Incoming links are an essential component of building a successful blog. Links give your blog more authority on Technorati and a higher Google Page Rank. Together, those ratings can make your blog more attractive to advertisers, which allows you to charge higher advertising rates. Additionally, as your blog grows in authority and your number of incoming links grows, your Google search engine rankings will rise, which equates to more traffic to your blog. With more traffic comes more ad impressions, greater potential for pay-per-click ads to actually be clicked on and ultimately, more money for you.
1. Write Content People Want to Read
The easiest way to get people to link to your blog from their own blogs and websites is to publish great content. Naturally, if you write posts that are interesting, useful and helpful, people will want to talk about those posts on their own blogs and share them with other people. That means more links to your blog!2. Submit to Blog Directories
There are a number of blog directories where you can add a link to your blog such as BlogHer. Some even include a social aspect such as BlogCatalog and MyBlogLog, which provide multiple ways to increase the number of incoming links to your blog simply through your registration.3. Get on Blogrolls
Once you have a good amount of compelling content published on your blog, approach other bloggers with equal or more authority than your blog (as demonstrated through their Technorati rankings and Google Page Rank) and suggest a blogroll reciprocal link. This is most successful when both blogs are related to the same subject and you develop a relationship with the other blogger by leaving comments on his or her blog prior to suggesting a blogroll link exchange.4. Write Guest Posts
Guest blogging is a great way to not only drive new traffic to your blog and promote your blog but also to increase the number of incoming links to your blog. This is particularly helpful when you are able to write a guest post on a blog that has a higher Technorati authority and Google Page Rank than your blog has.5. Hold Blog Contests
Blog contests are a great way to drive traffic to your blog and increase the number of incoming links to it. First, you can promote your blog contest on a variety of blog contest promotion sites to add incoming links. Additionally, you can include a contest rule that tells entrants they can earn an additional entry into your contest by writing about the contest on their own blogs with a link back to the original contest post.6. Join Blog Carnivals
Blog carnivals are a simple way to increase the number of links to your blog. Simply find a blog carnival related to your blog's topic (or start your own), write a post for the carnival and submit your post link to the main blog carnival site. Your post link will be published as part of the blog carnival bringing in another free link that can also drive a significant amount of traffic.7. Write Articles for Other Sites
There are many websites that accept submissions from just about anyone such as eHow and Associated Content. Additionally, pursue opportuntities to write for online magazines and publications related to your blog topic that accept freelance submissions. Be sure to include a link to your blog with your article and bio.8. Create Other Blogs and Websites
Create additional blogs, websites, Squidoo lenses, HubPages hubs and more, and interlink all of them to increase your links exponentially.9. Comment on Other Blogs
When you leave a comment on another blog, always be certain to include your blog's URL in the URL field of the comment form. While some blogs use the "NoFollow" HTML tag in their blog template (meaning the link back to your blog won't count by Google's standards) it's a good habit to always include your URL, so the opportunity always exists for an incoming link with every comment you submit.10. Include Your Blog URL in Your Online Forum Signatures
Join online forums and message boards related to your blog topic and actively participate. Ensure your blog URL is included in your forum signature, so it appears as a live link each time you submit a message in the forum.11. Participate in Social Networking Sites
Social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace provide areas where you can include your blog's URL in your profile. Use your social networking accounts to further promote your blog and drive additional traffic to it.11 Tips for DIY Search Engine Optimization: Using Search Keywords
5 tips for SEO friendly keyword usage and a few warnings
From Scott Fox, for About.com
Editor note: This is part 2/2 of a series about do-it-yourself SEO from Scott Fox, author of Internet Riches and the E-Commerce Success Blog. (Part 1: 6 Tips on Link Building and SEO Friendly Web Design)
C. SEO Keyword Tips
7. Understanding Keywords
To rank highly in the search engine results you need to pick appropriate key words and phrases with which to promote your site. You don’t want the keywords to be so broad (e.g. "cars", "shirts", "consulting") that your site is lost in a sea of competitors on page 28 of Google’s results. You also don’t want to target keywords that are so narrow that few people are likely to search on them.
You can use free online research tools like Google’s Keyword Tool to help you brainstorm appropriate keywords, and Google’s Traffic Estimator Sandbox to find those keywords where there is customer demand to support your website’s business.
The key to uncovering your best keywords is to think like your customer. This means avoiding industry buzzwords or lingo to use simple, "natural language" instead. So try targeting "warm socks" instead of "men’s support hosiery", for example.
8. Meta Tags
While not as important to search engine ranking calculations as they used to be, the "meta tags" hidden in each web page’s HTML code should be tweaked to maximize their potential impact. This means including your keywords so that they appear in the "title", "description", and "keywords" meta tag fields. This is easily done in most web page publishing tools or content management systems (or ask your tech guys to do it). Many search engines reference these fields to identify what keywords you see as most representative of your page’s content.
9. Headline Placements
The visible elements of your web pages’ headlines, links, and text should all be reviewed for keyword inclusion also. The search engines give extra weight to any words that are included in the titles of each page and section, and wherever text is bolded, highlighted, or linked. Their logic here is that if you are emphasizing those words visually to site visitors, then those words are probably key to your site’s content, too.
10. Keywords in Your URL
You want to use your keywords in as many other appropriate places as possible, too. For example if you can use them in your website’s URL that can help your ranking. (Of course, you must balance this against making your URL longer, harder to remember, and perhaps more difficult to spell, too.)
11. Page File Names
Further reinforcement of your keywords by using them in your page titles and file names is also a good idea. This can result in URLs for your popular pages that look like this: http://www.yourbrandnamekeyword.com/keyword-keyword.html
Caution: Avoid Keyword Stuffing
NOTE: You must balance all of this keyword advice against the rules that many search engines have about "keyword stuffing". This means that you shouldn’t go crazy with the keyword insertion -- search engines are wary of sites that overdo it. They prefer your text copy to appear like normal conversational or sales copy.
This suggests a keyword "density" of less than 15%. In other words, for every 100 words of copy on the page, you don’t want to have more than 15 of them as your keywords. Many experts advise even lower, down as low as 3-5%.
Bonus SEO Tip: How to Index Your New Web Site Fast!
For new websites, it is often frustrating how long it can take before the major search engines find, index and add their sites to results pages. (Many search engines even make money on this by offering "rapid submission" services with recurring fees often in the hundreds of dollars.)
One simple tactic that can accelerate a new site’s appearance in search engine results is to have it linked to from an already established, highly ranked site. Big sites are crawled regularly by Google, Yahoo, etc.
(Entrepreneurial small businesses interested in a link exchange with an established site can visit the E-Business Links Directory on ScottFox.com. This free service offers link exchanges that can help improve both search engine submission speed and results ranking. I have had new sites of my own appear in Google’s search results in just days using this technique.)
Overall, the basics of SEO are well within your technical reach. I recommend implementing each of the DIY techniques detailed above before spending money on SEO consultants. There are many more advanced strategies that good SEO consultants can help with to improve your web site rankings.
Follow these DIY SEO guidelines, and you can save your money for that fancy stuff.
