• E-Commerce
    • eCommerce
    • Amazon FBA
    • Dropshipping
  • Marketing
    • Digital Marketing
    • Social Media
    • Email Marketing
  • Blogging
    • Blogging & Niche Websites
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • SEO
    • Monetization
    • Affiliate Marketing
  • Make Money
    • Side Hustles
    • Self Publishing
    • Start a Business
    • Make Money Online
  • Stories
    • Podcasts
    • Success Stories
  • Help & Guides
    • Start Here
    • Tools
    • About
    • Archives
    • Contact
    • Advertise On Niche Pursuits
SEO

How to Build Links for Niche Sites

<a class="txt-link" href="https://www.nichepursuits.com/author/spencerh/">Spencer Haws</a>

By Spencer Haws

Last updated: March 9, 2022

When you buy something through one of the links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

 

Google still loves links; that much is undisputed.  However, the question of how to build links or whether to “build” any links at all is always debatable.

For example, I have never “built” a single link to NichePursuits.com; however, I have thousands of links pointing to my site.  All of the links have come naturally because others linked to the site on their own based on the quality of my content or for other reasons.  This is what I recommend doing for a true long term “Authority” site that you might be working on.

However, when building a niche site, like the one in my Niche Site Project, I most certainly build links.  The purpose of my niche sites is to perform exceptional keyword research, provide valuable and useful content to readers, and then to rank in Google.  Picking a good theme for the site also helps user experience.  This usually requires some link building.

The purpose of this post is not to discuss whether or not you should manually go out and build links to your niche site.  I am just going to assume that you have made the decision to add some link juice to your site.  If so, this post will lay out my exact plan for building links to my new niche site (best, survival, knife guide (.) com – not linking from here to keep the experiment valuable).

How to Build Links

First of all, I've written a ton of link building posts in the past, so you can always check what I've said previously right here.

So, the purpose of this post is to specifically cover how I will be building links for my niche site and can be used as a blueprint for your own niche sites if you want.  Also, I'm going to say this out loud again, “I'm not a link building expert!”  I make no claims to be the pro link builder that others sometimes do; however, I've ranked many sites at number 1 in Google over my years.  I credit my #1 rankings to excellent keyword research (which I DO claim to be an expert in 🙂 ), and a little bit of link building.

If you are looking for a link building expert, then I recommend taking a look at Point Blank SEO here.  I've gone through Jon Cooper's course there, and its given me TONS of ideas, and I highly recommend it.

100 Base Links

I often find one of the traps that people fall into when building links is that they think they need TONS of links right away.  After all, you can go to Fiverr and get 1000 Links for only $5…shouldn't you do that?  Of course not (unless you want a Google penalty).  You know better! (There may good Fiverr gigs out there, just avoid spamming).

My point in mentioning 100 links is simply to specify that you don't need a ton of links; not necessarily an exact number that I will follow.

My initial plan is to get 100 or so total links from 10 different types of link sources.  Types of sources are things like: blog comments, web directories, article directories, profile links, video sharing sites, guest posts, and more.  By diversifying the source of links and types of links, this provides a much better link profile that is more natural looking.

Here's a list of a few ideas for getting links:

  • Quality Web Directories
  • Guest Posts
  • Ask for links (email other website owners)
  • Build Relationships with other site owners
  • Copy Links for Competitors
  • Social Media
  • Social Bookmarks
  • Link Out to Others
  • Video Submissions
  • Photo Sharing
  • Document Sharing
  • RSS Feeds
  • Sponsor a Contest
  • Blog Comments
  • Testimonials
  • Forum posts
  • Q&A Sites
  • Web 2.0 sites
  • Article Directories

Now, I'll provide a little more detail on how I'll be building links for my niche site. (I'll be trying to get approximately 10 links from each of these categories).

Quality Web Directories

Web directories still provide a great source for potential links, and are still very Google friendly.  As explained in my previous post here, web directories and blog commenting will be the first links I build to my niche site.

I'm having my Virtual Assistant submit my site to several high PR directories that are free.   Because not all of the links will be approved, I'm submitting to 50 or so directories to start.  So, I'll get more than 10 links total, but many won't be indexed either, so I might end up with just over 10 real links pointing to my site.  That's fine with me.

Blog Comments

Blog comments need to be real (crazy, huh?).  I am personally going out to relevant blogs and leaving a genuine comment that is based on what was written.  I am not worried if the comments are DoFollow or NoFollow at this point.

These basic links will help me get some relevancy pointing to my niche site.  Getting relevant links is very important.  I also won't be using keyword anchor text, just my name for the most part.

Blog comments (as all the other link methods here) will help increase the total overall number of linking root domains to my site; which is a good thing.  You can do a Google search for things like “your keyword” + “leave a comment” to find blogs allowing comments.  (Lots of other methods exist for this as well).

Article Directories

I will only be submitting a few articles to a few different directories (for around 10 links total).  This used to be the old standby method for getting links for niche sites, but its not super effective anymore.  However, the links still provide some basic relevancy and additional root domains to link from; along with a little link juice.

