What do You Think about this method for finding Backlinks

Placing articles for backlinks

[afreshup]

Hey, one of my websites is financial in nature, credit cards, mortgages and other stuff. The website was really built for ppc, and it has done pretty well in that respect. As far as organic search, I have always relied on long tails, and on-page seo to promote this website with very little link building, except for the occasional exchange and article marketing.

The beauty of this website is, I have been pumping original content into this website for the last two years. The site has over 200 original, well written, articles, several tutorials and it has started ranking for some pretty good kw's since panda.

So now, I want to begin building backlinks to the her, but the problem is almost every authority website in this niche is a competitor.

This is my plan:

I signed up for auto-alerts from Google news forthe most common kw's for this niche. Every day Google sends me tons of articles that have been written on these subjects, which makes it easy for me to see where my competitors are placing articles and the quality of the articles they are placing.

Now I see all of the competitors article placements, but I am baffled about how they got there. Some of my competitors are placing average articles on top news blogs that I see no way to get access to.

Look at this Author's page on US News, these articles are well written, but they are far from extraordinary. How can I get access to this type of exposure?

[money.usnews.com...]

[linkbuildr]

Well it's most likely paid in some way to either allow the content or to be an author. Just email good blogs and pay them to write for them. The key here is to link out to other non-competitive sources so it doesn't look like you're #*$!ing your money site.

[afreshup]

Thanks linkbuildr. So how would I approach someone like US News? Do I simply ask them how much? The more I look at this author's set up, it makes me believe that he "knows" someone and that's how he got this gig.

Do you think I would benefit by hiring a PR company to help me place articles on news publication websites like this?

[linkbuildr]

Well if you're in a competitive niche, you have the funds then do what you can to get quality links...it's what I say. I wouldn't only do that as your method of link building or a pattern starts to emerge.

Approach US news to see if you can guest blog for them. It helps to have some sort of a writing portfolio already, so perhaps start writing in places where you can. I'd even do what you can to beef up the social marketing on those pieces of content. That way, you can be like hey, I write awesome content and it get's spread around a lot. That should perk the site owners right up!

[afreshup]

Let's say I'm lazy when it comes to link building, and I am. I'm good at content production though. Where can I hire a reputable company, person to spend the time to place my articles on blogs and reputable websites?

The only link building companies I see are spammers and BS blog commenters ...

[Planet13]

There are some good ones out there. However, they may be hard to find because they tend to only work with good clientele, so they don't go around posting their services on a lot of the open forums.

They do serious work, have serious insight, and provide serious benefits. They tend to only work with serious clients, as far as I can tell.

I would kindly suggest though that a good SEO company will cost significantly more than what some teenager in a newly industrialized country with a copy of scrapebox will cost. On the other hand, there is probably nothing more true than the adage, "You get what you pay for."

I hope this helps.

(BTW: I do NOT do SEO for people, so please don't think I am trying to promote my services. I think my post might come off sounding that way, and I apologize if it does.)

[afreshup]

Thanks Planet, I didn't think that at all ... it looks to me that my best bet is going to be hiring someone to chase links for me for $10 $12 bucks an hour .... If you do hear of a good company please let me know.

[Planet13]

I can't personally think of a good company that would charge only $12 bucks an hour.

On the other hand, one of the posters on this forum, CainIV, has made many recommendations about automation. I am not familiar with the tools he / she uses exactly, but here is what I get the meaning:

You would do all the work yourself that requires brains. You would be figuring out what the link targets are. Where you would get the most value, that kind of thing. Basically, you would be doing the analyzing, strategizing, and complete the sets of directions for others to follow.

Then you would hire people at affordable wages to to the "stupid" work; basically, anything that really doesn't require much thought, and is just routine, repetitive work.

I think there was a post in these forums about developing a link building team. You might want to read through that and see if it offers any insights.

Hope this helps.

[Planet13]

But don't just hire someone to blast links for you. That COULD be very bad...

[afreshup]

I found a company that allows you to hire employees in Manilla for $8 - $15 bucks an hour. The higher their skill level the higher the cost per hour, duh.

However, some people come semi-skilled and you can train them to work specifically how you want them to. You get the same person to deal with every day, and this person works in the company building with a supervisor ensuring that they are working for you and you alone.

Also, the people you hire will work the schedule and hours that you dictate. So, if I was to get someone to work for me 40 hours a week building links for me that's $400 a week and $1600 a month.

I believe the first 40 hours or so would be consumed training the person to work how you like, but after that it would be pretty much gravy.

Do you think that this is a good way to get a link building campaign going?

[Planet13]

Do you think that this is a good way to get a link building campaign going?

It really depends on what type of links you are trying to get, and how quickly you are trying to get them.

I really encourage you to think about the kinds of links you want to get first, such as links from directories, links from blog comments, links from blogrolls, links from article sites, links from social bookmarking, links from forum profiles, etc...

And remember, the best links are the ones that are hardest to get. You can get some easy links, move up in the SERPs and then all your competitors will see what you did and do the same thing.

[wheel]

but the problem is almost every authority website in this niche is a competitor.

Some of my best links are from competitors. They're on topic, authority sites.

