Link Building: The Key to Search Engine Rankings and Traffic

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Additional Tutorials

1. How to submit articles through TKA Pro’s Guest Posting System (GPS).
Video (.wmv)
Transcript (.pdf)

2. How to submit articles to Ezinearticles.com.
Video (.wmv)
Transcript (.pdf)

3. How to submit articles to Goarticles.com.
Video (.wmv)
Transcript (.pdf)

4. How to create Hubpages.
Video (.wmv)
Transcript (.pdf)

5. How to trade links with other websites.
Video (.wmv) (coming soon)
Transcript (.pdf) (coming soon)

Video Transcript and Important Points

(0:02:08) What Can Be Done In the First Month?
(0:02:39) Guest Posting System (GPS)
(0:03:34) Connect Content
(0:03:46) Submit Single Articles
(0:03:57) Different Types of Links to Avoid in the First Month
(0:05:29) How Many Links Must You Have Before Day 31?
(0:06:15) Day 31 – Blogroll Links
(0:08:05) Day 61 More Blogroll Links Including from Bigger Sites
(0:09:58) Links Pointing to Keyword Targeted Posts

Transcript
We’re back for another video. We are going to talk about how to promote your sites. This is obviously a very important step. If you put up a site and put a ton of articles on it, it basically won’t do anything unless it’s promoted properly. The primary thing that Google looks at, to determine whether your site is worth anything or not, are links. It looks at the links that are pointing at your site. So, that is how we get Google to trust the site, we get other sites to link to your site. Today we’re going to talk about how we are going to do that in a safe manner.

There are definitely wrong ways to do it. If you do it the wrong way and build too many links too fast, or if you get the wrong links in the beginning, it is going to make your site look bad. If you get the right links in the beginning, and you do it the right way and you use the correct timing, it is going to make your site look good. Today we are going to talk about how to do that.

We are going to split it up into different time periods. We will talk about what you will do in the first, second and third months and what you would do after that. We will be building links over time. We will be starting with relatively few in the beginning and then as time goes on you will be able to do more and more linking.

We are going to talk about the basic concepts in this video, and then give some supplements to you that will show you how to execute each of the methods that we are talking about. Those will be different videos. Also, for your convenience, we are going to post this timeline, how you should adding links over time, in a Word.doc, and we will also link to that and post that so that over time you can go back to it and reference it. If there are any changes we need to make at all, we will be changing them on that doc so that everybody has that update.

(0:02:08) What Can Be Done In the First Month?
In the first month, the most important part of the process is getting single links from different sites. The opposite of that would be getting hundreds and hundreds of links from one site, which wouldn’t have the same effect. We want to focus on getting single links from different sites out there. There are some different methods you can use for doing that.

(0:02:39) Guest Posting System (GPS)
For example, we have our Guest Posting System on the Keyword Academy that allows you to get out there and submit articles to a whole bunch of different sites. If you come into the Guest Posting System (GPS) and you add a new article, it is going to give you the option of submitting that articles to a whole bunch of different sites. You have a bunch of different sites to choose from that are in different categories. You are going to figure out which category your site is in, and down here, as you can see, there are all these different sites you can submit to. So, you would submit to those sites and get those single links pointing back to your sites. We will post a separate video that will show you how to do this. This is just one of many methods you can use to get this type of link.

(0:03:34) Connect Content
Also we have Connect Content in the KWA that allows you to trade with other members.

(0:03:46) Submit Single Articles
You can also submit single articles to sites like Ezinearticles.com or Hubpages.com or Squidoo.com, or GoArticles.com. These are different places where you can submit your content in exchange for getting links back to your site.

(0:03:57) Different Types of Links to Avoid in the First Month
There are some different types of links you want to avoid in the first month because they are going to have a negative effect. Those types of links are mass bookmarking links. There are tools out there that will take your site and submit it to hundreds and hundreds of social bookmarking sites. There are also tools out there that will deliver your articles to hundreds and hundreds, sometimes thousands of different sites–mass article distribution. Those are also links that you really want to avoid in the first month.

Another way of getting multiple links at a time would be getting a Blogroll link from another site, (that is a link from the sidebar of their site.) The site would link to you from all their different pages. That is also the type of link that we do not want to pursue in this time period because what we are trying to do is build links in a way that would be natural. It doesn’t make any sense that you launch your site today and tomorrow, or next week, you have thousands and thousands of links from all of these different places.

Another negative aspect of those types of links is that overall they are weaker links. There is no strength in those links. Sometimes, later down the road, you might use them but you would never use them in the first month. So, in the first thirty days, you would never use them.

(0:05:29) How Many Links Must You Have Before Day 31?
Day thirty-one, a month into it, there will be more things you can do. Before you start day thirty-one you want to make sure that you already have 25 single links for your site. So, during the first month you are going to have to get almost a link a day so that you have 25 links from different sites. Just keep in mind that you have to get links from 25 different sites before you start day 31.

Say day 31 is here and you only have 10 links. Well, you still have some work to do before you move on, and that’s okay. It is not going to kill you if you’re behind a little bit time-wise; you just need to make sure that you have them done before you start.

(0:06:15) Day 31 – Blogroll Links
At this point you can start to try to find some sites to do blogroll trades with. The only thing I want to add, in this case, is that you don’t want to trade with really big sites. Some sites out there, like problogger.net for example, has 8,400 pages in Google’s index. So, if you got a blogroll from that site, all of a sudden you are getting 8,400 links at once. That is too many for a site that is very new. So, you wouldn’t want to make a trade with a site that big at this time.

