11 Super Cool Myths of Link Building Busted

Blogs are always good for Search Engine Optimization. The reality is, blogs are simple software tools and that’s what you get by using good SEO plugins. Good keyword, categorization and content management are a start, but blogs are not much of a SEO asset unless they attract good back links. Here are some myths & facets about link building:

Linking

#1 Myth – “Build it and traffic will come”

Not many Businesses\Bloggers that start blogs have the patience to create great content and wait for others to find that content all on their own as a linking strategy. Without clicking on a link or finding it on a search engine, how will others find your blog? Content is King but only if you promote it in the right way.

Links from relevant, credible sources balanced with on: page keyword optimization make it easier for search engines to find, index and sort blog posts in search results.

If there’s an expectation for a company blog to rank well in search results, be sure to consider some of the following link building tactics:

#2 Myth – Create content and they will link

Fact : Create great content worth linking to.

No matter how many tactics you find here and elsewhere, there simply is no substitute for creating content that others may find useful. Look at blog posts that already rank well in search results and notice their structure, quantity of words and word placement in the URL and title of the posts.

RELATED : How to Build Links Successfully For Higher Search Rankings?

#3 Myth – All Backlinks are Good

Fact : Conduct Backlink analysis

Try to find out who is linking to competitor sites that are not linking to yours. Ask sites linking to multiple competitors to link to yours as well. If another web site or blog is already linking to multiple competitors, there is a chance they’ll link to your blog as well. It’s called the mutual understanding game. 🙂

#4 Myth – Commenting more and interacting with your blog users is Good

Fact : Make useful comments BUT don’t overdo it

Comments should always be useful, don’t spam your comments. Always be aware that overdoing anything is BAD. Google recently said that overdoing comments is a bad thing and would penalize such blogs…

RELATED : Brand Your Comments To Drive Traffic To Your Blog

#5 Myth – Using many social bookmarks will bring many hits

Fact : Encourage social bookmarks BUT don’t overdo it (Again)

I’ve seen sites with so many social bookmarking buttons with little content in it. Show links popular services like Digg, Delicious and Mixx in the blog post template code so they are visible for blog readers to use. Some social bookmarking services will make a copy of what you bookmark or a static web page of the bookmark including a do follow link back to the source (your blog). Always choose what social bookmark to use or use only popular social bookmarking buttons only.

RELATED : Promote Your Business/Product/Blog Through Orkut For Free!

#6 Myth – Posting articles only on one blog will make you famous

Fact : Guest write, get popular and get listed

‘Pen is mightier than a sword’ was an old saying for writers. In this age of technology it’s changed to ‘Content is mightier than anything else in the bloggers’ world. In the course of getting to know blogs that already rank well on the keyword phrases you’re targeting, you may notice that they often accept guest blog posts from others.

Contact the blog owner and suggest a compelling post that would be first and foremost, valuable to their readers. If it makes sense editorially to link from within the guest post to your own blog, be sure to use relevant keywords as the link text. Remember you are always welcome to write here! 😉

Try getting listed on other blogger’s blogrolls. It never hurts to ask another blog that you’re active with to see if they’d consider adding your blog to their blogroll or curated lists of blogs. Maybe you are friends with some good bloggers, you can ask them to add your site to their blogroll (don’t be shy now 🙂 )!

#7 Myth – Google, Yahoo and Bing will submit my info to directories

Fact : Submit to RSS and Blog directories.

Many directory links have no follow links or are not visited by a large volume of people, but making sure your blog and RSS feed are included in niche categories and collections of blogs can be a positive signal to search engines as well as to long tail users.

Many bloggers that aggregate large lists of topically specific blogs will cultivate blog directories as a easy way to find blogs on similar topics. If your blog isn’t on the niche list in those situations, you won’t be included.

RELATED : Submit Your Blog To Popular Search Engines

#8 Myth – I’m blogging now let’s keep that a secret

Fact : Be sure to include your blog URL in profiles and bios on social media sites.