You can do a search for some of the top Article Directories, but here's just a few:

  • EzineArticles.com
  • GoArticles.com
  • ArticleSnatch.com

Web 2.0 Sites

Similar to Article Marketing, but different places.  Here's a few:

  • Squidoo
  • WordPress.com
  • Blogger.com
  • LiveJournal.com

Other Link Sources

I could make comments on other types of links, but essentially I am going to seek around 10 links or so from a few additional places such as:

  • RSS Feed links
  • Social Bookmarks
  • Forum Posts
  • Profile links
  • Document Sharing
  • Photo or Video Sharing
  • etc.

You can get more details on some of these types of links here.  And if you want a full course with TONS of actual link building opportunities that I haven't even covered here, check out the Point Blank SEO link building course.  Its excellent.

Importance of Anchor Text

So, far I've just covered the need to build small amounts of links from different locations.  If you go out and spam thousands of blogs or other locations, you are likely going to penalize your site.  So, I take the approach that fewer real links is usually better than lots of spammy links.

However, another way to get your site penalized is to overuse anchor text.  I've already written an entire post on properly using anchor text here.  Here's part of what I said then for how often to use keyword anchor text:

10% – Exact Match  – “dog training tips”

20% – Partial Match – “best dog training”

10% – URL Match – dogtrainingtips.com

10% – Brand Match – Bills Dog Training Tips (if your site is billsdogtrainingtips.com).  Note that if your site is dogtrainingtips.com, then “Dog training tips” is both an exact match AND a brand match.

20% – Related keyword match – “puppy potty training” or “housebreaking a puppy”

30% – No match – “click here”, “read more”, “get a free gift here”, “check out this super sweet website”, “Spencer is cool”, “Spencer is da bomb”, “Spencer needs to chill on the Spencer related anchor text”, “you get the idea!”

The percentage of use is just a general guideline.  Don’t stick to this religiously!  Also, expect this to change as Google changes their algorithm!  These percentages just emphasize that you should not be using exact match anchor text most of the time, and you need to diversify.

Now granted, 10% exact match anchor text is pretty strict.  You can likely go as high as 20% and be okay.  However, what would be ideal, is if you can use exact match anchor text from highest authority links that you have.

A Visual Diagram of Link Building (courtesy: My mad graphic design skills)

building links

More Powerful Links

Lots of other link building opportunities are out there, and many are more powerful than what I've mentioned.  However, if you did your keyword research properly, you may not need any additional links!

If you do, you can start seeking out guest posting opportunities or otherwise interacting with other bloggers in your niche in hopes of establishing a linking relationship.  This deserves to be a post on its own.

However, what if you could get high PageRank links that are both in content and relevant?  These would be extremely powerful indeed.  The good news is, that this is certainly possible, and most SEO agencies use the strategy I'm about to lay out a great deal.

I'm talking about buying high PageRank domains and using them to link to your niche sites.  I've talked about this many times in the past, so I'm simply going to link to a few of the most relevant posts:

  • Podcast 10: How to Find Valuable Expired Domains
  • Finding Expired Domains: A Controversial Case Study
  • 7 Ways to Monetize Expired Domains
  • Another Niche Site, Another $500 a Month?

So in a nutshell, high authority domains expire all the time.  If you know how to find them (read the above posts), you can pick up these domains for less than $10.  Once they are re-registered, all the links that were pointing to that domain are STILL pointing to that domain, which means they often are still a PageRank 3, 4, 5 or higher domains.

I've personally found several PageRank 3 and 4 domains without putting too much effort into it.

Once you own these domains, you can do whatever you want; including linking to your niche sites.  As discussed in the posts above, you have to be smart about using different hosting accounts and IP addresses.  But overall, these domains can get you high authority, relevant links to any of your niche sites.

Again, this is exactly what most SEO agencies are doing to rank sites.  If you hire a link building service, its very likely that their most powerful links are coming from their own domain network of expired domains they purchased.

So, once I've built my base of 100 links, if I'm still not #1 in Google; I'll be looking to expired domains to make up the difference.  And because I won't have used my anchor text alot on those 100 base links, I can use my exact match anchor text on these more potent links to give Google everything they want in a link: High Authority, Relevancy, and keyword anchor text.

I would only expect to need less than 10 (maybe much less) of these types of links to see a big boost to my rankings.  Yes, I could just build these links and not worry about the others, but an overall diverse link profile is always better, and those 100 base links give me just that in addition to lots of linking root domains.

Second Tier Links

I want to talk about second tier links just briefly.  These are links to your links.  Often when you submit to Article directories, web 2.0, profile links, or other locations, your links will not get indexed on their own.  However, if you can link to your web 2.0 properties, etc, the links to your niche site will be more powerful.

These 2nd ties links don't have to be super-high quality, as their purpose is basically just to make sure the Google bot crawls your other properties.  For this reason, you can use tools like Unique Article Wizard for this.  (I no longer recommend using Unique Article Wizard to points links at your money site).

