Recently I published a post about my achievements in my first year as a blogger. Some of you guys were asking to share some of my techniques on SEO and link building that have made my blog a
PageRank 3 blog in just 7 months. So here we go. Hope you will find it useful.
Link Building and PageRank
In order for you to get Google to rank your Blog or Website you will need some incoming backlinks from other sites. Google see these links as recommendations to your Blog and the more sites that are recommending your Blog the better and the better will Google rank your Blog. It is pretty much like in real life. Let’s say that you own a restaurant. The first customer at your restaurant goes home and tells her/his friends and family about this new great restaurant that has just opened. Some of them are also visiting your restaurant and they are going to tell their friends about it. If you can get the snowball rolling things will start to go very well, however if your food at your restaurant is no good, no one will recommend your restaurant and you will soon have to close. It is pretty much the same with a Blog. Serve people some great stuff and they will tell their friends about it and maybe even link to it. Link building can be very hard and time consuming so if you can get other bloggers to link to your Blog without even asking them to do it link building will be a lot easier.
Quality over quantity
Remember, it is not all about quantity when it comes to link building. E.g. for a blog like mine I would love it if Microsoft and Nokia would link to my Blog. Microsoft.com is a page rank 8 and Nokia.com is a page rank 7 website. It would be a great recommendation for my Blog not just because it is high rank websites but because it is high rank websites in the niche this Blog is all about.
How to create backlinks
Creating backlinks it not easy and takes a lot of time. The two methods I use the most is commenting on Blogs with the CommentLuv plug-in installed and participate in online forums. The great thing about CommentLuv is that it gives you a deep link back to your own blog when ever you leave a comment on a Blog with the Plug-in installed. To find quality blogs with the CommentLuv plug-in enabled check out this post by Ana Hoffman When it comes to forum you will have to find a forum that is right for the niche of your blog. My favorites at the time is Yahoo Answers and the Website Babble forum, but there is a lot of great forums out there where you can put in a signature with a backlink to your Blog or put in some backlinks to your blog.
Deep links
When you are building backlinks for your Blog try to focus on getting deep links to your posts instead of just linking to your front page. If I found a question about selecting the right channel on a Wireless router in a tech forum it would be a perfect place for me insert a link to a post I wrote about just that topic. That will direct people looking for an answer to exact that question to my blog and it will help that post to rank better the next time Google Updates their page rank.
Don’t Spam
Let me say this Loud and clear Don’t Spam. As I wrote before quality over quantity and no one want their Blog or forum with people that don’t want to give anything but only want a fast backlink. Take it from a blogger that drops a lot of comments to the trash can each week, because people have not even read my blog post. If you spam an online forum with a lot of link there is a good change that your account will be shut down.
Free Tools to track the progress
In order to monitor if you are making any progress with your blog when it comes to traffic generation and link building you need a couple of tools and you need to set up some realistic goals for yourself to keep up your motivation . When it comes to tools the only 2 tools you will need to get started are from Google and they are both free 🙂
The first tool is Google Analytics that will tell you all about your visitors. Where they are from, what browser they use, how much time they have used on your blog and a lot more. The second tool that I have found very useful is the Google Webmaster Tool. With Google Webmaster Tool you can figure out how the Google Search Engine sees your blog or website and how many sites are linking back to you (Backlinks). It can also tell you if you have any SEO errors that Google will punish you for. This could be thinks like duplicated titles tag or missing or short description tags on some of your posts.
With Webmaster Tools can you check how many incoming links is pointing to your blog or website.
If you click on the “More” button you can see how many domains are linking to your blog or website.
SEO
It is not enough with a lot of backlinks to your Blog. You will also need to do some good SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Google does not only rank your Blog overall but they does also rank your pages individually. That is why SEO is important. This blog is running on WordPress like a lot of the Blogs your properly visit regular are. When it comes to WordPress a lot of thinks about SEO has already been taken care of for you, but there still is some things that you should focus on. First of all you will need a good SEO plug-in. On this blog I use the All in One SEO Pack but also the WordPress SEO by Yoast is very popular. Both plug-ins can make a big difference when it comes to SEO and traffic generation.
