In case you missed the first part of the SEO Basics Video Course, you can find it here “SEO Basics Video Course -1- Local Business Page Optimization“.

This second part of the video course will go into another principal important aspect of Search Engine Optimization, off-site SEO, commonly known as (back)link building. It comprises the following chapters with the corresponding videos.

9. 4 Tips on How to structure your backlinking campaign
10. 6 Qualities of a good backlink
11. How to build backlinks from Article directories
12. How to build Press Release backlinks
13. How to build blog commenting backlinks
14. How to build blog network backlinks
15. How to build guest blogging backlinks
16. How to build forum backlinks
17. How to build web 2.0 Backlinks
18. How to build Edu and Gov backlinks
19. How to Build Social Bookmarking Backlinks
20. How to build RSS Backlinks

4 Tips on How to structure your backlinking campaign

Business owners often wonder how many backlinks they ought to build and how fast they should build them. Since search engines use backlinks as one method to determine a websites ranking, it is often tempting to rush out and get as many backlinks as possible for your business website. However this mistake of building too many backlinks and building them too quickly can result in Google disregarding those links and even deranking your site.

Here are a few tips to use in your backlinking campaign:

1. Generally it is best to start building backlinks slowly and build them up gradually over time. This is especially true if your website is brand new because building 1000 backlinks to a brand new site sends warning signals to Google.
2. Your link velocity or the rate at which you build your backlinks, is dependant on how competitive your keyword is. For example, local businesses operating out of large cities likeDallas,New York,FloridaorChicagodefinitely have more online competition than businesses located in smaller towns. However since most local search terms as not as competitive as other internet marketing keywords, 50 or so backlinks per week are adequate. You can then build up to a maximum of 500 backlinks per month for about 1-3 months until your website achieving Page 1 ranking on Google, then you can slow down your campaign to a maintenance mode.
3. When building your backlinks, the anchor text should be a combination of your keyword and the URL of your website. The split should be about 70-80%your keyword and 20-30% your URL. If your site has say 2 keywords, then split the anchor text across those keywords, so that your anchor text is 40% keyword 1,

40 % keyword 2 and 20% your website URL.

4. Keep track of your backlinks by keeping a list of all the URLS of the website pages you have created a link on. This will help you in a number of ways:

• You will know which sites you have already used as a source of backlinks so you don’t duplicate the backlinks
• You will have a list of backlink sources you can use on another project
• You can use the list to create a second layer of backlinks. These are other backlinks that point to the first backlinks – this helps the first backlinks get indexed faster.

6 Qualities of a good backlink

Internet marketer cannot emphasize enough how critical it is to build backlinks to your small business website to help improve its search engine rankings. However it is equally important to know what is a good quality backlink so that you maximize the time and energy it takes to create one.

A good backlink should have the following features:

1.  It should be from a page or site with a high page rank. If you can get backlinks from a PR4 Site and above, that is an excellent backlink. Page rank 2 and 3 sites are more common on the internet so a backlink from these sites is not bad either. Page rank 0 and 1 sites have less valuable backlinks but including them in your backlink campaign is better than having no backlinks at all. Remember than one Page rank 1 backlink is better than two Page rank 0 backlinks so always aim for backlinks from higher Page rank sites.
2. It should have the correct anchor text based on proper keyword research. For example if you operate a golf shop in Maine and are targeting the following keyword –“ golf shop in Maine”, then use that Keyword as the anchor text for a majority of your backlinks. The anchor text is that clickable text that contains a hyper link to your URL.
3. It should be a long term stable link meaning that the chances of the backlink being deleted should be slim to none. Try to focus on building backlinks that will not be easily removed by blog owners/editors such as those obtained from Web 2.0 sites, article directories, blog networks, guest blogging and profile links. The riskier type of backlinks such as blog commenting and signature links should be approached with more caution and tact as these are the most vulnerable to get deleted.
4. A good backlinks should be a contextual backlink. This is the type of backlink that is surrounded by text content such as in the middle of an article. This type of backlink is more powerful than those that appear on the side bar or footer, so try to use back linking methods that capitalize on this.
5. A good backlink should be on an ethical website rather than a dubious one that has gambling, pornographic, or other illegal or spammy sites. The search engines do pay attention to the sources of your backlinks and will either penalize or reward you depending on the quality of the source website.
6. Finally a good quality backlink should be from an actively used site that has fresh content added on a weekly basis as opposed to a dormant site. Having your backlinks on active sites means the search engines will quickly find those backlinks because those sites regularly get crawled and indexed by the search engines.

