Blogging for Backlinks: A Beginners Guide

For a newbie, the road to online success is littered with mysteries to unravel, skills to master, and pitfalls to avoid. It can all seem daunting and never ending.
Have you discovered this already? You have worked hard and reached the stage where you have decided on your niche and set up your website. You have learned about keywords and their importance, and then you are faced with….backlinks.
There is no avoiding them or their importance, but the principal is sometimes difficult to grasp if you are a beginner.
You can be sure of one fact ,if you  want to have any hope of  improving your search engine ranking, and increasing the number of visitors they send to your site, then you must have good quality backlinks.
The emphasis here must be on good quality.

So what exactly is a backlink? In basic terms, it is a clickable link on another website that leads to a page on your website.
The more links you have pointing to your website, the more traffic you will attract.
There are many ways of getting the links you need, but here I am going to concentrate on blogs and blogging as a way of generating backlinks.


Comments on Blogs

In all the tips you read about getting backlinks, posting comments on blogs may feature somewhere, but certainly not in the number one spot.
I am putting it top because I feel that it is a much neglected resource when it comes to creating beneficial links .This is a pity, as it is an easy and positive way for beginners to start linking.
I am sure that you already have a few favourite blogs in your niche where you visit regularly to get ideas and see how other marketers are developing their online businesses.
Do you leave comments? No? I thought not…what a waste! Are you thinking that when you post a comment on a blog that it is read just by the blog owner, a few others perhaps and that is the end of it? Now you must see where this is leading.
When you leave your comment you will also be able to live a link to your website and there you have it…a backlink. Write a useful and interesting comment though, no spamming, and leave your link. Repeat this on other blogs and you will have them all linking back to your own blog or website. What could be simpler!

Guest Blogging

Search out some blogs in your niche where they allow posts by other authors.
Some blog owners actively encourage guest bloggers as it helps increase their content, so take advantage of that if at all possible.
Make sure your article is unique to that particular blog, and include a link to your website wherever it is allowed, usually in a resource box at the end. Check this out beforehand.
This way, you will not only get your precious backlink, but it will enhance your online profile in your chosen niche.
This tactic can be time-consuming if you post on several blogs, but well worth implementing in terms of quality backlinks.

Your Own Blog Posts

Don’t forget to optimize your own blog posts to get backlinks. Each time you create a new post for your blog, bookmark it to some of the social directories.
The search engines crawl the social directories on a regular basis, so they will follow your link back to your blog and will pick up on the keywords you are using in your blog post. This should result in an increase in your search engine rankings.

So don’t neglect blogs as a way of building backlinks. Next time you find yourself reading a blog post that you find interesting/funny/informative, leave a comment saying what you think. Not only will the blog owner be interested in your views, you will have created a quality link to your own website or blog.