Keywords
Keywords research is one thing that I did not new anything about when I started blogging. Keywords are the words that you would like people to find your blog by when searching on Google or other Search Engines. Of cause some keywords is easier to rank on than other. It might be difficult to rank on a keyword like e.g. “Computer” because there are almost 4.000.000.000 results when you search on that in Google. However if you check out “Desktop computer” there is only about 80.000.000 result. That is still a lot, but your odds are a lot better now. I hope you got the picture. In order to rank on the keyword you want you need to get these words worked in to your post the right way. First of all you will need to get your keyword in the title and in the URL, but also inside the post and if possible inside some heading tags as well.
If you would like to figure out how your blog rank in different keywords check out this post by Brankica Underwood from Blog like a Star about CuteRank tool.
That was a lot of rambling on about link building, keywords, SEO and stuff. Now I would like to give you a change to speak. Please drop me a comment below and get a little backlink for your own blog. After all this Blog is a page rank 3 Blog at the moment 🙂
Hi friend.. i am very confused how to get backlink for my blog..?? Can you give me sugestions?
Hi Agrevo
You have just got yourself two backlinks leaving a comment on my blog. One link because you entered the URL for your blog and an extra one because I am having CommentLuv installed on this blog. Keep commenting on other blogs and you will keep getting backlinks.
Good luck.
Excellent info. Thanks for reminding people to not spam. Quality is what people want its hard to explain this sometimes.
I will be sharing your website with my network. Happy New Year.
Yo Thomas. I have a website with a page rank 3. I also I did it in a very short number of months I’m trying to calculate exactly.
Since I used some of the methods you recommend here, I’d like to do a follow up guest post report if your open, Thanks.
Wow I just used the pagerank tool in google chrome to verify my page rank is a 3.
And I did it in only 2 months! Wow thanks for sharing.
Congratulation Jacko. That is very cool. Keep up the good work.
I’d like to add, what are “no-follow” links?
It is a way to tell search Engines not to follow links when they index pages and websites: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=96569
You’re so right on that one – spamming just annoys people.
Great strategy by building backlinks with comments. I just find your blog with a great tool with you can discover blog comments backlinks with one click – Instant Backling Magic. I recommend!
Hi Thomas,
thanks for the very interesting infos. I have just installed the plugin.
Greetings from Germany.
Thank you Christian
I am sure that you will see an increase in comments on your blog the next couple of weeks 🙂
great post with great strategy for building backlinks with comments, all for just one click of the mouse, keep up the good work
Thank you Julie
Hi,
I found this blog really very interesting and informative. I was researching about it while I discovered your blog. A lot of queries about seo optimalizace were obstructing my mind. This post really solved my queries. Nice post! I would appreciate if you post such type of blogs frequently.
I am glad you liked my post, but SEO and link building tips is not my main focus. However I might blog about it from time to time.
I started doing these a few weeks back on one of my blogs. Now it’s pulling four times more traffic than the non-optimized blog.
Hi Jim
I am glad to hear that you are doing so nice progress. I would like to pass on a tip I got back when I started blogging: “Just get 2 backlinks each days, over time it will be a lot of backlinks” Imagine where you would be in 3 or 6 months with 2 quality back links each day.
Great insights there Thomas backlins are important to blogging and the use of CommentLuv Premium is a must for those needing a little help 😉
Hi Karen
Thank you and yes CommentLuv is a great plug-in helping a lot of people building backlinks to their own Blogs, but also a great way to get people to comment on your own Blog.
Spamming just to generate more links for a site can really be beneficial, but only for a shorter time. Because once Google discovered these pretty useless links, for sure, all efforts will be putted into waste.
I agree. Not just might Google punish you, but if it is a forum your account might be closed, all your links might be removed and you have lost all your links. That is a bad strategy for sure.
Yup! I’ve seen lots of people who send out their links in forums. Unfortunately, most forums moderators deleted all accounts that they considered as items made by spammers.
Hi Thomas,
Thanks for sharing your tips. I’m wondering if linking to a no-follow blogs or do follow blog matters. I mean, is it necessary that all of your backlinks are do-follow?
Do follow links are of cause the best, but no-follow links are also useful in blog comments when it comes to driving traffic to your site.
youre brilliant, thanku, very interesting info, you have inspired me to install the plugin.
Thank you Julie.