Google follows a pattern called social media graph, which basically is what the public web is made up of linked pages that represent both documents and people. Google Search helps to make this information more accessible and useful. While most social media sites that allow users to add links to their profiles add no follow to the links, there are many that do not. Public profile links on LinkedIn and YouTube channels for example, are good links. Rather than focus on registering with 300+ sites using Know ‘em, just make sure that of the social media profiles you do set up include a link back to your blog.

#9 Myth – Software companies will sue me if I review their product

Fact : Write testimonials for services and software that you use.

No, No, they won’t sue you just for reviewing a software\product. People like their product getting noticed. So, if you are writing something good about the product they will be more happier. In cast you are writing something negative always remember healthy criticism is a good thing :).. Testimonials must be well written, genuine and specific in order to be useful for the service/product owner. Get at the essence of what’s great about the product or service and even add something unique. If you’ve written a review of the product/service on your blog, that can also get you a link from their press page.

#10 Myth – Contests? Giveaways? Oh no, that costs money!

Fact : Run a contest that may involve others dedicating to link back to your blog, it doesn’t have to be cash always.

Not everyone blogs only for money. Some people do it for fame BUT this can be tricky sometimes. Readers write blog posts and the first cut is based on which posts get the most traffic and presumably, links among other criteria. SO basically all you have to do is start a contest and let people write about it. In return as a gift\favor you can give them some tips, a back link to their blog or even write a guest post on their blog and share it with your readers.

Attract bloggers to write content for you. They’ll often cross: post it to their own blog with a link back to yours. Of course, you should be considerate and simply mention that this is ok, don’t ask them or require them to do it.

#11 Myth – I’m blogging and that’s all I will do

Fact : Review other blogs and offer support, a badge perhaps

We’ve done this with BIGLIST and it has resulted in over 64,000 inbound links. Focus on quality and be consistent. Also offer a version of the badge that does not include a link for those that want to display the “blog flare” but don’t or can’t link to it. You should include your logo on the badge for improved brand awareness whether there’s a link or not.

This article is written by Guest Author Sharath. He is a problogger and an SEO expert who blogs about SEO, social media, blogging tips at mYpassion. You can also follow him @thesharath on twitter!!

If you too like to write for HellBound Bloggers, then please check the details and guidelines.

33 thoughts on “11 Super Cool Myths of Link Building Busted”

  1. Neat! Very well compiled article. And yes, too many social bookmark buttons are confusing and a major turn-off!

    Reply
  2. A funny way to teach all the link building processes. Well written mate. Myth 5 like others hit mine blog too. I used too many bookmark buttons. But after conducting a serious analysis, I removed all of them and i left tweetmeme and Facebook button.

    Reply
  3. All the points are mentioned here ..nothing left un-said..

    nice write up
    .-= sudharsan @ technoskillonline’s last blog…Win Dell Inspiron Laptop Free – Sizlopedia Contest =-.

    Reply
  4. To the issue of good backlinks, let me just add that all bloggers should start being wary of trackbacks from blogging farms. We all accept them cos we think they will increase our backlink number but the sad truth is that once we accept the track, the autoblog deletes the links to our site and starts throwing up 404 errors which Google doesn’t like @ all. At the same time, you’ll be offering a one way backlink to an autoblog and since Google hates autoblogs, you also get penalised and probably your page rank comes crashing down :(.
    .-= Udegbunam Chukwudi’s last blog…Make Money Blogging By Daniel Scocco Short Review =-.

    Reply
  5. i agree with you | the myth #5 is true , at first i wrongly choose that path | but thanks to my friend 😉 now mt tweets and vote is worthful and reshare down well 😀

    Reply
  6. Yes comments should be proper and not should be overloaded,to make make quality linking we should consider your tips

    Reply
  7. You can find out your free backlink report at Backlinkwatch.com , it
    shows all the backlinks that you have received from other blogs and also
    whether it is nofollow or dofollow 🙂 🙂 [Common Sense 😉 }

    Off topic : Hey Hellblog 🙂 in the top commentators section there is also
    the blogengage link , kindly remove it if you don’t mind 😉 🙂

    Reply
  8. Link building is a very long time taking process.

