by Rachel Kuptz
Directories: Large directories like DMOZ and Yahoo! Directories may not drive major traffic to your site, but they can help in making sure that your site is found by the search engines faster. Niche directories related to your field, or directories that rank for keywords that you want to rank for, should also be considered. You can use a free tool like SoloSEO to find directories that are relevant to your niche or keyword.
Press Releases: There’s the regular process of submitting press releases to paid distribution channels, then there’s the SEO process of distributing to paid distribution sites. Partnered with a pitching strategy, the paid distribution sites are great for getting media attention, but it’s the free distribution sites that will help you earn some backlinks. While a paid distribution channel, PRWeb also offers an SEO Package that will get you backlinks. If you regularly submit press releases to the paid channels, take a few minutes each month to also distribute them to the free press release distribution sites.
Article Syndication: Article marketing can consist of submitting articles to directories, social media sites, or even guest blogging or writing an exclusive feature article for another site. By submitting articles to a variety of sites, you expand your traffic base and receive backlinks from relevant sites. Sites like Ezine Articles and Hub Pages are great when you have unique content to distribute, but also consider re-writing one of your popular blog posts and submitting to a site like Unique Article Wizard. Your article will be distributed to over 500+ sites depending on the topic, and a large percentage of those sites will give you a one-way link back.
Consider Profile Creation: It seems easy enough, but creating social media profiles can be another quick way to earn backlinks. Some social media sites will give you a do-follow backlink to your site, while others aren’t so generous, although the traffic you get might still be worth it. Check out sites like KnowEm for an extensive list of social media sites that you can create profiles on.
Commenting On Relevant Sites: Finding blogs that follow comment links isn’t always an easy task, but blog commenting is still a good way to get links, especially if you are commenting on relevant sites. While a software blogger commenting on a food site may not make sense, commenting on blogs in your industry does. Forums also generally follow backlinks via the signature field and are a great way to earn additional links.
Find Reciprocal Link Opportunities: While reciprocal links aren’t as beneficial any more, they can still make up a small portion of your link building strategy - just don’t depend on it for your entire link building strategy. You can get reciprocal links from vendors and partners that you do business with, friends and family with web sites, directories and sites that offer a reciprocal exchange, or by emailing sites you’d like to appear on, asking them for a reciprocal link. Try a tool like Link Assistant to help find reciprocal linking partners and to monitor your link popularity over time.
Contact Relevant Web Sites: If your web site might be relevant to another target market, email the webmaster of the site explaining who you are, what your request is, and how it would benefit them. Don’t send blanket emails though - make sure to thoroughly research the website, find out their needs, and then pitch accordingly.
Write For Link Bait: Like article marketing, link bait consists of writing an article or blog, but instead of submitting to a variety of sites, you’ll keep this on your own web site. With link bait, you’re looking to write an article that will spike the interest of your industry peers, social media sites, or verticals that you’re interested in entering. Link bait articles aren’t always planned - a blog post that took you 10 minutes to write may end up driving thousands of visitors to your web site, while a post that took you hours of research and time may not get a single view. Posts that tend to get the most links and views offer a different viewpoint to a common issue or problem, describe how to do something (a 101 posts of sorts), are top 10/number posts or roundups of a popular topic, consist of breaking news or trends, or even just supply a picture, humor, or thought on something that is unique to your industry.