Or you can hire a gig of Fiverr to build this second tier of links (just don't give them your niche site URL!).  Or you can manually do blog commenting to your links (very time consuming).  Or you can find a backlink indexing tool.  I personally will just hire a service to go out and build this second tier of links for me (using one of the best link building companies is a safe choice).

And for expired domains, you don't need to build a 2nd tier of link because they already have links pointing to them.

In Conclusion

So, I'm personally working on web directories and blog comments right now.  I expect to spend about a month or 2 building the 100 base links, just to give you a time frame.   Other than the blog comments, I expect to hire someone to do all the link building for me (according to my strict guidelines, anchor text rules, etc).  And of course as expired domains are needed, I'll be using my own or finding someone with some already set up.

You can most certainly hire someone to do your link building (such as niche edits), just be very careful that they don't still think thousands of spammy links is a good idea.

Now, I've only scratched the surface.  However, along with the many other posts I've written previously on link building over the past couple of years, I think you can get a pretty good idea of what I'm doing.  And finally if you want even better detail with more in-depth advice, check out the course from link building expert Jon Cooper.

By way of update, my niche site that I'm documenting, is currently bouncing between position 25 and 29 still on Google.  However, with the link building I've laid out here, I expect it to start moving up in the next couple of weeks for sure.  This case study is not for a personal blog I've developed, but a site I've created strictly for the purposes of showing my readers that it's indeed possible to make money online as an entrepreneur.  

As always, I look forward to your comments and questions.  Do you have a particular method of link building that works well for you (like Google stacking?)?  Feel free to share below.

Posted in

206 Comments

SEO
<a class="txt-link" href="https://www.nichepursuits.com/author/spencerh/">Spencer Haws</a>

By Spencer Haws

Spencer Haws is the founder of NichePursuits.com. After getting a degree in Business Finance from BYU (2002) and an MBA from ASU (2007) he worked for 8 years in Business Banking and Finance at both Merril Lynch and Wells Fargo Bank.

While consulting with other small business owners as a business banker, Spencer finally had the desire to start his own business. He successfully built a portfolio of niche sites using SEO and online marketing that allowed him to quit his job in 2011. Since then he’s been involved in dozens of online business ventures including: creating and exiting Long Tail Pro, running an Amazon FBA business for over 3 years and selling that business, founding LinkWhisper.com, and co-founding MotionInvest.com. You can learn more about Spencer here.

Want to learn step-by-step how I built my Niche Site Empire up to a full-time income?

 

Yes! I Love to Learn

Learn How I Built My Niche Site Empire to a Full-time Income

  • How to Pick the Right Keywords at the START, and avoid the losers
  • How to Scale and Outsource 90% of the Work, Allowing Your Empire to GROW Without You
  • How to Build a Site That Gets REAL TRAFFIC FROM GOOGLE (every. single. day.)
  • Subscribe to the Niche Pursuits Newsletter delivered with value 3X per week

 

    206 Comments

    Conversation

    Long
    March 7, 2013

    Hi Spencer, awesome information. Always look forward to read your posts.

    When you’re building 10 links, are you building 10 per day, 7 days a week? When do you send links to your links? Same day or wait a week?

    Also, do you link out to other authority sites, such as Wikipedia? If so would you add the nofollow to that outbound link?

    Thanks 🙂

    Spencer Haws
    March 7, 2013

    As mentioned in the post, it will take me about a month or 2 to build the 100 base links. This equates to around 2 to 3 links a day on average. And yes, I link out to authoritative sites with a dofollow.

    Bradley
    March 7, 2013

    Spencer, what’s your thoughts on link velocity? Personally, I would be afraid that 100 links in “a month or 2” would be too many, and not economically sustainable for the long haul.

    Also, would you continue to build links like this if in 2 weeks your site is #1 in Google for your main keyword?

    I also didn’t see you mention much about whether you are trying to RANK those articles for long tail keyword phrases. I’d assume you are, but I just wanted to get some clarification.

    Ed
    March 7, 2013

    I’m not even close to a link building expert but I’d have the Sam concern that Bradley pointed out.

    What’s the proper velocity? Only the Google gods can answer that, but…

    Since you’ve clearly pointed out, this is an experiment, I’d recommend keeping a close eye in the “velocity” question. What you learn about that one topic can be very valuable indeed.

    Spencer Haws
    March 7, 2013

    This link velocity is EXACTLY what I did on my last niche site that just reached the #1 spot in Google a couple of weeks ago…so it works. (I also have LOTS of other niches sites that do well and have used similar link velocity on).

    Spencer Haws
    March 7, 2013

    Brad:
    What I laid out is actually a very low link velocity. 100 links in a month would be 3.33 links per day on average (low); 100 links in 2 months would be 1.67 links per day on average (very low). Overall, this is a really slow link velocity and slow and steady is what I recommend. When you compare what I’m doing with Fiverr gigs and services that build thousands of links in a week, you get the idea of how slow this is.

