Savvy Content » Link Building

Contextual Link Building For Dummies

Andrew Scherer — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 05:55:33 +0000

An example of contextual link building.

Contextual links: Links built within relevant content.

Every webmaster should be focusing on contextual link building when it comes to their SEO strategy simply because these are the MOST POWERFUL kinds of links you can build.

Non-contexual, irrelevant links are quickly losing their power: general directory submissions, sitewide blogroll/footer links, participating in text-link ad schemes like TNX or any similar network that puts your links on totally unrelated sites, etc…

Here’s a tip…

Build relevant links first – any PR that’s on the page just consider gravy.

A lot of webmasters get too “hung up” on the PR of page on where their link is being placed. While PR is important, it shouldn’t be the only factor you search for when it comes to finding good links. Relevancy and the content surrounding the link is going to make for a stronger, more valuable link in the long run.

The 4 Easiest Ways to Tackle Contextual Link Building

1. Article Marketing – Oldie but Goodie

Article marketing – the “ol’ faithful” when it comes to building links. It still works, and works well.

Anytime I see some of my rankings drooping I will fire off some articles and notice a pick-up a week later.

Contextual links galore, make sure the general topic of your articles matches the anchor text of your links in your resource box.

Keep your article marketing natural and consider our Dripped Article Marketing Service.

2. Buying Blog Posts and Reviews on Established Blogs

This is something I used to do a lot but not so much anymore.

I was buying my blog posts from the buy/sell section on DigitalPoint but it really became a chore sorting through the offers. 75% of the messages I would get would be for unscrupulous webmasters trying to sell “high PR” blog posts off of dropped domains. They would even backward-schedule posts so it looked like they had a years worth of posts – luckily Archive.org tells no lies.

Search for established blogs that are relevant to the niche you’re in for the best result.

You can also find good deals on posts from blog networks, but its anyone’s guess as to how long these networks will keep their sites up after the sales stop. Make sure the blogs are spread across a healthy amount of C Class Ips.

3. Create Squidoos and Hubpages

Write some content and create your own Squidoos and Hubpages. Link back to your site twice within the article using your targeted keywords and voila, instant contextual links.

Hubpages will keep the link nofollow until you hit a score of 70. You’ll have to add pictures, unique content, and give it a few links to raise that score.

Getting contextual links from these domains will benefit your site(s) nicely.

We can build 60 contextual links on 30 domains for you – including Hubpages and Squidoo.

4. Hunting for Contexual Links on Do-Follow Blog Posts

This is a nice little way to build contextual links because the content is already on the page, all you have to do is exploit it (and hope your comment/link gets approved).

Using Fast Blog Finder you can find blog posts that contain your keyword somewhere on the page. When it comes to link relevancy, it doesn’t get any better than that.

How to Get Your Press Releases Listed in Google News and Get Free One-Way Backlinks

Andrew Scherer — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 07:08:58 +0000

Press releases are no longer for big businesses and big budgets. If you’ve got a small niche website you can get all the nice benefits of press releases too.

Submitting a PR Will Give You

Increased traffic.
Increased backlinks for SERP raises.
Possibility of getting picked up by major authority websites and news outlets for even more exposure, traffic, and links.
Extra crediblity and authority, especially if your press release is well-written and newsworthy.

A long-term PR campaign can really do wonders for the average website…

Google News and Why Your PR Needs to Be Indexed By It

One goal you should reach for when distributing your press release is to make sure it gets spidered on Google News. Around 11 million people visit Google News per month and it has SEO benefits for your site as well. Make sure your press release is well written and distributed to the right places so it ends up there. Google news spiders some press release sites, others it does not.

PR Sites I Know Google News Crawls

Live-PR.com – Not only did my PRs from this free site get on Google News but I was also able to get a backlink in the body of the press release itself. Check out the press releases I submitted here and here.
Prlog.Org – Another free site I have submitted my PR to and Google News picked it up.

3 Keys for Writing Effective Press Releases

Your press release should be indirect. Don’t make your PR look like a sales piece or an article, but write it like a piece of news. Add quotes, write your article from a news angle. If you sell acne treatments, for example, report about new developments in acne research or any other related news and then tie your product in at the end. Another example, if you sell blue widgets, report about how your made a donation of 50 blue widgets to your local school.
Who, what, when, where, and why? A newsworthy piece should cover all the bases for properly reporting news.
Your headline is everything. If the content of your press release is amazing but your headline is lacking, nobody is going to even take the time to read your press release. Spend a good amount of time brainstorming different headlines and pick the one that sounds the best. I recommend that you read it out loud to yourself so you hear what it sounds like when its read.

