5 Ways to Get Quality Backlinks to your Blog
Quality backlinks are an essential element in raising your search engine rankings. Low-quality backlinks, such as those available through link exchanges and "paid for" link schemes, are now often ignored completely when calculating your search engine rankings. Here are 5 ways to get quality backlinks to your blog.
- Write guest posts for popular blogs
Popular blogs are under a lot of pressure to keep producing quality content in order to stay popular. This can take its toll on blog owners, especially if the blog is run by just one person. For this reason, popular blogs often welcome guest bloggers, and will allow guests to place one or two links in their by-line. Have a look at the popular blogs within your area of expertise to see which ones accept guest posts and approach the blog owners with your ideas. - Write guest posts for new blogs
Many bloggers will only write guest posts for blogs that are more popular than their own, believing the links from less popular blogs to be worthless. However, you just never know which new blogs could soon be popular blogs. Be picky - look for new blogs with good potential and approach the blog owner. Even if the blog never becomes popular, it doesn't do any harm to have a few lower quality links. - Comment on other blogs
Commenting on other blogs is one of the simplest ways to get quality backlinks to your own blog. Check around to make sure that the comment links are "dofollow" links (you may have to check the website of the blogging software), as "nofollow" links are not counted when determining your search engine rankings. Don't spam the topic with links or self-serving promotional information. Make sure that the comment is useful and constructive, otherwise you risk having the blog owner delete your comments. Include a discreet link at the bottom of your comments. - Run competitions and free giveaways
Many of the top "comping" and "freebie" sites have good search engine rankings and can provide a reliable source of quality links to your blog. Make a dedicated page for your competitions or giveaways and submit your offers to the top competition and freebie sites. Set a long deadline for competition entries (e.g. 3 months), as this will increase the amount of time your links are active. - Don't forget the forums
Many bloggers underestimate the value of using forums to get quality backlinks. Some of the top forums have excellent search engine rankings and provide "dofollow" links. Research your area of expertise to find out which are the most popular forums. Don’t spam the forum with links or promotional content. Place a discreet link to your website in your signature, and then offer advice, make useful comments, and generally interact with people in the forum.