SEO – ideas for obtaining quality back links

Now I’m sure everyone reading this has already read 100s of posts with the same name, but this is worth reading. Always remember that learning how to SEO your site really should not revolve around link building, but rather, link earning. Create high quality content regularly and the links will flow naturally.

This is what I’ve been doing…

Find webmasters

The list is never ending, but my favourites right now are:

• Direct via Google searching
• Forum networking
• Email proposals
• Business contacts

I thought I’d skip the usual useless lists that include: article directories, links directories and so on…out of the thousands, only a handful would be considered to be quality, so I tend not to bother with them unless they are niche specific.

What can you offer?

This question and the process of link building for my sites helped me consider what I really have to offer; how can I get a link deal to work consistently?

Think about the skills you have and how this could be of benefit to others. It might be that webmasters would be willing to publish a link in return for some help elsewhere with their websites. For instance, my experience online allows me to offer:

• Content writing (you can use an SEO company if necessary)
• A back link from one of my older blogs that are not really doing anything, but have good link juice
• Advice relating to running an e-commerce store
• And so on…

Techniques that yield a response

The main thing to consider is logging results. I always save the forum posts and emails that I create and log the results. It helps for the future, I can chop and change posts/emails completely, or modify them slightly to try and yield a better response. We all know how important analytical data is, so make sure you monitor results one way or another.

Here’s what I do!

If I called a forum post “Forum post 18^th July.doc”, I’d log results for that in a spreadsheet like so:

File Name	Response rate
Forum post 18th July.doc	2.4%

Direct via Google search

Searches to try:

• Guest post “name of niche” – You will obviously have to write an article or pay for an article to be written.
• Link directory “name of niche”
• Links “name of niche” – Brings up sites with related links pages)
• Resources “name of niche” – Brings up sites with related links pages)
• Use a back link checker – Check where competitors are getting links from (OpenSiteExplorer is also good for this)

Email proposals

Change the way you contact owners consistently and log results as mentioned above. I actively buy websites if I can see them having future value. The best response rate I had for obtaining back links was an email I wrote asking if they would sell, but if they wouldn’t, if they would give me a back link. My intention was not to get any links, but instead, to buy the sites in question.

Since then, I’ve been emailing people to “buy” their website rather than specifically asking for back links. I’ve gained quite a few links using this method. Think about similar but unique & creative ways to word emails.

Remember this; we all delete “link exchange request” emails – they are spam! Just because you write in good, solid English does not mean someone will suddenly think “Oh its not spam, I’ll reply”. You need to change your tact!

Here is the part of the email relating to asking the owner to sell the site that I believe generated the response; it’s something different to the plain old “do you want to swap links” – it gets them talking/thinking.

“Firstly, if you ever consider selling the site, please could you contact me? Depending on the price I could be interested.”

Remember; the title is just as important. When testing/logging, use the same email a few times, but change the title in creative ways to see how response rates vary.

Forum networking

This is quite easy. Visit some webmaster forums, forums in your niche and get some posts going. As a content writer, I might start a post – say “Free content in exchange for links”. If you are web designer then you’d go with “Free web design in exchange for links” and so on. Just try and get creative, but work in the same way as the emails mentioned above; change your posting tactics and measure the results.

Another tact I went with was “Networking with website owners”. The aim was to have a bit of a chat, then hit them with a back link proposal. That being said, I genuinely did want to network with these people, as I knew I could gain some valuable information (and offer the same) from people that had experience in the field.

Business contacts

I tell you what I love about SEO? Previous contacts – nothing beats them! I’ve not been doing my own SEO for a massive amount of time, but I still know that previous contacts, people I have already arranged link deals with are the best people to deal with. They convert nearly 100% of the time after a quick email and they provide some great back links.

Happy linking!