Build the Easiest Backlinks First Most link building tactics fail because of lack of effort on the part of the link builder. Failing to generate momentum at the onset of the campaign is the kiss of death. Why is establishing momentum so critical to success when implementing link building tactics? Energy generates forward movement. Forward movement produces happy thoughts. A link builder with happy thoughts keeps building implementing link building tactics. The best way to do that is to create the easier links first and tackle the tougher ones later. Build Internal Links An internal link is a link placed on a website to another page on that same Internet site. Start your link building tactics off by adding a few internal links on your blog posts. Make sure to link them to the pages you re trying to rank. Anchor Text Usage Google will not penalize you for using your money keywords as anchor text on internal links. Use your money keywords! 1
Example of an Internal Link How Many Internal Links Should You Build? That depends on how many pages your website has. I like to add at least one internal link on every page of my site, including my blog posts. Once you have that taken care of you can move on to the next easiest links to build. Internal Link Building Tactics Link Building and Internal Linking: A Tutorial for Beginners Internal Link Building Best Practices Build Links on Your Existing Sites Being the savvy marketer that you are, you most likely own several websites. Go ahead and place a link to the site you re building links for on each of them. Anchor Text Usage You MUST use caution with the anchor text that you use in your link building tactics. Google will slap your site down fast if they sense you are trying to manipulate them. Use natural anchor text, as well as naked URLs in most of the backlinks you build. 2
Example of a Backlink from One of Your Existing Sites How Many Links Should You Place? If you have more than five, I would suggest only putting links on the sites that are most relevant to your money site. That way you re not getting to much link juice from non-relevant sites. Estimated Time to Build the Internal Links Again, this depends on how many other websites you own. You should be able to place five of them within an hour. What If You Don t Own Any Other Websites? No big deal. Just skip this day and move on to the next. These will not be your strongest links anyways. Build Links on Your Existing YouTube Videos The next links you should be building are on the descriptions of your YouTube Videos. Chances are you have a couple of videos uploaded like I did. Go ahead and slap your link on them right at the top of your description link. You will not be able to use anchor text with this link, though. All you need to do is paste the URL you are linking to at the top of the video description then hit save. Note: Most of the link building tactics shared on this page will yield nofollow links. But that doesn t mean they won t help improve your rankings. Right now, though, you should be focused on establishing momentum with your link building. Build away. 3
Example of a Backlink Placed in the Description of a YouTube Channel Should the Videos I Place a Link on Be Related to My Website? The highest quality links you can build are links in which targeted end users will see. That way they can click through to your site and then buy something from you. If you sell red furry slippers, you would love to have your link placed on a video that was all about red furry slipper fashions. The more relevant the videos are to your website the better off you ll be. What If My YouTube Videos Are Not Relevant to My Site? Then place the link anyway. Just warn your YouTube viewers what your site is about beforehand. Otherwise, your user engagement metrics will tank. Use something like this: Here is a website that I own that sell fishing poles http://mywebsite.com. If you re not into fishing, don t waste your time checking it out. But watch this video instead. Estimated Time to Build YouTube Description Links As before, the answer to this question is dependent on how many videos you have. But count on at an hour at most for this project. Get Your Website Listed on Relevant Business Directories As a website owner or marketer, finding new clients can be a chore. Back in the day all you needed to do was place an ad in the Yellow Pages. Then sit back and wait for your phone and cash register to start ringing. Today, folks just go online for the information they need about the product or service you sell. You should get your website listed on as many relevant business listings as possible. Getting a backlink posted on these sites is super easy. Start with Google, Bing, and Yelp. Those three listing sites are universal in relevancy for every business. Grab them first. A good place to start is this post by HubSpot, The Ultimate List: 50 Online Local Business Directories. Add Your Website to Google s Business Directory The first thing you need to do is visit https://www.google.com/business/. Then click the green Start Now button. 4
Enter your business information and click blue Continue button. Click the box confirming you are authorized to manage the business you just listed, then click the blue Continue button. 5
Next, you will need to establish the company listing by either telephone or mail. If you can confirm by phone, I suggest you go that route as it is much faster than having to wait for Google to send you a postcard with the verification pin on it. Once you have verified your account, you will receive instant notification. Depending on your preference you can ask for some help from Google s wizard to help you flesh out your business listing and Google Plus page. But I ll leave you to handle that later. For now, I just want to make sure your listing gets created and your website link added to your profile. Go ahead and click No and then click the Get Started. 6
Once on this page, click the Add Website link. That way you can get your backlink created on the page. Add your website address and click Apply. 7
Google will then want to spend a little time to process your listing. In the meantime, you ll just have to wait for that to take place. Notice that your website link is listed on a new Google Plus Social Media page too. So not only did you get your link added to Google s Business directory, but you also received a second social media link from them. Add Your Website to Bing s Directory Adding your business to Bing s Business Directory is another link you want to build. 8
Start by visiting https://www.bingplaces.com/. Enter information about your business. If they do find your business, it means you already have a listing. Then it s just a matter of logging in and adding your website address to your listing if it s not already listed. If Bing cannot find your business in their directory, then you will need to click the Create New Business button. 9
Add your business name, your website address, and then click Next. Enter the category of your business. It s important to get right if you want to fully take an advantage of the traffic Bing s business listings receives every day. 10
Add the rest of your business information and then click Next. Depending on the nature of your business, you may or may not want to include the hours of operation for your business. Whether you do is entirely up to you. Either fill it out and click Next or skip it by clicking Skip to Last. 11
