How do I get more people to read my blog? Step 2 – Get found from links on other websites

As part of your overall website or blog traffic strategy, you should be getting links from other websites. There are effective and ineffective ways to do this. Here are some guidelines for getting links from other websites.
21 Jan, 2012

This is the second part of a series of articles to help you get more blog traffic.

If you have been following the series you would already have read how to boost the search engine traffic to your blog. Now it’s time to go to work on getting links from other websites.

Getting found from links on other websites

The search engine benefits that your site receives when other sites link to you should not be underestimated. This is especially true for sites that already have a good search engine reputation AND which are relevant to your content. This is how much of the search engine World finds out which sites are reputable – if the BBC website links to one of your posts, Google is likely to rank your website more highly as a result. If you really want to learn more, take a look at the Wiki definition of PageRank.

However, as well as the search engine benefits that inbound links offer, real visitors may click those links and visit your website too. So link building is really important for your website strategy. Here are a few ideas:

  • Search for websites that have similar content to yours and ask for a link
  • If you operate in a niche, try seeking out blogs and forums that talk about your content and then start posting your own comments. However, building up a reputation will take time, so…
    • Don’t make your comments too sales-focused
    • Do impart advice and answers to questions
    • Do offer to help out (even if it means recommending somebody else or another website)
    • Do make sure you include a link to your website – usually, this is allowed as part of your signature
  • Register on free, or low-cost, niche sites – the ones that allow you to create a profile, add a bio, and, most importantly, link through to your own website. Some of these sites are very good and get a lot of traffic, so do ‘work’ them hard, add content that will appeal to the typical users of the site, and make sure you don’t skimp on the details you upload either. The content you add to the site could help your own SEO activity as well as makING it more likely that real visitors will want to find out more by visiting your website
  • Be wary of link exchanges – they generally don’t bring you any benefit and could end up diminishing your link value and sending people away from your site.

Tip: Use anchor text wisely – Anchor text is the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink. When adding links to your site, try to put something meaningful in the anchor text. Search engines use the anchor text to get a better idea of what is at the other end of the link and to understand what keywords your site is relevant for. So if your anchor text says ‘click here’ that really doesn’t say very much, but if it says ‘Book your next French holiday’ it gives a really big clue as to what your site is about. Real visitors will find it more useful too!

Our next article will outline ways in which you can alert your friends, fans, and followers to your blog content. In the meantime, be sure to subscribe to the feed to be notified when the next article arrives, or you’ll have to just keep coming back to the site.

2 Comments

  1. Charlotte

    Useful article and timely reminder that I need to check out my links to other like minded sites. Thanks Martin

    Reply
  2. Brendan

    I am currently researching the madness of link building. This post was clear about the steps or strategies of how to approach other websites with asking to link.

    Thanks for the, clear, information. I lost count of how many sites that have just confused me.

    Reply

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