What I would look for at this time are sites that are pretty small, sites that have fewer than 300 pages in Google’s index. You can do a search this way: site:sitehere.com and then search. It will show you how many pages that site has. Find small sites; execute 2 or 3 blogroll trades. We will make a supplemental video that shows you how to find blogroll trades, but you want to find 2 or 3 during this time period.

You can also work on your single links still during this time period. We would like you to get 25 more during this time period, so you will be up to 50 links. You still want to avoid methods for getting links that are going to build tons and tons of links at a time, such as mass social bookmarking, mass article distribution, and blogroll trades with huge sites. You want to avoid those during this time period.

(0:08:05) Day 61 More Blogroll Links Including from Bigger Sites
You have been building links for a couple of months. Your site now has a lot more links than it did when you started. You want to make sure you have 50 single links from different sites before you start here. That will allow you to get more links and some more aggressive types of links during this time period.

During this time period you can do blogroll trades with bigger sites like problogger.com. After you have done the smaller blogroll trades the month before, you have 50 links from different sites, your site will be a lot more ready to do blogroll trades with bigger sites. You can open up the floodgates a little bit in this time period, and do a whole bunch of blogroll trades. I would say, during this time period, you could do up to 15 blogroll trades which is probably going to be the upper end of blogroll trades you are going to do. If you did more, the list would start to look pretty long.

I may have up to 20 on courtneytuttle.com. My blogroll links are over here. You can see I have about 20 here and that’s as many as you want to have. This list is decently long, but you don’t want to make it any longer than that.

You are going to keep working on single links during this time period. Single links are something you are always going to work on. Single links are the safest type of links, so you are going to continue to work on those. Again, you want to avoid any of the mass link-building stuff like social bookmarking or article distribution during this time period.

(0:09:58) Links Pointing to Keyword Targeted Posts
By day 90 you will have created a pretty significant amount of links. From here on out the success that you have with your site is going to be determined primarily by the links that point to your keyword targeted posts. You would take a post, for example like the one we put in another video, on Electric Scooters for Kids. Our success with this post is going to be determined primarily by the links that point at this post, or the links we get for this URL. By this point our site is ready for us to just come in and create additional links for this post, so that we can move up for our keyword, which is in this case ‘electric scooters for kids.’

So, the name of the game at this point is to continue adding links that point at our keyword targeted posts, and we are going to watch them move up over time. We don’t need to come in and do 20 at once for this post, we’re going to add one or two links and then we can wait for a while, for a week or a couple of weeks, and see how it’s going to go. You will be able to watch yourself move up, and continue linking to your posts until you reach your desired ranking. And that’s the name of the game.

As long as you follow this timeline, and you build it up safely over time, you will really lower your risk of getting your site in trouble.

It takes time. Time has to pass for you to be able to get traffic. Time has to pass for Google to trust you. So, if you are at day 60 and you’re not seeing much traffic, or just a little traffic, don’t be super surprised. That is totally normal. It is going to be a month or two later down the road that the benefit of the work you have done will come. So, be patient, if you’re starting to worry about it talk in the forums with other people. There are a lot of people in our program now that have been through this. They have put in a lot of work, they had to wait, and they’ve had to be patient. They’ve gone through that time period where they wonder, ‘is this really going to happen?’ I’ve been through that. Mark’s been through that. There are tons of people in the forums who have been through it, so talk to people in the forums. They know how it happens. They’ve seen it happen in their own sites before. It is going to work out for everybody.

The only thing that I want to add at the end is that there are going to be some of you who already have sites. Maybe you have had a site for six months or so, so you might be able to pick up a little later on in this timeline. Look at your site, look at how many links you have, how many links have you been getting over the past couple of months. If over the past couple of months you have already been able to get 50 links from different sites, then you are already further along in the process, you’re already at Day 60 right now.

Some of you might already have a bunch of blogroll trades; you might have 100 links from different sites and 10 blogroll trades. If you’re at that situation then you are already past day 90. You can open up the floodgates and get a whole bunch of links. You can get more blogroll trades, and you don’t have to worry too much about volume. So, some of you will have to look at where your site is at and make a determination of where you are in that timeline, and how much work has been done, how many links have been done.

In some situations you are going to have sites that already have traffic before you come to us. That is going to be a really good situation as you are going to be able to use our tools, like the Guest Posting System, which is going to help you supplement what you have and move up for the ranking s you already have and make more money than you already are. If you are in that situation, just take a look where you’re at, try to match yourself up to where you are on the timeline. If you are struggling to figure that out by yourself, then maybe you should post in the forum about what you have done so far, how many links you have, how many links you’ve been able to create in the last couple of months and some other people can help you to figure out exactly where you’re at.

Mark, before we finish up, are there any questions that you have, or anything else you want to add?

Mark: I’m sure that as people finish watching this they’re going to have a lot of questions. So, what I would say is watch the tutorials that we will create, that walk you through how to do each of the things Court outlined. But, more than anything else, I want to plant it in your head that you need to come back and watch this video fairly frequently. This whole question about ‘how many, how fast?’ with link building causes people more frustration and headache than anything else. So, if you just need a reality check and you need to get focussed and centered again, come back and watch this video. It is going to work, you just have to give it time to work and you have to be consistent in your effort. I hope by watching this video a lot of times will always convince you to stay on the right track.

Take care and we will talk to you in the next video.