Getting One-way Inbound Links: the 5 Major Strategies

With search engines putting a damper on direct reciprocal links, the hunt for the elusive one-way inbound link is on.

As someone who works with small business website owners, I've heard just about every inbound-linking scheme there is. In the end, I've only seen five strategies that really work consistently for getting hundreds of links. Yet there's perennial interest in alternative linking strategies. Why? Perhaps because the five major effective strategies involve a certain amount of hard work, and for many people, SEO is an endless magic bean hunt. So, before looking at those five most effective strategies, let's look at some of the supposedly easier alternatives.

  • Link farms never seem to die. The latest variations try to pass themselves off as viral marketing, but are really a sort of endless pyramid scheme: you link to me, so I link to someone else, who links to someone else, and on and on down the line. If you think this will work, let's just say I admire your ability to maintain a childlike innocence despite all the mean names I'm sure everyone calls you.
  • Many one-way inbound linking strategies fall into the great-if-you-are-lucky-enough-to-get-it category, such as winning a web award or being featured on a high-PageRank website just for being so great.
  • Other one-way incoming link strategies are in the this-will-take-forever-to-get-anywhere category, such as offering to provide testimonials to all your vendors in exchange for a link to your site. (Hint: If you can get more than twenty links that way, you probably need to simplify your supply line.)

Now, on to the five major ways of getting large numbers of one-way inbound links. Some are better than others, but they all have more potential than some of the more madcapped strategies. Of course, none is a good strategy all on its own. You have to understand all five strategies in order to really gain a distinct advantage in the one-way link hunt.

1. Waiting for Inbound Links

If you have good content you will eventually get one-way inbound links naturally, without asking. Organic, freely given links are an essential part of any SEO strategy. But you cannot rely on them, for two reasons:

  • Unfortunately, "eventually" can be a very long time.
  • There is a vicious cycle: you can't get search engine traffic, or other non-paid traffic, without inbound links; yet without inbound links or search engine traffic, how is anyone going to find you to give you inbound links?

    • 2. Triangulating for Inbound Links

    Search engines will have a tough time dampening reciprocal links if the reciprocation is not direct. To get links to one website you offer in exchange a link from another website you also control. This would seem to be a mostly foolproof way of defeating the link-dampening ambitions of Google and the rest. If you have more than one website, you probably are already employing this linking method. There are only a few drawbacks:

    • You need to have more than one website. Stop laughing! There really are businesses that only have one website! In fact, they may be your clients someday.
    • The work required to set up this kind of arrangement and verify compliance is not insignificant. The process cannot be automated to the same extent as direct one-to-one reciprocal linking.
    • As with traditional reciprocal links, a very big drawback is that the links are mostly on "Resources" pages that are just lists of links. There's only a small chance of getting significant traffic from these links. Plus, any "Resource" page may well eventually become an easy target for link dampening, if that hasn't happened already.

    3. Submitting for Incoming Links

    They are the legendary fairy lands of SEO: PageRank-passing, no-fee-charging, non-corrupt and actually well-run directories of relevant links. Yes, they really do exist. An SEO friend tells me he knows 200 good ones just off the top of his head. Plus, there are other kinds of directories: directories of affiliate programs, of websites using a certain content management system, of websites whose owners are members of this or that group, of websites accepting PayPal, etc. etc.

    Ah, a link in a PageRank-passing link directory: it's a good deal if you can get it. But let's say you do get links from all 200 such directories and a hundred more from the little niche directories--now what?

    4. Paying for Inbound Links

    Buying and selling text links on high-PageRank web pages has become big business. Buying good traffic-generating "clean" links is a great alternative to pay-per-click advertising, which confers no SEO benefit. But, there are a number of pitfalls of relying primarily on paid links for SEO:

  • The cost of the hundreds of links required for substantial search engine traffic can become prohibitive.
  • As soon as you stop paying, you lose your link--you are essentially renting rather than owning, with no "link equity" building up.
  • Google is actively trying to dampen the impact of paid links on rankings, as revealed in various patent filings.
  • Given Google's mission to dampen paid links' effectiveness, paid link buyers have an interest in verifying that a potential paid link partner is "passing PageRank." But identifying appropriate PageRank-passing paid link partners is quite a task in itself.
  • Google is actively trying to dampen the impact of any "artificial" linking campaign. Having most of your links on PageRank 3 or higher web pages would seem to be a dead give-away that your links are "artificial," since the vast majority of web pages (note: not necessarily websites, but their pages) are PageRank 1 or lower. Meanwhile, buying PageRank 0 or 1 links would have so little impact on a site's PageRank that it would not be worth the expense.

