It is now accepted wisdom that SEO, or Search Engine Optimization to give it its full and glorious title, is all about off page optimization. About 80% in fact. What does all that mean?
Well, basically it means that Google really judges your site, less by what is actually on the page, but more from what sites are linking to you. It is those inbound links that are all so important.
Of course, unique keyword focused content on your page is important, but ‘tweaks’ on YOUR site will not make much difference. So, inbound links are an important part of the equation. Got that? Good. But one word of warning, well, two actually.
There are ways to get tens of thousands of inbound links, literally overnight. Google will probably discount these or even worse, penalize your site if it thinks you are trying to ‘spam’ the index. Best to play it safe and do it all nice and legal.
My other tip is to make sure that you vary the wording of your inbound links. you don’t want every one named ‘TARGET KEYWORD’ and nothing else. It’s not natural and Google will see it as such. So, with those two pearls of wisdom firmly planted away, here are my top SEO Secrets of gaining inbound links, with your various keyword targeted hyperlinks:
1. Write articles and submit to the likes of Ezine Articles. These people here will get your article distributed to most of the main article directories. In the resource box you can have 2 or 3 keyword links. Other sites will go on to publish these articles and before you know it, you will have links coming from all over the web, from, importantly, theme related web-sites.
2. Blog and blog often. In your blog articles, insert hyper-linked keywords to your target page. Then publish a RSS feed and make sure you publish that in as many places as you can find. Feedagg is a good place to start. Again, same principle, other blogs will pick up your RSS feed and publish.
3. Directory Submissions – To be honest, I wouldn’t spend a lot of time on this but it’s still a fairly quick way to get a few links out there. I don’t think Google places a massive importance on directory links and I certainly wouldn’t pay for a listing, unless I was in a very tight niche and I knew that the directory could provide traffic and not just the link. I do use a directory submission service myself and I can vouch for them, they are pretty reliable. They also have a few other worthwhile offers.
4. Social Bookmarking – Yes I know it’s a lot of work but Google likes social bookmarking sites. If Google likes them, so do we. Start off at socialmarker and then Digg from there. If you want to get serious then I suggest you use some sort of automated bookmarking solution, these are the people I use and they are the best in the business.
5. Forum Posting – Don’t underestimate the power of this one. You can get a great return on investment, especially if you post in relevant and on topic forums. If you spice up your forum signature with an enticing offer, then not only will you gain inbound links, you will also score quite a few interested visitors.
6. Fruity Plugins – This is just one of those ‘must haves’ you should have on your WordPress blog. How the system works is that your visitors automatically generate inbound links and unique content for you. Incredible, but true. The more visitors you have, the more inbound links and content you receive. Then those links and content go on to get your more visitors who then…I think you get the idea…
7. Videos – Create a video, post it to as many video directories as you can. Don’t forget to include a hyperlink to your site in the description and the video itself, preferably throughout. Google loves video. The only downside is that video submission can take forever. These people solve that.
So, there you have it. Of course, there are many other ways to get inbound links, but these 7 are definitely my favorites and if you follow the steps correctly, you will surely find great results.
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