How to Improve Your Blogs?

January 8, 2010

25 Link Building Tactics to Improve Your Search Engine Ranking…

John Mignano

What linking tactics for blogs have you found to be most effective?

What problems are you facing in getting other sites to link to your blog?

What is it about blogging and blog marketing that makes successful online marketing?

Content is king…only if you promote content in the right way!

Blogs are often strategically valuable for search engine optimization.

Blogs are easy to use software tools, right?

What you get from a SEO perspective is a direct result of how well you know how to use your blogs.

Allow me to explain…

Good keyword categorization and content are just the start because blogs are not much of a SEO asset unless they get back links.

In reality, not many businesses use blogs.

Here’s why…business owners don’t have time or patience to create relevant content on a daily basis.

Webmasters also wait to find content all as a linking strategy.

So, without clicking on a link or finding it on a search engine, how will others find your blog?

Links from relevant, credible sources with on-page keyword optimization makes it easier for search engines to find, index and sort blog posts in search results.

How to get your blog to rank well in search results, be sure to follow some of these link building tactics:

1. Create relevant content worth linking to…

No matter how many tactics you find here and elsewhere, there simply is no substitute for creating content that your target market finds useful.

Take the time to look at blog posts already ranking well in search results and learn from their structure, quantity of words and word placement.

2. Do backlinks analysis on competing websites or blogs.

Find out who is linking to competitor sites that are not linking to yours.

Ask sites linking to multiple competitors to link to yours as well.

If another website or blog is already linking to multiple competitors, there is a chance they’ll link to your blog as well.

3. Make useful comments on other blogs that don’t have rel=nofollow.

Comments should always be useful to topically relevant blogs that allow search engine spiders to crawl links in comments.

Is it worth the extra time to provide helpful link resources that you’ve published on your own blog?

4. Encourage social bookmarks & news submissions of your content using services without rel=nofollow.

Show links to those services like:

  • Folkd
  • Spurl
  • Feedmarker

Use this in the blog post template code so they are visible for blog readers to use.

Some social bookmarking services will make a copy of what you bookmark or a static web page of the bookmark including a do follow link back to your blog.

5. Get listed on other blogger’s blogrolls.

Ask blogs you’re active with to see if they’d consider adding your blog to their blogroll or blogrolling lists of blogs.

6. Guest write on other blogs and include a link to your blog in the bio.

In a nutshell, link to blogs that already rank well on the keyword phrases you’re targeting.

Contact the blog owner and suggest a compelling post that would be first and foremost, valuable to their readers.

If it makes sense editorially to link from within the guest post to your own blog, be sure to use relevant keywords as the link text.

7. Submit to blog & RSS directories.

Many RSS directory links have no follow links or are not visited by a large volume of people.

Just make sure your blog and RSS feed are included in niche categories and relevant blogs.

This is a positive vote to search engines as well as to long tail keyword users.

Many bloggers that aggregate large lists of topically specific blogs will cultivate blog directories as a easy way to find blogs on similar topics.

If your blog isn’t on the niche list in those situations, you won’t be included.

8. Submit to regular web site directories like botw.org.

Use blog specific directories that have a relevant category with other reputable logs and websites included.

It makes good sense for your blog to be among them as a useful information source.

9. Be sure to include your blog URL in profiles and bios on social media sites.

Most social media sites allow users to add links to their profiles add no follow to the links, there are many that do not.

For example: Public profile links on LinkedIn and YouTube channels are good links.

You can register with 300+ sites using Knowem or just make sure to set-up your social media profiles to inlcude a link back to your blog.

10. Write testimonials for services and software that you use.

They may publish with a link back to your blog.  Testimonials must be well written, genuine and specific in order to be useful for the service/product owner.

Get at the essence of what’s great about the product or service and even add something unique.

11. Job listings should always have a link back to your blog.

Blogs can be useful recruiting tools that help candidates understand the culture of your business/company.

If buying job listings on other websites, add a link to your blog.

12. Event listings should always have a link back to your blog.

Blogs can be effective tools for promoting events and for listing your event with 3rd party services.

Provide a linkback to your blog post with more details will be useful to readers that want to know more and (search engines).

13. Contributions to non-profits often have a donor page with a link.

These links are now very rare but you should contribute anyway.

14. Article syndication can still result in a few good links.

Include your blog URL in article bio. Take some of your best tips oriented blog posts and re-write them for specific industry verticals or applications.

Submit to article repositories so others can re-use articles, the bio link back to your blog can be picked up by readers and (search engines).

15. Distribute press releases via a wire service with a link to your blog included.

PRWeb provides competitive SEO value with press release distribution.

Many blogs and some news web sites will re-publish your press release exactly as it was distributed, including good links back to your blog.

Journalists use News search to look up past press releases and research on stories, which presents an opportunity to be found and included.

16. Contribute Op Ed pieces to Mainstream Media web sites.

If you publish content on another website such as a letter to the editor, why not keyword optimize the title?

Why not include a link back to your blog where you’ve written many more articles on the same topic?

17. When you get media coverage (or placements) in online publications.

Make sure to ask the journalist for a link to your blog. Many publications have a policy not to link out from stories.

Many leave it up to the journalist or their editor. If you don’t ask, you will never get the link.

18. Develop social networks and share especially useful content from your blog where relevant.

Reciprocate to others and they’ll do the same by promoting your content and getting links.

19. Create or aggregate linkbait content that provides value and is not easily found elsewhere.

Promote and position content to be distributed to your target audience.

Provide useful content in a way that makes it unique and easy to pass along.

Study other blog posts in your topical category that are “hot” on social news sites and understand their structure, format and delivery triggers.

Leverage what has worked for others in your own content.

20. Sponsor content on web sites or newsletters and include a link.

Many newsletters sent via email are archived or use landing pages.

Ask those newsletters if you can buy an ad or even contribute a short article.  The article credits should include a link to your blog.

21. Outsource bloggers to write content for you.

Bloggers often cross-post to their own blog with a link back to yours.

22. Run a contest that can involve others to link back to your blog.

This can be tricky if you don’t know what you’re doing…

Readers write blog posts and the first cut is based on which posts get the most traffic and backlinks as a criteria.

23. Offer a widget (great for inbound links) posting on other websites.

Include a link back to a credits page for the widget on your blog.

24. Review other blogs and offer a badge for those that get included.

Focus on quality and offer a badge with links for blogs that want to display the “badge”.

You should include your logo on the badge for improved brand awarness whether there’s a link or not.

25. Create an exceptionally useful tool.

People will link to it simply because it is useful.

Building good will is one of the most underrated marketing skills online.

Be genuine, thoughtful and courteous.

Also be smart and driven to get links where it makes sense.

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