Get Backlinks – Here are the 11 methods and backlink tools I use

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My blog has 7670 backlinks as stated in my blog post Blogging Guide Blog Is One Year Old and since then I’ve had a number of personal emails asking me how I get backlinks.

By the way, today the number of backlinks is 7790.

In this post I share 11 methods I use but first…what is a backlink:

Simply put, a backlink is a link on a website (including blogs) that leads back to your website / blog.

In search engine optimization (SEO), page rank is at least partially determined by the number of sites that link to yours. It’s important to gain backlinks honestly, and if a lot of other sites link back to you, you will naturally get more traffic to your page.

There is a lot of argument around the quality of backlinks.

We are to believe that a backlink from a website that is in the same niche as yours carries more weight. That would make sense.

Also, we are to believe the higher the Page Rank of the website you are getting backlinks also carries more weight.

So, ideally we want backlinks from websites in our niche and with a Page Rank of 10!

There are not many of those around unfortunately.

My approach is to mix it up and not get too hung up about whether the backlinks are in my niche or coming from very high Page Rank websites. Personally, I have too many other aspects of my on-line business that I want to keep running.

One more thing to mention…

When back-linking try and use the anchor text of your targeted keyword phrase. Read my post on anchor text here: How to use anchor text to your advantage

1. Blog Commenting

An easy way to get backlinks is to target Blogs that ‘Do-Follow’.  If you want to follow do-follow blogs (i.e. the ones that provide you with a backlink), here’s a great list: http://followlist.com/

When you comment try and include your name AND your anchor text. Something like: Terry @ Tips for horse lovers

In this example the anchor text is “Tips for horse lovers”.

Aim to make 10 valuable comments per day.

2. Article Directories

Submitting your articles is a straightforward process.

You simply copy your blog post, add a bio with a link or two back to your site in the resource box. Then you submit these articles to article directories.

Some popular Article Directories for you to try out are:

http://www.ezinearticles.com

http://thewhir.com

http://www.goarticles.com

http://www.buzzle.com

http://articlealley.com

http://www.searchwarp.com

http://www.ehow.com

You can just copy and paste your blog articles – you will still get a backlink but if you want to improve your overall SEO and traffic you may wish to use a tool I recently came across and now use: The Best Spinner

The Best Spinner creates unique articles for you to publish on the article directories.

And ArticleBot automatically submits your articles (spun or not) to over 400 different Article Directories.

3. RSS Directories

I mention this technique over and over again but there are so many people who just don’t use it and it is one of the easiest ways to get automatic backlinks.

Check out this post and submit your blog feed (and others) to the RSS Directories:

How you make your blog index quicker, build back-links and increase your traffic with a task that takes 2 minutes and you only have to do it once

4. Web Directories

Only a couple of years ago, submitting your blog to the web directories was a must. Nowadays, Google, it is believed, doesn’t put so much importance on the free Web Directory listings.

However, I still do submit the sites to the Free Web Directories. As far as I am concerned, the effort it takes is quite minimal, it only has to be completed once and you still get more backlinks and some of them are high Page Ranking.

So I recommend you submit your domain to various Web Directories.

Please note: there can be a waiting period involved, sometimes as much as a few months.

Again, I use tools and services rather than manually carry out myself.

I can recommend DirectoryBot and Directory Maximizer.

5. Social Bookmarking

Most of the very popular social bookmarking sites like Digg, StumbleUpon and Reddit do not give you a backlink when you social bookmark your blog post.

However there are some that do! Sites like:

http://www.mister-wong.com/

http://www.spurl.net/

http://www.diigo.com/

I use the tool Bookmarking Demon to submit my blog posts to several of the social bookmarking sites automatically.

6. Web 2.0 Sites

Write a unique blog post and create a hub page using Squidoo or HubPages. These sites provide excellent backlinks.

Read my guest post What is a Hub-Page and Why Should You Make One? to find out more.

7. Video Sites

These days having some video blog posts is a must and once created you can submit them to numerous video sites automatically by using TubeMogul.

8. Angela’s Backlinks

Angela’s Backlinks provides you with a monthly report of 30 High Page Rank sites, using screenshots so that you can copy and have backlinks in place linking back to your site within minutes.

And the price for such a report?

$5 a month!

Here’s the link for more information: Angela’s Backlinks

9. Forums

By joining a forum and adding a signature – each time you add a forum post, you can get a backlink (depending upon the forum).

Forums are regularly indexed by search engines, and by joining and adding a signature in your profile, it is another way to get some good backlinks with your desired anchor text. If the forum is a popular one, a backlink can be extremely valuable.

In a lot of cases however, administrators don’t allow links in forums posts.  Some administrators even prohibit the search engines from indexing their content.

10. Guest Posting

Guest posting is not just about getting the backlink. It is much more than that. Read my post on Guest Blogging.

11. Internal Links

Internal links from one blog post to another blog post on your site also count as backlinks.

Each time you write a blog post, try and backlink to a previous post. That way you are also adding another backlink. Plus you are enticing your visitors to see some of your other previous posts.

Powerful tip:

What is an automatic way of linking to other blog posts?

Use the MaxBlogPress Ninja Affiliate Plugin.

Not only does it link to affiliate products, you can set up certain keywords to link to your previous posts…and when you first install it…it adds links to all your previous blog posts as well. Instantly you could get a few hundred backlinks. The number depends upon how many published blog posts you have and how many ‘backlinks’ you ask the plugin to add per blog post. I have a maximum of only 2, otherwise it can become spammy looking.

I know I have mentioned numerous ways to build backlinks but by carrying out these tasks you will also gain loads more traffic.

The Tools

One more thing to mention before I finish…within this post I list many of the tools I use each day to help me build backlinks and traffic. If you were to do several of the tasks mentioned by hand (i.e. manually), you would be spending all day just doing the tasks and have no time for anything else…like writing great content and building relationships.

So for me, the tools below are worth investing in and most are one-off payments:

The Best Spinner: simply creates unique articles for you to publish on the article directories

ArticleBot: automatically submits your articles (spun or not) to over 400 different Article Directories.

RSSBot: Submits your blog feeds (and Twitter, article directories, Facebook…) to over 30 RSS directories – meaning publish a blog post and get 30 backlinks instantly!)

DirectoryBot and Directory Maximizer: Submit your blog domain to hundreds of Article directories.

Bookmarking Demon: Submit your blog posts to Do-Follow social bookmarking sites automatically.

Angela’s Back-links provides you with a monthly report of 30 High Page Rank sites, using screenshots so that you can copy and have backlinks in place linking back to your site within minutes.

MaxBlogPress Ninja Affiliate Plugin:  Automatically set-up internal backlinks to your previous posts in an instant.

The links to the tools I use and recommend in this post are affiliate links so if you decide to go ahead and purchase, I will earn some commission.

How do you get backlinks? What tools or methods do you use? Share your views in the comments below.

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