In this post I share 11 6 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 vary the anchor text you use. 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. 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:
3. 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/
4. 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.
5. Guest Posting
Guest posting is not just about getting the backlink. It is much more than that. Read my post on Guest Blogging.
6. 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.
I know I have mentioned numerous ways to build backlinks but by carrying out these tasks you will also gain loads more traffic.
How do you get backlinks? What tools or methods do you use? Share your views in the comments below.
Thanks to Daniel Jones, owner of www.ivebeangrounded.com informing me I did have out-dated links in this blog post.
Andrew is a website builder and helps small businesses with their on-line presence…so they can grow their customer list and increase sales. That’s it! That’s what we do each and every day.
Excellent tips here. I have been using a few of these my self. Very helpful, thanks!
Regards
Larry
How the hell did you get a backlink from mashable.com! Awesome man. Btw a very helpful post.
Very nice article. Although i have just started blogging, but i think i am getting the hang of backlinking and SEO. Your article was a great read. thanks.
Mohsin
That’s great – glad you are getting the hang of it.
Andrew
Thank you for this post. I have bookmarked it for future reference because I am actively trying to increase my back links. I will definitely come back to check out the RSS link building tool that you recommended when it is in my blogging budget. I can see how it would be a great tool to have. I’m already using the Ninja Affiliate tool and need to add some more affiliate links to it, but love how it works seamlessly.
Thanks again!
Jessica
Remember you can also use the Ninja Affiliate tool to automatically build internal links as well. Do you use it that way?
Andrew
Thank you so, so much for sharing about Backlinks, as this subject is one that is still very new to me. Since my focus is on writing and teaching many how to improve their life and succeed in their goals, I do not have too much time for learning about so many new internet additions and requirements. Thanks again, great contribution. Dr.James
James
I understand you want to helps others but in order to help them more, you also need to spend time growing your own business and that means learning new things.
Andrew
Ho do you make money on this website, since you don’t have ads and you don’t seem to sell anything?
Maurice
I have my blogging resources and blogging services pages.
Andrew
Hey ANdrow,
Another great link building technique is to donate to organizations that mention your name/link in their sponsors/donors page. Lots of non profits that accept donations have very high PR donors list pages.
Satrap
That’s a great share. Do you just Google search for such companies?
Andrew
You can easily improve your search engine listings by using the noodp and noydir tags as well.
In addition to Andrew’s tips:
– Do not ever use backlink programs.
– Do not add your site to all the directories you find on Google.
– Google dominates the web (Over 80%). Google, yahoo and bing are your only friends. Do not waste time with others.
– Do not try to get 100s of backlinks in a day.
– Never pay for paid backlinks
– Always have unique content (and let people copy/paste)
– Clean coded website is a must (not talking about h1 tags or keywords)
– Allow visitors to post comment (Do not use nofollow, use dofollow)
– Find cheap advertising sources to drive visitors to your site regularly.
– Find friends that have access to .edu and .gov domains to get backlinks
There are of course much more for advanced users and webmasters, but I just wanted to underline some.
Nat
Thaks for sharing your thoughts. If only I had friends who have access to .edu and .gov domains !!!!
Andrew
I agree with you about social bookmarking (that is one of the link building methods I prefer nowdays) but do you really think that RSS directories are still useful?
Danilo
Re: RSS directories.
I do as it only takes 5 minutes or so to set up and then you can forget.
Andrew
Awesome writing bro .I wanna say something that “” Peoples are excited to get back link using any methods but um really different because if you get back link by doing spam then that back link will not help you to rank your site because google and other search engines are really hate spammer and one more thing that some web sites are providing 1000 to 10000 back links for free ! If you try them Google will must mark your site as a spam site “”
Hi Andrew,
again a nice post with great tips from you. I just wanted to know one thing that the point or tips you cut above in your post are not working after recent google updates?
please reply this. thanks in advance.
🙂
Jessie
At the top of the post I say:
“As a result of the recent Panda and Penguin Google changes, I have changed my approach to backlinks. In the post below, I have crossed out the backlinking methods I no longer use.”
Andrew
How much work for pennies a day!