Once you set the account up, Bing will need to confirm your account. Once you verify your account, your backlink should be live within a few weeks. 12
Build a Link to Your Business on Yelp Business listings are the easiest link building tactics to set up. Here I show you how to set up a Yelp listing. First, start at Yelp.com. Type in your business name and location to see if your business listing already exists. If Yelp cannot find an existing listing for your business, you will get an option to add your company. 13
Add your business information and click on Add Business. Yelp will then send you an email confirmation. Head over to your email to verify your Yelp listing. 14
Yelp will review your business before they post your listing live. You will get an email when Yelp approves your listing. There s your link! Online Directory Lists & Link Building Tactics The Ultimate List: 50 Online Local Business Directories 32 Business Listing Sites That Will Get You Referral Traffic The Most Important Local Business Directories for SEO What are the best practices for submitting to directories? Build Backlinks on Your Social Media Profiles Posting your website address on your social media profiles is one of the smarter link building tactics you can do for a couple of reasons: 1. It will generate referral traffic to your site from those social media sites. 2. Google expects legitimate sites to have these kinds of links. 15
For this link building tactics guide, I will only be posting links on my personal profiles on Google Plus, LinkedIn, Facebook Page, and Twitter. I will also describe the process to placing a link on each of those platforms. If you already know how to do that, I recommend you move on to the next section in the guide. Setting Up Your Twitter Account & Backlink When adding a link to your website on Twitter, the first thing you will need to do is sign up for an account, if you do not already have one. This process only takes a few minutes and is well worth your time. First, go to Twitter.com and click on the sign-up button. After you have done that, fill out the required information. Twitter will ask for your name, phone or email, and a password you would like to use for the account. 16
Twitter will then ask for your country and phone number. Now, you will need to find a username that isn t already in use. Twitter will give you recommendations if you re having trouble coming up with one on your own. The next step is just a short welcome page, click the Let s Go button, and you ll be on your way to getting a Twitter link. 17
Choose a few topics you might be interested in following. You can import your contacts if you d like. If not, then no worries, you can always find your friends later. Twitter asks that you follow some of their recommendations just to get you started. You can always unfollow them later. 18
You can decide if you want Twitter to notify you of any activity or not. Welcome to your new Twitter account! You should head to your email and confirm your email address now. After you ve verified your email address, click on your name to get to your profile page. 19
Now, click on edit profile. You have finally reached the page where you can add your website to your Twitter profile. Go ahead and fill out your bio and don t forget to add your site, so you ll get the link. You re all set! Of course, if you already have a Twitter account, the process goes much more quickly! Example of a Backlink Placed in a Twitter Profile Setting Up Your LinkedIn Account & Backlink To create a link in a LinkedIn profile, go to LinkedIn.com to sign up for an account. Fill out the required information and click on Join Now. Provide your country and zip code. LinkedIn will now ask you if you are a student, what your job title is, and the name of your business. Click on Next. 20
LinkedIn asks you what you re interested in to help personalize your experience. Check your email inbox for a verification code and add it to the LinkedIn verification page. Add a professional looking photo as your profile picture. You can get the LinkedIn app if you d like. If not, just click on Next. Next is where you can start filling out your profile. Go ahead and click on Contact and you ll be able to edit your contact information. Don t forget to add your website link. Now your link is in your LinkedIn profile. Example of a Backlink Placed in a LinkedIn Profile Setting Up Your Facebook Account & Link When you want a link to your website from Facebook, the first thing you will need to do is sign up for a personal Facebook account at Facebook.com. If you already have a Facebook account, click here. Facebook will ask you for your name, email or phone number, password, birthday, and gender. Go ahead and fill out that information and click on sign up. Add some recommended friends if you d like. You can do this later, too. You can also hook up your account to your email accounts if you d like to find friends quickly. Facebook will send you a confirmation link via email. You won t be able to move forward without confirming your account first. Now that you have successfully verified your account, you can move on. It s a good idea to add a profile image and fill out the about section of your account. Now that that s settled go to the upper right-hand corner and click the drop down arrow. You can then go to Create Page to create your business page. There are several different types of businesses you can promote on Facebook. Choose the closest option for your business. Make sure to add a description. It s a good idea to add your keyword at least once in this section to help your page show up in search results. Add a business profile picture. Add your page to favorites to receive notifications when any activity happens on your page. Such as comments, likes, and messages. 21
You can set up your preferred target audience next. Once you reach your new business profile page, click on About in the left sidebar to let people know more about your company, including the link to your website. Your page and link will look something like the screenshot below. Example of a Backlink Placed in a Facebook Page Profile Setting Up Your Google Plus & Link If you followed my above directions on how to add your business to Google s business listings you will already have a Google Plus page set up with your backlink on it. However, in the case that you do not want to register your business in Google s directory, you can still create a Google Plus Brand Page. Before you can do that, you first need to set up a Google account if you don t already have one. You can get started here: https://accounts.google.com/ Click on Create Account. Provide the information Google needs to set up your account. Then click on Next Step. You will then need to agree to Google s terms. Now you can continue to your new Google account. You can now set up your Google My Business page to create your link. First, go to http://business.google.com and click Sign In. Use the credentials you just created for your new Google account. Choose your type of business. At this point, create a business page name, enter your website, type of page, and then agree to terms and create the page. You can find your link by clicking on the box in the upper right-hand corner and choosing the G+ logo. That will take you to your Google Plus page. That s it! 22