Guide to Obtaining Links for Traffic and Search Engine Exposure

You have no traffic, and you know it. Let’s change that.

You may have used some of the strategies, channels and tactics discussed in SEO Corner to acquire new links (and visitors) but I’ll bet your website you haven’t tried them all. If you have tried them all but are still not getting traffic (or as much as you want) you need to revisit each and every one, and do so frequently.

The one true secret of link building is that the best link has yet to be discovered. So staying on top of new traffic sources, distribution models and publicity opportunities will feed your website links that result in traffic and exposure well into the future.

Public Relations: Press releases don’t get enough credit as a means to drive website traffic, links and exposure for your websites and their underlying businesses. Services such as PRWeb, BusinessWire, PR.com, and PRNewswire are proven ways to get in front of not just the media but other website owners looking for content to feature on their sites (which means more links). While there is no guarantee that coughing up the often exorbitant fees to these providers will result in actual or immediate media exposure, you will be surprised at the speed at which you will acquire inbound links.

Classifieds: You might also be surprised at the amount of visitors that will come to your site based solely on classified advertising — free or paid. Some of the best sites available in the classified industry include craigslist, Oodle, USFreeAds, Backpage and Kijii but local newspapers are also a good way to get some attention, especially if you are working on a local or regional level. The best part about using classified advertising to drive traffic is that the cost is often far lower than other promotional methods, if not completely free. But it’s not just the broad-scope classified sites that can generate attention. There are hundreds if not thousands of classifieds in every industry, providing an exceedingly targeted opportunity to generate new links of some notable quality.

Video: Another opportunity to gain exposure, and get links and traffic, is through the use of online video. While there are financial and time commitments to creating video, going viral can help get your website to a tipping point far faster than any other online channel. YouTube is by far the king of video sites, but there are hundreds of others including Vimeo, Blip.tv, Viddler, 5min, Dailymotion.com, and MetaCafe. Are you distributing your videos to these outlets? Are you monitoring your videos’ success or failure, and watching the performance of others in these channels to see what’s getting noticed or ignored? If not, you need to be.

If video is a serious consideration for your website, placing your content exclusively on YouTube is a good bet. Create a YouTube channel (even if you don’t have video content yet) and “friend” related users and “favorite” quality videos. The link from the YouTube Channel to your website is a do-follow link.

Content Development: The information age requires that you produce ... information. Take up a campaign to write content for others by reaching out to bloggers who cover related topics (find some guest blogging prospects at BlogCatalog.com). There are many exceptional article directories where you will be able to submit your content including EzineArticles.com, Buzzle.com, GoArticles.com, IdeaMarketers.com, ArticleAlley.com and Amazines.com. These are just a few of the more well known directories but there are hundreds of others. Another very valuable opportunity is through Google Knol. Because any link from Google is worth getting, create content for a Knol and include some links — they too, are do-follow.

Getting Social: Social media has changed the way we connect with others and promote our products and services on the Web. From social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Orkut, Bebo and hi5 to microblogging services like Twitter, Plurk and Plazes — even social bookmarking services such as Delicious, Digg, Stumbleupon, Mixx, Reddit and others — “social” presents wonderful opportunities to chart the course of memes and discussions, and are widely known as effective ways to create huge streams of website traffic and, ultimately, inbound links.

Directories: DMOZ and the Yahoo! Directory are two exceptional places to attempt to acquire links to your website, but there can be incredibly long wait times (DMOZ) and high prices (Yahoo!) to get included. Consider some alternatives including Business.com, BestofTheWeb.com, GoGuides.com, JoeAnt, RubberStamped. org, Skaffe.com, SiteSnoop.com, Gimpsy.com, IPL.org and MassiveLinks.com.

Happy SEOing.

SEO Corner About the Author: Dante A. Monteverde is a Search Strategist specializing in Search Engine Optimization. He founded Spider Bait SEO in 1996 and has over 10 years of SEO experience.