15 Link Building Strategies for New Websites

This collection of link building tips are likely to guarantee that you will receive free links from already established websites. This differs from content-oriented development strategies which hope to gradually attract natural editorial links.

These link building tips focus more on targeted link placement or link insertion, whereby you are likely to control the specific anchor text used. Some of them include agreements made with others and others involve one-way action on your part.

1. Submit your site to Web Directories. This is a pretty monotonous process that can get you several hundred backlinks if you have the time. An alternative would be to hire a manual directory submitter. Here’s a list of web directories you can use. You can also find some blog directories here.
2. Submit Press Releases to PR sites. A basic press release about your website’s launch can be released to several PR websites, who will distribute it to various online news outlets. A good way to get a free link. I recommend using PRWeb and PRLeap.
3. Reciprocal Links with Similar Websites. Its important to pick sites that are of high relevance so you’ll not only get links but traffic. Reciprocal linking can be useful from the beginning but don’t overdo it. You can find link partners by emailing them directly or searching through webmaster forums.
4. Squidoo Lenses. A Squidoo lens is fairly easy to create. It only takes around 15 minutes to set up one fully and you’ll be able to insert a bunch of anchor text links to your website along with your feed content. Hubpages is another similar site you can use.
5. Article Submissions. Create a short article on your niche topic and submit it to article directories for a backlink and some traffic. You might get more links if your article is picked up and published on other websites. Here is a list of article directories, sorted by Alexa and PageRank.
6. Social Media Profiles. There a whole bunch of social websites online which allow you to insert a link to your website on the profile page. Sign up for some of them, preferably using a username and avatar that brands your business or you as a person. This might come in useful when you decide to promote your site via the social website in the future.
7. Social Bookmarking/Voting Websites. Certain social voting websites like Netscape or Digg are often crawled by search engines and their links do help to get a website indexed. 3spots has the biggest list of social voting and bookmarking websites I’ve seen so far.
8. Forum Signatures. Sign up for some forums in your niche and start contributing to ongoing discussions. Insert a link to the homepage or some inner pages of your site.
9. Create a Tool, Theme or Widget. Pay a designer to come up with an add-on application or template that is related to a specific social network, popular website or platform. Include a credit link that points back to your designated website.
10. Blogs on Other Blog Platforms. Use existing blogs you have on other blog networks. Or set up different versions of your blog on different blog networks like Wordpress.com, Blogger and Xanga. Link to specific webpages on your website.
11. Comment on Other Blogs. Start commenting on relevant and popular sites in your niche. Don’t just spam for links but focus on building a relationship with other bloggers as well. Write a relevant comment and try to avoid using keyword names or signature links.
12. Guest posting on other blogs. Like article and press releases, this one involves having readily available content you can send out to certain blogs in your niche. This is great for getting relevant links and traffic.
13. Hold Contests. Some websites often offer contests in a bid to attract anchor text links from bloggers. An example is this iPhone giveaway on Gary Lee’s site. Contests allow you to determine the specific anchor text but its possible that too many links using the designated keyword may harm your domain instead.
14. Collaborative Projects. You may need to develop an article specifically for a writing project, blog carnival or meme but it will usually get you a couple of backlinks, depending on the number and generosity of the participants involved.
15. Offer your Expertise. This will apply if you have a specific skill set such as web design, copywriting, translation or SEO. Write to an established website and offer to revamp/optimize their website in return for a mention or credit link on a webpage. This offers excellent branding, particularly if your offer is picked up by a website with a decent audience.

This list is by no means comprehensive but are just some of the off-site methods I use to build links for very new websites. After I get a bunch of links, I’ll usually focus on niche networking and the development of exceptional content that’ll help to rapidly build a readership.

 

 

Search Engine Marketing Guide

There is a lot involved with search engine marketing. In fact, it can be a bit overwhelming, even for those with a great deal of experience. The good news is that by taking it one step at a time, it is not hard to learn. And once learned, search engine marketing can provide an effective method of driving highly targeted visitors to your web site.

The following is a simple guide to search engine marketing. Although it is meant for beginners, it can also be very useful for more advanced search engine marketers as a reference source. Each section provides a brief overview of the basics followed by resources for further study.

Take it one step at a time and you'll soon understand the basics of search engine marketing...

Keywords & Search TermsThe first step is to learn about the search terms that your target audience is using when using search engines. These search terms are the keywords and keyphrases that will be used to market your web site.

On this page you will learn about:

• The importance of keywords and search terms.
• Tools that will help you find your best keywords.
• Search term lists useful for spotting general trends.

Search Engine Optimization Step two addresses how to make basic web site design changes that will make your site more search engine friendly.

On this page you will learn about:

1. What is search engine optimization (SEO)?
2. Domain names.
3. The Title Tag.
4. Meta Description and Meta Keyword Tags.
5. Copywriting.
6. ALT Tags.
7. Site Map
8. Dealing with FLASH.
9. Dealing with dynamic pages.
10. File formats.
11. Framed sites & pages.
12. JavaScript.
13. What to avoid.
14. Getting professional SEO help.
15. Getting free help.

Search Engine SubmissionAfter you've gone through the search engine optimization process, it's time to get your site listed in the various search engines and directories.

On this page you will learn about:

1. How will the search engines find my site?
2. Submitting your site using a free submit form.
3. Submitting to directories.
4. Paying the search engines to index your site.
5. Services to avoid.
6. Services that can help.

