Effective Free Link Building Strategies

Written by Zac Johnson
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Backlinks are one of the most important factors to consider when you are trying to get a good rank in search engines for your blog or website. Backlinks are often called Seo fuel and they are the most important off site optimization methods. In this article I will tell you some effective methods which can be used to build backlinks fast and easy.

Content

If you have unique and quality content then people will probably link to you. If you are looking for websites related to Technology News, the first web site that probably comes into our mind is Techcrunch. Almost every Tech websites links to Techcrunch why is that? The answer is simple, because Techcrunch delivers quality and unique content. The TechCrunch website has a massive amount of content published on an hourly and daily basis.

Commenting

Leaving comments on relevant blogs could get few backlinks but don’t leave spammy comments or the moderator will delete it and you will be banned from leaving future comments. Instead leave thoughtful and meaningful comment. Not only will this contribute to the overall blog experience, but it will also help in getting people to read your comment, thus encouraging them to visit your site.

There is also a wordpress plugin called comment luv which automatically places a link to the commentators last blog post. Many blogs are currently using this plugin to increase comment activity. All you have to do is look for blogs with comment luv plugin and leave meaningful comments. Personally I don’t use this method because it’s very time taking and instead I invest time in making quality content for my guest posts.

Link Exchange

Exchanging links is one of the most common methods to gain backlinks. While link exchanges are beneficial, search engines pay more attention to one way links. Another alternative is to do a three way link exchange which is more beneficial and the most importantly search engine gives more importance to it rather then a reciprocal link.

A Word on Do follow

If a blog has a “no follow” attribute, it means that search engines will not follow the links off this individual site, which means that even if you manage to get backlinks from a website/blog, you won’t receive any link juice. Search for the websites with Do follow attribute and ask them for a link exchange instead. There is a Firefox Addon called Do follow 1.1 which tells you what links are Do Follow or no Follow.

Buying Links

If you are too busy to invest the necessary time and effort to build quality backlinks, there are many services out there that can provide the service for a price. One of the popular place to buy backlinks is Text Link Ads where you can find tons of websites selling links, though these types of methods are usually frowned upon by search engines.

Guest Posts

Writing guest posts on website and blogs can gain a lot of quality backlinks, and most importantly, they are free. All you need to do is to find a good website related to your niche and send a quality guest post. Some blogs offer a single backlink if their page rank is very high and while other blogs with lower page rank may offer two or more backlinks. If you have not written any guest posts as of yet, and are writing first time I suggest you go after smaller blogs rather than the larger blogs because they may be more accepting of your post. However, in the end it comes down to the quality of your guest post content.

Article Marketing

There is no doubt that article marketing is one of the most effective ways to get one way backlinks. Article marketing is just like a free advertisement that’s lasts for life time. The easiest way to get started is by submitting original content to article marketing directories, which I have listed below. Many of these article directories have very high page rank and alexa rankings, which may cause your articles to rank very high in the search results.

EzineArticles.com
GoArticles.com
ArticleDashboard.com
SearchWarp.com
ArticlesBase.com
iSnare.com
selfGrowth.com
Buzzle.com
ArticleCity.com
IdeaMarketers.com
ArticleAlley.com
Web-Source.net
SelfSEO.com

Top Commenter

There are lots of blogs using the Top Commentator widget and if you are one of the top commentators you will get a backlink from all pages on the blog, or how many pages are displaying the widget. High PR websites such as Quicksprout.com and Johnchow.com also use these kinds of widgets.

What are your preferred methods for free link building? Please leave a comment with your resources, comments and experience.

This guest post was written by Rafay Baloch, an Ethical hacker, Web entrepreneur and Internet marketer blogs at Techlotips and also the author of the book A Beginners Guide To Ethical Hacking.

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51 Replies to “Effective Free Link Building Strategies”

  2. For me, from all the strategies mentioned in your post, article marketing is the most powerful if done correctly as this can deliver cool gain afterwards.

    1. I've done a good amount of article marketing too. Outsourcing your articles for only a few dollars can speed up the process and make it worth while.

  3. All SEO's know that link building is one of the most important factors of SEO to date. Link building is always a necessity when it comes to SEO. It is a way of driving in traffic, and a way of ranking higher in the SERPs. Find a link building strategy that best suits you in terms of enjyoment, effectivity and efficiency.
    Thanks for sharing this information!

  4. Not only fresh content, but new content is what makes a page/post get on top, get exposure and get links from external web pages.

  5. Great Post.

    I also like to offer something for free like a template but who uses it must keep my link on footer.
    My recent post Creating Fashion Contrast Photo Effect

  6. Thank you for a great article. You described the most common link building tactics. I've been doing some SEO for our company's website I must say I like the directory submission, article submission and blog commenting most. With the use of automatic submission tools, directory submission, article submission and blog commenting are made quick and easy. Yes, writing articles requires time and efforts, but it's possible to hire a writer to create the articles if one is not good at writing.
    My recent post Top 15 Questions about Fast Blog Finder

    1. I've used a few outsourced link builders through oDesk and eLance. It's really hit or miss if they are good or not. It's definitely something I would outsource, as it's an annoying and tedious task.

  8. all great methods for building free links.
    I'll throw in video marketing + tubemogul as well

    1. I guess it depends on the content you're delivering, but video has been a very good approach nowadays.

  13. It's great to know all of these strategies Zac. As a newbie in this field, I have so much things to learn about SEO and this information is a good start. These are really awesome strategies. Thanks to you.