 

How to build backlinks from Article directories

One of the easiest and most commonly used ways to create backlinks to your business website is to submit articles to article directories. Although article directories took a strong hit after the Google Panda update and do not provide powerful backlinks, they are still a helpful source of contextual backlinks. Contextual backlinks are links that are embedded in the text of an article and have more editorial weight and power compared to backlinks located in other areas of a webpage such as the footer or on the sidebar.

Examples of Article Directories:

• Ezinearticles
• ArticleBase
• Buzzle
• Goarticles
• Articlealley
• Articledashboard
• Isnare
• Helium

Each article directory has its own rules and regulations so check the directory rules as to where they allow you to place your backlinks. A majority of article directories only allow you to put a backlink the resource box or author bio area at the end of the article.

As a small business owner, you can use your expertise and knowledge to create articles related to your keyword. For example, if you run a bakery and your Keyword is “bakery in Tulsa”, you can write an article about “The top 10 Sourdough Breads People Love” and then write your resource box as “Looking for a bakery in Tulsa? Susan Andrews runs the Bistro Bakery, an upscale bakery on 43^rd Street. She is a graduate ofPalomaCulinarySchool and has been baking since she was 16 years.” The keyword “bakery inTulsa” will be hyperlinked to your main website.

You can write your own articles or outsource to a writer. You can also use your original articles that appear on your main website as content for article directory submission. However make sure that the articles are first published on your site and indexed before using them as article directory material. If you don’t do this, Google will see the articles on your website as duplicate content and penalize your SEO efforts. Another way to get content for your article directory submission is to spin your articles either manually or using an article spinning software. Spinning simply means rewriting your article using different words.

 

How to build Press Release backlinks

Press releases are an often overlooked method to get backlinks because not many people have heard of them or understand how they work. Press release sites are news release sites that operate online and despite their traditional offline definition, you don’t necessarily have to submit any “news breaking content” all one needs to do is to write an article with an objective news style.

Here are a few ideas you can use to create press release articles:

• New products or services
• Industry developments
• Professional association news
• Corporate and Community Events
• Newsworthy stories from your local TV or newspaper that relates to your business

For many press release sites you can include what’s called a contextual backlink. Contextual backlinks are the best type of backlinks to get and are characterized by being surrounded by text content. Use your main keyword as the anchor text of your backlink and link it back to the URL of the homepage of your website. However, you need to make sure that the press release site allows contextual backlinks before using them.

Examples of Press Release Sites:

• i-newswire.com
• prlog.org
• free-press-release.com
• pr.com/press-releases
• 1888pressrelease.com
• addpr.com
• ecommwire.com
• ecommwire.com
• theopenpress.com
• pressreleasepoint.com

An important thing to note is that you shouldn’t submit the same article to all the press release sites. Instead you should submit unique articles to each site. One of the ways you can speed up your press release submissions is to take one article and spin it into many different articles, and then submit each spun article to a separate press release site.

As you go about building press release backlinks make sure you keep a list of the URLs of all the press release pages where you submitted your press releases. This helps you to build a list of Press release sites you can use in the future and to also help you build backlinks to those articles since this will help get your content indexed faster.

 

How to build blog commenting backlinks

Blog commenting is a pretty self explanatory way to get backlinks- you simple create a comment on someone else blog/website in  the comments area and as you provide your name and email address, you include your website URL too which becomes the backlink in the comment.

Blog comments are not the most powerful type of backlinks but they have various advantages that make them worthwhile to pursue.

