Shortcuts always look tempting for the convenience and fast results they promise. However, this does not mean that they are safe or provide any kind of long term base; this is definitely true on the internet. Even though fast techniques were available earlier the situation is far from the same today. Earlier if you started a website and you wanted to build links you could use anything from multiple link swaps, backlinks purchase etc. This was effective because google had not developed its page ranking formulae to the level that it has today. Now with focus rapidly shifting away from being recognised by bots to the concept of “reasonable surfer” things are quite different.
What used to work then is frowned upon by google now. No longer can you count on link purchasing and link swapping etc. Today is the age of manual and organic link building. Google wants websites whose growth curve look similar to those sites that grow in popularity naturally without external efforts. This means that posting thousands of backlinks anywhere you find place is not going to cut it now. Now you have to focus on quality content submission and being a useful, trusted and respected part of the internet community. Here are a few techniques for manual link building:
- Link baiting: Link baiting is a technique that involves writing content for user that they cannot get anywhere else and are tempted to share. You have to be innovative, creative and in tune with what people want for writing content that will pull people in again and again. There are basically five types of hooks- news, resource, humour, attack and contrary hooks. These hooks have to be viral in nature to really give results. Attack and contrary hooks are sensitive and should be used with utmost care as it is not wise to be rubbing people the wrong way if you are going to be in their community.
- Article submission: Writing content for the web that is useful and relevant is perhaps the best way to gain better ranking. This is because things are completely in your control. You focus should be on writing content that is enriched with keywords, is relevant and useful to users. While writing content it is also important to make sure that the anchor text is relevant to the text of the page that it is on. Variable anchor texts also give enhanced results.
- Find out competition’s strategy: It is very rare that you will come up with an idea for the internet that someone has not already thought of. If someone has thought of it and has also established himself in it, you need not fear. By tracing the path that someone has already taken and become successful you can also reach at par with them. Finding out what type of links your competitor put where and following a similar strategy will bring you up to their level. From there you can chart your own path.
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