You finally shared your backlinking methods Thomas. Thanks. I also go to Yahoo Answers! and participate in forums as well. Since it seems we have the same methods, I hope my blog can reach PR3 in 7 months just like yours 🙂
Hi Olan
Hope you find my post useful. Just keep on blogging and link building. Try to see if you can get just 2 backlinks each days and it will all add up over time. Don’t forget to check out Google Webmaster Tools from time to time to see how you are doing. It is good for motivation I think.
Good luck 🙂
Wow Thomas, congratulations my friend.
That’s awesome news and you did a great job of sharing with us how you were able to make this happen. I’m so impressed and your blog has certainly evolved.
I have no doubt it will continue to climb up in the ranks as 2012 is upon us. Can’t wait to see how all of our blogs do!
Thanks Thomas and hope you are having a fabulous week.
Hi Adrienne
It is actually not new news as it happened this summer that I got the rank. I just got a lot of questions about how I did when I posted my post about my first years as a blogger. I guess if my readers ask me to write a post about something I better do it right 🙂 You have a great weekend too and a happy Christmas if I don’t see you around before Christmas.
Hey Thomas, it’s me again. Thanks for the info, especially the Google Webmaster backlinks. I’ve never noticed that before, so it’s extremely useful.
It is a great tool Frank. I use it to motivate myself to keep on working on promoting my blog. It is always great to see the numbers grow from time to time 🙂
That’s what i did for my site also and got pr 3. But i never shared my experience but you shared. Thomas , thank you for the tips.
Hi Neo
A couple of my readers asked me how I have made a page rank 3 blog so fast so I thought it was a good idea for a blog post and according to the numbers of comments is have been very popular.
You’ve done a great job explaining how to build links. It’s a little bit hard to figure out what methods work better than others. It’s a very time consuming process, so the techniques you recommend helps streamline the process. Thanks!
Hi Joseph
It is a very time consuming, but when it comes to link building I don’t believe in quick solutions. In fact if you go from 0 to 500 backlinks to your site in one day I think Google will punish you instead of reward you. I read a post once somewhere about building backlinks. Instead of focusing on building thousands of backlinks focus on building just 2 each day. That will be 14 in a week and about 60 in a month and more than 700 backlinks in a year.
Excellent post especially the note about spam comments. Personally I have an instinctive aversion to all automated backlinking tools, however, having never used any I can’t comment as a user. Until quite recently one of my sites was getting 300+ comments landing in the spam folder that were obviously coming from automated systems. Adding the antispambee plugin reduced that considerably.
Hi Jonathon
An antispam plugin is a must on almost any blogs today. For this blog I am using the Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin.
brilliant post, great info,have just installed the plugin.
Thanks for sharing this idea go generate backlinks it will really help me a lot.
I like this article. It’s really hard to get a better PR, im confused about if PR ranks a page of an entire website?
Hi Doug
It is a lot of work. Both pages and an entire site is ranked by Google. If you are using Google Chrome the have an extension that can tell you what rank each site have when you visit them.
Cool i got the plugin now.
I heard that PR lags by 3 months – do you know if that’s true ?
Hi Doug
I think that Google updates the ranking when they think it is necessary. I don’t think that they have any fixed schedule for that, but it is for sure not updated each week.
My site with this post(www.starcasterreview.com)was purchased on 9/5 on 9/7 it was ranked #10 on Google for the keyword (today it is #2).
Next step is to get backlinks to overtake the #1 position.
I like your info on how to use Google webmaster to see where you stand – Thanks.
There is certainly more to blogging than people realize. With link building, SEO, keyword research, contributing to a community in one’s niche and on and on… it is amazing anyone has time to actually write new blog posts. 🙂
Hi Chris
It can actually be a problem from time to time 🙂
This is pretty impressive. From my knowledge i’ve never gotten past PR2, but my efforts were moderate. I wonder what i could do if i put all these advices to practice.
Hi Beth
It does take a lot of hard work in a long time to get there, but I have proved it is possible without buying any fancy product.
Thankyou bro for such nice post.I really enjoy ur article and apreciate your hard work…good job bro !!!
Thomas, your post lays out the basics of ranking through backlinking etc. in clear, easily understood language. Being still at PR 1 after 8 months, I’m filled with envy and respect for your hard work.