• There are millions of blogs online that you can comment on providing a never ending supply of backlinks
• Blog commenting backlinks provide good link diversity because the large numbers of blogs have many IP Addresses and this is good for your back linking. Having backlinks from a narrow range of IP addresses is not the best.
• You can find a number of good quality blogs in your niche that also have high page rank, meaning that your backlinks from these sites will be more valuable.

Tips to getting good blog commenting backlinks

• Check if your backlink will be a follow or no follow backlink by looking at other people’s backlinks on the blog. If you activate the Mozilla Firefox No Follow Plugin, it will highlight no follow backlinks on the website. You want to look for blogs that allow do follow backlinks
• Check the page rank of the page you want to comment on, which may be different from the page rank of the website. Remember that search engine assign page rank to pages not websites so even though a website’s home page is a Page rank of 4, if the page you are posting a comment on is page rank of 1, your backlink will only draw value from the page rank of 1. You can use the Mozilla Firefox SEO Quake plugin to show you the page rank.
• Make meaningful comments so that your comment gets approved and has a higher chance of not being deleted. Read the article on the page, understand what it is about and using your knowledge/expertise on the subject make a valuable contribution.  This becomes much easier by finding blogs that relate to your business niche.

How to find blogs to comment on

You can use the following search operators on the Google Blogs search box:

• “keyword” + “add comment” E.g. “real estate” + “add comment”
• “keyword” + “post comment” E.g. “foreclosures” + “post comment”

 

How to build blog network backlinks

If you are looking for a way to build lots of contextual backlinks from a wide variety of sources, you may want to consider using blog networks. Blog networks are basically a group of blogs owned by a single person or a group of blog owners.

How blog networks work

Blog networks allow you to post articles containing your backlinks to their blogs in exchange for a fee. You can chose a monthly subscription based on the number of blogs you want to submit content to, so you can find something within your budget.

Advantages of blog networks

Although this is a paid method of sourcing backlinks, it can save you a lot of time if you don’t want to do the tedious job of looking for high page rank blogs to comment on or that will accept you as a guest blogger. Plus the backlinks from blog networks are more permanent and from high page rank authority sites, so your money may be better spent than using just free methods.

Examples of blog networks

• Build my rank
• Authority link network
• Article marketing automation
• Article ranks
• Linkvana

Most of these blog networks require you to submit original or unique articles, though some allow content in the spun format. You can include between 1 to 3 contextual backlinks within your article, but each blog network has its own policies so make sure you read them before subscribing to their service.

Can you build your own blog network?

Building your own blog network is definitely an option though one must consider the costs and time it takes to build one. If you have sufficiently developed your SEO skills, you can easily buy high page rank blogs or expired domains on domain auctions, and build an arsenal of your own blogs where you can post your content for free and build backlinks in the process. You can even turn it into a side business and rent backlinks to other business owners.

 

How to build guest blogging backlinks

If you are not using guest blogging as a traffic and backlink method, I would highly recommend that you start using this strategy. Not only do you get to network with other blog owners, distribute your content to authority sites in your niche, generate free traffic over the long haul, but you also get to build valuable contextual backlinks from high page rank sites.

Being a guest blogger simply means writing articles for another website for free with the benefit of getting free backlinks to your own site. You may get an opportunity to place a contextual backlink within the main article or one in the author bio box at the end of the article.

The benefit of getting guest blogging articles is that they tend to be permanent because of your amicable relationship with the blog owner and the permission you got from them to be a guest blogger. This is unlike blog commenting backlinks that often get deleted because blog owners don’t want anything “spammy” on their sites.

