Blogging Bits » Link Building

Why It’s Important to Use Keywords in Linkbait Titles

Mohsin — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 07:34:45 +0000

A few days ago I reached the del.icio.us front page for the second time, and the results have exceeded my expectations.

Here are some of the results at a glance:

20k+ new visitors
100 new subscribers
And 23 new links so far (and counting)

But this is not what I didn’t expect. What I didn’t expect is something else. Soemthing that has a more long term benefit.

Yes I am talking about search engine traffic. Only 16 or so hours after this post got on to del.icio.us front page, I started getting search engine traffic for the keywords in the post title.

The post was titled: “20+ free web design ebooks and guides“, and I did title it with the intention to maximize the SEO benefit. What I didn’t expect was that search engines will pick the post so quickly and put it high up the ranking page for its keywords.

If I had made the title cute, funny, provocative, or interesting but keyword-less, it wouldn’t have received more than the temporary direct traffic from the links. But since I kept the proper keyword in the title, people who linked to the post used the title as anchor text, and the post got more and more credibility in the eyes of search engines with every new link.

Now, as a result, even though the social media traffic is slowing down, a new and constant trickle of search engine traffic has opened up which will continue for a long time.

Moral of story?

Resource lists and linkbaits are created for the sole purpose of getting links. Links clearly outweigh other short term benefits such as a temporary spike in traffic.

Always keep the keywords that describe your post in the title of your resource lists and linkbaits. Don’t give it a meaningless title such as “x resources for these people or this task’. Nobody is searching for ‘resources’. People search for specific things with specific keywords, so be as helpful as possible. Think of your post’s title as a summary of the contents to follow, and describe what exactly it contains.

I’ve made this mistake myself. My first post that reached del.icio.us front page was titled “54 typography resources every designer should bookmark“. Even though I cleverly left a hint in the title suggesting that it was a bookmarkable list, I could have used a better, more search engine friendly title for the long term benefit.

Your thoughts?

What about you? How do you title your linkbait posts?

Link Code: d1928 - © Blogging Bits | Blog writing, marketing, and design

5 Types Of Linkbaits That Actually Work

Mohsin — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 14:47:20 +0000

Linkbait is such a suspicious word. At first, it appears to be some sort of fraudulent technique to get links from other webmasters, but on closer scrutiny, it turns out that linkbait is just another name of quality content that is so cool that people feel obliged to link to it.

Any blog, on today’s web, should create quality linkbait in order to be seen by more than a handful of visitors. The web is unlike all other media. Here, the success awaits those who understand the web regardless of how influential or rich they are in real life.

You must have seen, for example, that blogs run by individuals outrank multi-million dollar companies in SERP’s, and naturally get more traffic, and can potentially earn more money from the Internet than their rich and influential competitors.

Considering the diversity of niches present in the blogosphere, it’s hard to pin down exact topics that always serve as quality linkbait, but there are certain general topics that seem to have a penchant for going viral.

I’ve been looking closely at the trends on social media sites to see what kinds of topics are often voted up and appear again and again on the popular lists. And there are some topics that are clearly more popular from the rest among general geeks. Below are five of those topics that, if used wisely, make for great linkbaits.

Sex

Who doesn’t like sex? It’s the best thing that has happened to human beings during their evolution! No wonder people, especially youth, are attracted to sexual references.

Some tips on creating sex-related content:

Make a list of sexy wears for geeks
Highlight top x sexy woman in a specific field
Criticize the unhealthiness of certain sexual practices
Cover a news story that involves sex abuse
List interesting laws regarding sex in some countries.

Blasphemy

In other words, spark controversy. Say bad things about what a major group of people love or respect. OK.. don’t say outrageously bad things, but it doesn’t hurt to play a devil’s advocate once in a while!

Whichever niche you may be in, there is bound to be a figure, an ideology, or a company that has a major fan following. What you have to do is peek under the hood, find the shortcomings of figure, ideology, or company in question, and nitpick!