Thank you. Glad you liked it. Try and get 2 new backlinks each day, and I am sure that you will get there. Remember to monitor your progress with Google Webmaster tools.
Thanks Thomas. I absolutly agree with the Link Building. Of course we must fill our blog with an interesting and needed to be liked by other bloggers so they are about providing a link to our blog. But if the blog is filled with duplicate content, the bloggers would not recommend your blog.
I currently still have not been able to optimize the keyword articles. However, from your article I get some powerful tips to increase the page rank of my blog.
Hi Herniawan
Thank you for your comment. Glad you liked my post. I hope you will find my tips useful.
thanks for the excellent info,i think in seo blog comment is the best way to get more traffic on your site.post the blog everyday then you got more traffic on your site early.
writing the article is the another good way to get more traffic on your site.write the article short.choose the relevant keywords to write the article.if you choose good keyword for article then you can easily find your article.use the simple language to write the article.
so blog comment,article submission , classified submission,directory submission are the good way to get pr on your sites and you can easily got more traffic on your site
i using link building strtegic for seo and pagerank trick, good posting thomas
Thank you.
oh my god this is perfect Thomas! it is like a mystery slowly unfolding right before my eyes. truly i have a lot of things to learn in blogging. Many thanks man! Happy New Year by the way.
I am glad I can help Herb.
yes thomas its really very good idea im also agree with you.thnks
i think choose the good relevant and effective keywords for your article so that the reader attract towards your article and your article should be very useful and effective for the reader.so that they might sure to read your article and post on your article.so choose the very effective keywords and write for the reader so that they get beniefit from your article.then your post should be increase .and your traffic on the site should also increase early.so always keep in your mind when you write the article always write for the reader.
I run commentluv on both my sites, but I haven’t seen an increase in comments 🙁
Great job on increasing your PR, has the increase in PR also increased your income from the site?
Hi Jason
Sorry to hear that. Are you remembering to reply when people comment on your blog? You might also need to do a lot of commenting on other blogs with CommentLuv enabled. That was what I was doing to begin with. A lot of people are happy to return the favorite just like I am about to do in a moment 😉
My traffic got a big boost from my PageRank promotion and that of cause also had an impact on my AdSense income. However I am not making much money on this blog, and that was never the purpose with it. I see it more like a kind of bonus for my work 😀
Good luck Jason, give it some time and I am sure you will succeed eventually…
I’m with you Jason. I’ve had Commentluv on my sites for several years and am only recently getting more comments (but mostly from other bloggers looking to get backlinks). I’ve gone through periods where I’ve done a lot of commenting on Comluv sites with little reciprocal comments as well. Commentluv isn’t a magical solution to getting instant traffic and comments. In fact it doesn’t matter to most visitors – those that have blogs of their own will get the most benefit from commenting on other blogs with Commentluv, but your average search visitor isn’t likely to comment with a higher frequency.
Perhaps it has a lot to do with what you write about. I find when I write product reviews it is hard to get comments on those posts – most people who find that post are either looking for information about a product or looking to buy it (which is the intention when writing a product review).
Your best bet to get reciprocal comments is to keep posting quality comments on commentluv blogs or at other blogging communities. If you build a following of engaged readers they are more likely to comment. If all you care about is getting more comments (to say, show the search engines you have an active blog) I would look for sites that compile lists of commentluv sites and submit your blog to them. Don’t expect a lot of quality comments though as most will just be from other bloggers and internet marketers looking to get backlinks.
Oh, and don’t forget to ask engaging questions at the end of your blog post – if you ask people are more likely to comment.
when someone reply back to my post and agree with my post then my performance goes brilaant and i don’t make to money from it.just try to did my best so most you get comment on your site is well for your performance and well for your site promotion.so always write effective and useful article so that the reader give response to your article and like your post then see your reply on the pose also increases and then also increases your website traffic with that your site pr also increases . so always write for the reader.i think it’s well for you and well for your site promotion
These are great tips, Thomas especially on the one of answering comments on your blog. Most don’t bother to reply, but I am really happy when somebody does answer to a comment I left. It kind of establishes a friendly tone. Anyway, you can easily identify the spam when you see it’s not addressing the topic or being relevant. Good job for getting to page rank 3!