    I wouldn’t be doing this for the “long haul” just the first couple of months. After that, I’m not building lots of links – perhaps just a few high value links (expired domains?) here and there over time.

    Yes, I’d likely build my 100 based links even if I reach #1 right away. Right now I’m just focusing on my primary keyword, not the secondary articles.

    Theodore Nwangene
    March 7, 2013

    Hi Spencer,
    I can see you’re really moving forward with your niche site project. I like it.

    One of my best method of building links is via guest blogging which you also mentioned here. If you know how to do it very well, then it can give you tons of quality links.

    I also like commenting on other blogs but not for the purpose of building links, but just to build relationships with the owners.

    I believe that if you provide quality articles on your blog, then links will be coming your way naturally without you asking for it. For instance, i can easily link to any of your posts because you’re producing a top notch contents here.

    Another way is to link to other blogs and sometimes, the owner will return the favour by linking back to you.

    I have done article marketing before, but i no longer believe in them these days.

    A very wonderful post as always Spencer.

    Following you along on this project.

    Thanks for sharing and more strength to your elbows man.

    kashem
    March 7, 2013

    Thanks for your detail post . You have mentioned all the strategies . Do you think infograph submission also a good strategy to build link for niche site ? I am asking as it may take much more time and requires more money for creating infograph .

    Spencer Haws
    March 7, 2013

    Infographics could work, but I’ve never used them for niche sites…because its too much work and the return is unknown.

    Vic Dorfman
    March 7, 2013

    Kashem, I have some experience using infographics in link building.

    There’s a guy on Warrior Forum who makes them really cheap and does distribution for you too.

    I’ve found that infographics are not good for links *per se* but can make for great link *bait*. (Because they’re so shareable.)

    So using Spencer’s niche site as an example, you could order an infographic on the 5 best survival knives and if it’s really useful and accurate, hopefully some people in your niche would share it.

    I had a similar one created for my site on 5 ways to find a hot niche. It has a lot of shares and a link from the press release that came with the service.

    But as Spencer says, the ROI is hard to measure. I really can’t say if I got any more sales as a result. Although it is pretty to look at! 😉

    Vladimir Bestic
    March 7, 2013

    Are you actually getting value from social bookmarking links?

    And isn’t that kind of building links with article directories with tier2 links considered as a link scheme which Google doesn’t allow?

    Let’s say for example that your site will grow VERY big and you get into Google manual, non-algorithmic analyse. When Google see your linking profile or actually see this post. Do you think it will subject to manual penality?

    Spencer Haws
    March 7, 2013

    Not much to question 1. Everything discussed in this post is a link scheme that Google probably doesn’t like. If you are building ANY links, Google is technically not happy with it. That’s why I addressed this in the first 2 paragraphs of this post – you have to decide for yourself if you are going to be any links or not.

    Chris
    March 7, 2013

    Hi Spencer, great job so far and congrats on the first sale – I can’t believe you managed that so soon.

    Re your point about directory submissions, how do you propose to do that? Manual submission or do you have a software product for that?

    Best
    Chris

    Spencer Haws
    March 7, 2013

    As mentioned in this post, I’m have a VA manually build do the directory submissions.

    Chris
    March 7, 2013

    Yes, I saw that but does he have software to do it or is it a manual process. What do you recommend?

    Jeff Brady
    March 7, 2013

    Thanks for the excellent info .. one question though .. are you linking right to bestsurvivalknifeguide.com, or to specific posts/pages on the site?

    Spencer Haws
    March 7, 2013

    Right now I’m just linking to the homepage. I will mix in some inner links to specific pages down the road as well.

    Brian
    March 7, 2013

    Spencer,

    Any recommendations for Virtual Assistants?

    Spencer Haws
    March 7, 2013

    I’ve used Odesk to find a couple of good ones.

    Richard Johnson
    March 7, 2013

    Awesome post on link building. LB used to be pretty straightforward, but now there is a lot of fear of what and how to build due to all of the Google updates. Staying smart and not going overboard on any one technique is, I think, the key. This is a good reference – thanks!

    Brent
    March 7, 2013

    Great post again Spencer. Going to check out the Point Blank SEO guide, see if there is something new.

    Joe
    March 7, 2013

    Spencer:

    This is the subject matter I have been waiting for you to get to. A couple of questions. As I have shared before I am working on a site with multiple related subject matter (e.g. a site devoted to survival gear as an example with subsections for say survival knife, canteens, yada yada yada).

    Can you highlight any differences in your link building outline for someone going that route?

    As an example, I would you attempt to submit the different subject areas to the same directories? Would you write and submit 10 e-zine articles for each subject content areas, etc?

    Also, I believe you mentioned you might publish a list of the quality web directories to submit sites, too. Have you decided to do publish that list?

    Thank you.

