Trying to build backlinks. Don't know where to start

[binaural]

I am working on an SEO project for a website for a small private company for whom I recently built their site and I'm just starting to try to build a load of links to the site.

But, as the title suggests, I don't really know where to start.

The company does a lot of work for councils but none of the council sites I have visited have links to external sites such as ours.

There are planty of sites of companies who provide similar services and as they're competitors, I would not expect they would want to link to us, or us to them. We could target similar companies from different areas of the UK, as the work is regional, but very few of those sites have links pages or many links to external sites such as ours.

This leaves business directories and forums but I feel I need to do more than that.

Another issue is the matter of mutual links. Asking for a link and not ofering one in return is unlikely to win me any friends, but wouldn't external links from our site cost me link juice?

I'm at a bit of a loss and I may have missed a major point somewhere.

Any advice gratefully received.

 

[Curious]

Should you be doing the link building for a website if you don't know anything about it? Shouldn't really be learning on someone else's site. Sorry if I've misread your situation..

BTW - All depends on the competition but don't underestimate directories as a source of links - they're not all equal but they work.

 

[marketingquotes]

Have to agree with Curious - should you be doing linkbuilding for a company when you do not know.

Have you considered talking to an SEO company to help with linkbuilding?

 

[binaural]

Well I built the website for a friend's business, its a new site and they have no previous web presence so i'm not doing their brand any damage. I'm not being paid for it either (apart from in beer from time to time).

I have been reading up on SEO to the point where I understand the basics. The site is optimised pretty well in terms of keywords, content, structure etc, and it has been earning increasing numbers of hits on the basis of that. The problem now is just knowing who to ask for backlinks.

I have been targetting directories, and we have a facebook page but I also wanted to spread the net a bit wider and wasn't sure what direction to go in.

I don't want to ask SEO companies because there isn't the budget for that.

 

[Curious]

Take a look at the competitors backlinks - you can pick up some tips and ideas from there.

Use http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/ (free) or https://www.majesticseo.com/ (paid) or http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/ (OSE is paid but if you sign up for SEOMoz at the moment there is 30 days free to try out their tools.) You will need to learn what to look for in links (or how to value a link) to do this but you can find some real gems with a good mining session.

 

[binaural]

Thanks Curious, those links could be a massive help.

 

[JElder]

It can be a bit of a mission. As well as the above, have a look if there are any blog writers that cover related areas - be creative in your searches - and contact them and ask if there was any type of press release, news or article they would be interested in publishing.

Don't underestimate genuine reciprocal links too. If your site has a blog, write about something related but not competing, and add a link to a leading company in the field - then contact them, point out the link. They may well link to the blog item, or provide a link from one of their own blog posts. It's worth looking for sites that seem to be updated regularly as they are more likely to be willing to add something. If the copyright line says 2006 i'd generally leave it alone!

 

[SEO Lady]

Linkbuilding should not be confused that is all SEO entails.

There are many factors and SEO tasks include some basics:

• Installation and reporting of Google Analytics
• Submission of URL to Google Webmaster tools, and code installed into your site to verify
• Similar code verification for Alexa, Yahoo, Bing
• Blog creation on wordpress, Blog on Google (blogspot)
• Google Places directory verification and submission
• DMOZ submission
• URL submission using a tool for global search engines
• Facebook, Twitter, social networking accounts, creating proper profile, updating and connecting with your audience
• Setting up Google Alerts for competitors and your own URL to track appearance on the internet
• Meta tags and meta description for your website, Alt tags on images, proof reading for grammar etc
• Web page copy composition in a style to suit your site
• Video YouTube SEO creation, embedding, distribution
• Linkbuilding which could include
  
• Directory submission with full lisiting and photos, images, information
• Article writing (500 words) submitting to article sites and press release sites, with backlink to client

Linkbuilding is one of many factors of SEO.

 

[Prestige-SEO]

People like yourself tend to give us a bad name, so why not learn how to build links properly, or find a reliable outsourcer?

 

[WebTrust]

Your the confused one, how is installing Google analytics, or 99% of your point anything to do with Optimizing for search engines?

Linkbuilding should not be confused that is all SEO entails.

There are many factors and SEO tasks include some basics:

• Installation and reporting of Google Analytics
• Submission of URL to Google Webmaster tools, and code installed into your site to verify
• Similar code verification for Alexa, Yahoo, Bing
• Blog creation on wordpress, Blog on Google (blogspot)
• Google Places directory verification and submission
• DMOZ submission
• URL submission using a tool for global search engines
• Facebook, Twitter, social networking accounts, creating proper profile, updating and connecting with your audience
• Setting up Google Alerts for competitors and your own URL to track appearance on the internet
• Meta tags and meta description for your website, Alt tags on images, proof reading for grammar etc
• Web page copy composition in a style to suit your site
• Video YouTube SEO creation, embedding, distribution
• Linkbuilding which could include
  
• Directory submission with full lisiting and photos, images, information
• Article writing (500 words) submitting to article sites and press release sites, with backlink to client

Linkbuilding is one of SEO.

