Backlink How-to: Blogs, Forums and Tips

Warning

This post is for website managers who are a little lost in the world of backlinking, I hope to be as practical as possible.

This is the second article on practical backlinking, the first dealing with basic good practices in netlinking; he looks at web
directoriesI will spell variably blog and blog, in order to stay in tune with my Quebec and still suitable for those who prefer Franglais .

Backlinking and blog comments

Since the galloping popularity of web 2, anyone can intervene on participatory sites. Blogs are one of them, they have multiplied, offering an opportunity for dialogue never before reached by the era of forums that preceded it. Good boon for the inbound link hunter, abuses quickly abounded and spam “troubled the source” before rotting it by installing mistrust when it is not “fed up”.

Results: There are blogs that let Google follow outbound links and others that stop them (via the rel=”nofollow” attribute), tactical choices that are very commented on the web…

The presence or absence of this tag should not be ultra-selective in your choice of comments on a blog. Because if what you say is good, people will click on your link and create “qualified traffic”. On the other hand, a proportion of nofollow in your link profile makes it look more natural…

Debunking the neck of a preconceived idea

This applies to directories, blogs, forums etc: Just because the blog you link to is PR 6 doesn’t mean it transmits its “juice” to your site via your permalink. The PR of the page is usually only attributed to the home page and a few founding pages.

Each item has its own life and possible reward, so you only receive a small portion of that coveted PR. So don’t focus on this detail, select your blogs according to your affinities and their relevance.

Search and find blogs in your area

• The command “blog: keyword” in Google returns a SERP of the blogs of the topic you are looking for.
• A blog will lead you via its comments to other sites on the same theme (then organize your favorites/bookmarks accordingly).
• To be very up-to-date on a specific subject, set up a watch with Google alert. Perfect in niche markets, it can be invasive on big popular news and in this case, make a specific email address for these alert emails.

Feedback link building .

Ethics of blog commentary

• Select the blogs in your theme as a priority
• Read the entire article and all the comments before you intervene
• Be relevant, constructive, and friendly.
• If you feel that your comment is just a pretext, skip your turn.
• At worst, ask a follow-up question (this saves and allows personal contact with the owner of the blog)
• Subscribe to the current discussion to react to the reactions and be really present on the subject.
• If the article really makes you think, write an article expressing your opinion and cite the article that inspired you.
• Work on your signature without abuse if the plugin ” KeywordLuv” is present.
• Take advantage of the plugin that allows you to quote your latest article if it is present.
• Use the html editor accompanying the comment module, locate the “backlink or link” button and how it works in order to make a nice anchor in the comment itself.
• Vary the pages pointed to from one article to another.
• Avoid spelling mistakes.
• Your comments don’t have to be ads for your products, you’ll get thrown out!
• If you already have a link on the page, there’s no need to make a second one, but comment anyway – show that you’re not JUST here for it!
• Sometimes make unlinked comments on your most common blogs

Participate in the Forums

How to find your way around the forums

A forum brings together a community of enthusiasts capable of answering questions relating to a specific theme. Three opportunities for inbound links:

• Your profile page
• You ask a question about one of your pages (you leave the url so that the experts can go and see the damage)
• You provide an expert answer to the question asked by leaving a reference url (your article of course)

Forum best practices

• Select the 5 or 6 best forums in your market, you can really find them on all subjects!
• Fill in your profile and signature carefully, depending on the technology and the choices of the forum, sometimes it will be your only backlink on the site
• Choose a “key” username, some forums sculpt a custom profile page url with this identifier.
• Don’t forget to introduce yourself, the forums are moderated by people who value politeness.
• Be active regularly ,
• Follow the thread closely
• Spot the actors who respond and go and see their profiles,
• Seek to invite them to your social media accounts
• Don’t abuse forum links, it’s time-consuming and their value is relative.

Press Releases and Digg Like

Press release sites

give the possibility to publish an informative article that will eventually be “picked up/relayed” by journalists – Web or Trad – and will spread your information beyond all your hopes”.

More promises than facts! We know that journalists don’t expect you and that they have much more advanced professional tools at their disposal… So what?
Well, some of these sites are very well done and therefore very followed by Internet users. They generate good quality traffic since in your theme.

Select your press release sites carefully because the requirements of these web portals vary from 350 to 600 words that they do not always validate.

Digg like,

These are websites with a community spirit. They allow Internet users (called authors) to present articles published on their own website, so links point from this presentation/abstract to the page of the original article.

Visitors to Digg like sites often, but not always, have the opportunity to give a vote of appreciation to the article, which influences the ranking of the post within the site.

