Link Building 101: Using Links for SEO and Traffic

Any person that knows anything about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will tell you that the real way to start ranking better is have more inbound links.

So, where does one start getting those links? Well, you can buy links (expensive), ask people (inconsistent), or place your links on sites (easy). Sites like Digg, Reddit, Youtube, and Slashdot make it easy for you to submit content, and get a link to your site.

The best part is that with the amount of traffic that these sites get, you’re likely to get in front of a lot of eyeballs. Mashable recently wrote about how Reddit publicly posted a screen-capture of their Google Analytics numbers. From June 14-July 14, 2010, Reddit had 8 million unique visitors, 36 million visits, and 400,000,000 page views. If you even get a tenth of 1 percent of that traffic to just LOOK at your link, that’s 8,000 people. I can’t think of a small business that wouldn’t mind having 8,000 new people suddenly know about them.

And that’s all free. 8,000 free impressions. Imagine what your local radio station or newspaper would charge you to get you in front of 8,000 for every ad.

In terms of “how to”, it’s pretty simple:

1. Create content that people would actually want to know about (e.g. blog post, video, news release, etc.)
2. Go to Reddit. Click on the big “Submit a Link” button.
3. Create an account.
4. Submit your link.

Voilà! You’ve now started link building. Now that you’ve started here, try the same thing with Digg.

images courtesy of Mashable

Tagged as: Digg, Link Building, Reddit, SEO