Why I Don't Buy Links
Unlike many other SEO marketers I am not in the business of buying links. Although I know it has worked very well for many SEO marketers, I just can't bring myself to pay for links and it's not just because Google has come out so strongly against paid links.
Full disclosure: I have paid for links a couple of times. But I didn't like the way it felt and I haven't done it since. Forgive me Google Gods!
The Reasons:
1. Uncertainty. I have no way of knowing that may link will remain after I pay for it. There are many unscrupulous website owners out there who will gladly take your money for a paid link and then just as gladly remove your link later. Or they may add a "nofollow" attribute which basically makes your link worthless in the eyes of Google anyway. There's also the chance that the website you bought links on will be sold and the new owner will remove all of the old links or perhaps turn the site into something else entirely. Or the current owner may revamp the site with no concern for the people who have bought links. All of this uncertainty makes me not want to spend money on links even if they are "permanent." I don't want to have to keep an eye on all of these sites to see if my links are still up, that's way too time consuming and distracting.
2. Paying For Links Monthly/Yearly. A lot of people buy links monthly/yearly and to me that's just crazy. You are pretty much putting yourself in a situation where you have to continue paying this person for the rest of your website's life. If you stop paying then your link disappears and this looks very bad in the search engines. How about this scenario: You pay $100 a month for 3 years ($3600) for a link from a website and they suddenly raise their price to $500 a month. Or they suddenly decide they are changing the website and are no longer offering to sell a link to you. All of that money down the drain, isn't it? The argument against that is that you could have already made that much money from the link because of how it effected the search engine results. And don't get me wrong, there are some solid arguments for buying links from places like text-link-ads but it's just not for me. If I were to ever buy links it would be only the permanent variety. I hate the idea of owing someone monthly or yearly just to keep my link on their site.
3. Google. They are cracking down on paid links. Google seems to think that paid links are the work of the devil and are trying to devalue sites that sell and buy links. While I'll agree with the devil's advocates that say if you are smart (not so obvious about buying/selling links) you can probably still get away with doing it. But I don't really like to be on Google's bad side. They are too powerful and control too much of the market. I'll try to play by their rules as much as possible. What's the point of paying a lot of money for links if Google ends up just taking all of their value away? Yahoo, MSN? Maybe. I guess if you feel confident about the return a link can bring you, it could be worth it. It's all business after all.
4. Peace Of Mind. The above three reasons all roll together for this one. I find it much more peaceful not buying links. I like to build links in a more organic long term sort of way so that my site's link popularity is building up with a strong foundation. I feel buying links is sort of like building a house of cards. Building links more naturally frees up energy from worrying about whether my links are still up and whether Google is going to devalue them and all of the other worries that come with buying links. The natural way is the peaceful way.
The Alternatives:
Link building is extremely important for internet marketing success. So if I'm not buying links, how do I get them?
1. Article Submissions. I'm a big believer in article submissions. Establish your site as a source of information. Articles can bring you quality links back to your website along with a small amount of traffic (it can be very high quality though.)
Check out the following methods for article submission:
ISnare
JetSubmitter
Article Submitter Software
You may also wish to try to directly contact high quality sites in your niche or a related niche to see if they would like to host your one of a kind article for free. If your article is of high quality they may jump at the chance. Don't emphasize that you want a link back to your site as this will make them feel dirty. A link back to your site is standard procedure with an article from any reputable site. Don't get me started on the sites that take articles from places like ISnare and don't include the article resource links. I try not to worry about them, they'll get what's coming to them sooner or later!
2. Directory Submissions. Although Google is coming down hard on a lot of directories, I think you can still succeed in getting some strong links back to your website if you submit to quality directories. A quality directory does not guarantee inclusion for payment (that would be a paid link.) Any payment to a directory should be for a review, not for inclusion. V7N is an example of such a high quality directory. Make sure the directory is #1 for for a Google search of their own name before submitting! If they don't even show up for their own name then you know that Google is penalizing them and they aren't worth your time and certainly not worth your money for a review.