Here are some ideas:

Criticize a religion
Find fault with a widely loved product
Slam a popular company
Make conspiracy theories
Condone a despised activity

Warning: Use above techniques at your own risk as they could really harm your brand.

Unusual images

An image is worth a thousand words, or in our case, a thousand blog posts. Because of their quality of conveying even difficult message intuitively, images tend to go viral more rapidly than any other piece of linkbait.

There are plenty of unusual, funny, and grotesque images on the web that stay unnoticed. If you highlight such an image, or collection of images, with a short commentary, you’ll create a fine piece of linkbait with minimal effort.

Before posting an image, see:

If it’s funny in an unusual way
If it’s ‘photoshopped’ but realistic
If it resonates with a particular social media community you are targeting
If it’s awe-inspiring
If it’s of something yet largely unseen and undiscovered

Life-hacks

Life-hacks are workarounds, tips, tutorial, and how-to’s, that make certain aspects of life easy. One of the blessings of the internet is that people can share with one another solutions to common problems, step-by-step walk-throughs of complex procedures, and any tips, tricks, and shortcuts that simplify tedious tasks. Therefore, if devised carefully, a particularly useful life-hack can become an instant hit, and get you loads of links.

Some ideas for life-hacks:

Refute common myths (e.g. Creativity is a gifted quality)
Write a step by step tutorial that solves a common problem
Define a procedure that makes dealing with a certain emotional state easy
Discover multi-functionality of a commonly used device/software (e.g. WordPress as a CMS)
Start a new life-hacks blog (everyone and their mom has one these days, and they are all popular. Just get yourself a bunch of productivity books from Amazon.com and start copying!)

Resources

Last but not least, the good old resources. I am sure you have seen those top 5 to top 101 lists of resources on almost every blog. These are called resource lists.

Creating a resource list is not difficult. There is nothing you have to write on your own. All you need to do is a bit of research to come up with a medium sized resource list. The bigger the list, however, the more time you have to spend to acquaint yourself with the subject at hand.

Good practices in creating resource lists:

Format the list in a unique way (e.g. images aligned to left, and descriptions on the right)
Categorize the list in different sections, and start every section with a descriptive heading
Use images in the list to mark new section if the list is fairly big
Keep the descriptions small and links prominent
If possible, write your own descriptions

There are plenty of other ways to create linkbaits that you’ll know by observing popular social media sites.

Be sure to share your linkbait techniques with us in the comments!

Link Code: d1928 - © Blogging Bits | Blog writing, marketing, and design

A Beginner’s Teeny Weeny Guide To Blogging

Mohsin — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 13:57:39 +0000

Recently, I’ve been getting emails from would-be bloggers who are fascinated by blogging, but don’t know where to start. Well, I don’t blame them. Even though there are many blogs that teach blogging, and they have guides to get the new bloggers started, they usually forget that a person who is not yet committed to blogging doesn’t fancy reading outrageously long guides.

Blogging isn’t as scary as some of the lengthy blogging guides make it appear to be. If you are new to blogging but can’t decide what to do, go through this teensy weensy blogging guide and take the plunge!

For now, this is all you need to know. If you are still around after a few months, come back and subscribe to Blogging Bits RSS feed for more tips.

Setup

Promotion

Monetization

Use any of these 101 ways to monetize your blog

Misc good practices

Link to other blogs from your posts
Keep track of your subscribers with Feedburner
Post on your blog daily for at least two months

Please add your tips for new bloggers below. If there are any particularly useful, I’ll add them to the list.

Link Code: d1928 - © Blogging Bits | Blog writing, marketing, and design

Get Free Link And Traffic From Blogging Bits

Mohsin — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 14:11:34 +0000

Remember my previous free backlink experiments? Well, I am back with a new one. This time keeping things simpler, easier, more organized, and more beneficial for you.

However, as always, you have to take the required steps before your can submit your link.