    • 5. Distributing Content All of the above four inbound-link-generating methods really do work. But it is the fifth method of getting one-way inbound links that is the most promising: distributing content

    The idea is simple: you give other websites content to put on their sites in exchange for a link to your site, usually in an "author's resource box," an "about the author" paragraph at the end of the article.

    The beauty of distributing content for links is that the links generally generate more traffic than links on a "resources" page. Plus, your article will pre-sell readers on the value of your site.

    The downside, of course, is that it's no small amount of work to create original content and then distribute it to hundreds of website owners. But nothing good ever came easy. And on the internet, one-way inbound links are a very good thing.

    In conclusion, there are a number of ways of getting one-way inbound links, and if you're smart, you'll use all of them.

    About the author Joel Walsh is the owner of UpMarket Content, where you can get a content distribution campaign managed from soup to nuts, and guaranteed to get you at least one hundred one-way inbound links for every three articles. Check out this guaranteed website promotion content distribution package: http://upmarketcontent.com/website-p romotion-package.htm

    In The News:

    pen paper and inkwell


    cat break through


    Where on Earth is Your Websitee?

    You've just finished congratulating your marketing team. After six months... Read More

    Email Addresses in Web Pages

    You want to give your site's visitors a way to... Read More

    Making The Business Case For Web Standards

    Through the explosive growth of the Web, companies have realized... Read More

    Learn What 98% of Targeted Visitors Do On Your Website

    Getting a Targeted Visitor to a website is a waste... Read More

    Thinking Of Taking Money Online? Whats Best For Merchants? PayPal, WorldPay or Something Else?

    It's now easier than ever to take payments on the... Read More

    How To Start Your Own Website

    I'm one of those people that always wanted a website,... Read More

    Website Conversion Rate: More Keywords Equals More Sales

    Your website conversion rate should concern you. This simply refers... Read More

    5 Tips To Supercharge Your Website Sales Copy

    The art of turning website visitors into paying customers depends... Read More

    Marketing Your Business Online

    As a business you can't afford to ignore the Internet... Read More

    HTML Editors 101 - Smaller Is Better

    SiteSpinnerSiteSpinner is a user-friendly web site development tool that includes... Read More

    Website Sales: 10 Reasons Why People Dont Buy From You

    You've put up a website to promote a product or... Read More

    How to Get a Better Web Site ROI

    Better Web Site ROIHow to increase your business profitability by... Read More

    Selecting a Web Content Management Product

    So you want to take a look at a real... Read More

    Get a Website!, Register Your Domain!: To Website or Not to Website?

    If you're fairly new to the Internet scene, you may... Read More

    The Topic Of Your Website

    The first thing you will have to deal building your... Read More

    Server Side Includes (SSI) with ASP

    Server Side Includes (SSI) with ASP People often... Read More

    Developing State-enabled Applications With PHP

    Installment 1Developing State-enabled Applications With PHPWhen a user is browsing... Read More

    Your Future Profit Is In The Stars

    You don't believe in astrology but you check your horoscope... Read More

    Websites: You Get What You Pay For!

    So you finally decided to invest in a web presence... Read More

    Web Content: How Much Should I Pay?

    When web content gets discussed on webmaster bulletin boards, the... Read More

    CPanel Fantastico - Features and Benefits

    Fantastico is a 3rd-party cPanel add-on and can be purchased... Read More

    The Web: Your Window of Opportunity

    Thinking about starting up a business? The web is the... Read More

    10 Tips For A Successful Website

    Have you ever thought the secret behind the success of... Read More

    Make Your Communication Come Alive

    Design and layout can make your communication come alive and... Read More

    What is Blogger.com?

    In the late 1990's three San Francisco based web developers... Read More

    Develop a Solid Website Presence

    Starting an internet business can be confusing to non-veterans. The... Read More

    Get Your Business on the Web

    I can't think of any business alive today that couldn't... Read More

    The Two Most Common Mistakes That Scare Away Web Visitors

    Can you imagine the hypocrisy of spending thousands of dollars,... Read More

    Pick Up Your Own Domain Name

    Think up a name and check if yourname.com is available.... Read More

    Freelance Programming is Easy to Manage

    There are several reverse bid freelance sites out there. Beyond... Read More

    Three Way Linking - Webmaster Strategy

    Three way linking and concerns.For many years SEO experts were... Read More

    Ecommerce for Beginners

    Like most average persons, I wanted some extra money to... Read More

    Study Your Sites Performance Via Hit Tracking

    Knowledge is power.And undoubtedly, it is the key to making... Read More