Link Baiting - Thrive Learning Institute

When it comes to SEO there are several factors than contribute in a major way to the webpage's strength in the search engines. Aside from on page optimization and probably more essential is the obtaining of backlinks. In this article from Thrive Learning Institute we'll discuss what backlinks are and the different strategies you can you use them to drive traffic and profits.

What are backlinks?

Back links are links from outside sources that link directly to your website or a page within your website. The more links you have from these outside sources the higher Google will rank you, the more traffic you'll and, if you're going for money, the more $ you'll make.

Because backlinks are an essential source of income for the online community, it's plain to see why so much has been written about it and why there is so much confusion about it. I'll attempt to shed some light on one section of the art and psychology of getting quality backlinks to your site.

Link Baiting

A popular way to build high quality backlinks to your website is to use a method called "Link baiting". Now we all write content for our websites and we try and make it good, useful content that people will find useful. Many times however we write a piece just for the sake of getting some text for on page SEO where you can stick your keywords for the crawler (programs that scan your site for keywords and content relevance). Link Baiting is the process of writing a piece of content with the intent of making it go viral so it spread across the net.

There are a few different kinds of content that are more apt to catch the imagination of net dwellers than others however.

Humor
Contrary
Resource
News

Writing a humorous article and combining it with a funny picture or video is a great way to stir things up in your niche. Everyone has received those emails filled with ridiculous pictures before and it gets passed through friend networks forever. That is what you're going for with a humorous piece sans email. You want this to take hold on the social bookmarking sites like Digg, Reddit and propeller and you want other bloggers in your niche to link to it and comment on it. So lighten things up a bit and let it fly!

Writing a post that is contrary to popular belief or principle is another awesome way to stir things up in the community. Nothing incites more buzz than a respected blogger saying something seemingly insane but then backing it up with data and evidence. This is probably one of the hardest things to do and because of that its also one of the most effective.

Take for example, Tim Ferriss. He wrote a great book, called The Four Hour Work Week, that basically attacks the corporate employee and the corporate lifestyle. Ridiculing it as a 40 year prison and then proceeded to show the way out. This book has been in bold rebellion of the societal norm and because of that reason he has been on the New York Times Bestseller list for 2 years straight. I know this is an extreme example but it illustrated my point well. Be intelligently controversial and you could have your ticket to fame and see a dramatic increase in your income.

Creating a useful resource is an effective and easy way to get lots of backlinks. Look around your niche and find a need that hasn't been filled effectively and then put together a comprehensive resource that will be a great benefit to others in your niche. If its useful you'll see tons of new backlinks to your site as people discover your post or article.

The last method I've listed is that of writing news posts. The trick to this one is to be first. It doesn't necessarily have to be a perfect post but if you can get a thorough article out there about breaking news along with some analysis of your own it can spread like wildfire and build a LOT of valuable backlinks.

At Thrive Learning Institute we urge you to start implementing some of these strategies in the articles you write or posts for your blog and test them out. You'll find that you're better at some than others. The more you test the more successful you'll be so get to it and start building backlinks!

Tip of the Week: Building a Link System

In the beginning, you will probably want to link to more popular websites from your own website but as your link building progresses other steps must be taken to ensure the best results. Eventually, you're going to want to contact companies who will benefit from your products to have them place a link to your website on their own website. Be careful how you approach the company, you want to help them realize what's in it for them not what's in it for you. Send them a personalized letter identifying core ways that adding your link to their website will increase their sales.

Internal links are another good way to build up your link system; these are easier and faster than external links. You may be thinking "I already have an internal link system set up through my navigation" but that's not enough. You need to create links from one portion of your website to another in order to get better results. Commonly, these links are found in articles, blogs, or at the bottom of the page.

You will not have immediate effects from working on a link system to your website. It takes weeks, maybe even months before you will see your website climbing in the search engine ranks.

Recommended Article: Make Money With Internet Marketing

"Making Friends" - How to Start on Social Networking Sites

One type of website marketing that is vastly underestimated is that of Social Networking. By this, I mean using sites like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, and potentially about 50 other sites, to promote your website.

This applies whether your site is a retail site, a blog, or pretty much anything else. Though many of these social networking sites were intended for individuals, not companies, the resources they provide can be used to great benefit by your online business.

The why, what, and how are another story. Right now, I want to go over how to get started on Social Networking, and the most important first step. "Making Friends."

