Backlinking For Beginners - Thinking Outside The Box

[leep]

Okay, so just lately I'm hearing a lot of banter about backlinking no longer working or isn’t as effective, or Google panda this or Google panda that. So I thought I would write a small guide on better backlinking strategies. I hope with this guide that people new to sick and backlinking will gain a better understanding, and that experienced backlinkers can take away some new ideas or perhaps even add some ideas.

Now it’s no myth that Google has smartened up to low quality backlinks and a lot of people have been slapped, even legitimate white hat sites have felt the panda bite. So what is to be done? Aside from your on-page SEO, you need to smarten up your backlinking. What I call "Lazy Linking" just won’t cut it anymore. The quality of your backlinks needs to improve.

90% of my marketing and backlinking is done with Sick Submitter and it is an amazing tool. Now I'm going to be honest, some of the strategies that I will discuss can be a little time consuming and in some cases be a little costly. But the strategies involved will depend on the niche and competition of the keywords you're going after, and how much the top of Google is worth to you.

Over the last few months I've been experimenting with different linking tactics to see what works. Please bear in mind that while some linking tactics may work for one site, it may not work for another. So it’s advisable you tweak, change and add your own twists to some of the strategies discussed.

Throughout this guide I will be referring to different linking properties, so I will quickly explain these now.

Web 2.0 Properties – These are your blogging sites such as blogger, tumblr, wordpress, edublogs and other similar sites. The creation of accounts and posting to these sites can be done manually, using automated software such as SeNuke or my Web2.0 Packet.
Other Web 2.0 Properties – These are other platforms such as Elgg, Wiki Type sites, WPMU type sites and sites that allow posting of in content links.
Web 2.0 Bookmarking Sites – These are bookmarking sites such as, dig, delicious, folkd, tagza etc. Manual creation & posting, automated software or using my Web2.0 Bookmarking Packet.
Other Bookmarking Sites – These are other platforms such as Pligg, Scuttle etc.
High PR Profile Sites – These are sites or communities that are high quality/high PR and allow creation of public profiles that allow links.
Forum Profiles – You should know these, VB, PHPBB, SMF etc .
Blog Comments – You can use sick or scrapebox for this.
Article Directories – Article Directory sites such as article dashboard or wordpress article directories
Directory Sites – Link Directory sites
RSS – Pretty Self Explanatory, RSS sites
Pinging – Ping sites/services, such as linklicious.me
Purchased Blog Posts – Purchased blog posts on related blogs

Okay so let’s begin with basic 2 tier pyramids. Although I don’t personally use 2 tier pyramids myself, it wouldn’t be wise to miss it out.

2 Tier Pyramid



Tier 1:
- Unique well written and well spun articles pointing towards money site.

Tier 2:
- Blog Comments blasting tier 1
- Forum Profiles blasting tier 1
- Web 2.0 Bookmarking tier 1
- Other Bookmarking sites for tier 1
- Article Directories Linking to tier 1
- Directory Sites Linking to tier 1
- Ping all of tier 2


3 Tier Pyramid



Tier 1:
- Unique well written and well spun article pointing towards money site.

Tier 2:
- Web 2.0, more spins of spun article backlinking to tier 1
- High Quality/High PR Profile sites linking to tier 1
- Other Web 2.0’s pointing to tier 1
- Web 2.0 Bookmarking site pointing to tier 1

Tier 3:
- Forum Profiles pointing to tier 2
- Blog Comments pointing to tier 2
- Other Bookmarking sites pointing to tier 2
- Article Directories pointing to tier 2. Articles can either be spun from tier 1+2 or copied and spun from ezine for example.
- Directory sites pointing to tier 2
- Pinging of tier 2 + 3


4 Tier Pyramid



Tier 1:
- Unique well written and well spun article pointing towards money site.

Tier 2:
- Unique rewrite and well spun article of tier one article pointing towards tier one articles.

Tier 3:
- High Quality/High PR Profile Sites pointing towards tier 2
- Other Web 2.0’s pointing towards tier 2
- Web 2.0 Bookmarking towards tier 2

Tier 4:
- Forum Profiles pointing towards tier 3
- Blog Comments pointing towards tier 3
- Article Directories pointing to tier 3. Articles can be spun from tier 2 (not tier 1) or copied and spun from ezine for example.
- Directory Sites pointing towards tier 3
- Other bookmarking sites pointing towards tier 3
- Ping Tiers 3 + 4


Advanced Pyramid 1

These pyramids require a bit more planning and can sometimes be time consuming to create. Each Tier after tier one is a separate “spoke” or “sub tier”. Each of these spokes do NOT interlink at all to another spoke. I tend to create and work on each spoke individually before moving on to the next one.

Another thing I like to do is keep platforms/sites on tiers 1+2 separate. For example, if spoke 1 tier 1 is wordpess, tier two of that spoke will not contain wordpress. Tier 3 and above I don’t apply this rule.
Last but not least, spoke 1 will be unique to spoke 2.

Here is an example of what I mean:



Tier 1:
- Each spoke will have a unique well written unspun article pointing towards money site.
- You can also include paid blog posts from other high PR blogs that are related to your niche

Tier 2:
- Unique rewrite and well spun article of tier 1 of that particular spoke, linking back to tier 1 of that spoke. No interlinking to other spokes from tier 2 to tier 1.

Tier 3:
- Other Web2.0’s pointing towards tier 2 of that spoke. No interlinking.
- Web 2.0 Bookmarking pointing towards tier 2 of that spoke. No interlinking.
- High Quality/High PR Profile sites pointing towards tier 2 of that spoke. No interlinking.