Hi Amy
Thank you very much. I find it very important too. You are right about the spam comments. Thoses are the one that havent read the post at all.
There is no doubt in saying that Content really matters.
It helps to increase search engine trust for the better PR. Link building is as important as it was before.
I started doing these a few weeks back on one of my blogs. Now it’s pulling four times more traffic than the non-optimized blog.
Hi Thomas,
A lot of work you did to reach this position but i want to know that all these factors contributed equally or there is a special factor that is having more weight than over others.Thanks
It is hard to tell what factor has most weight, but i don’t think it would have been posibble without all the linkbuilding work I have done.
well, thorough and detailed enough. You really deserve what you’ve got now for what you’ve done so far, Thomas. I like your illustration of link building. About SEO, i’d like to recommend another plugin for WP, that is SEO Pressor. It, along with All in One SEO Pack, is my most favourite of all time. It will be very helpful for optimizing posts and page.
Again, thank you for the tips, and wish you all the best. I will be back for more! 🙂
Hi Alex
I have tried SEO Pressor, but for some reason it did not work on my blog at all. I had so many problems with it that I had to remove it in the end.
i stared SEO as professional work. i am still learning about link building. i also made a site where i provide Good backlinks. you can go through my nick
Thanks for this very thorough and informative article.
This will help me increase the traffic g and improve the optimization of my blog!
so comment luv post comments in forums? didn’t know that. thanks, i going to install it in my blog
my site has been up for about two months and it has a rank of 1 not much but better than zero I’m not sure how to boost it up though do I just keep doing what im doing or create a new strategy
Hi Paul
To get a high rank at Google take time and a lot of work. You should try to write a couple of post each week. Post of about 300-400 word is preferred and remember to use formatting like bold underline and heading and put in your keywords. You will also have to focus on making backlinks to your own blog from other sites, blogs and forums.
Good luck.
I always thought that your website ranks by one or more specific keywords….how can I find out my general pagerank?
I am using an extention for Google Chrome called PageRank status. There are also some website that make your enter an URL to check your PageRank.
I’ve been using Google alerts to find forums to create profiles with backlinks. The best forums are those that let you also create blogs. Use your imagination and think out the box. After a while, SEO becomes like an addictive game.
Hi Clara
Sorry for my late answer to your comment. Forums are for sure a great way to build backlinks and to meet other people in your niche. Some of them let you add a little signature with a back link to your own blog. As long as you don’t spam a forum you will be fine.
masterpiece work in this post Thomas. i couldnt stop myself from sharing this post onto my blogger community.
Hi Sunil
You just share away 🙂
Very informative article.
Quality back links are most important in back linking. Hard work and patience is important to see desired results.
Sir, Thanks for such type of post. In just 7 months PR of your blog is 3 incredible.
It was great that you have shared your own backlink strategies on your blog. I have just set up my own personal blog and was looking for some ways on home to establish it online. Thanks for sharing and looking forward for your next post. 😀
Hi Thomas, great post i recently just started a blog and was wondering what your thoughts are on creating various web 2.0 linking back to money site and then social bookmark 2.0 accounts. do you think this is a good strategy.
Thx
Hi
I just visited your blog and I think that it is looking very nice. When it comes to strategy I have two advices for you. The first one is: “make it personally”. Where is your about page and what is your name? I want to know who the guy behind this blog is and why you started it. Trust me I am not the only one asking those questions.
My next advice is: “Forget about technology and start link building and connect with other bloggers in your nice”. Google don’t care if it is a web 2.o link or not. They care about if it is relevant for your blog or not.
Good luck.
Deeplinks can truly help in driving in organic traffic to a website. Apart from that it is the most feasible SEO approach that secure and accepted by search engines.
Some great tips with proven success. As you mention it’s definitely quality over quantity. There are many companies out there that will link spam, but it often does more harm than good. I too have used both the All in One SEO Pack and the WordPress SEO by Yoast WP plugins on my blogs and both work really well. Would recommend to anyone.
Getting to page rank 3 in 7 months is a good improvement. Most people seem to take PageRank improvement as a simple thing but it is not since the competition out there is huge.
