Get Backlinks to Your Website for Free

When you are building an online business, one of the most important things you can do to drive traffic to your website is to get backlinks.  A backlink is a link from another website that leads back to your website.

The more of these backlinks you have pointing to your site, the better you will rank in the search engines.  Of course the better your site ranks in the search engines the more traffic your site will get. 

The following strategies are all completely free methods that I use to get backlinks. These are the backlinks that work the best for helping me get the most traffic and boost my sales each month: 

Post on Other People's Blogs

Posting quality content on other blogs is an easy way to generate tons of backlinks. Whatever the topic of your blog or website, chances are you know what other high ranking blogs are out there related to yours.  If so make a list of those blogs and comment on them regularly.  Try to include in your list a few authority and high ranking blogs as these will help ensure you're getting high value backlinks when you comment.  Spammy comments like 'nice blog' or great post' won't help you here.  Your comments have to be interesting and informative. 

Not all comments on blogs will offer a backlink as some blogs use the 'nofollow' tag but that's not always where the most value is.  If you make comments that others find worthwhile they will often click your link.  In my book that can be just as valuable as a backlink.

Do Some Guest Blogging

Consider becoming a guest blogger.  Serious bloggers are busy people so they love it when they can find others that will provide guest content on their blog.  It saves them time but it also gives you a chance to gain a backlink as well as some exposure. 

To get started, find blogs that relate your site's topic.  Then politely suggest to the blog owner that you have unique content that you think will be of value for their readers. Most blog owners will be happy to accept a guest post. Just make sure that the blog owner will allow you to include a link back to your website. Some may even post your picture.  Most bloggers won't have a problem with posting a link back to your site but it's a good idea to make sure first before making the commitment to write for them. 

You might even consider a blog world tour, a fun, yet very effective guest blogging strategy put together by Nicole Dean. She did so well on her blogging tour last summer that she's sharing just how she did it

Join Forums

Forums are a fun way for online marketers to get to know each other and at the same time learn new tips and tricks to run their businesses more profitably.

Most forums will allow you to create a signature link.  In that link, you can put your name as well as a link to your website. That way every time you post a comment or question on the forum, you create a backlink to your site. 

The more you participate, the more backlinks are generated to your site. If someone finds what you say of value they will generally click on your link to find out more, either about you or your website.  It's an excellent way to generate both backlinks to your site as well as generate interest among the forum members.  Again, spamming the forums with useless content or obvious tactics for getting your link exposed isn't a good strategy but if you can be helpful, constructive and promote discussion, forums are a great resource. 

Write and Submit Articles

Submitting articles to article directories is ideal for building backlinks. Writing just one article a week and submitting it to prominent article directories will generate links to your site fast.  That's because when you submit an article to an article directory you will also publish with it a resource box.  Your resource box should give a brief description of you and your website that also includes a text link to your site.

Additionally, if the articles you post to the directories are interesting and worthwhile, then other website owners will find it beneficial to publish your articles on their websites generating even more backlinks for you.  So the more articles you post within the article directories, the more backlinks you will generate.

Use Social Media

When you create a blog post or content on your website, try providing social media options for those who read and enjoy your content. Provide icons for Twitter, Facebook, Digg and others so that readers might bookmark your content to those sites.  Again, each time this is done there's another backlink generated for you. If you have a WordPress blog try using the ShareThis plugin, and if you want to go the extra mile for your commentors install the keywordluv plugin, this will allow them to use a text link back to their site. 

In summary… as you look for ways to get backlinks to your website you may find that some methods work better than others. Start out by trying them all and then focus on those that work the best for you. But regardless of the methods you use, if you keep up a regular routine of generating backlinks to your site you'll not only gain top search engine rankings, you will also continue to hold top rankings.

Tagged as: SEO & SEM