Building links is an important part of promoting your website(s) and building an online presence. The more you get involved in different places around the web the more you will be noticed and the more traffic you will ultimately get. This is what you might call the “Prolific Principle”. The more prolific you are, the more your “presence” will grow.

This applies to content – publish as much fresh, original content as you can – and it applies to links pointing to your web properties. Be prolific – get out there – a lot.

In an article published a couple years ago on the HubSpot Blog Peter Caputa compares the link building process to passing through the “grades” you go through in high school. The article is called Did You Graduate From Link Building High School Yet?

Peter suggests to really master this process will take 4 years (like it does in high school), and that you have to move through the stages gradually. I think this is probably an exaggeration. If you get good advice you should be able to move through the stages quite a bit more quickly than that, and I believe the stages overlap more than he suggests. Nevertheless, the article makes some good suggestions. Here is my summary with comments of my own…

In Stage 1 (Grade 9) you should build links that don’t require anyone else’s help. These links include directory listings, many of which you can get for free, and references on social media sites where (among other things) you can create a profile – also for free.

I would add to this you should try to get at least one or two links from established sites that will result in your site being indexed as quickly as possible – perhaps from a friend or colleague. If you own a local business look for local business directories. Not only can you get listed there, but you can find other people you might exchange links with.

In Stage 2 (Grade 10) you should launch a business blog and begin adding content on a regular basis. Then start publishing articles on sites like Ezinearticles.com, GoArticles.com and others. You can use a submission service like SubmitYourArticle.com for distribution to a large number of sites.

As I outline in a previous post about article marketing this is a good way to get links (by adding them to your “resource box” on each article) and to build a reputation as an “expert” in your field. Of course this requires writing original, interesting articles. If you are stumped for original content you can just do reviews of other people’s articles or products (like this article) or you might consider using an article writing service like Textbrokers.

In Stage 3 (Grade 11) you should start networking with as many people as possible who share your interests. The object is to make yourself visible. This requires participation and “engagement”.

One way of doing this is to find a number of bloggers in your niche and start making meaningful comments on their posts. This is called blog commenting.

This will gradually introduce you to fellow bloggers and your link in each comment will attract a small amount of traffic from other commenters or readers. Once you gain enough confidence you can approach some of the bloggers you have met this way to do a guest post on their blog. That way you can leverage their readership to enhance your own visibility.

By this stage your blog should have a fair bit of valuable content so you should register it with as many blog networks as possible. MyBlogLog.com is a good place to start. This will help you meet other bloggers with similar interests and will give you some tools for tracking your traffic as it gradually grows.

You can also use other social media to gain visibility for specific blog posts. Digg and Stumbleupon are good places to start. You can also post references (and links) to specific blog posts on your Facebook wall, Twitter, and wherever else is appropriate.

Remember, the objective here is to build connections with key people and use the connections to build visibility. Content is the key. Build content on your blogs, in articles, and with guest posts.

In Stage 4 (Grade 12) you become a power blogger creating all kinds of content: articles, training courses, white papers, webinars and videos. All of these things attract readers, links, and subscribers. If you have done it correctly you should be an important, highly visible part of a vibrant community, and you should be at the top of the search engine results for your most important keywords.

Many webmasters and bloggers think of “link building” as a difficult, boring, mechanical task where the objective is to pile up mysterious things called “links” for the sake of influencing the Search Engines.

This is an old-fashioned, outdated and increasingly ineffective way to tackle the job of putting yourself on the map. In the rapidly evolving world of social media it’s all about getting noticed by real people. And the best way to do that is by being strategic and creative in what you publish.

Link Baiting Revisited

One common practice, much discussed four or five years ago, is “link baiting”. The idea behind link baiting is to publish something so unique, compelling, funny, interesting, entertaining or valuable that others will simply link to it to tell their own readers about it.

Now in case you think this technique is outdated, consider how Youtube videos go “viral” (another concept that is starting to sound old-fashioned). Somebody publishes an outrageous, funny, disgusting, cute or whatever video and the chain reaction begins. Person A tells person B who tells person C and on it goes until a million or so people have watched it.