 

[Fresco_Creative]

Should you be doing the link building for a website if you don't know anything about it? Shouldn't really be learning on someone else's site. Sorry if I've misread your situation..

BTW - All depends on the competition but don't underestimate directories as a source of links - they're not all equal but they work.

I think you should honest with your client at this stage and let a professional do this nature of work. This is a dangerous approach to take and dangerous for the client.

In the most immediate short term I would recommend looking for high quality business directories and relevant blogs.

 

[Professional SEO Ltd.]

So why did you took that project if you have no idea about link building ?

 

[Professional SEO Ltd.]

We provide free non reciprocal backlinks for UK online shops from our PR4 website - details as below.

Well I don't think that backlinks from 1 domain will be enough for that guy...

I had similar situation 2 weeks ago, some women called to us and ask for price (national pretty big keyword only for big national companies), during conversation she says that it is for her client, but I thought "WTF" she has no idea about SEO and she selling SEO as SEO company. How ? She found some India company which providing poor quality SEO services to her clients... And she pretend that everything is done as in-house SEO...

There should be some law regulations which would save UK SEO companies from that kind of scammers...

 

[Professional SEO Ltd.]

I think you should honest with your client at this stage and let a professional do this nature of work. This is a dangerous approach to take and dangerous for the client.

In the most immediate short term I would recommend looking for high quality business directories and relevant blogs.

Well unfortunately some people thinks about clients as source of easy money.

Too bad that some of companies making that "bad marketing" for all responsible SEO companies with consulting approach for which customers are more a partners, not just clients which are spending money on SEO...

 

[payperclick]

Start link Building by searching quality websites with PR and mail them for link exchange. After this, Start doing submissions on directory and social bookmarking sites.

Thanks

 

[theaffiliate]

Your the confused one, how is installing Google analytics, or 99% of your point anything to do with Optimizing for search engines?

I won't bother to list why every single one is related, so let's just take Analytics and Webmaster Tools.

Without using them, or similar tools, you won't know how well your optimisation is working. Which means you're not optimising as well as you could be for search engines. Also known as search engine optimisation.

E.g. which keywords which are converting, finding out click through rates for titles/descriptions etc... the list goes on.

 

[MrMartin]

to start - use linkhounds hubfinder and chase up all the HUBS from a list of competing URL's - just wish they'd kill all the dmoz dupes

 

[The Boy Holty]

People like yourself tend to give us a bad name, so why not learn how to build links properly, or find a reliable outsourcer?

Why the hell is he giving you a bad name? If you have a bad name its because of your attitude to people trying to learn something new. He has not for one second claimed that he is an SEO professional, and neither does he say he is an expert in the subject.

The guy stated his case quite clearly that he has built a website for a friend and now he's doing all he can to get it to rank as high as he can in the search engines. If you only use this website to criticise, maybe you shouldn't be using it at all.

 

[finejewellerys]

I think you;d better to set up your on-page seo firtsly,like keywords choice and stretch of the website.after you do it well.you may use the off-page seo strategies to get the natural quality backlinks to improve your SERP.For me, i do use article submission,press release,forum posting and social bookmarking service to get the qualuty backlinks.I hope it is useful to your point.

 

[Redalkemi]

Rather than wasting time on the thing that you don’t know how to do, talk to your friend (who’s website you are working on and clear the situation). As Link popularity is quite vital for any website, so don’t harm the website by doing it wrong.

If you want to do it on your own, there are so many approaches to get backlinks for your website like social bookmarking, article submission, directory submission, forum participation, blog commenting, blog promotion, link exchange etc. But these days after recent algorithm updates, Guest Blogging and contextual link building are in demand because of their effectiveness and the impact they have on search engine rankings of the website.

 

[RKGmail]

May be you could submit articles to article directories, start a blog and then promote it on social media sites..

 

[travistane]

there are lots of strategies to build backlinks. some of these are social bookmarking, link wheel, article writing and directory submitting. these can really help you in building backlinks.

 

[arunjha]

I think you should start with social book-mark submission. Through this work you can get back link instantly. Instead of this you can use Article submission, Press-release submission, Classified submission and many more to get back link for your website.

 

[atmedia]

Press release site are good for building quality backlinks but the content has to be newsworthy not any old crap.

 

[marketingquotes]

Press release site are good for building quality backlinks but the content has to be newsworthy not any old crap.