Tier 4:
- Blog Comments pointing towards tier 3 of that spoke. No interlinking.
- Forum Profiles towards tier 3 of that spoke. No interlinking.
- Article Directories pointing to tier 3 of that spoke. No interlinking. Articles can be rewrites from tier 2 or copied and spun from ezine for example. I try not to use spun content from tier 1 or 2.
- Directory Sites pointing towards tier 3 of that spoke.

I then ping everything from tier 3 + 4.


Advanced Pyramid 2

This pyramid is one I use a lot and has the same principles as the previous pyramid; however I tend to use paid blog posts exclusively on tier 1. The great thing about these paid blog posts, is that you can usually buy them on high PR blogs with aged domains.

The reason I like this on tier 1 is that these blog posts within themselves can sometimes be relatively powerful. Not to mention the fact we can blast these tier 1 blog posts with thousands of blog comments, forum profiles, other bookmarking sites and perhaps even article directory sites directly, and the target site/blog post will more than likely not suffer a penalty from Google due to the fact that it is an aged domain with high PR.



Tier 1:
- Each spoke will have a unique well written unspun article pointing towards money site.
- Each spoke will be a paid blog post on a aged high PR site. You can choose to provide the article or get the blog owner to write it. I personally write this myself to elimination the chance of an copied/spun article.

Tier 2:
- Unique rewrite and well spun article of tier 1’s paid blog posts of that particular spoke, linking back to tier 1 of that spoke. No interlinking to other spokes from tier 2 to tier 1.
- These rewrites are to be posted on the web 2.0 properties.
- Forum profile and blog comment blasts to paid blog post of that spoke. No interlinking.
- Article Directories pointing towards paid blog post of that spoke. No interlinking. Articles can be copied and spun from ezine for example. I try not to use spun version of article from paid blog post for article directories.
- Other bookmarking sites pointing towards paid blog post of that spoke. No interlinking.

Ping everything from tier 2

Tier 3:
- Other Web2.0’s pointing towards tier 2 of that spoke. No interlinking.
- Web 2.0 Bookmarking pointing towards tier 2 of that spoke. No interlinking.
- High Quality/High PR Profile sites pointing towards tier 2 of that spoke. No interlinking.

Tier 4:
- Blog Comments pointing towards tier 3 of that spoke. No interlinking.
- Forum Profiles towards tier 3 of that spoke. No interlinking.
- Article Directories pointing to tier 3 of that spoke. No interlinking. Articles can be rewrites from tier 2 or copied and spun from ezine for example. I try not to use spun content from tier 1 or 2.
- Directory Sites pointing towards tier 3 of that spoke.

I then ping everything from tier 3 + 4.

As you can see there is more than one way to skin a cat. Add your own little tweaks and twists to get extra link juice. Think outside the box and you shall see results. Everything discussed in this guide can be automated with Sick. The only thing I manually do is high quality, high PR blog commenting due to that fact that I read the article and write a meaningful reply.

I hope you find this useful, and if you have any questions then feel free to ask. Also if there is anything you would like to add, feel free.

	Sick Scraper The Sick Scraper is a free tool that will help you find links for your templates. It can be used as a alternative to Scrape Box for users who have not purchased that program. You can read more about the Sick Scraper in the Sick Scraper Forum Download here

[lilbeewee]

Nice guide leep. Sticky I think! And can mostly be done in Sick Submitter right?

[leep]

Thanks lilbee yes everything discussed in this guide can be automated with sick. Which is why sick, in my opinion, is the only marketing tool you'll ever need

[mellow]

Wow, I love how in depth you've gone into explaining how to properly build backlinks to your site. I'm definitely going to start using your strategy's, although I might not start on the advanced pyramids! The graphics alone are useful!

I thought I'd also add that building backlinks consistently will also help your rankings. For example simply blasting out 1000 backlinks in a day and then leaving it, hoping google will find them and throw you up the rankings is no good. You are much better off spreading those backlinks out over a month, for example 30 a day, and continuing to do this for a long period of time. Google will see this as much more natural backlinking, and you are more likely to reach higher ranks for your keyword(s).

[leep]

Oh yes of course, advanced pyramids are not created over night... some of my pyramids can take weeks depending on how many spokes are in it and how many tiers are involved. If done correctly, especially if using a paid blog post on a high PR (PR5-6) aged domain, the advanced pyramids can be extremely powerful.

What you're refering to I believe is "Link Velocity" (correct me if I'm wrong). Yes it is important that you maintain constant backlinking efforts and consistancy.

[zulu]

Is still worth pinging the profile backlinks or now that google is smarter is not "dangerous" and you can be mark as spammer?

[leep]

Of course, because you are not blasting your money site directly... I never ping my web2.0 properties, I always let these be crawled naturally. But I do ping my outer tiers.

[lilbeewee]

If it was possible to "be marked as a spammer" for pinging backlinks then major players would be doing so to their competitors. Pinging backlinks will never get you "marked as a spammer". The most that would happen is the ping would be blocked for excessive pings from the same IP. That's why it's important to use proxies when pinging the same as anything else.

[avielmedina]

if some1 doesnt have time to deal with blog posts, you can use buildmyrank.com & blogblueprint.com.. i think they are fine.. some people doesn't like this type of services.

[leep]

if some1 doesnt have time to deal with blog posts, you can use buildmyrank.com & blogblueprint.com.. i think they are fine.. some people doesn't like this type of services.

Yea you could use this type of service but I find the majority of blogs that are within these networks are low quality, low PR or both. Most of them have 10-15 posts daily.

I've yet to find one of my really high quality spun articles on a PR3 or above blog. The best blog I've stumbled across was a 12 month aged domain PR2.

With paid blog posts you know exactly what you're getting. If I write the article, I can get a unique 400 word article on a PR5, aged domain and related to my niche for between $10-$15. Even one contextual link, on a high PR aged domain with relevance can be powerful, especially when backlinking this blogpost with advanced pyramids