    Spencer Haws
    March 7, 2013

    Same link building essentially. However, you would just focus on building links to inner pages as well. I wouldn’t get all the links from Ezinearticles; so perhaps 1 or 2 articles from ezine (on each subject), 1 or 2 from GoArticles, etc.

    KimP
    March 7, 2013

    Wonderful! I think this is the best type of link building strategy because it looks natural!

    Was really hoping you’d share a list of the top directories! If you’re hesitant to share the list, what types of things do you look for before submitting your site to a directory? PR?

    Jason
    March 7, 2013

    Quick question, if I post a back link on an article directory or a web 2.0 wordpress blog, does google count it as a back link just because I posted it, or does it not count as a back link until someone clicks on it?

    Spencer Haws
    March 7, 2013

    They count it; it doesn’t matter if its ever clicked (but the traffic is nice 🙂 )

    Bradley
    March 7, 2013

    One thing that I have found useful that you didn’t mention, however, was using Yahoo Answers (in a genuine way, of course). Some people will ask a question with one of their accounts, and then answer it in another – and I am not advocating doing this.

    I have had good luck by simply going out and finding brand new questions, and then answering the question (and posting my own site as a resource). Sure, it’s a “no-follow” link, but I have seen big boosts in my ranking because of it… plus, you also get some click-through traffic from Yahoo.

    Perhaps this wouldn’t apply to your niche, Spencer, but I just thought I’d mention it for your readers.

    Spencer Haws
    March 7, 2013

    I did mention Q&A sites in my list of linking sources; but didn’t cover it in detail at all. I agree that real answers can provide some value to users and helps your site out, even just a little…as long as its not spammy (as you suggested).

    tori
    March 7, 2013

    Interesting. What is the juice difference between follow and no-follow links? I had read no-follows were not helpful but sounds as if they are.

    Aaron
    March 7, 2013

    Hi Spencer.

    Thanks for the post – it’s a good one. Similarly to niche sites and link development, local sites in relatively non-competitive niches can rank with the same types of base links and numbers. More competitive local niches require the “big guns” like you mention are needed for more competitive niche site categories. Often times, I can rank local sites with directory citations, one press release, and a few social bookmarks. And of course onsite optimization.

    Ed
    March 7, 2013

    Great post & update, once again!

    Question: can you elaborate on this, please?

    “I also won’t be using keyword anchor text, just my name for the most part”

    I know what KW anchor text is, but don’t really understand that statement as used here.

    Thanks.

    Spencer Haws
    March 7, 2013

    I was talking about my blog comments there. I won’t be using keyword anchor text with my blog comments, just my name.

    Financial Samurai
    March 7, 2013

    Spencer, do you think no follow blog comments really matter? I comment just to get to know folks or respond to a post. But, if there is a benefit, then great b/c I have commented a lot over the past 4 years.

    Will you be providing us with an updated income report? I’m curious to see how things have evolved since the EMD update and the end of February Google algo change again.

    Thanks!

    Sam

    Spencer Haws
    March 7, 2013

    Sure, no follow blog comments can help. Most blog comments are nofollow, but not all.
    Yes, I’ll be providing a detailed monthly report each month. I’ll be providing more frequent reports for the first couple of months as well.

    Mk Akan
    March 7, 2013

    Thanks Spence…

    i really don’t think it is worth my time do all these link building stuff…i would rather outsource the whole thing.

    please could you by any chance share the exact instructions you will be giving out to your outsourcers..

    i would really value that.

    thank you.

    Jason
    March 7, 2013

    What!? That’s so awesome! This makes me so much more motivated to go out there and build links! Before you told me this I was like “who would ever wind up on some basic wordpress blog and ever see this to click on it?” Wow, very cool, thanks for the info!

    Brian
    March 7, 2013

    Spencer,

    If I have a website “dogtraining.com”. Can I have a subdomain called nashville.dogtraining.com and create local links directly to that page? I want the entire site to rank but only that subdomain to show up for people searching for a “dog trainer” in the nashville area. Or should I just create dogtraining.com/nashville and rank that page for nashville searches?

    Spencer Haws
    March 8, 2013

    Sure, you can do that. I never have, but you can. Either option can work.

    Chris Desatoff
    March 7, 2013

    This is great, Spencer. Thanks for sharing all of this in such detail. I was already focusing on guest posts, blog comments and 2.0 links, but I hadn’t really been thinking about all of the others you mentioned.

    I hope your knife site does really well. So far, so good, right?

    Okay, looks like it’s time to go build me some links.

    Aloha!

    Bradley
    March 7, 2013

    Didn’t mean to imply that you were doing it wrong… You definitely know what you are doing. I know that 1.67 links per day is fairly slow in comparison to the methods that worked 2 or 3 years ago.

    I don’t have a VA for link-building, so I guess that affects the rate at which I can build good links. Plus, I tend to use my backlink pages as “feeders” for extra (lower-volume) traffic with keywords I find in LTP and my own in-house tools. So, that changes my methods slightly, but I still use the same general buffer site method you are using.

    However, now that I know that you won’t continue building links like this after the first couple of month, this method makes a lot more sense.

