A Tale of 2 WAHMs

The other day I made a pretty bold statement and I’m sticking to it. Link exchanges are completely worthless. There is absolutely NO point to them anymore. And when I say that, I mean traditional exchanges. They type of exchange that go something like…. “I’ll shove your link on a page with absolutely nothing but other links, and you do the same for mine” …yeah, those are totally worthless.

If you listen to the SEO experts, they’ve been saying for years that the only way to get farther up on the search engines is with ONE WAY links. Meaning you are not exchanging. You are getting your link on a high content page WITHOUT having to give them a link back. Since we live in a “me me me” society, some might question how this is even possible to get something for nothing.

Well here’s my top ways of getting one way links that actually WORK.

Buy Links
You could always buy links, but I don’t always recommend this. Now general advertising and buying directory listings I DO recommend. Directory listings (at sites which are directories, mainly NICHE directories) are a very, very good thing. I see links from directories in my backlinks all the time. This is a good example of a one way link, even if you’ve shoved their link on your link page. You are still on a prime spot on the site.

Directories
As mentioned before, if you can get in a directory you should do it. Niche directories are especially great. Try looking for ones that are manually edited because those seem to be the ones Google likes best. Automated isn’t always a good thing, and can lead to trashy sites that the Google Gods don’t like.

Articles
Another great source of backlinks. Take a look at the backlinks for Idea Queen (just go to Google and type in link:http://www.idea-queen.com/ ). See that backward link from ezinearticles.com? Yup, an article I wrote. Giving me a backward link. Funny this is the ONLY article site I’ve found to give backward links, so do keep that in mind.

Press Releases
If you are a new business or are releasing something new, do a press release. Granted if you want it to have an impact you NEED to pay for it, but it’s a small cost in the long run. I do believe we normally pay around $40 for ours when we do them. Which if you check the backlinks on Prairie Soy Candles you’ll find a few press releases still giving us a backlink.

Navigation Exchanges
Yes I know, link exchanges are worthless. But let me clarify this again - link PAGE exchanges are worthless. Navigation exchanges are NOT. Make sure you are actually getting a spot in their navigation on the side, and not shoved at the bottom or just on the home page. Those are going to do you much good. Again take a look at the backlinks on Prairie Soy Candles, and you’ll see some “odd” links in there. Those are side pages full of content where my link just happens to be in the navigation. If you have other sites that work well together, make sure you link those too.

Blog Review Game
I’m shocked there hasn’t been more to take us up on this offer. Here we have an EXCELLENT way to gain some really awesome backward links around pure content. Blogs people! It doesn’t get much better than that! Unless of course you know a guy that works for Yahoo and can score you a link on the home page, then don’t bother. For us normal people though, links from blog posts are the absolute BEST form of one way links. Even blogs from your own site make a HUGE difference (and if you doubt this, check the backward links on this site….you’ll see we have several on site backward links!).

If you are serious about link building, make sure you stop by Anita’s boards and take a real close look at the Blog Review Game. I promise you’ll be thanking us later!

If you have any more ways of earning those backlinks, please let us know!