When people start out on these sites, they often don't know how to start. The only thing that these sites seem to promote in order to make friends is adding friends from your personal contact list. Well, why don't you? Many business owners I know are hesitant to add their own friends to the list, but this is one of the best places to start. It's highly unlikely, after all, that your friends will give you negative PR, reject your friendship requests, or anything similar. Plus, by establishing a group of friends, you will show other potential "friends" that you're already established (even if you're not).

A second thing you'll want to do as you set up on these sites is to be certain that your company's profile looks nice. You should fill out all the information that's asked for (by whatever site you're working on), and you should add a non-salesy, smooth description of your site. Here's one as an example:

Genie in a Bottle is glad to be here on MySpace to continue networking, finding new business connections, and provide an additional way that our customers can get updates about upcoming events, sales, or other promotions. We sell the best Genies in lamps around. If you're interested in checking out our website, it can be found at http://www.example.com. If you're interested in hearing about upcoming promotions, receiving special discounts through MySpace, or getting in touch with us, just add us to your friends list.

Then, be sure that your profile is set to "public view," so people who aren't your friends already can check it out. Also, put information on which social networking sites you're using on your website, and mention that you occasionally give out promotion codes, or give word of new products, through these sites. This will prompt some of your buyers, and even some of your non-buying site visitors, to add you on these sites.

Now, these things alone may bring in a new friend from time to time, but you'll need to be a bit more active than that to start making connections. There are five words that sum up what you need to do:

Be active on the site.

It's hard to give specific directions on what you need to do (since every site is different), but being active is really the key. If the site has forums, participate in the forums! If it has blog features, participate in the blog features! Commenting on other people's blogs, or responding to their posts in forums, is one of the best ways to start meeting people.

Another tactic to use is to join groups on these websites. Most of these websites have different "groups" based on an interest in a similar subject. If you're selling pocket knives, wouldn't a group interested in camping make a great set of leads for you?

Oh, but let's be careful. I just called them "leads," and it's important to remember, these aren't just "leads." They're potential friends to your business, and you should treat them as such. You should not try to push your business on these people, and you should always be respectful.

Here's another piece of simple advice. One of the best ways to find friends is to be a friend to others. This works somewhat differently on each site, and on sites like Facebook and MySpace, it's not wise to "add a friend" who has no idea who you are. But on sites like Twitter, "following" someone is one of the best ways to get "followed." By finding someone who has interests that seem to be in relation to your site, and following them, they are likely to notice you, check your profile, and may or may not follow you in return.

So, let's answer in brief, why should you bother spending all this time doing this? Well, it's very simple. This is a waiting customer list. Once you have established friends, you can make "posts," "updates," or "notes" (the name is different for each site). Everyone on your friends list will be able to see these updates, and if you phrase your "notes" in a way that invites people to your site, you'll see increased traffic through these mediums.

So, yes, once again, it's all about traffic, spreading the word, and getting people to your site. It may take a while to establish yourself on each of these Social Networking sites, but once you have, it provides a completely free resource to build significant traffic to your website.

For more information on how a quality coaching company can help increase the traffic to your site, or help you build a new online business from scratch, simply check us out at www.thriveli.com.

Go Away No Follow Links!

As we all know link building is still one of the most valuable ways to increase your rankings on the search engines. Throughout the past few years link building has continued to be an effective form of search engine optimization as well as internet marketing. Now even though link building has continued to be an effective form of optimizing your site the methods have changed through the first few years.
A few years ago link trading was all the rage so people creating link trading programs, webrings etc.. which search engines considered abuse and now those aren't as effective. The next thing that started to work was getting listed in directories and then everyone and their dog started creating free directories so that method doesn't work as well anymore. The main pattern to see here is the fact that methods for link building have changed in recent years but the principle has remained consistent and has always worked.
With the advent of the "nofollow" link link building techniques are dropping like flies because more and more links are getting nailed with the "nofollow" tag. Now the no follow tag itself made sense orgingally it was a way to get rid of blog comment spamming but since then it has started to get abused in my opinion, now Wikipedia links, Youtube links, most forum links are all getting tagged with the nofollow link which makes one start to think, "What link building techniques are left?"

When it comes to link building Thrive Learning Institute has the answers, for tips on the future of link building contact us at our site www.thriveli.com.