Building Blog Backlinks for Beginners

Search Engine Optimization Secrets:
SEO for 2011
(Search Engine Optimization Kindle Bestseller)

Technorati - This is one of older, more established blog directories that is still popular and thriving today. The main purpose of Technorati is to organize blogs by the topics they post about, as well as to assign authority ratings for each of them. Your blog's authority is rated for each category you post about, but it also has an overall authority which determines your ranking among all the other blogs listed on the site.

In order to submit your blog to Technorati, you must first visit the site and sign up for a free account. They will ask you to provide your blog RSS feed and will require you to include a snippet of text in order to confirm that you are the blog owner. After you have placed the text on your blog and confirmed ownership, their automated system will add you to the directory within a couple of hours.

For more information on how to submit your blog to Technorati, check out these helpful instructions or get a step-by-step tutorial here.

Search Engine Optimization:
Do It Yourself
The Definitive Do It Yourself Guide to SEO

AllTop - This site is somewhat similar to Technorati, but uses a more interactive approach by allowing users to sign in and create their own RSS feed dashboards by selecting blogs on their favorite topics and displaying them all in one place.

If you do not create an account, you can simply select tags of interest and you will be taken to a page full of recent posts from top-notch blogs that are considered authorities within their industries.

If you'd like to submit your blog to AllTop, you can do so by filling out their submission form and including your blog's details.

An important note: each submission to AllTop is manually reviewed and you are not guaranteed to be accepted.

For more information on how to use AllTop to help create a personal brand, I suggest reading this great list of 10 AllTop branding tips.

SEO Made Simple For 2011
Kindle Bestseller

EZineArticles - This site has been around for quite some time and is a great tool for anyone who uses article marketing to promote their blog or website. If you are not experienced with article marketing, here is what I recommend. The next time you write a blog post, don't publish it on your blog! Instead, go create a free account with EZineArticles and submit the post as an article instead!

Just remember that you will want to choose a post that isn't full of links to other content online, as that is the type of material that is best left for your blog.

Instead, try to write an informational article that helps your readers understand a specific element of one of your main blog topics. It can also be an introduction to one as well.

Before you submit your article for review (which can take up to a week to be approved) you will want to pay special attention to the author resource box, since this is where you will be adding a link to your blog! To learn more about this, I recommend this Article Marketing Guide which explains in more detail how to build backlinks using this method.

More specifically, you should also consider reading this article which explains 5 Free DoFollow Backlinks that you can start building on EZineArticles.

SEO for 2011:
Search Engine Optimization Secrets- Kindle Bestseller

Blog Comments - Posting comments on blog posts that discuss the same industry, topic or niche as your own can be a great way to build backlinks to your site. This method works best if you choose only high-quality blogs with high page ranks.

The best benefit of this strategy is the readers and audience you will be putting your link in front of. Since the readers are already interested in your topic, they will be more likely to check out your blog if you include a link in your comment.

There are an endless number of both free and paid tools for posting blog comments in order to build backlinks. However, I would discourage the use of tools that generate low-quality comments and post them to sites using automation.

Instead, use a search tool like HTMLLink, which allows users to enter a keyword and then displays a list of recent posts from authority blogs that contain that specific search term. You can then scroll through and select the posts that interest you most, and write a real comment that is worth posting while making sure to include your own blog link too!

Likeable Social Media:
How to Delight Your Customers, Create an Irresistible Brand, and Be Generally Amazing on Facebook
(& Other Social Networks)

Social Media Profiles - As social media sites continue to gain popularity and become more mainstream, so does using them to build backlinks for your site or blog. One of the first things you should do after setting up a new blog is go directly to all the major social sites and register a new user account in order to create a stronger online brand.

Among the most important and influential networks are Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. After creating your account on these sites, don't forget to complete your profile and link to your blog from there before moving on. While these social sites allow a link back to your site, not all social communities do.

Be sure that you invest your time and efforts on social networks that offer you a chance to build backlinks to your blog. I suggest reading this list of social media sites that offer profile links in order to maximize your number of backlinks.

SEO For 2012:
Search Engine Optimization Secrets

Squidoo - This is one of my personal favorites for building backlinks to your blog. Squidoo is a fun community that features user-generated content for just about every topic under the sun.