    Steve
    July 15, 2013

    Google has no idea how many links you’re building each day. You could build a thousand links tomorrow and it might take them two months to even find out they exist.

    Mike
    March 7, 2013

    This is the part that I hate. Probably why my niche sites flounder…

    I almost jumped out the window the first time I tried to create a Squidoo lens. Boring and artificial…

    That said, there are some other good methods in here that I haven’t considered in the past!

    Bradley
    March 7, 2013

    Only build links using content that you wouldn’t be embarrassed to show to your family.

    I once hired a guy from the Warrior Forum to build links for me… the articles he used to build links were so terrible that I felt ashamed. When the site was eventually penalized, I was almost happy about it because I felt that internet justice was served.

    Bradley
    March 7, 2013

    Tori, I don’t claim to be an expert at what Google likes, but I have seen good results with Yahoo Answers. My personal opinion is that Google recognizes that solved problems and answered questions contain useful content, especially on a site in which humans vote on (and eventually choose) the best answer.

    As for the theory behind link-juice, many people claim that ALL links count, whether they are “do-follow” or “no-follow”… however, the “do-follow” links pass PR while the other does not. However, the Google bot still sees the link and puts the link in the index.

    Darnell Jackson
    March 7, 2013

    Outstanding post Spencer,

    I found the Unique Article Wizard to not be worth the money.

    I would agree with your recommendation of finding someone that you can depend on to build your links instead.

    If you’re willing to spend $60/month you can build a ton of links and get confirmation with that budget.

    Wendy Owen
    March 7, 2013

    Thanks so much for all the free information you are always providing. I’ve recently unsubscribed from many marketing emails, but always read yours. You don’t “pretend” to know what Google is doing which is very honest I think 🙂

    Travis
    March 7, 2013

    I don’t get it??

    If this stuff is so easy just to slap up a site and make some cash $$$ then how come everyone isn’t doing it??

    Is it because it might take 2-3 months to start making some real cashola $$$?

    Or people are just lazy?

    Justin
    March 7, 2013

    I think you are right. It has to do with patience and hard work. Or, having a lot of money to pay other people to have patience and work hard.

    Spencer Haws
    March 8, 2013

    Perhaps, I’m just making it look easy…its certainly not :). Lots of competition out there, you need to be better than those you’re competing with.

    James
    March 7, 2013

    I am a beginner when it comes to link building (never built a link in my life) and I am starting a ecommerce store selling items that are quite expensive. I have done extensive keyword research and I know that there is great opportunity targeting the websites sub-categories as they are long tail and none of my competitors are targeting them even though they have good search volume considering the price of the items. There are about 100 sub categories so that means 100 long tail keywords to target and I just don’t know where to start. I also want to target my main keywords. I aim to do most of this through link building as ecommerce stores are quite tricky to get to rank and I was wondering how you think I should go about this.

    Love your stuff btw. Really liked your podcast about ecommerce, keep em coming.

    Spencer Haws
    March 8, 2013

    If you are looking to link build, I’d suggest essentially following what I’ve laid out above for the different categories on your site to start.

    Sam
    March 7, 2013

    Thanks Spencer for your detailed explanation. I will try blog commenting since it is the easiest thing to do. And it can be a source of traffic also because when you share a lot of value in your comment, people will surely visit your site.

    Congratulations!

    Ricardo
    March 7, 2013

    Hello Thank you for your information is very good just wanted appreciated for everything you do I want to help the people as you do.

    marcus welby
    March 7, 2013

    Spencer.

    Question.

    How many pages are you building for this site.

    50 page site or 100 pages?

    thx

    Tung Tran
    March 7, 2013

    He keeps it for around 20 pages at first to test the water and will increase if the niche site does well

    Spencer Haws
    March 8, 2013

    Tung is correct. About 20 pages until I see its making good money, then who knows could be 100+ page site.

    Tung Tran
    March 7, 2013

    I love commenting too =)

    Actually article marketing, blog commenting, forum profile and every other backlinks method still works if done properly.

    Greg
    March 7, 2013

    Hey Spencer,

    I love the diversity you have here. I’m curious about the impact of using UAW. I have used it quite extensively and have included links direct to my money sites, albeit with varied anchor text and I spun the heck out of the articles I used (which is painful)… Results have been very good. Plenty of number 1 rankings… so it will be interesting to see if I get a slap down the track. We’ll see I guess. In the meantime I’ll be using some of your techniques here to even out the link profile a little more.

    Look forward to future updates.

    Spencer Haws
    March 8, 2013

    That’s great Greg. I just found the links from UAW to be of lower quality, so I stopped linking directly to my site. Hope it keeps up for you!

    Doug
    March 7, 2013

    Great post again Spencer. Two questions I hope you haven’t answered already (I couldn’t see it):

    – How long do you wait after buying a new domain to starting your link building?

    – How long should you wait for a new domain before enabling Adsense?