Cannot remember the thread off the top of my head, but someone said that press release website were hit with the last google update (Panda).

Apparently guest blogging is the flavour of the month.

 

[vanzantmedia]

I am working on an SEO project for a website for a small private company for whom I recently built their site and I'm just starting to try to build a load of links to the site.

But, as the title suggests, I don't really know where to start.

The company does a lot of work for councils but none of the council sites I have visited have links to external sites such as ours.

There are planty of sites of companies who provide similar services and as they're competitors, I would not expect they would want to link to us, or us to them. We could target similar companies from different areas of the UK, as the work is regional, but very few of those sites have links pages or many links to external sites such as ours.

This leaves business directories and forums but I feel I need to do more than that.

Another issue is the matter of mutual links. Asking for a link and not ofering one in return is unlikely to win me any friends, but wouldn't external links from our site cost me link juice?

I'm at a bit of a loss and I may have missed a major point somewhere.

Any advice gratefully received.

How competitive is the area in which you are trying to rank? It may be that you do not need masses of links to move up the SERPS, just get your on-page SEO done right.

As mentioned earlier I would look at the websites currently occupying the first page of the listings and look into their backlink profile using the Yahoo Site Explorer tool. Try to get a link from the same sources.

Is this company targeting the local area? If so, and if you haven't already, claim their Google Places listing and get that optimised. Register the site in as many local directories and trade specific directories as you can.

Other than that it really does depend on how competitive the SERPS are as to how much and what type of links you will need.

 

[trythemon]

I am now on page one for a number of keywords and I get my backlinks through submitting to article directories and then putting a link back on the article. It is time consuming which is why I pay someone to do it for me. But it has worked.

I would ad the site on Twitter, Blogger and Linkedin to get the website more visibility

 

[gogs]

Linkbuilding should not be confused that is all SEO entails.

There are many factors and SEO tasks include some basics:

• Installation and reporting of Google Analytics
• Submission of URL to Google Webmaster tools, and code installed into your site to verify
• Facebook, creating proper profile.

With regards to the installation of Analytics, if you have a few domains which one do you decide to install the codeto verify or do you do it for all domains.

What is the best way to set up facebook, I found it a bit confusing as it seemed to set me up as an individual but afterwards I think it allowed to me add on as a business

 

[Kingpin-seo]

Ooooo - you are about to take the blue pill neo!

Nah, link building can be simple, or complicated... it really depends on what you expect to get out of it...


* A steady, measured increase in rankings, built up over time, and focusing in on some not-too-competitive keyterms - you should be able to manage that on a 'learn as you go' basis.

* Rapid ranking for super-tough keyterms for a new website - You need to really know your stuff for this!


So, firstly, manage your own, and your friends expectations!

Next:

* Open Facebook and Twitter accounts, and get active in your field - strike up some conversations, and make 'friends'.

* If the website is new, why not start off with a Press Release?

* Start link building by submitting to a few high quality directory's

* Write some decent articles and submit them to just a handful of QUALITY articles sites.

* Find some related bloggers to get talking to - DO NOT SPAM THEM! Try to engage them in conversations.

* As your social profiles grow, be sure to keep posting good quality, interesting content on to your own website - if you can't find anything to say, read lots of industry related stories, and do some industry comment type posts on your website - Don't copy anyones work though! Comment on it - maybe like a 'Industry News Roundup' type piece - and seed this via your (by now popular, right?) social profiles, to get social links relatively organically

* Do more article writing

* The bloggers you got involved with a couple of points above ^^^ ask them if you can submit a guest post or two, with a link to your website

* Now your getting good at writing, and confident... Search out online magazines in your industry sector, and see if you can become an author there!

* Find some related forums to join online, and start posting - Be polite, be useful, and be friendly! Don't spam them! Many forums will actually be fine with you having an anchored link in your signature, so long as you join in with the forum, and are a real, human user, that interacts with others to the benefit of all involved

* As you social profiles gain yet more strength (you keep the conversations going on there, right?!), then you should look to do some linkbait... interesting and/or shocking news - or cool (funny or shocking) infographics, etc.


That should get you started?

When doing all this, don't JUST link with your keyterms as you anchor text, that looks spammy, and can cause you issues...

Mix it up a bit... you main keyterm, variants of your main keyterm, you brand term (company name), and some links with your website name.

Don't do too much, too fact!

Oh, and hit Google up, and search for: SEOMoz beginners SEO guide <--- I think that is free from what I remember, and it is a good starting point at least!

 

[Working First Aid]

I think that's the most helpful first post I have ever read...

Hope it wasn't just a copy/paste (didn't seem to be, it actually referred to the ops post).

Nice

 

[cornish hosting]

Hi we have a free link directory your welcome to post your link there for free
http://freelink-directory.com