SEO seems scammy, an improbable as a money maker.
Seriously, getting donations is more feasible and profitable.
Google has made it so difficult to make SUBSTANTIAL INCOME.
They change a formula, when “bloggers” sre onto it.
If you’re not using any scammy, quick fix methods…then you should not be affected by the Google changes.
Andrew
Not a bad list; but I think you’re mistaken about article marketing to directories like ezinearticles, as well as Web 2.0 spots like hubpages. I find they work quite well for me today, especially because I only submit quality content.
Thank you for an amazing and informative article. I am a professional journalist currently writing my first novel, but a newcomer to blogging and this will help me tremendously in attracting trafffic to my new blog. Keep up the good work and I will follow your postings closely
Orlando
Good luck with your first novel. What’s it about?
Andrew
Thanks for the advice. I fairly impressed by the generosity of bloggers with their information (like yours).
I have learned allot from this post of building backlinks. Building backlinks is an art and if you work over this art you will have a higher PR and a traffic to your site.
I really love that RSS feed of getting articles and going to try it for sure. Well the readers who have also commented over here, have shared some good methods of building backlinks.
Thanks everyone and especially you who made this possible. I have bookmarked your site for future use.
Hi Andrew!
Wow. This blog was really good. I learned a lot. I love the strategy about referring to your other post inside of your posts. I had no idea that you get credit for internal links. I will use this one. I found your blog because I was asking the question about which blogs allow backlinks, so your resource abut Do Follow was great.
I appreciate your knowledge and expertise. I did not see your RSS feed. Probably my over site on my part, however I will be checking in often to see what other information you provide. I would love to add your link on my web site for my visitors. Think I will do just that.
All the best of success to you Andrew!
Charly The Pearl
Thanks, Charly.
Internal linkiong is good for SEO and it can help keep people on your site as they navigate their way around.
Andrew
Thanks for this nice info.
I am using SEOprofiler for building links at the moment and this article helps me in gaining a lot of knowledge about link building
Esther
Thanks for the good tips! I am new and am always looking for a good read on linking strategies. I also appreciate you crossing out the links that arent’ as valuable!
This is really nice post but I think all backlik create per day counting many man can be benefited such as blog comment 10/day, social bookmarking 50/day etc, but thanks for this post.
Thanks for all of the tips, very useful. I had no idea that you get credit for internal links…
Backlinks can adjust the strategy for blogging. If Quality Backlinks may improve your site ranking after that bad along with poor back-links can spoil your almost all efforts along with hardwork.
Shruti
Many thanks Andrew
your tips are practical and useful
but i think we need to update our techniques according to google updates
Very nice techniques i use a lot blog comments and internal backlink altough i tried for a while guest blogging but was more hard because you needed to put more work to it altough it did compensate.
I will try using the plugin it seems useful, but google must devalue it?
Phil,
What plugin are you referring to?
Thanks,
Andrew
I think guest blogging is best way among all the tips which are mentioned above.. thanks for wonderful article
blog commenting is one of the easiest way to get it..
And yes set an Aim to make atleast 10 Quality Backlinks in a day….
I really motivated from this line…
thanks for sharing it…
Riya
It might be the easiest and hence why Google doesn’t give much weighting to comments. I’m not saying you shouldn’t do it but you should use it as only one way to create backlinks.
Andrew
Thank you for these methods 🙂 ,I have to say that backlinks has got to be the most boring thing in the world but very important as well.
I think using tools to get backlink has always taken as blackhat techniques by google. So improve your page rank will ever be a hard and constant work making good content.
Thanks for sharing your methods.
Ben
I think internal links are a great idea it will get your more pageviews and also decrease your bounce rate at the same time.
This is indeed practical approach, tutorial on link building strategies. While I don’t use article submission tools, I do get some natural backlinks and links from commenting. As I’m typing his comment, I tried and executed some of the tips you shared here and hope they are fantastic.
The resources you mentioned here are two numerous to master all at once I’ve bookmarked the page for future reference. Thanks for sharing.
Blog commenting is the easiest way to build backlink i use it. One of my favourite is video backlink and hubpages. Thank you for sharing this beneficial article.