Thomas, your advice to build 2 links per day is excellent. It’s a gradual process and it really helps to have high ranking sites like yours to give backlinks via CommentLuv.
This is pretty impressive. From my knowledge i’ve never gotten past PR2, but my efforts were moderate. I wonder what i could do if i put all these advices to practice.
Hi Thomas Great insights there backlinks are important to blogging I found this blog really very interesting and informative.Really impressed on your efforts for this article.I’m looking ahead for your another post.
This is a good post about blog commenting and also how not to spam,also these methods takes a bit tie so one should not just give up on building links but try and try until you reach the success.
What a great idea you’ve given me 🙂 I have very few comments on my website and there is nofollow enabled. I will change to dofollow and also get the CommentLuv plugin. Hopefully this should encourage people to comment on my website more often and I can help other bloggers build link relationships too. Thank you!
Hi Kevin
Glad I can help you with new ideas for your blog. I am sure that you will find the CommentLuv plugin very useful to get more visitors to apply comments on your blog.
Thanks for the tips Thomas. I hope i can be just as fortunate and get a PR 3 within 5/7months. I must admit though, its going to be hard!
But as with all other, hard work pays off!
Thanks for sharing
Hi Jacob
It does take a lot of hard work to get there, but it is great once you get there 🙂
Link building is the thing of the past in this post-penguin era. A little mistake in link building can penalize to a disaster level and even remove from the SERP as well.
So think before deploying such practice in race to improve page rank.
7 months of hardwork is a no joke time frame. I wonder how you managed to continue working just to achieve that pagerank for your website. I need to check out this free keyword rank tool, CuteRank.
Remember, it is not all about quantity when it comes to link building. E.g. for a blog like mine I would love it if Microsoft and Nokia would link to my Blog. Microsoft.com is a page rank 8 and Nokia.com is a page rank 7 website. It would be a great recommendation for my Blog not just because it is high rank websites but because it is high rank websites in the niche this Blog is all about.
Hi Terry
You are so right. A do follow back link from a site like Microsoft or Nokia would mean the world to a blog like mine too. Unfortunate it is not that easy to get, but it is important to know that not all links weight the same when it comes to building backlinks.
Hi Thomas, Thanks for your welcome message over on Websitebabble forum. It caused me to come over here and read some of your very helpful advice. I have installed this CommentLuv plugin as a result. I’m not sure what to do about this registration thing, I don’t have registrations set up on my site and am not sure if I need to do that now.
Hi Lee
Thank you for visiting my blog. I am sure that you will be very happy with the CommentLuv plugin. You might also want to visit http://comluv.com
You can always configure registration later. You can read more about CommentLuv on Ana Hoffman’s blog here: http://www.trafficgenerationcafe.com/commentluv
Hi Thomas, I just found your blog today and LOVE it! Regarding SEO, do you or have you ever used any SEO keyword applications like market samurai or anything like that? If so, I was wondering if they worked for you? I am new to the SEO game. Thanks
Hi Scott
I have only used free SEO tools like CuteRank and Google AdWords Keyword Tool, but I have heard a lot of great things about Market Samurai.
Hi Thomas.
Thank you for one great post, was looking for a way to gain more links to my site, and you sure helped me…
kind regards
Hi Thomas,I too use Google webmaster tools to check out my blog’s SEO stats.But when i checked links to my blog,it shows one number in webmaster tools and another number in Alexa number.What’s the different of these two measures?
Hi Chamal
I don’t think you can compare the two services. The might not update at the same time and as far as I no Google does not shows all incoming links to our site. I am not sure how Alexa does.
But i think thomas,Alexa stats track all links either Dofollow or nofollow.But Google don’t index the nofollow links.So that might be the reason for it.Should we think about nofollow links when trying to improve the PR ?
Hey, awesome post, hopefully I will get to page rank 3 in 12 months, that would make me very happy! (let alone 3!) 🙂
oh and thanks for “the little backlink of my own” 😉
Hi Thomas,
Excellent tips, I am also following those tips, hope I will get PR to my blog in upcoming update.
Regards,
Jyoti
thanks for sharing this amazing tips ,agree link building and right flow of traffic always makes great difference.
Great info. i got enough idea for building back links and improving my website rank. Thanks for sharing.