Anand Srinivasan writes on Internet Statistics News at TechCrunchies. He also owns KnewThis.com.
The importance of backlinks never be told to a blogging audience as this. Success in blogging means doing just two things right – getting quality content on your blog and getting quality links to point to your website. Getting quality content is easy. Getting quality links to point to your site is not.
While there have been several ‘tips and tricks’ on how to get websites to link to you, including article marketing, distributing freebies and announcing contests, one of the simplest ways is often forgotten – ‘Plainly emailing the website author to provide a link to you’.
First and foremost, let me admit that this is one of the most difficult things to get done, but is the most rewarding of all. While you can easily get a lot of PR 0 and PR 1 websites to link to you through article marketing, how many PR 7 or PR 8 websites – the authorities in your niche, will link to you? If you would want Google and your niche audience to trust you well enough, it is links from these websites that matter.
So, how do you get this done? It is a long, yet satisfying process that will go a long way in helping you establish your authority. First step – Do NOT click on the contact link and shoot an email. Thousands are doing this already and you will quite likely never hear back. What you need to do is establish a rapport with the author.
Here is where social networks come handy. Connect to the author on websites like Facebook and Twitter. Frequently, when the author tweets, do not just blindly retweet. Engage in a quality discussion with them. The first step is to get the author know that someone like you exist. Do this on a consistent basis before proceeding to step two.
Second step is to volunteer. Does the website author also handle a forum? Does he have a Facebook fan page? If not, create one, and ask him to endorse it on his website. If the author does indeed have forums, volunteer to be the moderator for the group. You have built trust.
The third step is the easiest. You simply have to mail the author asking if your website can be included in the Resources section of his website. You are most likely to get a link.
The procedure explained here can seem very arduous, but remember that any niche has got only a handful of genuine experts, and you are going to employ this only to get to these few people. Additionally, it is not just a backlink you are earning, but a very valuable contact in your niche which will go a long way in establishing your authority.
But wait, before anything like this can happen, you need to have great content. So, if you have not built genuine content yet, go build that one first!
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Hi there. Its been a while since I saw a post form you but it is good to see that you are back:) Indeed, this link building tactic is by far the most forgotten and neglected. The reason behind probably is because it is difficult to obtain. Some prefer the “short” route, and do not engage in a more serious relationship with trusted and authority sites to get quality links. I’m working on it, and we’ll see how it goes.
I think you have made it very clear what one can do. I receive many emails asking for linkbacks. The surprise to me is that some of them I have never heard from and so have no clue who they are.
I normally only link to people who I know now, who interact with me or my blog.
Great tips! Getting link from authority sites in your niche is a great way to improve your search engine rankings, an incoming link from an authority site is worth more than an incoming link from an average site, however, it is not easy to accomplish.
Thanks for the tip, am already on that…
Hey Yan,
I agree with you that backlinks are very important but Google is very strict if you ask for backlinks to other webmasters even they are against the paid links. please check once i faced this issue so just shared with you but anyway your blog is awesome thanks for the valuable information.
Hi Vikram
I am sorry I am not able to find a link for this, but Matt Cutts from Google had in fact confirmed that it is perfectly okay if you are to mail webmasters to check your website out and link to you.
It is when you offer something in return, like a return link or money that it becomes illegal..The latter cannot be detected properly, but I guess Google can probably screen out those websites that repeatedly link to low ranked websites.
making a personnal approach to webmasters for getting quality links is so makes sense although it’s not as easy as it sounds. It takes much efforts and a lot of patience, but I’m working on it right now, thank’s for sharing this.
Back links are mainly use in Search Engine Optimization. It is a kind of a utility that highlight the blog or the site for the search engine. Creating back link is not that hard. But it requires proper mechanism.
Wow! It’s a very useful article. I ‘am very tried to get backlink to my site. I confirm that the contact form does not work. I will never get back some reply from website author. I agree with you that establishing a rapport with the author is better. Thank for sharing. :)
I am really wondering if backlink is still the main key to PageRank because to get couple of websites to link to you through their content is very hard. But to get backlinks from spamming comments is fairly easy.
Superb tips and I can say for sure that they will work! No one will deny a trustworthy person of links but the process of building the trust is the most difficult part. I would suggest to befriend the Blogger (not only for getting links but also as a good friend). This will help you if your need his help in future too…
Yan,
Great advise. Let me see if I can paraphrase. Focus on building real relationship and friendships with other authorities in your niche then asking them for and getting links back will be easy!
BTW did you miss me Yan? ;-)
whoops I see now this wasn’t written by Yan but it does say by Yan at the top. Just FYI hehe.
I thought the advices are really that long :) but well, fantastic thing is that it boiled down to just one thing really – trust. Once this is established, confidence comes next and then other things will just follow smoothly.
Nice article!
really getting back links from authorities will build the good relation ship.before that making a relation ship through social networking sites is little difficult but it is fine. your blog is giving good information. thank you for the nice tips.
You really make it sound easy. I’m sure the higher PR sites are bombarded constantly with requests from newbies trying to carve out a presence in a particular niche. But like you said…if you ask, you most likely will get a link. Thanks for the tips. They have been helpful
This is a great post because a lot of people don’t realize how important a backlink really is to a website. The more links that you have linking into your website, the greater chance of you getting ranked higher in the search engines
Hey Yan nice post but it always saddens me to see so many somewhat well known bloggers comment before me and Yet be the one to discover on stumble.I don’t even use it anymore I just hit the thumb on people’s post and sure enough was first ;( Bloggers would really have it made if we really helped each other instead of every man for himself.I got burned out for a while helping people often to not even get a thanks :)
Well I overcome any and all obstacles one of the great things about blogging is how much your learn ;)
Peace and Yes I will always be DO FOLLOW :) Blog looks and loads awesome thanks
Good points Yan. Sometimes the simplest and most direct ideas get ignored. Contacting website owners directly was just not on my radar but it is now.
Thank you for pointing out how all niches still require a certain level of detail and professionalism, no matter how many are out there. I think many people miss the actual work often involved in blog maintenance for there to be some fiscal success.
I’ve never contacted a blogger and asked for a linkback to my blog before. I guess I have to start thinking about this if I want to get a nice decent backlink
I am interested in your article about how to get backlinks. That still makes me ask, is it possible that the web has a big PR to accept comments from the newly created blogs, and has a PR 0
This is a great article. Like you said the content has to be good first so that is a necessary step to take because these people will check out the content and will base their decision mainly on that and other little factors too. Thanks for the tips.
The examples you give above may take anywhere from a day to a month. Just for one backlink. Do you think it would be better to build many links in that time through articles, forums, commenting and so on?