Link Building

Link building is the least glamorous part of an online business, but it has a very high ROI if done correctly.

Here are a few good articles from the latest WordTracker newsletter:

1. 10 Ways To Build Keyword Rich Inbound Links
2. The Link Building Mindset
3. How To Use A Tool To Build Links: Introducing The Keyword Questions Tool
4. Father of Link Building, Eric Ward, Reveals His Link Building Secrets

Enjoy

Gosh Jon, give me a break so I can try to absorb the information...
Can't give you more Rep++, I did that recently for some of your other great posts. Thanks for sharing this.

One thing that I'm finding very useful and cheap is to create your own "other" sites.

For example:
I sell Widgets online so I have widgetstore.com.

In addition I have:
widgetreview.com
bestwidgets.com
widgetblog.com
allaboutwidgets.com

Who better to write about widgets than someone who sells them? Articles are easy to write since you have the knowledge.

Don't link all these sites to widgetstore.com immediately. I try to make widgetreview look like a real review site. I may toss in a link or two here and there. But I also link to other sites, i.e. wikipedia, cool posts, videos. I dont link to competitors of course.

In addition, I toss on adsense and make a few cents or bucks too.

I can start offering paid posts on these sites. Say someone wants a post on widgetblog.com. I can charge them $10 for it and it includes an outbound link. As long as its a decent article, why not? I take the $10 and buy a post on someone else's blog to link to my widgetstore.com.

==========

Lastly, I've learned that widgetxxx.com is too niche. I mean its good, but if I look ahead 5 years, I should be starting broader sites. If the widget is a product used for hunting, I should (and I am) start sites like:

huntingstuffreview.com
coolhuntinggear.com
outdoorsystuff.com

Can you see how valuable these sites will be later on? Just be sure to keep them clean and high quality. Don't put crap on them.

===========

You can't lose, it's a win win.

1) get great relevant links for free
2) charge others for links
3) get adsense revenue - your site will make money
4) get a great domain name
5) increase domain name value instead of just parking it.

I can guarantee that adsense will pay for hosting + domain fees within 6 months. Remember not to host all these URLs with the same host. If you have 5 URLs, get 5 accounts from 5 very different hosts. Then after that you can start adding URLs to the accounts.

It's a good point Andres. Dealing with information overload is a very essential skill for online business. It takes discipline to keep on track and I've found that finding a balance between implementing ideas and taking in new ones is crucial.

It sometimes feels like you just have to accept that you must let information pass you buy, put blinders on and get stuff actually implemented, then revisit and refine.

Remember, reading & learning are the parts that feel good, but actually doing the small steps and creating assets, while much less exciting, are what brings in the cash.

I have a note similar to this that pops open so that it's the first thing I see every time I open my computer

The Keyword Questions Tool is amazing! Thank you! Thanks for all of it.