    Spencer Haws
    March 8, 2013

    I usually wait until I have at least 5 or 10 articles on a site before I start link building. I also usually wait a month or so before adding Adsense.

    Abdul Cholik
    March 7, 2013

    I Have followed your tips and hope my traffic will increase soon. Sometimes I Found that some blogs closed their comment form.
    Thanks you

    Steve
    March 7, 2013

    Great info Spencer! I’m going to try this on my newest niche site.

    Jason Chen
    March 7, 2013

    Thanks Spencer, just want to confirm one thing with you. the 2nd tier links should only point to those dofollow links correct? I guess if they were pointed at nofollow links then all the efforts are in the water. Please advise.

    thank you.
    -Jason

    Spencer Haws
    March 8, 2013

    Jason:
    The 2nd tier links can be from either dofollow and nofollow. The point is just to get the Google bots to crawl the links (Google crawls both nofollow and dofollow links for indexing purposes).

    Jason Chen
    March 9, 2013

    Hi Spencer, what I meant is, should 1st tier links only be dofollow links? example: I publish an article on livejournal.com , pointing to money site. Note livejournal automatically converts all links to nofollow. Now, if I have a lot 2nd tier links pointing to my livejournal article, will that help my ranking at all?

    Christie
    March 7, 2013

    Hi Spencer,

    Great post…but your comment caught my attention :

    “what I’m doing with Fiverr gigs and services that build thousands of links in a week”

    When is it ever “safe” to do this, safe as in
    1. not getting penalized by google?
    2. getting reliable someone reliable on Fiverr?

    Also, I have a PR2 domain that’s just earning a few dollars from Adsense. It used to be a PR3 and appearing on google Pg1 for main keywords but I neglected it. Since it’s hosted on the same host as my current site, is it any use linking from the PR2 site to my current site?

    Would greatly appreciate your help.

    Many Thanks!

    Spencer Haws
    March 8, 2013

    I think you misunderstood that statement. I was saying compared to what I’m doing (which is NOT fiverr gigs); Fiverr gigs build links very fast. I think I missed a comma in there.

    So, again, I’m not using Fiverr at all. I was comparing what I do (what’s in the post) vs. spammy Fiverr gigs.

    If its on the same hosting, I wouldn’t link to your own site.

    John Revo
    March 7, 2013

    Awesome post, Spencer! I will try replicating your link building pace on one of my new sites.

    Based on my experience, the rate of which you build your back links will depend on the age of the website you are trying to rank. If it’s a fresh website, you will have to go slow, and if it’s an old site (maybe a year or so), you can go as fast as you want.

    Bookmarked and shared!

    Hashmi
    March 8, 2013

    Hi Spencer,

    Very very very good and informative post which is very useful in link building process. I can’t remember how I came to know about your or your website and your keyword research product. But now I am fan of you and your product.

    This is for Spencer and for other members too..whoever can clarify my doubt:

    I need some clarification on anchor text distribution. I fully know the concept of anchor text distribution that we should have some exact match, some partial or broad match, some url, some branded and some generic anchor texts.

    But what I am not sure of is that how many number of variations is optimum for the distribution. For e.g. if I am trying to target the keyword “Flat Stomach”, how many no of its variations are good to have. I was planning to go for 30 or 40 of its variations with few exact match, few partial or broad match, few urls and few branded. Is is OK to have this variations of anchor text for link building or should it be more or less.

    Any guidance on it will be much appreciated.

    Thanks.

    Spencer Haws
    March 8, 2013

    More anchor variation is always better. So if you are using 40 variations…that’s great!

    Hashmi
    March 8, 2013

    Hi Spencer,

    Thanks for your reply. You have cleared my doubts on using number of anchor text variations. I hope it will be useful for other members too.

    Carl
    March 8, 2013

    Hey everyone

    Great post Spencer and full of useful information. This is going to be extremely useful as I feel I am now at a stage to ease off posting content a little and combine it with driving traffic and building links to my site.

    One article I read which I have started to implement suggested using relevent pages on wikipedia to link to your website. What I mean by this is that for your Niche, you could find a wiki page for “survival knife” or and then under the external links at the bottom of page add your website URL.

    I am sure there will be mixed opinions about this because I have found conflicting articles about whether this has any effect on your page ranking as far as the links go. However, I do believe it is a great way to drive traffic towards your website which should also be a key goal right?

    In the last 4 days since linking my site to maybe 8 Wiki pages, I have noticed a lot of referral traffic coming from this source.

