One of the most popular questions asked by both new and experienced webmasters is what is the best way to build links that point back to their website or blog. Building links, or obtaining backlinks, is a very important process in making a blog more successful. The more backlinks there are that point at a blog and the more that blog benefits from both added traffic as well as additional search engine related bonuses. When a blog has a large number of backlinks spread around the online world, it is easier for someone to stumble across one of those links and follow it back to the blog. When there are a large number of links pointing at a blog, search engines also interpret that to mean that the blog is highly valued and a trusted source for unique and pertinent information.
Link building is the process by which a webmaster attempts to acquire links that point back to his website or blog. There are a number of different strategies that can be used in link building and there are experts and amateurs that are supporters and backers of each and every one. Some of the popular ways of link building include forum posting, blog commenting, directory submission, article marketing, video posting, and more. Many people want to know what the best way to build backlinks is so that they can concentrate their time on that one method. This perseverance and dedication are admirable traits to find in a blogger and are often the kind of thing that guarantees success. The problem with this mentality is that no one knows what the future will hold.
It is important that a blogger not concentrate on one of the above methods of link building, or another one not listed either, because when they do they run the risk of making their blog vulnerable in the future to the whims of search engines and other factors. If a blogger sunk ninety percent of their link building efforts into blog commenting, and then a year from now Google and other search engines decided to lessen how much they see blog commenting as a sign of the quality of a blog, what is the blogger to do? If a blogger prefers to spend most of their link building time on social bookmarking, what happens if one day search engines downgrade how beneficial they think those links are? By relying so heavily on one method of link building, the blogger is setting themselves up for possible disappointment in the future. The best way to protect a blog from potential link building problems is to decide on five to six link building strategies to use and then do them all effectively on a more limited basis.
While link building is highly competitive and a much needed thing for a blogger to do, it is best if they don’t put all of their blogging eggs in one basket. When a blogger only concentrates on one way to gain backlinks, they are opening themselves and their blog up to possible damage in the future based on the whims of a search engine company. Why would a blogger allow one decision that a search engine company could make to downgrade or completely submarine all of their efforts? When a blogger diversifies their link building strategy, no one decision by a search engine company or anyone else can cause their blog to rank lower in search engines or become less valued because they have decided to change how they value and evaluate websites and blogs. Diversification of link building methods is a very smart thing for bloggers to concentrate on.
August 25th, 2009 at 4:15 am
Thank you for a great article. I’ve been doing some SEO for our company’s website and I used the directory submission, article submission and blog commenting most. With the use of automatic submission tools, directory submission, article submission and blog commenting are made quick and easy. Yes, writing articles requires time and efforts, but it’s possible to hire a writer to create the articles if one is not good at writing. Generally, I think that link building process should combine a variety of link building methods. Bloggers should not focus on just one tactic.