6 Topic Ideas for Your Newsworthy Press Release

Stuck for ideas on covering something that might be newsworthy? You might have any of these 7 going on for your website or business right now that you can report on.

New products or services.
Special contests or giveaways.
Customer survey results.
New employees and employee promotions.
Site upgrades or additions (a new feature or forum, for example).
Your companies opinions on industry news.
Fundraisers, charitable donations, any kind of philanthropy.

If you don’t have any of these that you can get a PR from, make something. It’s easy to run a giveaway contest, or create a simple survey on your website that your surfers will participate in.

5 Super-Easy Ways You Can Build Links in the Next 30 Minutes

Andrew Scherer — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 07:16:38 +0000

Let’s delve into the top 5 quickest and most effective ways you can build links to your website immediately. I’ve also included the latest web 2.0 link building methods that you can easily utilize right now.

Let’s start off with one that’s been my personal favorite…

1. Article Marketing – An Oldie but Goodie

This is a traditional method of building links. It still works for getting instant traffic and building links.

Don’t blast your articles to hundreds of sites unless you’re at least submitting readable spun articles (remember, automatic spinning completely sucks – any program that does spinning automatically for you is going to churn out garbage articles). Instead, submit to the top 10 or top 20 article sites. These include:

Ezinearticles
GoArticles
Articledashboard
Amazines
Articlesalley

Time spent writing a 300 word article: 20 minutes.
Time spent submitting the article: 10 minutes.
Backlinks gained: 5-10.

2. Share Articles on Web 2.0 Hub Sites Like Squidoo, Hubpages, Zimbio, Xanga, and Others.

This is the latest trend in web 2.0 link building. Getting your article on powerful sites like Squidoo and Hubpages can do wonders for your linking. I think in the future these kinds of sites might just take over article directories. When you post an article feel free to include 3-5 in-content links within the body of the article – but not too many because it might seem spammy.

My favorites are:
Squidoo
Hubpages
Zimbio
Xanga
Wetpaint
Wikispaces
and Gather.

Time spent writing a 300 word article: 20 minutes.
Time spent submitting the article: 10 minutes.
Backlinks gained: 10-20.

3. Do-Follow Social Bookmarking.

This is a really easy way of building links that anyone can do. Social bookmarking is just like public bookmarking – submit your deep link URL, title, and a small description and the site displays your link for everyone (including the Google robot to see).

WARNING
Make sure you’re actually getting link juice from your social bookmarkings! Only submit to social bookmark sites that are dofollow and don’t use any kind of redirects to rob you of that beloved backlink.

The best do-follow social bookmarking sites include:

Mister-wong
Backflip
Spurl
Linkagogo
Mylinkvault
Spotback

Find the top 20 do-follow social bookmarking sites here.

Time spent submitting links: 30 minutes.
Backlinks gained: 10-20.

4. Deep link and niche directory directory submissions.

These days I don’t really like massively submitting my homepage link to general directories spread out all across the web. Most directories are completely worthless, and those that aren’t want you to pay for inclusion or at least give them a reciprocal link (which pretty much defeats the purpose of trying to get a one-way backlink in the first place).

Instead of general directories, opt for deep link directories or niche directories. Let’s look at the benefits of each one.

With deep link directories you can alternate URLs, titles, and descriptions. This is going to make your backlinks look more natural because you aren’t submitting the same URL with the same titles and descriptions to a bunch of directories across the web.

Get 10 deep link URLs you want to promote and come up with unique titles, descriptions, and keywords for each one. Pay someone or spend some time submitting these to a couple hundred deep link directories. This is really going to spread the link love across many pages within your site (which is more natural), instead of just the homepage like a traditional directory would.

I also like niche directories too because of the relevant link that they offer. Take for example two directories which have the same link power, but one is a health directory and another is a general directory. If I have a health site then getting a link from the health directory is going to benefit my site much mofe than the general directory, simply because of the relevance. Google loves relevant links.

Check out this list of deep link directories as well as this list of niche directories.

Time spent submitting links: 30 minutes.
Backlinks gained: 10-15.

5. Press release writing and submission.

Press releases are in high demand by webmasters who not only want to get free backlinks from press release sites, but who also want to try to create a media buzz with their sites. If you have something that you think might be newsworthy, take the time out to write and submit a press release. If you can’t do this yourself there are services out there that will do this at various costs – from affordable to enormously expensive.

The nice thing about press releases is that Google news will most likely pick up your press release if you syndicate it to enough places. What’s a link from Google News worth? I’m not sure, but I’m certain it can’t hurt!

Here you can find a list of free press release distrubution sites you can submit your press releases to.

Time spent writing a 300 word press release: 20 minutes.
Time spent submitting your press release: 10 minutes.
Backlinks gained: 5-10 + Google News syndication.