3. Link Exchanges. Google has also come down hard on link exchanges. But I think if you keep your link exchanges RELEVANT you will be fine. I suggest exchanging links only with those in your niche and only with sites that offer quality content. I recommend using Link Machine to keep track of your link exchanges. You can automatically remove anyone who takes down their link to you. You can also mix up where your back links go to (including deeplinks) and what the link text is. It's a completely customizable system so you can set it up to be unique to your site. I plan on adding it to this site soon (I already use it on many of my other sites.) Only internet marketing sites will be included.
4. Press Releases. This can be a great way to get lots of back links fast. Of course you have to write a good press release to make it worth your time (and money.) You have to come up with a good newsworthy angle on your website/product in order to have success.
5. Social Bookmarking. You can get good backlinks using social bookmarking services although many of them are "nofollow." It's also a great way of getting traffic. Check out the AddThis button at the bottom of this blog post for an example of what I'm talking about (and go ahead and submit it...) I highly recommend this AddThis button, it's a great way to include all of the SB sites without cluttering up your site. Some of the best SB sites are reddit.com, digg.com, & stumbleupon.com. I also usually include netscape.com on this list but they've recently become propeller.com, they should still be a good choice though.
6. Link Bait/Viral. This often works in conjunction with social bookmarking. You write a great blog entry or article and you submit it to social bookmarking sites. This is where it can be seen by many other people and if they like what they read, they may go ahead and link to it! I think this is the most "natural" and most "in the spirit of the internet" way to get great back links. It's also a great way to think because it will make you think about that old thing called "quality content." This is necessary because you will have no success with link bait/viral marketing without some very good content.
7. Quality Blog Comments. Don't spam. I'm talking about leaving comments on blogs that are in your niche. I'm talking about leaving quality on topic comments. While most blog comments are rel="nofollow" - I think these comments still have a positive effect on search engine results (at least Yahoo/MSN) and you can certainly get good quality traffic from them.
8. Forums. Don't spam. Join a forum in your niche and write on topic. Don't join just to spam your website. In fact I recommend you never mention your website in your posts, I know as a forum owner that I don't take kindly to that at all. Just put your website in your signature and speak intelligently and informatively on topics related to your website (which since you are in a forum related to your niche also relates to the forum, of course.) These links are normally not "nofollow" so you can get some "link juice" from them. But mainly you can get quality traffic.
Full disclosure: I have paid for links a couple of times. But I didn't like the way it felt and I haven't done it since. Forgive me Google Gods!
The Reasons:
1. Uncertainty. I have no way of knowing that may link will remain after I pay for it. There are many unscrupulous website owners out there who will gladly take your money for a paid link and then just as gladly remove your link later. Or they may add a "nofollow" attribute which basically makes your link worthless in the eyes of Google anyway. There's also the chance that the website you bought links on will be sold and the new owner will remove all of the old links or perhaps turn the site into something else entirely. Or the current owner may revamp the site with no concern for the people who have bought links. All of this uncertainty makes me not want to spend money on links even if they are "permanent." I don't want to have to keep an eye on all of these sites to see if my links are still up, that's way too time consuming and distracting.
2. Paying For Links Monthly/Yearly. A lot of people buy links monthly/yearly and to me that's just crazy. You are pretty much putting yourself in a situation where you have to continue paying this person for the rest of your website's life. If you stop paying then your link disappears and this looks very bad in the search engines. How about this scenario: You pay $100 a month for 3 years ($3600) for a link from a website and they suddenly raise their price to $500 a month. Or they suddenly decide they are changing the website and are no longer offering to sell a link to you. All of that money down the drain, isn't it? The argument against that is that you could have already made that much money from the link because of how it effected the search engine results. And don't get me wrong, there are some solid arguments for buying links from places like text-link-ads but it's just not for me. If I were to ever buy links it would be only the permanent variety. I hate the idea of owing someone monthly or yearly just to keep my link on their site.
3. Google. They are cracking down on paid links. Google seems to think that paid links are the work of the devil and are trying to devalue sites that sell and buy links. While I'll agree with the devil's advocates that say if you are smart (not so obvious about buying/selling links) you can probably still get away with doing it. But I don't really like to be on Google's bad side. They are too powerful and control too much of the market. I'll try to play by their rules as much as possible. What's the point of paying a lot of money for links if Google ends up just taking all of their value away? Yahoo, MSN? Maybe. I guess if you feel confident about the return a link can bring you, it could be worth it. It's all business after all.
