Building back links by writing your own blogs

[jon22]

I really don't want to spend hours sifting through blogs trying to gain back links. I don't think its a good use of my time, what about writing my own blogs with unique content and then using anchor text links?

wouldn't that be a better strategy to gain relavant back links to my site?

[bekyed]

Yes definitely.
You are giving google what they want as in fresh content and relevent links.
Blogs are pretty hot nowadays and get indexed quick.
If the content is well written on the blog and relevent to the links this is a good strategy.
Building backlinks to the blog will also help.

[jon22]

great! I did think so but it's good to hear someone else's opinion too.

[Planet13]

I really don't want to spend hours sifting through blogs trying to gain back links. I don't think its a good use of my time...

personally, I am getting more and more convinced that it is probably the BEST use of one's time to do this.

but even better would be from authoritative non-blogs that are related to your subject.

...what about writing my own blogs with unique content and then using anchor text links?

Will these blogs be ON your site? Or will they be on a DIFFERENT site and just link back to your site?

And if they are on a DIFFERENT site, just because you have good content doesn't mean they will pass any page rank to your main site, because you will need lots of good inbound links to pass page rank on through to the main site.

So how will you get good inbound links to your blog which you will then pass on to your main site?

If the blogs will be on your main site, they will have to be very unique and interesting, and you will have to spend a lot of time / money to promote them anyways.

Basically, you will need to write content that matches these three criteria:

1) People are interested in that content
2) They can't find it anywhere else
3) It is closely related to the material on the rest of your site.

If you can fill all three of those criteria, then you probably don't need to build links.

[jon22]

Originally I thought create blogs and link to mine but actually this is flawed because I don't want them to rank better than my main site plus they won't have any authority anyway, I suppose the next best thing is article syndication.

Good points but i don't think I can write any content that can't be found elsewhere :( (not for this topic anyway)

[Planet13]

Good points but i don't think I can write any content that can't be found elsewhere :( (not for this topic anyway)

Well, that pretty much leaves the only other option as to go out and build links...

[onlineleben]

what about writing my own blogs with unique content

Youv'e seen all the good reasons Planet13 mentioned for not building new blogs. But there is an other way:
Instead of writing and publishing on a seperate blog, why not publish these posts on your own (main) site? This would increase number of pages in the SERPs, possible keywords to be found by, adds authority.

[Planet13]

Instead of writing and publishing on a seperate blog, why not publish these posts on your own (main) site? This would increase number of pages in the SERPs, possible keywords to be found by, adds authority.

Exactly!

That "Authority" that onlneleben mentioned is very important nowadays, in my humble opinion.

If I were you, I would probably do something like this:

1) Look at the sites that are linking to your competitors, and determine what type of content they tend to link to.

2) Write UNIQUE content that you think would be of interest to them, AND of interest to your visitors.

3) Tell those sites about your content, and ask them if they would link to you.

Now, that's just one way to do it, but it has the advantage of getting you new content while getting the word out in front of people who are more likely to promote that content.

The thing is, without much money for promotion, for every one hour you spend on content development, you will probably have to spend four hours trying to get links to it.

Plus, it can be a little soul-crushing when you get an email back and they say that your content isn't good enough to be linked to. Nobody likes getting a rejection letter.

I hope this helps.

[onlineleben]

It really works what Planet13 described above:

1) Look at the sites that are linking to your competitors, and determine what type of content they tend to link to.

Did this yesterday and found 7 quality sites. Asked for link via email and had a decent read of their content before I asked.

[2) Write UNIQUE content that you think would be of interest to them, AND of interest to your visitors.

I already had the content in place for ages, just had to aks

3) Tell those sites about your content, and ask them if they would link to you

write a good email. One you also would like to get. Read any submission guidelines they might have and refer to content on their site.

Result?

Got a link from a PR5 site and a link from a very topic related selfhelp site (PR6) by this morning. Although the PR on the homepage is quite high, the inner pages don't have that much rank. Anyway, what matters for me is that the pages are around the same topic as my site is.

[Planet13]

Way to go, onlineleben.

Just goes to prove a point:

"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."
- The Great One

I would also recommend to the original poster the well covered "you have a broken link on your site," email is quite effective. It is covered in these forums and, if you do find broken link on a site, it is best to see if you have a page on your site that you can recommend in its place.

[onlineleben]

@Planet13
just got the first visitor via that link. Will see if it converted tomorrow morning when amazon publishes their statistics.

