Building a Diverse Back Link Portfolio

Most niches are so competitive, that on page search engine optimization and good content is no longer enough to rank well in the search engines. To achieve high positions in search engine results, you need back links. Not only do you need back links, but you need them to come from a diverse range of sources to achieve the best results.

Focusing all of your link building efforts on just one source, and on just once anchor text, will appear unnatural to search engines, and you will lose out because of this. You should spread you links between a wide range of sources to encompass directories, blog comments, article writing, social bookmarking, web 2.0 profiles and blogs, and forum posting. Even more valuable than this is obtaining links from high page rank relevant sites. This can be tricky for most small new websites though, if not impossible. Therefore webmasters of these sites should concentrate on obtaining links that are attainable.

Directories are website that list links to other websites based upon categories. For example, a directory may have a category on food, which will in turn have sub categories on Asian food, European food, and so on. You should submit you website URL to the category that best describes your websites content. There are large amounts of directories in existence, a link from a directory is not worth much, but when you have several links from several directories, the link power soon adds up.

Blog comments are a great way to direct targeted traffic to your website, as well as build links to your website for search engine rankings. You can search for blogs that are related to the theme of your website, and post a constructive comment on one of their articles. Within that comment you should post a link back to your website. Other readers of the blog may choose to follow this link and visit your website. These links can be very powerful for improving your search engine ranking, particularly if they are on high page rank blogs.

Article writing is my favourite method. You submit original content articles to article directories such as ezine, on a wide range of subjects. Within the article, you place a link back to your website. Not only is this method great for driving traffic, since the article directories have a huge reader base, but you also get a high value link for search engine rankings. Just a few of these links pointing to one website is enough to improve that websites ranking, provided the niche is not too competitive.

Social bookmarking your URL in sites like digg and reddit will again not only drive traffic from readers of those sites, but also give you another valuable link for search engine rankings. You should post your URL in a relevant section with constructive comments. If your link is considered spam it will be deleted.

Forum posting is also an extremely successful way of driving traffic and gaining links. Join a forum on a subject related to your websites niche, and start becoming a valued member of the community by posting helpful information and advice. You may be allowed to leave a link to your site in your signature. As your online presence grows, you will soon see traffic coming from the forum, and the links will also help improve your search engine rankings.

Finally, another of my favourite methods is creating a blog on web 2.0 sites like hubpages. Links from these sites are very powerful, and the online blogging community is huge. If you create a valuable interesting blog, many people from those communities may also choose to visit your website.

These are some of the cornerstone methods that new webmasters can use to build links. The key is to ensure that your postings are relevant and not spam. If you provide useful content to accompany your links, you will surely be on the road to search engine ranking success.