First, subscribe to Blogging Bits by email or RSS.
Then, submit your link through link submission form and enter the link code found at the bottom of any post in your feed reader..
Wait. It will usually take up to 24 hours before your link appears in the sidebar.

That’s it!

Here are a few more guidelines to keep in mind when submitting your links:

Submit only one link per domain per week (this will allow your link to stay in the linkroll for longer)
Please submit only relevant links to Blogging Bits general topics (blogging, design, life hacks, writing, internet marketing, SEO, tech in general etc.)
And, of course, submit only high quality stuff.

Head over to link submission page to submit your link.

Link Code: d1928 - © Blogging Bits | Blog writing, marketing, and design

Get a Free Link From Blogging Bits – Every Month!

Mohsin — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 14:32:53 +0000

After successfully running a free backlink giveaway a few weeks ago, I got the feel of what kind of response to expect for such an offer.

So I am doing it again, but this time with a bit of twist.

All you have to do is subscribe to my RSS feed (if you haven’t already), get the secret word from the bottom of any post, submit your link, and BAM!

You are supposed to submit only one link per blog every month. Moreover, I’ll change the secret word every month to keep things fresh.

5 Winners will be selected randomly at the end of every month, who’ll get all the attention of Blogging Bits readers for a day or two, and a permanent backlink!

Find out more and submit your link on link submission page.

Your thoughts?

What do you think? Would this free backlink giveaway be as successful as previous one?

Link Code: d1928 - © Blogging Bits | Blog writing, marketing, and design

Backlinks Giveaway: 28 Free Backlinks

Mohsin — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 11:56:28 +0000

After running my free backlink offer for two days, I have ended up collecting a total of 28 links. It was a great response (despite the fact that the site went down for 10 hours instantly after the offer) and I learned a thing or two from it that I’ll utilize in my future offerings.

Thanks to those who submitted their links, and a special thanks to following people for spreading the word:

Karen Zara from Karen Zara Dwells Here
Steven Snell from Vandelay Design
Pelf from Pelf-ism is contagious
and Elliot Cross from ejcross.com

Those who benefited from this offer, and those who missed, keep your fingers crossed, because a similar offer is coming very soon, which will be even better and everyone will be able to benefit from it. Subscribe to my RSS to be notified when I give away more free backlinks.

Here are final 28 links in the order they were submitted. I’ve enjoyed reading many of these and I am sure you do too.

Sorry, I missed one. It’s actually 29 links.

Thirteen Tips to Help You Resume Your Health & Fitness Program if You Get Off Track

Link Code: d1928 - © Blogging Bits | Blog writing, marketing, and design

Get a Free Backlink From Blogging Bits!

Mohsin — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 12:18:39 +0000

OK guys, here’s the idea: You will link to one of your favorite posts on your blog in the comments, and I’ll include your link in the next post where I’ll compile a list of all the links submitted by everyone. The deadline is day after tomorrow (can be extended).

Sounds useful? Great! Feel free to tell your contacts about it, or advertise it on your blog. I don’t mind a few backlinks in return for giving away as many as you guys submit. But, of course, this is not a condition.

So start posting your links now!

Note: I may decide to exclude a link if I think it’s from a spam blog or is very very low quality. Don’t waste your time spammers.

The offer is now closed. Please don’t submit any more links. Here is the list of 28 free backlinks for your reading pleasure.

Link Code: d1928 - © Blogging Bits | Blog writing, marketing, and design

Link Exchange Strategy: Do You Turn Down Link Exchange Requests?

Mohsin — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 15:54:08 +0000

I imagine that every blogger gets link exchange requests. It’s often difficult to decide whether to accept the offer or not. Sometimes spammy requests will inundate your inbox and you’ll utterly despise the idea of link exchanges. It’s normal to associate negativity with something that mostly comes across as unpleasant.

I too, as all other bloggers, get link exchange requests very often. Since I’ve made it so easy for others to contact me with a dedicated contact page and a nice contact form, it seems like an open invitation for many bloggers to present their link to me for consideration.

