I spoke about the importance of link building in my recent post and was amazed by the amount of emails I got regarding the subject.  People were totally confused as they had seen the ‘big boys’ claiming that they had spent thousands of dollars on their SEO and link building exercises.

It really doesn’t need to be that hard!

Over the coming weeks I’m going to be putting together a full tutorial on Squidoo lenses but the information can be used for blogs and websites alike.  So watch out for these.

Building links to your Squidoo lens or blog should already be in your thoughts if you want to start getting some really good traffic flowing through your lens/blog.  I do understand though that it’s not always something that sits high on your list of priorities.

Below you will find a list of my top 7 ways to create solid backlinks to your Squidoo lens or blog.

Squidoo Lenses - These are great for creating solid links to your other Squidoo lenses or blogs because of the love that Google and other search engines shows Squidoo.  Taking only around half an hour to create they can be a great source of traffic too.  Squidoo’s page rank also reflects through the link to your site (so long as it’s relevant - for example, don’t link a Squidoo lens about cars to your blog about dieting) which is an added bonus.

Social Networking Sites - Again, the search engines love these sites and their rank is strong.   MyBlogLog is especially great at building you a good solid backlink to your Squidoo lens or blog.  They can be a great source of traffic in their own right when you use them correctly.

Directories - This link here will take you through to a fantastic place to find great directories.  Although this can be one of the time consuming and boring of jobs, it is worth the effort for the strong links you will be creating by carrying it out.  NEVER use software to do this, if you really can’t stand the thought of doing this yourself then hire someone to do this manually for you.

Content - This one is normally overlooked and can be the best for building solid links to your site.  If you have great content that people want to read again, share or refer to, PEOPLE will link to your site by themselves.  Some of the best links come from other webmasters who loved your article and shared it with their own readers. 

Signatures - For a long time I never saw any links created from forum signatures then BANG - they all arrive at once.  This seems to take some time to build up from but is worth the effort in the long run.  Forum posting is an art and something that should be given some thought, get it wrong and you risk being thrown out, get it right and you can be on your way to the big time.

Blog Posts - Searching for blogs that have placed a plugin to remove the natural ‘no follow’ tag is another great way to build links to your own blog or lens.  Again, thought should be given to this as it can be extremely powerful or seriously draining.  Never spam any one’s blog and always think about what you can add to the post before you just type something like “great post - thanks”  People see through this and just delete the post.

Use Your Competitors - This one is again overlooked way too often.  Just do a search to see who is linking to your competitors blog or lens and then see if you can’t get them to give you a link.  A search on search engines using link:www.SITENAME.com will give you a brief overview of who is linking to whom.

These are the techniques that I use to build links to my own sites but remember that with anything that the search engines ultimately control, you should use these with caution.  By this I am not saying that you will do anything to harm your sites you just need to take your time with it.

Running out and adding lots of links in an hour will not be looked upon favourably by the search engines, they want it to be a natural occurrence which will show them that people are loving your site and linking by themselves.  Anything that looks like you are trying to manipulate these happenings will be a bad thing for your site and efforts.

Not only do you need to take it slowly, you also need to be aware of who you are linking to and the reputation that these sites have.  Don’t start linking your site to porn sites when you are targeting children’s clothing - Google and other search engines are not stupid!

Good luck with your own link building and remember to take things slow - just get going!

To see my Squidoo lenses you can view the one about Making Money Using Squidoo or the one about Getting A Squidoo Lens Indexed In Google.

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Related Posts

• My Top 7 Link Building Secrets
• The Power Of Link Building - It’s Important!
• Squidoo Lens + Backlinks = Some Serious Money
• Get In Now - High Google Placings
• Getting A Squidoo Lens Listed In Google - Fast!