Link PopularityLink popularity is a major factor when it comes to ranking well in search engines and drawing traffic to your site. In step four, you will learn how to increase the number of links to your site, how to get quality sites to link to yours, and the overall effect link popularity has on your rankings.

On this page you will learn about:

1. What is link popularity?
2. Getting links to your site.
3. Checking Your Link Popularity
4. What not to do.

Paid InclusionIf you would rather not wait for the search engines to find and index your site on their own, you can pay to be indexed faster. With step five, you will learn if paid inclusion is a viable option for you.

On this page you will learn about:

1. What is paid inclusion?
2. Will it help my site rank better?
3. What are the costs?

Pay Per Click Search EnginesPay per click search engines and pay per click advertising provides web site owners the opportunity to buy their way to better positions on search results pages. Step six looks at this form of advertising.

On this page you will learn about:

1. What is pay per click?
2. Which search engines allow pay per click advertising?
3. Important Considerations
4. Pay per click affiliate programs.
5. Pay per click information resources.

Log File and Traffic AnalysisYour site's log files contain a wealth of information about the effectiveness of your web site marketing programs. With your log files, you can learn how your visitors are finding your site, what search terms they are using to find it, and which are the best sources of traffic for your site.

On this page you will learn about:

1. What is a log file?
2. Why is log file and traffic analysis important?
3. Services and tools that can help.

Google's PageRankAlthough Google's PageRank is but one factor Google uses to determine its search results, it is a popular topic. Step eight provides basic information to help you better understand the importance of PageRank.

 

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Many of our SEO consulting clients continue to report staggering return on investment figures. Return on investment percentages derived through expert SEO consulting and search engine optimization marketing campaigns that deliver significant new business revenue streams. Our SEO consulting company clients are realize new business development gains and percentage increases ranging from 300% or 400% up to 8000%. We view our SEO consulting company services as a long-term Return On Equity (ROE) proposition. Engaging a search engine site optimization and SEO consulting partnership with Peak Positions is one of the best long-term marketing investments any company can make. The exclusive organic search engine site optimization and SEO consulting systems available at Peak Positions focus on the technical fundamentals of your company website and form a solid foundation for the future. Our proven search engine site optimization programs and SEO consulting strategies provide the technical infrastructure that allow businesses to incorporate Google SEO best practices and address "search engine friendliness" as site features, elements, and new content solutions are delivered.

 

The SEO Consultants at Peak Positions offer Google SEO Consulting expertise in:

• Spider Algorithm Synchronization
• Search Engine Spiders and the Algorithms powering the leading Robot Crawlers
• Autonomous Indexing & Keyword Ranking Systems employed by the leading search engines: Google, Yahoo, & MSN
• Artificial Intelligence Advancements and Machine Learning Technologies employed by Google
• URLs containing Query Strings (e.g. URLs ending like this: ?a=1&b=2&c=3)
• Addressing W3C HTML Code Compliance and W3C HTML SEO Code Validation Issues
• Dynamically Generated and Database-driven Web Sites (e.g. Cold Fusion, PHP, ASP, JSP, CGI)
• Minimizing graphic elements of a website without sacrificing site design aesthetics
• Maximizing Link Popularity by Strategically Outlining Interior Cross-Links/Cross-Linking Within Your Company Web Site
• Terms of Service (TOS) Compliant Manual Web Site Submissions
• Robots Instructions and Robots.txt Files
• Exclusive Content Delivery Systems and Relevant Content Natural WebSite Optimization Programs
• Link Popularity Facts and Fictions
• URL Naming Conventions
• Google SEO Best Practices
• Content Management Systems and the Impact They Have on Natural Web Site Optimization Efforts
• E-commerce Shopping Cart Functions
• Database Backends
• Cookie Tracking
• Secure URLs

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Social Media Optimization: SMO is the New SEO

SMO is defined by the distribution of social objects and their ability to rise to the top of any related search query, where and when its performed.

At the center of any successful SMO program are social objects. Social objects represent the content we create in social media, including images, videos, blog posts, comments, status updates, wall posts, and all other social activity that sparks the potential for online conversations. As such, the goal of SMO is to boost the visibility of social objects as a means to connecting with individuals who are proactively seeking additional information and direction.

Serving as conversational hubs, these social objects are personified by the pictures we publish to Flickr, the videos we upload on YouTube, the events posted in Upcoming.org, the wall posts shared in Facebook, the tweets that fly across Twitter, the links bookmarked in Delicious, the votes cast in Digg, the places we check into on Foursquare, the documents published in Docstoc, reviews posted in Yelp, communities built around themes in Ning, a thought shared in a blog post or a blog comment, etc. They are to social media what web objects, pages, and sites are to the traditional Web. As SEO helps increase the visibility of content in Google and Yahoo for example, SMO helps build the essential bridges between social objects and the individuals performing searches to find relevant content.

Social objects are also the catalysts for conversations and occurrences — online and in real life — and they affect behavior within their respective societies. Have you ever wondered how YouTube recommends related videos or how content within social networks is linked to the keywords you use in search? Search results in social media are defined by the elements ingrained in each social object, which is commonly referred to as Metadata. Essentially, metadata is the data that defines other data.

The Social Web relies on metadata, leveraging “the crowds” to classify and organize the volumes of user-generated content uploaded to social networks and blogs everywhere. In some ways, we became the web’s librarians by indexing the volumes of useful social objects to help others discover them quickly and easily.