Unfortunately, this is where the challenge begins. If you
are an existing forum, it is a lot easier to find people to
link to you than for a brand new forum with fewer posts. As
a result, many forum owners find themselves stuck in a horrible
chicken and egg situation. So what can you do about it? Well,
the most important thing is not to try and run before you can
walk. Growing the popularity of a new forum is a gradual process,
it does not happen overnight.
By applying a simple Gap analysis study, you can start to
identify where you want your forum to be and the steps required
in the meantime to achieve those objectives. For example, if
you have studied a competitive forum and you know exactly how
many back links they have, you may set yourself your own link
building task.
If you’re not confident of approaching people and asking them
to link with you, there are alternative link building strategies.
Before we go into that, let’s define what constitutes a good
quality back link.
- A link from a site that carries information relating to
the topic of your forum
- Ideally the link will be from a site that has its unique
IP address
- The site is considered a “trusted site” or authority site
in their niche
- If possible the link will be one way
The debate about what makes a good back link has been raging
for a while now; by no means exhaustive the list above is a
very useful place to start for new webmasters.
Back link anchor text
Something to consider before we move onto the link building
strategies is the anchor text you will use for the back link.
For example, the site you’re on right now is called Vbulletin
FAQ, if we use that name as hypertext for our URL it will become
a clickable link, Vbulletin
FAQ. Most search engines give additional weight to back
links that include keywords rather than just the URL. So it
is really important to decide which keywords you want to rank
well for before beginning your link building strategy. Don’t
worry; you can build links for lots of different keywords,
the point here being that you have to start somewhere.
Link building strategies - Directories
One of the most popular ways to increase your back links is
by submitting your site to a directory. There are hundreds
of directory sites available on the Internet, some will require
payment to be included, and some will be free while others
may expect a reciprocal link. Depending on your budget, an
appropriate link building strategy could be to visit as many
free directories as possible and submit your link.
If you’re having trouble finding directories, a hidden gem
of information can be found at a popular webmaster forum called
Digital Point. In fact, you’ll find that there are directory
owners begging you to submit your site!
It’s hard not to talk about directories and leave out DMOZ,
we have a specific page dedicated to DMOZ in more detail. However
as a brief overview, DMOZ is one the largest free public directories.
It is rather unique in the fact that its editors are work on
a voluntary basis. There are rather strict guidelines to becoming
accepted into the DMOZ directory, so the best advice is to
submit there and move on.
If you’re worried about the time it will take to submit your
site to all of these directories, you may want to consider
hiring someone else to do it for you. You will find willing
workers on sites such as Rentacoder.com or Freelance.com. The
main point here is that submitting to free web site directories
is often the best place to start your link building strategy.
Link building strategies – Articles
Probably the most underused strategy for link building is
the use of articles. Writing an article about your forum or
the topic of your web site and submitting it to an article
directory is good on many levels. You receive a back link from
the directory site; you also receive a back link when ever
anyone else reprints the article. An informative article can
have an awesome affect on your forum and will encourage lots
of people to visit your community. If you don’t think you can
write you own articles then there are plenty of places to find
very inexpensive resources, again Rentacoder and eLance come
to mind.
One note of caution, when it comes to writing articles, quality
should be your number 1 priority. A well written and informative
article maybe picked up by as many as one hundred other web
sites within a few weeks. If articles are not part of your
link building strategy, then you need to start thinking about
it quick.
Link building strategies – Press releases
Depending on your budget, you may also consider press releases
as part of your link building plans. This is great for new
forums as it enables you to officially launch it to the world,
better still it is a great way to build links and drive traffic.
Firstly, your press release will be featured on the page of
the company publishing the press release, if it is interesting
enough then it could also be picked up by other news sites
or national press. If you’re lucky, the launch of your new
forum will create a huge buzz and interest levels will be high.
Using press releases as part of your link building strategy
is very worthwhile; however you will need to pay careful consideration
to the quality and news worthiness of your press release. Click
here for more information about using press releases
Link building summary
Link building will be very important to your new forum or
community. Even if you have an established forum, it is worth
following some of the suggestions above. After all, it has
been widely proven that the number of back links have a direct
affect to your search engine rankings, which in turn can only
have a positive impact on your community. |
