How to Build Backlinks the Web2.0 Way

I think the two most difficult issues for beginning niche site builders to overcome is content creation and backlink building. Content creation is pretty simple, you just need to suck it up and do it but backlink building can be a challenge and an art form.

Types of Backlinks

I am not going to bore you with yet another backlink article as every blogger on the planet has written this post. We all know that you can:

• Submit to Link Directories
• Write Articles and Submit to Article Directories
• Comment on Blogs
• Submit to Social Bookmarking Sites
• Do Guest Posts
• Link Exchanges
• Buy Text Links
• Put links in your forum signatures and post frequently
• FaceBook Profiles
• MySpace profiles

In all seriousness you can use all of these techniques and then some that I haven’t listed. In reality you could spend all darn day building links from a wide selection of bookmarking sites. I personally think you would be better off hiring some college kid who needs a few bucks for 10 dollars an hour and get them to comment on blogs and write articles for you.

Why not outsource? Depends on whether your time is worth more than the money you would have to spend to get someone to help you.

Quality Vs. Quantity

There has always been an argument as to which is better for SERPS, the quality of the links coming at you or the quantity of the links coming at you. The answer might surprise you.

Quantity of links will definitely help you work towards your goal of SERP domination and you really can’t go wrong with the number of links you build, the more the better as long as you don’t unwittingly link from a spam farm or a banned site. I use Bookmarking Demon to quickly generate a few hundred links when getting a site up and running for the first few weeks.

It is very easy for me to generate hundreds of links using BD but if you are doing it manually then it can take you a considerable amount of time to build say 500 backlinks. Most niche site builders either use directory submissions or blog comments when they are first starting out so think how long it would take to leave 500 comments? Oooof.

The sad part is, the majority will be nofollow links and they will come from PR0 pages. PR0 links have value, but it just takes hundreds and hundreds of them to help you rank very well. They will often come from unrelated or marginally related pages and Google just doesn’t reward you very well for this type of link.

The Power of Web 2.0 Links

I will be the first one to say that I am no genius but I do try to pay attention to the things around me. I always try to pay attention to what sites rank well in a Google search for various products. It is quite often I will come across some of the following pages ranking on the first page of search results:

• Squidoo Pages - These things rank really well.
• Digg Submissions - Google digs Digg. They index these articles quickly and they always rank really, really well.
• Propeller Submissions - Very Digglike. Google loves this bookmarking site. Use it.
• Delicious Submissions - Ditto
• Bibsonomy - This bookmarking site indexes FAST and ranks well.
• Furl - Again another social bookmarking site that Google loves.
• Blogger Blogs - No question Google loves itself. Google blogs rank well.
• Ezine Articles - I often see these pages ranked in the top 5
• YouTube - Youtube videos almost always show up on page 1 search results.

If you think about it when was the last time you saw a blog comment post be indexed and rank on page 1 of Search Results? How about those 400 Directory submission links? Do you ever see any of those sites show up on page 1 of the SERPS?

The answer is no. But I bet you see Youtube videos, Ezine articles, Digg submissions etc on page 1 of the SERPS. So knowing this, how do you think you should spend your time?

Quality of Links

Let’s discuss a bit how you use these types of sites as they provide a few different opportunities for you. If you submit a Digg for an article on your site, then you of course are going to link to your site so you can build backlinks with perfect anchor text to your site. That is the first benefit.

The second benefit is that it is not uncommon for a Digg to rank page 1 within a few hours while your site may still be buried deeper in the SERPS. Your site may not be page 1 but if your Digg is, then it is essentially the same thing and a good crutch in the meantime while you continue building back links.

Google loves these types of sites. This shouldn’t be any secret to anyone if you just pay a bit of attention to the search results you get. Go try it…I bet within 3 searches you see either a YouTube video or a Digg submission on page 1 for just about anything you search on.

Why wouldn’t you harness Googles love for these sites and make sure your link building campaign always starts here. You’re a fool if you overlook the power of these sites and continue submitting to these useless directories that Google doesn’t even pay any attention to anymore in my opinion.

Web 2.0 Social bookmarking sites are the in thing right now.

Conclusion

The facts are you will need both quantity and quality of links so reality is that you will need to spend time building all kinds. My point is that you should definitely focus on the links that will give you the fastest results and I can tell you from experience that what I have written above is true.

Harness Googles love of social bookmarking and spend time on those sites early, them move on to the rest of your link building strategy. It’s a small tweak to what you are doing now, but it could yield significant advantages in traffic. I have one site that I own #3-#10 in the SERP results with my Digg submission, my Propeller submission, my Ezine article etc.

Searchers for that keyword have very few choices OTHER than one of my pages.

Is that an advantage? Uhhh yeah. Check out this new software that can automate this process for you. It’s pretty cool and I am using the trial version now to see what I think. I will write a full review later after I have some time to experiment.

On the surface, this looks like exactly the tool I have been looking for as it hits all of the sites that I listed above and then some. Let me know what you think.