Having written this article for ezine to build some backlinks to this site, I had it turned down for no good reason, so Ezine can kiss my ass, I will put it on here instead.
If you are a webmaster or blogger you probably already know about the importance of backlinks for building organic traffic to your site. You understand that there are many different ways to build backlinks, some are moral, and some are not. If Google considers every backlink that you build yourself that doesn’t occur naturally to be “Grey Hat SEO” at best, what do you consider the most moral of link building tactics? I think it is particularly naive to assume that people won’t try and build backlinks to their sites to improve the ranking in search engines, however, I want to look at the morality of link building, so here we go.
10) Bookmarking your site or page on a bookmarking website
This task can be completely innocent, and in most instances is completely moral. There are websites that allow you publish and share links to your favourite sites. When you bookmark your own site, that bookmark becomes a link to your site. In some cases these links are even do-follow links. When this activity becomes immoral is when you start spamming the sites with 100′s of links, and setup up multiple accounts using automated tools such as bookmarking demon or SEnuke.
9) A forum signature
Many forums allow members to include a backlink to their site in the signature of their posts on forums. In some cases these are do follow links. If you have a lot of posts on that forum you get a lot of links. This practice is fairly moral, although I don’t consider the links to carry much value.
8) Commenting on a blog
Commenting on a blog is a good way to get a backlink. It is moral because the blog owner wants people to interact with their blog. If the blog is Do-follow you even get a valuable do-follow backlink for your blog. This activity becomes a lot less moral and more dodgy when you start leaving your desired anchor text as you name, to get a more valuable backlink. The plugin Keywordluv allows you to achieve this task morally however.
7) Submitting to link directories
Google and Yahoo both have their own link directories, so these must be considered moral. As these sites are not very content rich the links from most link directories don’t carry much value. The directories where the links do carry value tend to cost money to submit to or are very hard to get accepted into, which is uncool.
6) Submitting something free to a resource, image or video site
There are plenty of sites on the internet that will give you a backlink to your site of choice if you submit stuff to them. This might be software, slideshows, videos, images, for example. This act is moral, as you are simply getting credit for your work, and the site is getting new content.
5) Submit your site to a CSS directory
CSS design inspiration directories are very common, there are 100′s of them. If you have a unique site, that is well designed, you can build backlinks using sites like these. Once again this method is moral, as you are getting credit for the hard work that has been put into your design.
4) Design a theme for a common content management system like Blogger or WordPress and include a link back to your site in the footer.
Again, moral because you are getting credit for your work right?
3) Exchange links with other webmasters
Within reason this is moral. You should do in it in the correct manner though. It really should be to a site that is about the some topic as yours, so your link is suggesting an endorsement of the other site. As link exchanges normally involve reciprocal links, they can carry less value than one way links, however they are still worth the effort from the right sites.
2) Guest post on blogs
A guest post is when you write an article for a blogger, and that article gets published on the blogger site, with a link back to your site. You are creating content for the blogger, so they are happy, and you really deserve a link for your efforts. This is one of the more moral methods of building backlinks.
1) Writing articles on articles sites like ezinearticles, go articles or hubpages
This allows you to include a link to your site in the resource box for ezine or goarticles or in the body for hubpages, and you can select any anchor text which you want. As you are building content for these sites, so it’s good for them. Surely for this effort you deserve a backlink. So I have decided that this has to be the most moral of backlink building tactics. Links from an authority site such as these, can carry a lot of value, particularly if you then build links that that article also.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I found your site by clicking on a comment you left at our blog, and was interested to read your suggestions here.
I’m glad to see that you’re emphasizing the importance of adding value to sites where you add a link. If you’re commenting with useful additions to the discussion, then I think that adds value to the site and deserves a link. I don’t think that “Great post!” deserves a link.
I think you’ll find that such links aren’t really valuable, anyway. Blog owners will generally remove them in short order. You have to be taking part in the discussion sincerely for your links to add value — and then they get to stay.
Got me beat why Ezine rejected your article. I had one rejected too. I wrote about cock fighting in Bali. They said it could not be published because it was written about an illegal practice.
Anyway you don’t want to hear about that. I think I found you the same place as Rebecca. Very interesting and well written post. You have some great information here.
Greg
This is a very good article. I have no idea why they would reject it. I use about 3 of the techniques that you mentioned with moderate results. I think I will borrow a couple of the ones you listed. Hopefully by using a combination of sorts I will get better results. Thanks
And what was reason for rejecting this article? I am just thinking is it worth spending time on writting articles for ezine and like it.
Along with Blog commenting, using Anchor Text in your name is good, if the blog allows it, many don’t. Which I don’t quite understand. If you are adding to the discussion, who cares what they put in the name field, as long as its appropriate of course. :O)
I couldn’t see why they didn’t like your article either. After all, you were even promoting their site. But maybe they somehow felt you were promoting yourself too much. I certainly can’t see how they would come to that conclusion.
I’ve found article directories to be great for traffic, authority, and links.
cd :O)