How to find high traffic sites that will accept you as a guest blogger

1. You can use search operators in the Google Search box such as:

• “Keyword phrase”+ “become a contributor”
• “Keyword phrase”+ “guest article”
• “Keyword phrase”+ “guest blog”
• “Keyword phrase”+ “guest blogger”
• “Keyword phrase”+ “guest bloggers”

Once you have done this:

• Sort through the listings looking for sites with high page rank. You can use the SEO Quake Firefox plugin to do this as it will list the page rank under each listing.
• Browse each site looking for the guidelines on how to submit a guest post

2. You can also use offline methods to get guest blogging opportunities. These will probably be more effective methods as a small business owner since you normally network with others offline rather than online. You can use your offline business networks to propose writing guest articles for the following:

• Your local business network e.g. Local Chamber of Commerce
• Your Professional Association
• Your Local newspaper
• Your local community organizations such as schools, charities etc

 

How to build forum backlinks

All across the internet people flock to forums to share with people of like mind on various hobbies, careers, or other interests. As a business owner, joining a forum and contributing to it can generate more traffic to your website, improve your online reputation and also provide a steady source of high quality backlinks to your main business website.

Types of forum backlinks

Forums provide three types of backlinks

1. Signature links –these are the links found at the bottom of each and every contribution you make, like a signature.
2. Contextual links- these links are embedded within the text of your contribution. These are not so common so you need to look for forums that allow this.
3. Profile links- once you open an account on a forum, you need to fill out your profile data and you can include a website address. This address then become your profile backlink

A major benefit of forum backlinks is that once you create them, they tend to get found quickly by Google and therefore have fast indexing rates. This is because forums are usually very active with lots of fresh content posted on a daily basis so the search engines regularly crawl them for this new content.

Unfortunately forum backlinks can be easily get deleted by forum owners. The way around this problem is to just build a profile and make meaningful contributions. Then a week or two later, you can add a signature link. In this way, when the forum editors go through the new forum posts they will only see your contributions and will not delete them.

How to find forums

1. Go to Google Groups and then type this search operator:
   Your keyword inurl:forum
   E.g. dentist inurl:forum
   It’s best to use a general keyword that covers your niche. So if your website is about your hardware store inNew Hampshire, use general keywords such as plumber, contractor, and house repair

2. Go to the main Google search box and type in your general keyword. Then click on the Discussions/Talk tab on the left. This will list groups and forums talking about your keyword. Try and find pages with high page rank.

 

How to build web 2.0 Backlinks

One of the ways to create backlinks to your small business website is through setting up Web 2.0 sites. Web 2.0 sites are sites that give your free space to publish your content. Examples include: WordPress, Blogger, Typepad, Hubpages, Squidoo, LiveJournal, Bravenet, Wetpaint, WikiSpaces.

Web 2.0 sites are free to use so all you need to do is sign up for a free account. They are also user friendly and easy to navigate so adding your content and publishing articles, images and videos is pretty straightforward. Some Web 2.0 sites also have advertising platforms so you can earn some extra money from their ad revenue –sharing programs.

The advantage of Web 2.0 sites

• One main advantage about Web 2.0 sites is that you can use them to build contextual backlinks. These are the kind of backlinks that are considered the most powerful type of backlinks because they are embedded within the text of an article, compared to backlinks that appear on the side widget or footer.
• Another advantage of Web 2.0 sites is that they are authority websites with an established High Page rank so it’s not uncommon to see content from these sites appearing on the first page of the search engine rankings.

Disadvantages of Web 2.0 sites

• Unfortunately most backlinks from web 2.0 sites are “no-follow” so the high page rank of the site does not get passed onto your backlink. However some Web 2.0 sites have do- follow links , such as Weebly.
• Another point to note is that these sites are still controlled by their owners so your free account is not always guaranteed to be online and can be deleted.

Despite their limitations, web 2.0 sites can be used to build a large number of contextual backlinks and the no follow backlinks lend a natural look to your backlink profile.

 

How to build .Edu and .Gov Backlinks

.Edu and .Gov backlinks are some of the most prized backlinks among internet marketers. These are backlinks from educational institutions such as universities and government bodies. These two entities have large authority sites , with high page ranks of above 5 and have lots of pages indexed since they have been online for over 10-20 years. Getting a backlink of any kind from these sites is therefore something to go after and help you with your off page SEO in a big way.

