and they have learned to sniff out related content links. Where better to find a link and related content than an article? Sounds simple doesn't it? One of the many things that will determine your pagerank is how many inbound links you have. They need to be quality links as well. Links from link exchanges and unrelated websites have little to no effect and can actually do more harm than good. The good thing is Google happens to consider articles one of these quality sources. Mainly it’s because your article talking about a certain subject, then it’s linking to a webpage of that subject. That is the one two knockout punch for a quality inbound link.

What makes a good article? Following a few simple guidelines when writing an article can greatly increase it's effectiveness. I'm not gonna teach you how to sell your website or a product. This advice applies to optimizing your article for search engines.

1. Know your topic and make sure it's relevant to your website. If you have a website solely about motorcycles and you write an article about hang gliders and then link to your site. Google will no doubt virtually completely ignore your article for this one reason alone. Just as true, if a human reads your article they're going to be quite mad when they show up to find the "Big Rex's Custom Choppers" staring back at them. So keep the article in the vein of your website and you'll be fine.

2. Once you have the topic of your site and the premise of the article sorted out the next thing you need to do is think about keywords. Keywords is a term used a lot these days when it comes to SEO. One caveat when it comes to keywords is do not over use them. Having a few well placed keywords in your article will go a long way. Think of keywords as a spice, a really hot spice like cayenne pepper. You just want to gently sprinkle the right amount on there. Using too much is called "keyword stuffing" and can greatly increase your risk of being ignored by a spider.

3. Think of a good title for your article. Make sure it's a bit unique in some way and contains those relevant keywords creatively. Instead of "Make money online" you might want to go with something like "Discover 10 easy ways to make some quick money online". The title is the first thing spiders and people look at so spend some time to think of a good one.

4. When writing the article keep it short within the 600-1500 word range. Once again, just like with the keywords you have to find a nice goldilocks zone so to speak. Not too short but long enough to ensure you've got some good informative content. A super long article no one will read and will no doubt have way too many keywords littered in.

5. Be sure not to talk about your site too much in the article. Do not put a link to your site or many other links but yours throughout the article. Just one well placed link at the end of the article is best. For example: "For more about anything motorcycles check out bigrexcustoms.com"

6. Submit it and forget it. Overtime link building like this will help drive a consistent stream of visitors to your site.

"Get Unlimited Supply Of High PR Backlinks And Laser Targeted Traffic From Article Marketing... All Done In Minutes On Autopilot!"

Over 25 great sites to submit your blog and get it noticed.

In the mood for some submitting are we?

So you have yourself a blog going but the only person reading it is you it seems. You may be thinking about promoting your blog but you're not sure where to begin. A good way to get the ball rolling is submitting your blog to the various blog directories out there.

These can start to bring visitors with not too much effort after the submission process is done. Knowing which sites to submit to is important. Some are a flatout waste of time, others require hefty fees to get listed. Here you will find a comprehensive list of places to submit your blog.

Most of these are directories that accept free submissions. Things to bear in mind here --- many of these directories have actual humans who review your blog's content before they add it to their directory. Mainly to ensure it's in the right category and to make sure it actually does contain something of worth. If your blog is brand new with 1 post you may want to work on content before you submit your site to ensure it will cut the mustard. Lots of sites have a long list of requirements so read them carefully and make sure you blog can stand a chance. If not keep on working and try submitting in later.

Submit it and forget it.

The truth is the main thing that will help build visitors is CONTENT. You can submit your blog to all these sites listed below but without building a healthy blog with lots of original content to keep people coming back it will not matter.

Some are harder to get into than others. With the sheer volume of blogs some directories can be kind of picky as to what they list. I'll try to indicate the difficulty factor and ease of use of each one and weather or not it is human edited.

= Link Medic's Top Picks
= Easy Submission
= Human Reviewed

Updated Sep 21 - 2010

Blogged - Social Network Blog Directory -

Blogged meets all my critera, it's easy, quick, free and it's more than just a directory. It has some social elements as well which makes it a much more of a usefull resource for you. Once signed up you'll definitly want to spend some time promoting your blog here. My Blogged Profile is here stop by and follow me, i'll return the favor.

Blog Search Engine -

- For the annual fee of 14.99 they will review your site and add it on their site. If your looking to invest some cash to gain some traffic this isn't a bad choice.

Blog Catalog -

- Much more than just a blog directory. It's a powerful website for any blogger. Your website is reviewed but it doesn't take much to get in. Another plus is you can manage a few different blogs. Sleak and easy to navigate dashboard design. It also hosts a number of blog tools and widgets.

Zimbio - Interactive Magazine -

- A lot of potential here. Zimbio can ping your blog and look for articles then you can post them on their website in one of the suggested categories.

OnTopList -

- I like this site for several reasons. One being that it's free and easy. Fill in the basics and put their link somewhere on your site and wait for your site to be reviewed. Also they have the option to pay to be featured. Most of all I see visitors coming from this site.

Blog Top Sites - Directory of the Best Blog Sites - - Very clean easy to use dashboard.

http://www.blogexplosion.com - - Interesting idea for a blog directory. Earn credits when you browse other peoples blog that you can apply to help get your blog more traffic. If you're looking for something a bit more deep than just a directory check this out.

http://www.bloglisting.net - - Super easy and quick well categorized blog directory.

Blogorator.com - - Alows users to rate blogs for the directory.

Link Back Link - - This is a blog where the guy will essentially link back to after you link to him and give you and give a small review of your site.

Bloggeries Blog Directory - THE Human Edited Blog Directory - - This one is not free but the pricing is reasonable that was it's only saving grace.

EatonWeb Blog Directory - Self proclaimed oldest blog directory.

Globe of Blogs - - Free and easy blog directory submission here.

http://www.bloguniverse.com - - Lengthy requirments and a fee to join.

http://www.bloggernity.com - - Easy to join but human reviewed for suitability.

http://www.biggerblogger.com - - Easy to sign up, small recurring fee.

http://www.bloggapedia.com/ - - Nice looking directory that's very easy to navigate. Free listings as well as a featured option for 50$.

http://www.spillbean.com - - Very nice setup and delivery, must leave a link on your site or pay a fee.

Blogging Fusion - - Small one time fee or pay more for a speedy submission.

http://www.blogdup.org - - Easy signup and link submission.