I Confess…I’m A Link Junkie
This is a guest post by Brandon Hopkins.
If you know me, you definitely know one thing. I’m a link building junkie. I love building links, good links, bad links, no follow links, I love them all. My favorite links are the ones that nobody else is getting. However, the easiest links are the ones that everyone is getting.
A few years ago when I started building links, most people cared only about the biggest links like DMOZ. After DMOZ slowed their approval process many companies like Best of the Web Directory (Established 1996) and Ezilon Web Directory (Established 1996) started offering paid directory submission. I was all over those links, and I still am.
Since there are so few quality directories left, I spend a much larger percentage of my time building links that the best link builders are using. Who are the best link builders? You probably first think of the greats that you might know by name. For me, those people are Jim Boykin and Aaron Wall. However, those are the people that you know of because they have a public presence. In my opinion, the world’s best link builders will never be known by name, and here’s why.
World class link builders know what they’re doing. I don’t just mean they know how to build links, they know how to build massive links while staying under the radar. They can build 10,000 links per day and get top rankings for a lot of good keywords, not just long tail stuff.
When I realized that, my first question was, “How do I find these people, and how can I build those links?” The answer is simple, study the best to learn from the best. So where do you find the world’s best link builders? Follow the money.
If you could rank for just about any keyword, what would you focus on? You would most likely focus on the highest paying keyword right? That’s where the best link builders work. They rank for “cheap Viagra”, “Mesothelioma lawyers”, “data recovery”, “secured loans”, etc. If you know where someone is working to build links, you can easily find those links and duplicate them.
That’s the key here. If they are ranking for top terms, their links are obviously working, and you can do the same. Find their links, and you’ll find the secret to making more affiliate sales!
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Bio: Brandon Hopkins blogs, tweets and love building links. Brandon is a freelance link builder who would love to work for you!
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Well they say the first step to treating addiction is admitting you have a problem. Do you want to cure it?
Interesting post. Most internet marketers are also link junkies. Most wouldn’t think of checking the top niches for link building opportunities though. Most would rather just avoid those ultra-competitive niches altogether. Still, it would be easy enough to check out the strategies those guys are using and duplicate it for your own niche.
Great tip Brandon. There are so many different ways of building links. So it makes sense to analyze where the pros get their links. You may not be able to copy their exact links, but you can get a pretty good idea of what strategies they used to get those links.
The problem with duplicating other peoples links is that you never know which links are driving rank. I have had sites in the past that have not budged for a sertain keyword even after adding hundreds of links. On other sites ranking has rockketed by adding 2.
Trust and Authority are becoming increasingly important and that’s something that cant easily be measured or quantified.
My advice would be to spend your time getting 1 authority link a day, do that and your competition will wonder how you rank with so few links
I’ve always struggled with link building. not gaining quality links, but the dedication of doing it every day.
Here’s the reality though.. Follow the money… Just like Brandon said. Many people have this misconception that going after long tail keywords is where the party is at.. and the fact of the matter is that this is a waste of time.
GO after your primary keyword. And once you start gaining status for that primary keyword, you will notice that your site will naturally pick up front page rankings for related long tail keywords…
Not the other way around.
I think definitely we all love links, we crave for them to say the least. This article by you Brandon definitely gets my wheels spinning in my brain thinking about different ways to build link to my website. And you are most certainly right when you say that the best link builders are more than likely never going to be revealed to the mass.
Till then,
Jean
Elijah, the problem with that strategy is that it looks unnatural to go after one keyword phrase so aggressively. It is more natural to have a wide range of link anchor texts. By going after long tail keywords first, you are avoiding some of the competition to get traffic and rankings quicker. It would take much longer to get traffic if you are spending all your effort on just one phrase. The trick is to target many overlapping phrases. That way you build up relevance for all of those individual words and not just the 2 or 3 words in your primary target keyword.
Yeah, to model the best is the key. Much can be learned by following the gurus that we will never know who they are.
Admitting that you have an addiction is the first step to recovery.
MB has it straight up. Focus on a variety of phrases and if possible make them overlapping. Often, I’ve found that some all of a sudden jump to the top while others may languish. Regardless, if these keywords are desirable and have traffic pimp them out to hit first page and then step back to go after the others.
Great article! Link building is important and I think we are all link junkies of some sort. Thanks for sharing!
I was very interested in your article and your concept of following the money is dead on. I am surprised, however, that you seem to be a focused linkbuilder and that you did not mention what part linkbuilding plays in a complete SEO or online marketing picture.
I was also surprised that your site doesn’t use an SEO plugin, you have no current pagerank, and while you have 2,100+ backlinks to your domain your Alexa ranking is over 250,000. Rankings aren’t everything, but they are part of the total “authority” picture of a site online. You can rank for more things with more authority.
When you do linkbuilding for your clients - don’t you make sure their on-site SEO is in place before starting a linkbuilding campaign?
Getting high quality links is about developing best of web content. Too many people spend time generating links that hold very little value. Develop content that others will find useful and links will take care of themselves
Most internet marketers are also link junkies. Most wouldn’t think of checking the top niches for link building opportunities though.
Taxi Insurance if you actually believe what you said, why are you building blog comment links?
While it can be helpful to analyze the backlinks of top ranking sites in competitive niches, keep in mind that you might not want to copy all of their link strategies. in those niches, some competitors would resort to shady tactics to gain an edge.
Looks interesting, I will try this methods, I think it will build strong backlinks, also will increase parameter in SEO, just how long will this take to get on top of the game in SEO? anybody would like to share?thx in advance for the input
There is no set time frame of how long seo should take. There are simply too many variables involved. In a competitive niche it may take years to really establish your site, while in a weak niche, you might build some great rankings within 2 or 3 months. Sometimes you can even take some shortcuts to get rankings quicker, but there is often risk involved.
@Metal Briefcases, that’s true there are alot of risks depending which path you take and how exactly you want to build your links.
Till then,
Jean
Oh… and Alan… I wish you’d become a post Junkie… we need more posts
It’s been way too long my friend!
Till then,
Jean
I agree that over 2 months is a bit long for us to wait for a new post. So hopefully you find some more time to post again soon. Perhaps you should recruit some guest posters to help out.
@Metal, great idea on the guest posts, I agree with your suggestion as it would be a great way to get some posts going here in the mean time
Till then,
Jean
Yes I’m sure it can become a bit of a hassle to keep regularly posting after running a blog for a while. Getting guest posters and blog partners are some ways to keep the postings coming. Then again, I’m sure Alan is quite busy with other things.
Yea, I’ve been quite busy lately too. Now with tax season looming, more so.
Till then,
Jean