While many of us are too busy trying to increase massive backlinks to our website or home business blog, for the good of succeeding in search engine rankings, there is one aspect of link building that may be neglected – Natural Link Building.
What is Natural Link Building
“Natural Linking” is said to take place when many bloggers link to the same site or blog. The mere fact that many people painstakingly link to a specific site and recommend their readers check via a hyperlink text the site or post clearly demonstrates a big vote of confidence to this site and contents . I suspect there’s some truth behind SEO consultants’ claim that search engines have built their ranking algorithms based on existence of natural linking taking place.
Natural links usually takes place by deep linking to the website or blog, proving yet again how important deep links can be to improve your link building strategy. This was discussed in my post on deep links so do check it out if you’ve missed it.
An Easy Way To Natural Link Building
I’ve actually been doing natural link exchanges with other friends for a long time but recently found a better and more efficient way to do this. Well this tip works much better for bloggers who have a whole lot of friends who are bloggers too. If your circle of friends in the blogging community is relatively small, you could still use this tip, but you’d probably take a little longer to find your potential partners, that’s all. (here’s a post which may just help you get started in no time). Anyway, that ought to be a temporary phase given that we all agree your home business success depends a great deal on how successful you are at building good relationships with other bloggers.
Identify Partners, Keyword Phrases
- The first step is selecting your keyword phrases that you want as your anchor text to link to your blog or web site. In this tutorial, we will use the keyword phrase ‘Make Money Online‘.
- Secondly you should try to identify some blogs that have used or written posts containing similar text words ’make money online‘. This is where having a big list of your blogging friends can really help expedite your search. In this tutorial we’re going to use Work From Home Business‘ peterleehc.com/blog, but it should work for any other sites that you are interested in.
- Now simply type: ‘make money online -category -tag -archives site:peterleehc.com/blog’. The (-) helps to remove similar posts on these categories. You’ll then be presented with all the posts which have the keyword phrase ‘ make money online’.
Inform and Propose Natural Link Exchanges to other Bloggers
This is the easiest part. You have now identified a suitable post from your favorite blogger or friend which has the same keyword phrase that you are targeting on your blog. Your final task is to email him and propose a natural link exchange, providing your own post too for his consideration. Simple!
I’ve found from my own experience that doing this extra effort goes a long way in getting a natural link exchange done with other bloggers very quicky. We’ve always talked about the importance of providing a solution to our customer’s problems. Well it looks like we could use this lesson we have learned and apply it to our natural link partners too isn’t it.
Building Your Natural Links…well Naturally
1. A good strategy to do such natural link exchanges with a good number of blogs is to make it seem as natural as possible. This means try not to exchange too many links with the same blogger or the same post and I’m pretty sure you do have lots of posts you’ve written with the same keyword phrases.
2. Make your links look natural so do make an effort to blend in the anchor text of words nicely into your paragraph you’ve selected. So don’t use words like “check this post” or “read more from this post on..”
3. One good thing that may benefit both bloggers is that if you do this correctly, your readers may even appreciate your post even more as you’re providing more value added substance to your post.
4. Besides your usual directory submissions, article submissions, blog commenting which have their own merits in link building, having your fair share of natural link building, gives that much needed boost to your link building strategy. Besides it gives a good balance in in your overall link building techniques and strategy.
It may do you good not to think of natural link building purely for SEO at least not directly. More links can mean more avenues to generate traffic and if you have quality content people will be willing to link to it. Remember the definition of “natural link building” when I first started this post? Well It’s important that all these links appear natural to Google to be able to get in its good books making it seem more organic than an enforced link building task. Well If we can do this all I can say is that it will help us move from a baby step to taking a giant LEAP in doing well for your work at home business.
What did I miss? Do you have other interesting ways of doing natural link building that you want to share? Drop me a comment and share them as well as some thoughts.
Grab The Bookmarketer For Your Site
Did you miss any of these?:
- Natural Link Building-Does It Exist?