    Few of them what you posted are not solid Myths 🙂

    more backlinks = more pagerank.

    Reply
  9. With so many people working hard for backlinks, it must be hard to get your blog really visible these days, unless you are lucky enough to focus on a topic that’s not discussed by many others. This is why I feel personally a little skeptical about their use to businesses when compared to traditional websites, which can still climb the search engine rankings using traditional link methods. I am sure many people here won’t agree with that!

    Reply
  10. Content is the king, no doubt. But, links also play a big role in the scheme of things that Google Search uses. Just to give an example, suppose you’ve a new site with PR 0 (means not many backlinks) and you write a great article that may be the first in the field. Your page will be listed somewhere at position 20 to 40 if it is a good article with lots of contents (king?), and it will be listed beyond 100 in search results if it is a normal article. Now, let’s say the same article is written by a well-known site of PR 8 (means a lot of backlinks), it will immediately come in top 10 search results and may be even in top 3. So, the only difference is the PageRank 8, that this site has collected from backlinks from a large number of sites.

    Therefore, backlinks do play a big role in addition to the content. This is of course, not to downplay the role of contents.

    Reply
  11. Hi,
    I totally agree with you on #3 and #5.Witout backlink i will be difficult to get success but getting free backlinks is not an easy thing. Generally people need to do a lot of work to get back links for their site. But as I know submitting your articles, you will be getting a free back link for your site.Again the Social Bookmarking guide serves as business guides for domestic purposes.Well thank you very much for putting your effort.

    Reply
  12. Without backlinks it is difficult to rank high on search engine..a new blog
    don’t have trust from search engine..
    second not enough content..
    also, without promotion it really hard for ranking high..still you high quality content will fails to rank..

    Established blogger don’t do any thing special their blog gets rank high because of their authority..of blog.
    Most important is how you select keyword and how you use long tail keywords in your posts is most important factor of getting traffic for any new blog. without backlinks it is really difficult to rank high..you need 10 times more content to rank for same keyword.

    Reply
    • Rahul, as you said “Established blogger don’t do any thing special their blog gets rank high because of their authority” BUT how do they become established bloggers? … simple they tooo played around with link buliding and SEO stuff 😀 thanks for commenting!!

      thanks
      Sharath
      http://thesharath.com/

      Reply
  13. Hi,,,
    All the tips are very useful and essential for link building.. According to me content of the blog, guest blogging in others blog and contest will improve more traffic..

    Reply
  14. Seriously, I don’t know much about link building. I learn a lot from your article. A first good step for me. Thanks, Sharath. 😉

    Reply
  15. We have to concentrate not only linking but also creating a good, unique content. So, this is to keep in mind that, onpage SEO firstly; then offpage SEO. So, why do you spend more time to get backlink without optimizing your page by Onpage SEO?

    Reply
    • Absolutely, creating the best content is the top #1 priority but when a post gets linked to other sites it naturally gets a high PR and gets found on search engines easily.

      As you said, a little bit of on page SEO is necessary which can be easily achieved by some plugins, if you’re using CMS like wordpress…

      thanks
      Sharath
      http://thesharath.com/

      Reply
  16. nice compilation of myths, there are loads of myths for link building and something that used to work maybe a year or two ago dosenot works anymore because of new and updated search engine algo… so keep oneself updated with the latest seo trend is the only way to do perfect link building or other seo stuff 🙂

    Reply
  17. i very dearly want to start a contest but due to my inability to give away cash, i just could not…your post has inspired me a bit

    Reply
  18. I agree with you in the points #3 and #5. We should check frequently for the inlinks. Also only proper and promary bookmarking sites are enough to make sufficient traffic.

    Reply
    • Yeah, That’s write.

      Even if you have good articles, you want to have some social bookmarking and some backlinks. They are the one who can give u some initial visitors.

      Reply

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