"Man who says it cannot be done should not interrupt man doing it"
Chinese Proverb

Have a good weekend

[afreshup]

What a great topic, I love all the ideas here that I have heard. Back to the original question, about building blogs. I am planning to build 10 different blogs that are sub-niches to my main site.

Each blog will be built on a different shared server, e.g. the $10 a month accounts. Then each blog will get it's own content (1 article) added weekly which will cost about $400 a month. Add in the cost of the servers and you have a $500 dollar a month cost.

Then you buy back links from an off-shore link building company (blog comments and other cheap links) for each website to get some inbound links to each of the blogs.

After that, cut your content down to 1 article every two weeks for an operational cost of $300 a month for all 10 blogs (including hosting). Aim the articles at long-tails and dress up the sites with some adsense.

Sure you will have some time and money setting up this program, but the sites can then build their own rank via interlinking after that you have some sites that are earning adsense and passing juice.

This will not replace the link-building tactics planet mentioned, it will be done in addition to it. What do you think?

[bekyed]

Yes this works, we are currently doing this on sub-domain blogs and building back links to the blogs to get them indexed quicker. In six months time you will have relevant blogs and if you build the blogs based on your clients content in our case holidays, you will see rankings going up.

[matrix_jan]

I opened a blog for one of my websites in Jan. and since then the traffic from G has increased dramatically... The blog is situated in say blog.example.com and despite very low traffic G indexes new content in minutes... All I do is put a link in the new post to my new content, and G follows the trail...

[Planet13]

@ afreshpup:

What you propose I guess could work. It seems like it might be a bit of work setting it up and maintaining it.

Personally, what I think that I would do if I have a $500 a month content budget is pay for some better quality articles and put it on my main site. Then make sure that content is linked effectively to the money making pages on my site.

But that would work better for me because my site is an ecommerce site and I sell stuff. I am sure it wouldn't be as effective for sites that generate revenue primarily through adsense or affiliates.

The problem with 10 blogs on 10 sites is that there is no link synergy working together. Site A gets a few inbound links, and Site B gets a few inbound links, and Site C gets a few inbound links, etc...

But getting a "few" inbound links each probably won't move ANY of them high enough up the SERPs to start getting natural links.

On the other hand, if you concentrate on one site, with all your link building going to that site, then it will have a chance to rank higher based on inbound links, and will thus be more likely to attract natural links.

Also, google tends to like sites with LOTS of related content on them. And it likes to see SMART interlinking between the pages on them. and your visitors would like the, too.

Specifically, a site might rank well for a long-tail keyword, but I don't know how many people will click on the adsense ads if the site doesn't look top notch.

don't get me wrong; there are plenty of people out there that do what you suggest. But most of the people who do it that way SEEM to use automation to scrape articles, spin them, and re-post them as their own.

They also tend to host them on blogger or wordpress so there are no hosting fees, domain name fees, and they don't have to spend man hours updating their software each time wordpress releases an update.

So if you are going to go the "legit" route, I would personally focus on one niche blog (I would put it on my own site), and put the best content and get the best links that I can to that site.

If it is successful, maybe branch out from there.

Hope this helps. But get other opinions first before making any decisions.

[tangor]

I look at these "link schemes" as "link dilution"... an avoidance to invest in the main site results in game playing to artificially generate traffic... and most things artificial are... well, artificial. They don't last. That said, it DOES seem to work for a short time (and if one is talking real money) might bring in some for a bit but the real question is if it is SUSTAINABLE and RECURRING. I tend to think a well-crafted, well-supported site with relevant content is going to do better in the long run.

And there's nothing wrong with asking for a link... it just takes time, personal energy, and cannot be "automated".

There's a reason why "work" is called work and "play" is called play...

[afreshup]

tangor, "aan avoidance to invest in the main site results in game playing to artificially generate traffic"

Our Content budget is roughly $3k per month, we invest quite heavily in good content to our websites. That being said, I agree that the fast and easy approach to SEO yields short term results and usually long term disaster.

However, if I create 10 meaningful sub-niche blogs, and put unique content on them, as well as our main websites, how is this bad?

Why shouldn't I reap the rewards for putting up a good website? Obviously the website will be limited to one unique topic however, we fully intend to answer the questions that people ask regarding those topics in our content. Thus we create a benefit for the reader.

The best question is not "should I" but "is it worth it".

I figure it will take me the better part of a week setting up ten blogs that look and operate well. From then on out, I have a full time assistant who can update each blog once a week.