I am not against the link exchanges if the links are relevant to my topics, and I urge you all not to form a bad opinion about exchanging links with other bloggers. But make sure you consider the following points before accepting or rejecting a link exchange.

Make sure the site is relevant – You wouldn’t believe that I’ve got link exchange requests from a real estate blogger and a church blogger. In their case, the decision was straightforward for me. I don’t want to link to a totally irrelevant site no matter how good it is. Do you?
The site is not a content scrapper – Sometimes a site looks legitimate, relevant, and contains high quality content, but on closer inspection it turns out that it’s a splog, a collection of scraped content. Splogs, of course, are not your cup of tea.
The site provides value to your readers – A site can be relevant but it might contain regurgitated low quality content, or news clippings from other sites and blogs. I don’t recommend linking to such sites for an extra backlink, because if your readers click through to the site and find it invaluable, it undermines your credibility.

But what if you get a lot of high quality, relevant, and legitimate link exchange requests, but think that you can’t accommodate so many links in your sidebar?

Sidebar links and blogrolls are so old school. There is a much better way to accommodate all the links and still have infinitely more space left. I am talking about inline linking from within your posts. Most of the time, the other guy wants only an extra link to his blog, and he understands that you can’t give him permanent front page space. So the only other way is to link to him from within your post.

If you want to provide value to your readers, link to a post of your own choosing, and keep in mind that the link should be a natural part of your post.

What is your link exchange strategy? Do you find it unethical to exchange links with other bloggers?

Link Code: d1928 - © Blogging Bits | Blog writing, marketing, and design

5 Surefire Ways To Build Tons Of Backlinks For Your Blog

Mohsin — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 18:50:29 +0000

So you want to build lots of backlinks for your blog huh?

That’s easy. You only need to look at what work for others and steal their techniques. Obviously, some methods only work for a select few, because of the way they do it, and because of the fact that you can’t do it. I am talking about the so-called A-list bloggers who have done all the hard work of building strong reputation for their blogs, and now even if they do so much as belch, it prompts many people to link to them for doing such valiant feat.

Of course it takes time, hard work, dedication, and a bit of social media luck to reach that level, but here we are talking about quick and dirty ways to build loads of links to your blog, aimed at getting you better search engine rankings, improved Technorati rank, and most importantly creating brand awareness for your blog.

1. Start a viral link chain

In the early days of Blogging Bits, I bumped into OneMansGoal, liked it, and posted a couple of comments. Next day when I logged into Blogging Bits dashboard, I noticed an incoming link from OneMansGoal.com. I followed the link and found out that Bryan has started a viral link chain and has included my link because I was one of his cherished commenters. Hmm.. I sure got a little lucky, because the links spread like a virus, and I had tons of links coming my way without my doing anything (my link isn’t a part of that viral link chain anymore because of my unfounded concern that Google was punishing me for taking part in it. Of course I was paranoid and wrong).

You aren’t as lucky as I am. But you can get your share of links if you start your own viral link chain. Just kick things off by posting a few initial links and tell your readers to post it on their blogs with their link included so you can include their link in the chain, then sit back and see it go viral!

2. Write viral posts

Everyone loves viral posts. Even I do. Viral posts are useful, and deal with our base needs.

There are many ways to write viral posts. Here are few most successful ones:

When it comes to creating viral content, remembers these rules: people like freebies, people like resources, and people like to come under spotlight. Give it to them and they’ll give you back a lot of link love.

3. Join group writing projects

One of the main sources of traffic as well as links for Blogging Bits has been the group writing projects I joined. Almost everyone who participates in a writing project links to all other participants. This means a lot of free and quality links for you.

If you keep in touch with other blogs in your niche, you’ll know when someone starts a group writing project, but I highly recommend checking out Contest Blogger’s Group Writing Project forum to keep updated with the latest writing projects from all around the blogosphere.

