Link Building for Bloggers

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Whether you’re a pro or amateur blogger, everyone wants traffic to their sites. And building links to your website is a great way to do this.

Not only can it improve the visibility of your website in the search engines, but also if you pick your sites wisely you can benefit from referral traffic.

Socialise: Build Relationships Not Links

As a blogger what makes you happy? Finding a thoughtful comment on a post, when you see a tweet about something you’ve written or if someone likes you on Facebook, right? Other bloggers feel the same, so get interacting with them and make friends online.

Not only does it make blogging more fun, but also it gives you an online social circle to call upon when you need help promoting your blog.

Don’t be cynical – engage with other bloggers that you genuinely admire, or they’ll feel the insincerity and it’ll get you nowhere.

Guest Blogging & Link Building

Guest blogging has become a link building strategy of choice for professional internet marketers, but don’t let that put you off. A well-written guest blog posts puts you in front of tens, hundreds, potentially even thousands of new readers.

So how do you get your content on someone else’s blog?

Try emailing bloggers you love and suggesting ideas for posts, respond to requests for content (particularly common when bloggers go on their hols) or use forums like MyBlogGuest to connect with bloggers for guest blogging.

Get a Swanky Design for Link Love

You don’t have to call in a pro, but a swanky blog design can boost your blog links. Either buy a great theme or pick something simple and customise it with your own photos and illustrations. If your artistic skills are lacking, why not turn to a creative friend, or better yet a fellow blogger with artistic flair?

Even if all you do is change font colours, include your own logo or photo and add a custom header, you’re already setting yourself apart from the crowd.

Beautiful blogs can be submitted to design galleries. Whether your site is for business or pleasure readers respond positively to sites that look the part.

Traditional PR Still Works

As magazines and newspapers fight to stay relevant, more and more are running features on their favourite blogs. Whether it’s a mention in a “what we’re reading” column or a full-blown feature on your blog, these can be great sources of new readers – even if no link is involved.

Think carefully about who you want to target, choose publications that your audience reads, and find out who to contact. Often magazines will have a staff list at the front, or explore online to find out who writes the columns that you like.

Once you know who to contact, decide on your pitch: Personalised press releases work well, or a short and simple introductory email. Don’t forget that you’re trying to sell yourself to the journalist so explain to them why they, and importantly their readers, should care about you.

Don’t be disheartened if you don’t get a response straight away. Next time you have a good news story to share approach the same journalist so they get to know who you are. It may take several attempts before they feature you. Just keep trying and be sure not to bombard them with news and you should see results in time.

Building a good readership for your blog takes time and patience, but with the help of these link building techniques you should see results in time.

James Harper is the marketing manager at Boom Online Marketing. He writes on a range of subjects including link building and SEO.

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