The different kind of backlinks you can get from .Edu and .gov sites

• Blog Comments – there is usually a comment area on blog posts where members of the public can post their views
• Guest Blogging- this is doable for smaller and more local sites such as your college or local government body
• Forum Profile and Signature Links- many university sites have forum sites too around a particular topic or field of study. You can join these forums, build a profile and contribute to forum discussions.

How to find .Edu and .Gov backlinks

1. You can use certain search operators in the Google search box

• To find blogs to comment on, type :

Site:.edu inurl:blog “post a comment”

Site:.gov inurl:blog “post a comment”

• To find forums, type:

Inurl:forum.edu

Inurl:forum.gov

• To find blogs, type

Inurl:blog.edu

Inurl:blog.gov

2. You can also use other people’s websites to find any .edu or .gov websites they are getting backlinks. By reverse engineering your competitors websites, you can uncover a list of sites. If your competitors website is “www.usa.com”, then enter the following search operator in the Google search box:

Linkdomain.usa.com site:.edu

This will list all the .Edu sites that the website has backlinks on. You can sort through the sites looking for high page rank  and post your links there too.

The same applies for .Gov sites. Just use the following search operator:

Linkdomain.usa.com site:.gov

 

How to Build Social Bookmarking Backlinks

One of the ways to build backlinks to your small business website is to use social bookmarks. Let me use a real-world example to help you better understand the concept of social bookmarking. When you read a book and want to remember the last page you were on, you place a bookmark on that page. In the same way you can bookmark your website pages on social bookmarking sites.

Social bookmarking sites used to be valued by Google but due to their excessive use by internet marketers, their ranking power has significantly reduced. However they are still a good way to get a large number of backlinks and to improve your backlink diversity.

Examples of social bookmarking sites include:

• Digg
• Del.icio.us
• Technorati
• Reddit
• Slashdot
• Tagza
• Newsvine
• Connotea
• Sphinn
• Fark
• Wsik
• LinksMarker
• Blinklist

You can create social bookmarks either:

• Manually- this is a time consuming process as you would have to go to each bookmarking site, register and fill in the backlinking information. If you want to understand who the whole social bookmarking concept works, I would recommend you use this initially before outsourcing.
• Using Automated Tools- this is a better option considering the relatively low value of social bookmarks and the large number of sites. Some free social bookmarking tools include Social Marker and Onlywire.

In either case, it’s best to outsource the process to someone who can create all your accounts for you and submit the links either manually or using the automated tools. You can use outsourcing sites like Odesk, Elance and Fiverr.

To create a social bookmark backlink, remember to enter the URL of the page you are bookmarking and to use the keyword in the Title field as this will become the clickable hyperlink of the URL.

 

How to build RSS Backlinks

One of the easiest ways to distribute your website content and build backlinks at the same time is to use RSS fees. Just as TV programs syndicate their content to carious TV channels across the country you can do the same thing online with RSS.

With RSS your content can be automatically published across many different social platforms and websites. As your content is spread across these wide online communities, you develop backlinks to all your content as soon as it gets published.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication is a technology used by websites to send out updates of new content. This means that someone can get to see new content on an RSS feed rather that going to each and every website to get the latest post.

So how does RSS relate to your business website?

• It means that every time you publish a new post on your business blog, you get links from your twitter or facebook accounts;
•  Each time you submit your articles to your article directory account, backlinks are created on your free WordPress blog;
• Each time you send out an marketing promotion via email, it gets automatically posted on your blog or Twitter account and
•  Every new tweet on your Twitter account gets posted to your Facebook account.

All website properties have an RSS feed be they blogs, article directories, Squidoo pages, twitter, email autoresponder etc.

Using RSS is a one time deal, so once you submit your sites RSS feed to an RSS site, you don’t need to do it again. From that moment on your content will be automatically syndicated with every new post and you will get new backlinks that will help speed up the rate of indexing or how fast the search engines find your new content.

RSS technology therefore provides the benefits of complete backlink automation, a larger content reach and helps bump your website further up the search engine rankings.

Well! That’s it for the SEO Basics Video Tutorial Course.

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