I read few of the comments above and totally agree with them that back linking is one of the most boring thing on planet. But still one of the major deciding factor of your blog’s rank as per Google algorithms.
Thank you for sharing such a wonderful post with us.
Great article for finding valuable seo backlinks. Getting ranked higher in Google seems to be getting harder and harder. Keep up the good work. Gregory
Gregory
I agree…it is getting hard and harder…and so it should be. Far too many spammers have got to the top of the rankings.
Andrew
Hi Andrew,
Some people says that blog commenting is no more effective. do you still believe that it makes a different?
Hi Andrew
Thanks for this article. However I do have one question.
What is your opinion about Guest Blogging and Commenting for Backlinks building in this current scenario of Google’s updated algorithms and updates?
Thanks again!
Have a great week ahead 🙂
Hi Buddy
Blog Commenting is one of my favorite way of create quality backlinks because blog commenting is really beneficial in many ways. It help us in creating friendly relation with other bloggers and readers of other blog too.
Most of the time when I need to create backlinks, I simply find a site which has some good backlinks using BacklinkS Checker tools and then I create backlinks from those sites.
Thanks for sharing such a great article with us & HAPPY BLOGGING 😉
I must also add that while it is interesting and rewarding to write a this kind of informative article because it would get digged by several readers we must make sure that the information we circulate is accurate.
I couldn’t go through all the list but like to add some more information like…
Most Forums are no-follow if you’re posting to forum do it for branding and building credibility not for linking. You can always confirm through ‘view source’ to see if the forum is do follow.
And be careful how you use Forums else you could get banned. Do not add a link back to your site within your answer in Forums even if it relates with an article on your site.
Just add your link in the space for source.
And keep in mind that you really don’t need so many links. Few relevant links from authority sites will make a huge difference on your ranking than so many inrelevant links.
Thanks
John
John,
Thanks for your insights.
I don;t really like forums…they can be a bit too ‘hyped’ up for me and a time waster.
But we are all different…and hence like different things, I suppose!
Andrew
Very nice and great article, because Google sees no of backlinks to a site and rank a site…
Hello Andrew
VERY NICE ARTICLE
Well, commenting and guest post is better than other, because other techniques mostly invite spam links to your site…
Blog commenting seems an easy tactics to create backlinks but they only count if they are do follow backlinks. Getting a dofollow backlinks is the hardest part of the game. Now a days many blogs are nofollow. The site you have mentioned followlist(dot)com is actually filled with crap websites. We have spammed their site.
Video sites are became really important to generate quality back links and i always like to use vimeo and Amara.org for this work. Thanks for the information.
Thanks for sharing these useful methods for building back-links. I prefer guest posting and social bookmarking to generate links and traffic.
Building Backlinks seems like a massive time consumption and you are making it so easy for us.
Thanks for sharing this Awesome Article.
Hi Andrew,
This is awesome article, this article providing best information about an how we can easily get backlinks for our website, I love blog commenting, this is best way for get permanent backlink for your website other wise many other type mostly like are breaked after some time… thanks so much for refreshing my knowledge..
Regards
Mohd Arif
As per your suggestion i am working on social bookmarking site and internal links.Its work for me.Thanks to share
It was such a great methods. As per my personal experience, blog commenting is really effective and it improved my site’s rank drastically. I will also go for other methods mentioned above.
Hi Andrew,
Indeed a great post which contains very useful information. It is informative, inspirational and instructive. Thanks for sharing such an excellent post.
Regard’s
Muhammad Mairaj
Hi,
Thanks for this amazing post. As we all know that backlinks play a major role in the terms of SEO and this post helped a lot. The site you told to get do-follow backlinks is amazing.
Another option to get quality backlinks is the Guest Posting and Article Submission.
Thanks for this post.
Regards!
Short and sweet.. I have a question though.. If i get multiple backlinks from same website will it help or its worth a single.
And how the point 4 (video sites) will help in getting backlinks.
Thanks
http://iavinash.com
Hello Andrew,
Simple tips but very useful to grow up web traffic. Building backlinks is very important and once you work on that you will have very good traffic to your website.
Keep sharing..!!