- Here’s A Smarter Link Building Strategy To Get Top Search Engine Ranking
- Backlink Building To Google Top Search Engine Ranking: What I learned
- Blog Carnival of Link Building, Blogging Tips,Traffic Secrets
- Who Else Wants Free Backlinks To Their Home Business Blogs
January 24, 2009 at 11:01 am
A couple things I’d like to point out (my opinion at least) –
1. I think it’s fair to note, once you ask for an exchange it’s no longer “natural” in the true sense of the word.
To save any beginner confusion, Natural Linking is the act of one blogger linking to another due to reasons of their own…not due to prompting from one side to the other (exchange requests for example).
2. That said, I wouldn’t say it’s usually a deep-link, although that is the best for the one receiving the link. In my experience at least, it’s usually seen as, Dennis@domain.com (homepage) as an example.
3. Is it best to use specific keywords when deep-linking? I know it’s best when linking to the homepage.
However, I’ve heard many times (with no definitive proof thus far) that when deep-linking it is best to use the actual post title when applicable (don’t force it).
Example: I loved Dennis’s post entitled, “post title here”.
Overall a very informative post. I will keep these *tricks* in mind.
Dennis Edells last blog post..FINAL CALL: $100 Blog Review Contest Ends The 31st!
January 24, 2009 at 11:45 am
@Dennis Edell: Thanks Dennis for sharing your thoughts. You’re right to say it’s no longer natural once we asked for a link exchange. But we’re simulating a natural linking scenario. Not sure how we can make it more natural. If we do nothing, nothing will take place. You’re right we should try to link more to the homepage than internal pages as that’s what I’ve practised in my link building strategy.
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Peter
January 29, 2009 at 3:41 pm
“You’re right we should try to link more to the homepage than internal pages as that’s what I’ve practiced in my link building strategy.”
Whoa there, that’s not what I said and certainly not what I meant.
I said when one is naturally linking to another, they usually just pick the home page. However, overall you want a LOT more internal links then pointing to your homepage.
January 29, 2009 at 6:37 pm
@Dennis Edell: OK Dennis, thanks for clarifying your earlier comment.
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Peter
Online Business Opportunities
January 24, 2009 at 11:16 am
Link Building is one of the many factors that can improve your site traffic and overall popularity on search engines! Nice post!
Bash Boshs last blog post..Use Feed Ads to Boost your Earnings
January 24, 2009 at 12:17 pm
@Bash Bosh: Thanks for dropping by. Well it’s something you have to get busy every day if you are serious about your business.
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Peter
Work At Home Ideas and Opportunities
January 24, 2009 at 4:34 pm
My experience has been that usually if you are very active in the blogosphere link building tends to become a natural and almost even automatic process. i.e. People will sometimes just link to your or mention you in a post simply because they like you or liked your article.
Gerald Webers last blog post..When the Ban Hammer Comes Down on StumbleUpon
January 25, 2009 at 11:32 am
@Gerald Weber: Hi Gerald, yes that’s the benefit of being active in your community. Your friends would willingly link to you once you’ve established your relationship with them.
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Peter Lee
Passive Income Ideas
January 24, 2009 at 8:25 pm
Nice read.
Business Minders last blog post..Business Applications (Freeware)
January 25, 2009 at 12:56 am
Good stuff, Peter. As you know, you and I have done a little bit of this, but most of us probably don’t do it all that often. However, it’s one good reason to allow people to write guest posts on your blog, because it gives them the chance to not only show themselves and their writing style, but also add some natural links back to the writer’s site, which of course helps build up your site also.
Of course, it also never hurts to, whenever possible, include someone else’s link in your post if you were inspired by them in whatever it is you’re writing.
Mitchs last blog post..New Age Of Freelance Writing – Guest Post
January 25, 2009 at 2:53 am
@Mitch: You’re right. I think this year I’ll probably see more guest posts on this blog than last year. Yeah I believe in linking out whenever I write. It just gives a little more dept to the content I’m writing but of course that blog post I link to has got to be really relevant to the topic.
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Peter
Work At Home Ideas
January 25, 2009 at 1:39 am
Yes. Natural link building is one of the key SEO technic. But, all these links should use nofollow tag. Otherwise, we will be badly hit by search engines. And also, as you said, linking with bloggers in our niche is also important.
Prasannas last blog post..The rise of OpenId movement
January 25, 2009 at 10:45 am
@Prasanna: If it’s a natural link exchange between bloggers I am familiar, I’ve always put dofollow and that’s what the other blogger will do too.