Before you choose your lens topic, you must install the SquidUtils workshop add-on and claim your Squidoo account! This tool will help you choose the right keywords for your lens and will make it easier to optimize your content for search.

After you have added a few relevant keywords, SquidUtils will suggest additional variations that you should also click and add as well.

Do You Squidoo? The Power of Web 2.0 for Generating Floods of New Traffic

Also spend some time carefully choosing your lens title and make sure to choose the most appropriate category for your lens.

Once all that is taken care of, dive into creating the content for your lens!

Squidoo is such a fun experience because of their wide selection of content modules, which makes the possibilities truly endless. Most modules support at least some basic HTML and CSS styling options, and the best part is that you can also promote your products or affiliate products on popular sites such as Etsy, Zazzle, CafePress and Amazon at the same time!

SEO Warrior

Forum Posting - Similar to posting blog comments on relevant posts, including a link back to your blog in your forum signature can help to build backlinks when posting to threads related to the topic of and keywords associated with your blog.

This is more effective when you spend some time looking for forum threads which are unanswered and have been posted by individuals seeking information related to topics on which you are knowledgeable.

Try to provide them with the info they are looking for, while making sure to include your blog link in your signature or post. Also, look for forums where people are asking consumer-related questions and you might just score an opportunity to reach some new leads and market your products or services using a new medium.

Just do your best to follow forum rules and do not resort to pushy tactics or excessive self-promotion.

To learn more, read this article about how to increase your site's ranking using forums. If you're looking for forums to build some backlinks, I would strongly suggest reading this awesome list of 100+ DoFollow forums.

How to Backlink:
Using the NEW Linkerati to Reach Page 1 of Google

Guest Blogging - Although this is by far one of the most effective methods of building valuable backlinks to your site, you will find it to be somewhat challenging if you are just starting out and not established yet. Without much of an online reputation, you are less likely to even be considered for a guest posting opportunity offered on an authority site.

The owners of these blogs are very selective, since high-quality content is the key to their success, and the reason that they rank so well in search engines. With this in mind, it's easy to understand why their attention so hard to come by for newbies .

However, there are some blog owners who are less concerned with your reputable history as a blogger/writer and place more importance solely on the quality of the content you'd like to submit as a guest post.

Try searching Google using terms such as "write for us" to find potential sites for pitching your guest post. Alternatively, you can try signing up for a site like BlogSynergy or MyBlogGuest, which both specialize in helping blog owners connect with guest authors.

The Ultimate Press Release Swipe File:
50 Templates That You Can Use to Get Your Business Media Exposure Today

Press Releases - If someone tries to convince you that press release marketing is dead, don't listen to them! It's alive and well, and you can use it as another supplemental method of building backlinks to your new site or blog.

Just be sure you know what you're doing, since press releases require a specific, formal type of voice and there are formatting rules you need to follow as well. If you are new to PR writing, I recommend reading Brad Callen's eBook "Press Release Fire."

I suggest using HubSpot's Press Release Grader to help you optimize your release before you submit it to any distribution sites.

If you'd like a list of free press release distribution sites, feel free to check out my Squidoo lens which also offers a tutorial for how to write your own as well.

If you have the money to invest, you should also submit the release to a paid site like PRWeb, which has produced amazing results for me. There are tons of benefits to using PRWeb, such as tracking and analytics to help you measure the reach of your story across the web.

Don't forget to include a link to your blog in the appropriate space, and PRWeb even lets you embed your website/blog into your news release page!

I've Got a Domain Name--Now What???:
A Practical Guide to Building a Website and Web Presence

Extend Registration of Your Domain - You may not be aware of this, but the length of time you register your domain plays a factor in your page rank.

Speaking from my own personal experience, my site's page rank increased by one point after I renewed my domain registration for the next five years. Prior to doing this, I had only bought one year registration. The price difference is minimal, especially when you consider the value of having your own branded domain name in the future. The difference in page rank was a big leap from one to two!

The main reason for this is that Google believes sites with longer registration are likely to be more reputable than those only registered for one year, as many spam sites tend to be. To read and learn more about this, I suggest this great article that discusses domain age and how it impacts your pagerank.

Don't put too much weight into page rank alone, however. Did you know that Google uses somewhere around 200 additional factors to determine your site's ranking? There is a lot more to consider, clearly!