The same thing happens with blog posts (although usually in a less dramatic way). The trick is to say something interesting, original, or controversial and then tell people about it to get the buzz going. The buzz is helped along by people linking to you.

This article from way back in 2006 describes 5 different types of “hooks” used in writing articles and posts intended to get a buzz. The hooks are News, Contrary, Attack, Resource and Humor. See the article for more detail on each of these.

Strategy: Target influential sites or hot topics

The fastest and most effective way to make a significant splash is to focus on influential websites or blogs within your niche. Find a post or video about some hot topic that is getting a lot of exposure and feedback. Then use that atention – that buzz – to bring attention to your views.

Remember, your objective should not just be to “get a link” from these sites. It is more important to get their attention – make yourself visible – Expose Yourself!, by contributing to the conversation in a significant way. That way you may turn other bloggers into allies in your quest for online success.

Blog Commenting – also revisited

The most obvious and easiest thing you can do is add comments to widely read blog posts. Unless you want to become known as the local attack dog you should try to come across as positive and supportive. But don’t just agree with everything they say. Try to add something new and interesting to the conversation.

Unfortunately most well-read blog posts have many comments and yours will just be one among all the others. So you want to do what you can to stand out from the crowd. One effective way is just to write a longer comment than everyone else. This makes it look like you have something substantial to say about the topic, and it also looks like you have put some real thought into what you have said. Of course it helps to actually have something interesting to say.

Taking blog commentary to the next level

If you find an article or post that really warrants it, go ahead and write a review or commentary and publish it in your own blog. This works especially well for current “hot” topics – or blog posts that are getting a lot of attention.

Make sure you let the original author know about your review. Either send them an email directly, or mention your review in a comment on the original. That way you are exposing your own stuff to readers of the original.

The objective is to “piggy-back” on the success or popularity of the original. At the same time you can bring yourself to the attention of the original author, and gain an ally who can help you become more widely known in your chosen niche.

Other Resources:

Link Baiting & Effective Link Building

Once you have done your keyword analysis and settled on a Master Keyword List for your web efforts you should begin creating content that focuses on the full range of keywords in your list. By “content” I mean articles, faqs, how-tos, blog posts, videos, photos, etc., etc.

This content will make up the substance of your website or blog. But it will also be used on supporting sites that link to your site or blog. This process of building supporting content demonstrates how content creation and link building are closely related.

When you create a blog post on a blog other than your own, or when you create a Hub Page, Squidoo lense or Youtube video these will not only be valuable content on their own, but will link back to your site or blog. Placing related content on already established sites is a great way to enhance the search engine ranking of your own site.

But it is important to remember that creating content is not just about link building. Creating content is at the heart of building a successful website. After all, it is your content that people want to see and read. They will not come to your website just because it is there. Or if they follow a link to your site and they don’t find any useful content they won’t stick around for long.

Organizing Your Website Using a “Silo” Structure

It is tempting to just start creating pages within your site or blog focusing on specific keywords (or groups of keywords.) This is certainly a lot better than nothing, but working with a large keyword list can be confusing and very time-consuming.

That is why it is usually helpful to organize your site into categories and sub-categories where each category lets you focus on a group of important keywords. For example, if you have a “pet training” site, you may have categories such as “dog training”, “cat training”, “bird training”, and so on.

The content in each of these categories or “silos” will have some natural cohesiveness, and will allow you to organize your content around specific groups of keywords.

This structure will also provide new opportunities to create content, and it will often suggest new keywords as you go along. This lets you develop your content in a fuller, richer way than would be the case if you just focused on your original master keyword list.

Organizing content this way is often referred to as using a “silo” approach to building a website. Each silo is a major category within the overall structure of your site (or blog). And each silo can have sub-categories (and corresponding sub-sets of keywords) within it.

Creating Supporting Content in External Sources

The silo system has other important advantages. One of the most important is that it gives you a very helpful approach to building supporting content in external sources such as other blogs, Squidoo, Hub Pages, Youtube as well as article sites such as Ezinearticles, GoArticles, and so on.

Each of these supporting resources will have links pointing back to the main silo page, or some other page within that specific silo. This is a great way to build links from highly relevant, keyword focused content found on already established sites.