4. Bookmark yourself on dofollow social bookmarking sites

There are a few social bookmarking sites that do not ‘nofollow’ your saved links. Very generous of them indeed. We are here to grab this opportunity and save our posts to those sites and get free backlinks.

Here are three of them that work for me.

Do you know of any others?

5. Offer free website templates

This is something I plan to do in coming days. Okay, not all of you can design and code website templates, but those of you who do, you are missing out on a real opportunity to promote yourself. If your every template is used even 10 to 20 times, it means as many free backlinks for you. A good template can generate hundreds of free links for your blog, and a few dozens of good templates can.. don’t gape at me, I kid you not!

Actually, if you do the real hard work of designing and coding the templates, it’s not too difficult to convert them into WordPress Themes. Here are a few WordPress Theme tutorials to get you started.

Even if you aren’t good at design, you can hire a designer to design you a WordPress Theme that you’ll distribute on your site. This is not a bad deal because if you spend that money directly advertising on other sites, it will get you only a couple of links. Whereas with a theme you give away freely, you’ll amass piles of backlinks in no time.

I am making use of most of these techniques moderately, and Technorati shows me that there are currently 189 pages linking to me. That’s just the result of making use of these methods in one and a half month. You see, I told you it was easy.

What works for you when it comes to building backlinks?

5 Sources That Brought Me Tons Of Visitors

Mohsin — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 12:13:23 +0000

It’s going to be almost two months since the launch of Blogging Bits. I have got steady stream of traffic from various sources during this period, but some of them really stand out.

So, for my readers, here is top 5 list of sources that sent me most traffic.

1. StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon is hands down the best source of traffic for new blogs. It stands tall high above all other sources.

StumbleUpon has sent me 6260 unique visitors so far. Although StumbleUpon visitors rarely turn into regular readers, it is still rewarding to have your content read by so many people.

2. Traffic from group writing projects

The second most generous referrer is the group writing projects I joined.

I got about 500 new visitors from Problogger group writing project and Daily Blog Tips Blog Writing Project. Not bad, because many of these visitors have subscribed to my blog and become my readers. Most importantly, I have been honored to meet some excellent bloggers who found me through Problogger and Daily Blog Tips writing projects.

3. Sphinn

Sphinn has proven me right in my belief that bloggers should concentrate more on niche social media sites rather than wasting their energy on the likes of Digg. Smallish social media sites don’t send you torrents of traffic and don’t take your servers down, but they send you highly targeted traffic. Plus, it’s a lot easier to get on the front page of niche social media sites.

I’ve got about 300 unique visitors for my post about top 11 Digg-like niche social media sites, that made it to the front page of Sphinn. It were also the Sphinners who voted me up on StumbleUpon and Digg sending me even more traffic!

4. Google

I am not happy with Google for not ranking me first even for my blog’s name, but it has been sending me visitors quite frequently.

Google has sent me almost 200 new visitors in a month and a half. Not bad, is it?

It’s important to note that most of the Google traffic has come from Google blog search, and not from the main search engine. Does it make any difference?

5. Traffic from Guest posts

I’ve made a couple of guest posts on Lorelle on WordPress and on some other blogs, that have been sending me quite a few new visitors (almost 200 so far)

Again, the best part of the traffic coming from related blogs is that those visitors are interested in my content. It’s up to me if I can retain their interest long enough to convert them into regular readers.

OK, this isn’t tons of traffic in any sense of the word, but we are talking about a new blog that has just gone live. Every new visitor on a new blog brings with him tons of new hopes for the blogger, and helps shape the future of the blog.

What have I learnt from these stats?

Community is the king. The more you contribute to the community, and the more you help other boggers, the better your chances of success.

What you should learn from these stats

Don’t be afraid to link out to others, participate in contests, volunteer to post on other blogs, and make contacts in the social media world. You have to do all this to survive, if not to succeed.

What’s been your top traffic sources, especially in the early days?