So, why would a competitor link to you.

[afreshup]

Thanks Wheel,

"I really encourage you to think about the kinds of links you want to get first, such as

- links from directories

- Are these really viable? I mean Yahoo charges per click now

- links from blog comments

- Shouldn't I farm these out to offshore companies?

- links from blogrolls

- How do you ask for this?

- links from article sites

- I've done a lot of this, but post-panda, not so much

- links from social bookmarking

- This still works?

- links from forum profiles

- Have never tried this ...hmmm

To me, the only links that are worth chasing in a post-panda world, are links received from placing unique content on related websites. I'm sure blogging and begging for links to our content will produce good links as well. However, this is SO time consuming.

What I'm looking for is a 40 hour a week link chasing machine. For this, I would have the person locate and identify worthy sites, find personal contact info on the owner, editor or decision maker. Then, email and or phone these people with a link offer ....

[Planet13]

Personally, I would probably find the sites myself with scrapebox.

Then give them a spreadsheet with the URLs in it. Then you could have them find the contact info, etc.,

Are you sure they are going to be able to figure out which sites are worth and which ones are not?

[wheel]

To me, the only links that are worth chasing in a post-panda world, are links received from placing unique content on related websites.

What ever happened to getting links from authority sites?

Not all, perhaps not even most, authority sites accept 'user submitted content'. Is a college prof going to publish your article on his college page? Is an industry regulator going to publish your article? Is a competitor?

[afreshup]

Planet, I will probably have to train them, supposedly they are internet-savy ...

Wheel, I dunno? Are they?

[wheel]

Rhetorical question. The answer of course is no.

Which shows that the links that you describe as 'the only ones worth chasing' perhaps are not the only ones worth chasing.

[afreshup]

Sorry, glaring difference in experience ... what you meant as rhetorical, I took as literal ... heh' sooooo you are saying that it IS worth chasing the links you mentioned?

[wheel]

They're pretty much the only type of links I do chase. I do absolutely no article submissions, and I only do blog guest posting on blogs who are of sufficient quality that they basically don't do guest posting, i.e. where most people would be unable to get a guest post.

It's not the only thing that works, but don't discount it as a strategy.

In terms of competitors, I love getting links from competitors. I helped an old dude (guy in my niche) rebuild his website last fall and got a link from a 10+ year old pr4.

Last week I had an offer to do the SEO for a keyword rich domain in my niche - one of the old originals. Guy's had the domain forever, Yahoo actually made them an offer back in the late 90's for the domain. They offered me a cut of the business. I declined, but they mentioned that they loved the wordpress layout on my site. Since it's a custom design that I bought and own the (C), I offered them the use of it on their site, under two conditions; one they buy their own copy of the one image the theme uses, and two, they give me either a homepage link, or they give me a full page of content with my own links from within content.

Nothing that others couldn't do. We all have to do our cost/benefit determination to decide if it's worth chasing these types of links.

[afreshup]

I only do blog guest posting on blogs who are of sufficient quality that they basically don't do guest posting, i.e. where most people would be unable to get a guest post

This is the $64,000 question. Would you mind sharing your technique of how you "break the ice" and acquire these coveted blog posting positions?

[jeyKay]

Last week I had an offer to do the SEO for a keyword rich domain in my niche

I'm just curious Wheel, how do you get contacted by competitors in your nice to do SEO? Is it because you are known as an SEO, or mention it on your site in whatever niche you are in?

To get back more on topic, I think Wheel brings up a good (rhetorical) question. @afreshup, the only links I would bother chasing are blogrolls, as they are usually merit-based, in other words, whoever owns that blog chose to link to those sites because they most likely complement their blog's content in some way.

[wheel]

The bloggers have told me they get 50 requests a day for promotional stuff, guest blog posts and the like. And they ignore them all. Keep in mind, they actually want content. Unfortunately, they are not willing to do the work required to figure out if you're the one person in 1000 who's got quality content (I mean really, look at the quality of most guest blog posts. They're garbage).

Forgetting my specific technique (it doesn't matter), the answer is that you need to network with them. You need to determine what you have, in your niche, that will let you call these folks with something they'll actually be interested in - something THEY want, not something YOU want. Give them that, they'll talk.

Most people are unwilling to do what it takes in order to give the bloggers something the bloggers want. I provided a service for a year first, before getting to 3rd base with these folks.

[afreshup]

Dude, Wheel, send me your paypal account ... I should be paying you for this :-) Thank you very much

[linkbuildr]

A bloody good infographic is also worth trying out a couple times...I've linked competitor ones in my niche just because it's awesome.

As for getting guest blog spots, Wheel is right (as always)...networking is the key to the best links. Hit them up on Twitter, RT their stuff all the time, comment nicely and in crazy depth on their blog, stumble their stuff, submit something of theirs to reddit or whatever.

Get noticed, make nice!

[SandeepRa]

Getting backlink from news websites is quite good for link building campaign as these news websites are being searched a lot and in this way you get good amount of traffic if you share quality content over there which people love to read and share.

[mikeavery11]

For getting good links I rely on only Odesk freelancer. They are really knows how to get good links for their clients.