4. Peace Of Mind. The above three reasons all roll together for this one. I find it much more peaceful not buying links. I like to build links in a more organic long term sort of way so that my site's link popularity is building up with a strong foundation. I feel buying links is sort of like building a house of cards. Building links more naturally frees up energy from worrying about whether my links are still up and whether Google is going to devalue them and all of the other worries that come with buying links. The natural way is the peaceful way.
The Alternatives:
Link building is extremely important for internet marketing success. So if I'm not buying links, how do I get them?
1. Article Submissions. I'm a big believer in article submissions. Establish your site as a source of information. Articles can bring you quality links back to your website along with a small amount of traffic (it can be very high quality though.)
Check out the following methods for article submission:
ISnare
JetSubmitter
Article Submitter Software
You may also wish to try to directly contact high quality sites in your niche or a related niche to see if they would like to host your one of a kind article for free. If your article is of high quality they may jump at the chance. Don't emphasize that you want a link back to your site as this will make them feel dirty. A link back to your site is standard procedure with an article from any reputable site. Don't get me started on the sites that take articles from places like ISnare and don't include the article resource links. I try not to worry about them, they'll get what's coming to them sooner or later!
2. Directory Submissions. Although Google is coming down hard on a lot of directories, I think you can still succeed in getting some strong links back to your website if you submit to quality directories. A quality directory does not guarantee inclusion for payment (that would be a paid link.) Any payment to a directory should be for a review, not for inclusion. V7N is an example of such a high quality directory. Make sure the directory is #1 for for a Google search of their own name before submitting! If they don't even show up for their own name then you know that Google is penalizing them and they aren't worth your time and certainly not worth your money for a review.
3. Link Exchanges. Google has also come down hard on link exchanges. But I think if you keep your link exchanges RELEVANT you will be fine. I suggest exchanging links only with those in your niche and only with sites that offer quality content. I recommend using Link Machine to keep track of your link exchanges. You can automatically remove anyone who takes down their link to you. You can also mix up where your back links go to (including deeplinks) and what the link text is. It's a completely customizable system so you can set it up to be unique to your site. I plan on adding it to this site soon (I already use it on many of my other sites.) Only internet marketing sites will be included.
4. Press Releases. This can be a great way to get lots of back links fast. Of course you have to write a good press release to make it worth your time (and money.) You have to come up with a good newsworthy angle on your website/product in order to have success.
5. Social Bookmarking. You can get good backlinks using social bookmarking services although many of them are "nofollow." It's also a great way of getting traffic. Check out the AddThis button at the bottom of this blog post for an example of what I'm talking about (and go ahead and submit it...) I highly recommend this AddThis button, it's a great way to include all of the SB sites without cluttering up your site. Some of the best SB sites are reddit.com, digg.com, & stumbleupon.com. I also usually include netscape.com on this list but they've recently become propeller.com, they should still be a good choice though.
6. Link Bait/Viral. This often works in conjunction with social bookmarking. You write a great blog entry or article and you submit it to social bookmarking sites. This is where it can be seen by many other people and if they like what they read, they may go ahead and link to it! I think this is the most "natural" and most "in the spirit of the internet" way to get great back links. It's also a great way to think because it will make you think about that old thing called "quality content." This is necessary because you will have no success with link bait/viral marketing without some very good content.
7. Quality Blog Comments. Don't spam. I'm talking about leaving comments on blogs that are in your niche. I'm talking about leaving quality on topic comments. While most blog comments are rel="nofollow" - I think these comments still have a positive effect on search engine results (at least Yahoo/MSN) and you can certainly get good quality traffic from them.
8. Forums. Don't spam. Join a forum in your niche and write on topic. Don't join just to spam your website. In fact I recommend you never mention your website in your posts, I know as a forum owner that I don't take kindly to that at all. Just put your website in your signature and speak intelligently and informatively on topics related to your website (which since you are in a forum related to your niche also relates to the forum, of course.) These links are normally not "nofollow" so you can get some "link juice" from them. But mainly you can get quality traffic.
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