Let's say we get all of our feeder blog articles on Mondays, it will take her probably two - three hours a week to post and link the articles. The the other 35 hours a week she can spend chasing the good links.

In addition to that, we will have our feature writers writing articles and content sections for our main sites.

I just don't see the down-side as long as we make niche specific blogs that answer real questions about the subject matter.

Here's where the rubber meets the road ... the costs:

- 10 hosting accounts per month - $100 per month
- Initial content for each site - 100 x 10 = $1,000
- Weekly content for each site - $400 per month first 6 months $200 there after
- Link Building company, starter blog links and so on = $600 one time fee
- Assistant pay per month for 12 hours labor - $144

Total Upfront cost for the first 6 months - $3832 / 6 = $638 per month
Monthly operating cost thereafter - $300 plus labor

Yields -
- 10 well placed niche websites with relevant content
- 10 different ip addresses (hosts) for future projects
- 2 targeted backlinks a week for ever
- adsense and/or additional income via click throughs'
- 10 current websites to use for linking bait (not link bait) basically we give other authority blogs with free contextual links to build relationships.

I don't know .... I see the cup half empty and half full ...

[tangor]

The fact there is such a lengthy response is an indication that most of what I said hit home. Folks will do what they do. Sometimes it works, sometimes not... but if REAL MONEY is involved (salaries and expenses) that comes back to ROI... and that's where I draw the line as a businessman. As for 10... unless there is 1000% (10x100) increase against a 40% cost (reasonable)... I can't see it. Then again, I'm not among the wannabe "zillionaires" on the web, just a fellow who plunks along with a consistently mediocre 70% ROI and doesn't make waves or chase #1 (#4 is okay with me), even after Panda came to the party. One has to ALREADY BE ELEVATED in biz to expend $3k a month... and if there, won't be asking for advice here at Webmasterworld. Not being deliberately rude, just asking questions as some of it just doesn't make sense. Ultimately, Yields only come AFTER the expense AND TIME ELAPSED with SALES OBTAINED (after loss/returns)... that's a reality, else we're talking about the US Debt Ceiling and imagined numbers...

[Planet13]

Hi again, afreshpup:

Just a couple of comments to add from my end:

I just don't see the down-side as long as we make niche specific blogs that answer real questions about the subject matter.

The problem with this is that google is REALLY rewarding big brands at the expense of niche sites. If you check out some of the discussions in the google forum, you will see that there are MANY people cursing google for giving so much love to big brands.

I don't know if this is universal, but in the very small niche that I deal with, brands like amazon, ebay, ehow, etc., - who NEVER used to rank before - are ranking VERY well with content that is NOT focused on the keyword terms.

Meanwhile, lots of focused niche sites are wasting away on page 2, 3, and 4 of the SERPs. What's their crime? Not many inbound links, as far as I can tell.

If you want to rank, then you need BOTH focus AND links (in my humble opinion).

Don't get me wrong, afreshpup; I have nothing against what you are doing morally. It doesn't matter to me at all from an ethics standpoint.

I just think that your time and money could be better spent working on your main site. Stuff like exact match keyword domains and other niche-focus techniques seem like they might be reaching their "sell by" date, in my humble opinion.

Hope this helps.

[afreshup]

Thanks Planet, Tangor. As for the $3000 per month, I kind of fudged the numbers. We spend between $1200 and $1500 per month on content, and we produce as much content as we buy, so I threw out the 3k number.

That being said, you're right Tangor, "Folks will do what they do" and I have been arguing for this idea to be legitimate. However, I'm accomplishing my goal of having other webmasters poke holes in my idea before I go balls deep into a project of this size.

What I am hearing is, that nobody hear hates the idea, they just don't think it's the best use of time and resources.

And for that, I thank you guys ...

[Planet13]

Ok, just to summarize what I am trying to say ('cause I know I've said a lot):

1) I think that moving forward, being a recognized BRAND is going to be one of the key ranking factors.

2) Look at how your competitors are ranking based on their links, and do something that they can't (or won't) do. When you do something that is EASILY replicable by your competitors, I don't know how much of an advantage it will give you.

[Leosghost]

There is an expression from the North of England ( I think ? ) which goes .."Be careful of being so sharp, you'll cut yourself" ..I would add .."to avoid major or fatal blood loss ..make sure to have many spare fingers in many distinct pies ..before you indulge in what G might consider to be sharp practices" ;-)

If your business depends on G ..have more than one business..they are inexpensive to set up.