• It’s a great source of targeted traffic
• These sites inherently allow the creation of “hard links” to deep pages of your portal.
• Many are thematic.
• The sites are moderated and we publish only quality.

Backlinking on these websites

Two high-end examples: Scoopeo and Wikio

The few Quebec digg like were knocked out in 2013, peace be to their souls

Advantages of Digg Like sites:

• Links become quite easy to create if your articles are good
• A web SEO/webmaster can publish for his clients
• The choice of anchors is perfect,
• Links can point to deep pages
• They attract targeted traffic that is already aware of your content, your style

Disadvantages:

• These sites are seriously moderated and not just anyone can enter the game
• No Digg like Quebecois
• They often require a good level of writing or well-turned information
• They require the production of new content.

You must therefore practice the art of transforming what your business is into information.

List of Digg Like Sites

This repertoire is a good quality selection but it is a little dated.

I use Presse-citron, which generates an impressive amount of traffic while I am not very active…

Sort those of YOUR THEME and prepare quality articles or abstracts.

Difficult links of great value

Linkbaiting

Grrr, what an ugly word!
A blogger or webmaster who finds your article remarkable will spontaneously link to you.
It is therefore necessary to write an article whose characteristics are out of the ordinary, which will not only attract comments that will make the page evolve BUT ALSO that will be taken up, quoted by other bloggers. To do this, it is necessary

• To be ahead of your time,
• Polemical or provocative,
• Putting forward several opposing theses
• Very specialized in a specialty, or
• Exhaustive on a subject.

Invite people to react at the end of the article with a formula that is a little more catchy than the classic buttons

Tactical tips for attracting links to your article

• Do the technical test of a (positive) product and let the product brand know that you have published this test
• In the same vein, give your (favorable) opinion on a product, documented and detailed opinion.
• Report on a congress or conference and report it to the conference website.
• Write a story with two or three related articles that are in opposition to their theses (cite the articles).

From social networks

Social networks, the big deal of the last 3 years, if they are indeed powerful traffic channels, require a considerable amount of time to spend on them and this can be learned.

Link your accounts together, follow tweets, target your “friends”, participate in this or that discussion, follow this tweet, retweet this one…

Playing on linkedin, viadeo, tweeter and facebook is a double-edged sword… Let’s take a brief look at the basics of your social media presence.

Being present on social media meets your need for a web presence and your e-reputation more than building a backlink network.

But the two are linked.

Many entrepreneurs don’t have the time to play this card or the budget to hire a social media geek. Their future on the web is not compromised, however.

Social Media and Baclinking

• Open a specific company page on Facebook, an account on Linkedin, fill out your profile using the keywords of your market and invite your acquaintances.
• Do the same thing on Viadéo if you are on the French market.
• Open a Tweeter account and fill out your profile carefully, slip the most relevant keywords into your bio and company description.
• The backlinks that start from social media are nofollow, you only play here for traffic and your reputation on the web
• Pay particular attention to your company profile page, relevant keywords / photos/ address/ phone / The internal search engine will use it to find you.
• Spend 80% of your time at other people’s homes and 20% at home
• Carefully target your “friends/followers”/relations you are going to invite, quality is better than quantity.
• Look for influential people in your sector, your city, your region, decision-makers, specialized journalists, it is to them that you will submit your articles in the future.
• Re-tweet their articles, click “likes” and +1s… Make comments on their “wall” but also on their blog, gradually get noticed.
• Don’t bludgeon your “walls” with redundant ads. Be creative, relevant, shrewd, persuasive.
• Post your videos on social media

Other bulk netlinking tips

Here are a series of additional tricks that are uneven in implementation but worth considering

• Yahoo answer
• Google +/ address (changed in June to “business”)
• Google Business Profile

Other backlinks or web presences that drive traffic

• Discount Coupon Sites
• Have a youtube account, dailymotion etc if you have content to put there
• Publish photos on sites like flickr, optimize these photos from their file name
• Publish on slideshare, a slideshow sharing site
• Chamber of Commerce Registration
• Be listed in the directory of the municipal website
• Publish on your municipality’s website
• Sponsor an event in your sector of activity on the web
• The same goes for a site in your city

*SERP= Search Engine Result Pages= Search Engine Results Pages

* Link anchor: active words that are clicked on to access the page, these words must be in line with the keyword of the page

Kristof Maret, SEO specialist at the Montreal agency.

Related articles

• The easy ones
• Google fights against over-optimization
• publication of article after penguin 1,
• The link profile
• Publish a guest article (ethics and quality)
• All articles about backlinking.