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Peter
Online Business Opportunities
January 25, 2009 at 11:17 am
Writing quality or link-bait post is the best way to build natural links. Links should be build slowly over time as well to avoid being seen by Google as unnatural links.
You have suggest another method to build links which is through link exchange. This will be probably more targeted since we can request for the keywords we are targeting to be the anchor text.
Great information in there Peter.
Wei Liang
Wei Liang | Earn Money Onlines last blog post..Lesson 24: Affiliate Marketing (Part 1)
January 25, 2009 at 11:37 am
@Wei Liang | Earn Money Online: Exchanging links with your chosen anchor text is considered extremely good for seo. So this natural link exchange serves this purpose perfectly.
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Peter
Online Business Opportunities
January 25, 2009 at 9:58 pm
I have been looking for fellow bloggers to do guest posting. Another fantastic post.
Thanks.
Geoservs last blog post..Pliggs Roundup
January 25, 2009 at 10:39 pm
@Geoserv: Like you this year I like to do some guest posts as well as hope to see more people guest posting on my blog.
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Peter
Work At Home Ideas and Opportunities
January 26, 2009 at 5:43 am
Hi Peter,
I agree, it’s definitely beneficial to have a large network of blogging friends. Too many of my Internet Marketing friends end up banging their heads against the wall (figuratively, and maybe even sometimes literally) trying to get their keyword anchored do-follow comments approved on blogs they are visiting for the very first time.
What many of them don’t realize is, if they would take the time to get to know the bloggers, and actually give before expecting to get anything out of it, many times, friends will go out of their way to provide Very Relevant anchored links from within their posts … which is much better than a comment link anyway.
No matter how you slice thing, building relationships is almost always a winning long-term strategy.
Todd
Todd Morriss last blog post..Unlimited Unique Content with Wp Spinner
January 27, 2009 at 8:15 am
@Todd Morris: Thanks for dropping in. Glad to see that you too realize the power of how a good network of friends and bloggers can do for you.
I just visited your blog and left a comment. Hope to see you around.
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Peter
Passive Income Ideas
January 26, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Great post Peter. Right on point. Linking and natural linking is KEY to search engine rankings. Thanks for shedding the light on this for so many bloggers.
Kenney
Kenney Works From Homes last blog post..The Work From Home Secret Part VII
January 27, 2009 at 6:36 am
@Kenney Works From Home:It’s good to see you here Kenney. Thanks for your comment on email too and for adding me to Technorati Fav. I’ve added you too.
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Peter
Passive Income Ideas
January 28, 2009 at 2:15 pm
its make me to try very hard hehehe but i think its a good for me to try and make do some practice so i can be more know about this.thank you peter.
joe comps last blog post..Make List Building
February 28, 2009 at 9:51 pm
Hi Peter,
I think 2-3 keywords per post it is more than enough and this will aloow you to avoid looking like a spammer.
Marketing Business Reviews last blog post..How To Be Able Again To Follow At Twitter When You Had Reached Your Following Limit
March 4, 2009 at 3:46 am
This is the 1st time i have read about Natural links and i found it pretty intresting
Rahul Jadhavs last blog post..How Oscars And Nokia Brought Traffic To My Blog
March 30, 2009 at 10:52 am
An SEO technique is considered white hat if it conforms to the search engines’ guidelines and involves no deception. As the search engine guidelines are not written as a series of rules or commandments, this is an important distinction to note. White hat SEO is not just about following guidelines, but is about ensuring that the content a search engine indexes and subsequently ranks is the same content a user will see. White hat advice is generally summed up as creating content for users, not for search engines, and then making that content easily accessible to the spiders, rather than attempting to trick the algorithm from its intended purpose. White hat SEO is in many ways similar to web development that promotes accessibility, although the two are not identical.
Tom
April 28, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Great Post! For me the internal linking structure of my websites is a major thing because by creating a search engine optimized internal linking structure I can usually raise the PR of any given page in my website at will Without Having To Gain Addition Links from others and my users navigational experience seems unchanged.
Paul
April 28, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Great Post! For me the internal linking structure of my websites is a major thing because by creating a search engine optimized internal linking structure I can usually raise the PR of any given page in my website at will Without Having To Gain Addition Links from others and my users navigational experience seems unchanged.
Paul