  14. Thanks for summarizing these, Zac! It is impressive how quickly a backlink from a few article directories helps natural relevancy of the articles that they are pointing towards. I'll also add that the strategy of using Yahoo Site Explorer on Competing sites is a good way to see where other sites are getting their backlinks.
    My recent post New article – the best accessories for flight sims

  15. Yes I agree Zac, quality content is best because I have noticed that people have started linking to it, the only downfall is that they are not properly anchor text and so you may not actually win the game with respect to serp rankings. Its a good idea not to write any crap on blogs and forums actually participating positively is the best for everyone.

  16. Think that blog commenting and article marketing are hands down the best free link building strategies for a ton of different reasons.
    My recent post Do you know how to Forgive and Forget

  17. The easy way to link build is go to a wbsite called LinkMetro.com this is where thousands of people go to exchange links really easy at the click of a buttonNow if your really trying to get alot of traffic to your small biz website fastGo to Freewebsitetraffic.tv they will get your website 5,000 garaunteed visitors a week and front page of the major sear

  19. Wow this such a great article and the tips are very comprehensive. For sure many entrepreneurs with small and big businesses are going to benefit from this. Keep it up!

  20. This is a great article with lots of useful information! I have to agree that blog commenting is a highly effective link-building strategy but one of it's greater perks is being able to better educate and inform the reader about the topic of discussion. Article writing is another fantastic way to build traffic and as you mentioned – increase your ranking in the search engines.

  21. Excellent tips for getting back links. I was unaware of the firefix plug in nodofollow. You can be sure I'm downloading it ASAP!

  22. In the past I've written articles and I leave comments on other blogs that I like (such as this one!) I need to be more organized and do a little every day. I tend to focus on content for awhile and then link building.

  23. A absolutely agree with you. There are many ways to get some link-juice completely for free. And you have listed most of them. Good article Zac.

  24. I thank you for the informative and well-written tips you shared with us. I have taken notes of most of the information particularly the article sites. Thanks a lot.

  26. nice info zac every time i visit your blog i learnt new things. am looking forward to get more knowledge. back links are very important when it comes to traffic.

  28. Nice overview of linkbuilding. One thing I thought you forgot (which can be the easiest way to get links) is to ask/beg friends and family for links to your site/blog.

  29. I got to admit, there are some free technique mentioned that I wasn't fully aware of.
    Thanks for the post.
    Nicely done.

  31. What a great and significant post, Zac! I've been an SEO agent for 8 months and it really sounds good! Looking for an effective backlinks for your site is not just an easy task. You need to have a long patience in finding cheap but good backlinks. I am glad that I found your site, Zac. Eight months is not enough to acquire a great knowledge about SEO. That's why your article is a big help for me.

  32. Thanks for the list. In my opinion, providing useful and great content and guest posting are natural, free and effective ways to building good links.

    Jane.
    My recent post 7 Ways to Implement the 10 Minute Rule

  33. Which would you recommend over the other? Guest posting, or article marketing? Does one have more value than the other? I'm leaning toward guest posting, as that way at least your post will be seen for up to a week. Article directories get so many submissions each day, that my articles will quickly be buried!

  35. Well, I guess I better post an insightful comment after reading that! 😉 Great tips… I like the three-way idea for link exchange. Smart

  36. I agree with those strategies and I'll run down my own experiences with it.

    Haven't really tried guest blogging cause, well, I'm kind of lazy to contact other bloggers lol.

    Commenting is really a good, very good way of building backlinks. Sometimes commenting on high ranking blogs would definitely give you good google juice.

    Another thing that I've done is article marketing. All I did was one article and it helped rank too.

    Link Exchange. Hmmm. I've also done this but I've stopped doing it as the link exchange emails that I get tend to come from spammy or the sites that they offer are spammy. If you'd participate in link exchanges you better exchange to a site/blogger that has credibility/authority/status; In this way you won't get penalized or for your rankings not to suffer.
    My recent post Fighting WordPress Spam Comments

  37. Some good ideas! I was recently looking into link building by offering coupons to all those coupon sites. Also, I once came across an affiliate marketing company where your affiliates linked directly back to you (non-coded urls.) I think they tracked the sales with cookies or some other script. This would give you many one-way links.

  38. What a great post, thanks for sharing the info. I am a big fan of comment luv myself.

    My recent post Web Site Flipping- Sell your unused web properties or continue losing money

  39. I've been doing a lot of commenting recently, but am finding it more and more difficult to get a link back even though my comments are far from spammy! Article writing and guest posting both look like very good method too and I'll definitely be implementing those techniques very soon, as well as videos.

  40. The matter of fact is that link building is one thing that has not dramatically changed. One link building method that will continue to be beneficial for many months and possibly years to come will be blog posts..

  41. This is a great article on back links.I will implement it on my new travel and tour website.

  44. Hi there, just became alert to your website through Google, and found that it's truly informative. I am gonna look for brussels. I will appreciate when you continue this in future. Lots of people today is going to be benefited through the writing. Cheers!

    My recent post Economy Black Single-Coil Electric Guitar Magnetic Pickup

  45. excellent tips for link building

    thanks
    My recent post Bing Launches Disavow Links Tool Gets Jump on Google

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