    Please – I welcome everyones opinion and insight, perhaps I am making a mistake (for some reason my personal spam alarm was ringing while created the links haha)

    Thanks

    Carl

    P.S – I got my first ever Adsense click yesterday – 94 cents has never made me so happy before hahaha! It may not be enough to quit my full time job yet, but it has given me a real sense of achievement and a huge surge in motivation! I dedicate that first click to you Spencer, you the man 🙂

    Jason Chen
    March 8, 2013

    Carl, I remember that feeling when I got my first ad click. keep doing it and best of luck. 🙂

    Spencer Haws
    March 8, 2013

    If you can link for a relevant Wikipedia page, that’s great! However, if your resource isn’t useful, the link is likely to get removed very quickly by editors. Congrats on your first click!

    scott
    March 8, 2013

    What I like best about this link building strategy is it is simple. No special tools or anything. Just get out there and make a variety of links. Nice to hear it’s been successful with precious niche sites

    My Money Design
    March 8, 2013

    Going back to your previous post about Anchor Text, I noticed Open Site Explorer doesn’t tally up the anchor text from your inbound links. Shouldn’t these also be taken into consideration when putting together the whole picture? If so, is there a way to include them so that you can see all the links and not just the external ones?

    Troy
    March 8, 2013

    Hi Spencer. Great job on the series thus far! It’s nice getting some insight on your thought process for a new site.

    Q: I’m sure it’s too early for this but how do you plan to handle the social side of the site? Or will you keep that to a minimum. I can see having facebook, twitter, pinterest and youtube accounts for an authority site but it seems like overkill for a niche site, especially if you have 50-100 sites.

    Good luck with the site. Look forward to reading your next update.

    Troy

    Neeraj
    March 9, 2013

    Seems that site has gone out of top 100 in google.. May be start of google dance ..

    Spencer Haws
    March 12, 2013

    The site is back 🙂

    Den
    March 9, 2013

    Thanks Spencer for the update on your link building guide especially the guide on anchor text diversity

    Travis
    March 9, 2013

    Uh oh……………………..

    Google slappy slap?

    As mentioned in one of the previous comments, I can’t even find you in the top 100 search results.

    I couldn’t even find your site by typing in ‘best survival knife guide’

    This whole EMD thing is not looking good my friend…

    Spencer Haws
    March 12, 2013

    I found the issue and fixed it. My site is back. It was indeed a google penalty, but my site came back within 8 hours after I figured out what the issue was. I’ll be doing a full post on this by the end of the week. Lesson learned…and I think it will be a helpful lesson for others.

    Sunil @ Money Blog
    March 9, 2013

    very interesting approach Spencer. I’d be concerned about momentum/speed at which the links are built.

    I did something similar with one of my niche sites and saw the following results:
    -months 1-2 the site was ranking in the top 20 for the main KW I was after
    -month 3 huge drop
    -month 4 onward – google dance and bouncing around but nowhere near the top 20

    I have since then slowed down link building and have varied my anchor texts more so than the split you are trying. the coming months should show how this impacts this niche site.

    what are your thoughts in the speed at which you are building your links? any reservations/concerns?

    Nick
    March 10, 2013

    i think is better NoFollow Links to affiliates or TextLinkAds type links….to Avoid Google Penalty

    Dimitar
    March 10, 2013

    Recently google launched a new update around March 6th and it seems you were slapped. “best survival knife” is #200 + and “best survival knife guide” is #1000+ This update was more like an on page update it’s not about links and that’s normal, your site don’t have links at all, you were just starting with them. It’s about internal duplicate content, see this site – http://www.siteliner.com/ it shows a lot of internal duplicate content for your site, fix it and most probably you are going to regain your position.

    Spencer Haws
    March 12, 2013

    Dimitar:
    The site is back for its keywords :). The issue had nothing to do with duplicate content (there isn’t any). The resource you show is counting tags and categories as duplicate…google doesn’t for well structured sites (WordPress). However, there was indeed a penalty applied, but I’ve recovered! It had nothing to do with the new update on March 6th. I’ll be doing a full post on what happened and how I fixed it…

    Thomas
    March 10, 2013

    Hi Spencer,

    great post again, I am really looking forward to see where you are going with this “experiment”.
    I would have a question: Which WP-plugin do you use to:
    – cloak your Amazon links?
    – create this “bubble-effect”, when you hover over 1 Amazon product on your knife site
    ?

    Thanks a lot,
    Thomas

    Iain
    March 10, 2013

    Great post Spencer.

    I really like how you outlined all of various ways you can use do link building.

    I would imagine that natural link building to a niche website could be very difficult unless it was a very uncompetitive niche.

    I can’t believe that you have made money from the site already. That is fantastic.

    It will be interesting to see how you site does over the next little while.

    Thanks for keeping us updated.

    Iain

    nick
    March 10, 2013

    Hey, just a quick question. You said for bloog commenting your just gonna use your name as anchor, which is fine.

    But what are you using as anchor for the web directory submissions? Obviously as they are not guarenteed links and are not the most powerfull, using the exact keyword or partial match would be a waste, cus u will be increasing your main keyword density on less powerful links.

    So do you use related keywords which are completely different words to your main keyword? Or maybe generic keywords? Although im not sure if web directories would accept links with title as “click here” etc?

    Johnson
    May 18, 2013

    You’re right that web directories won’t accept “click here” anchor text. But they will accept exact match, partial match, brand and related keyword anchor text.

    Tung Tran
    March 11, 2013

    I totally agree with you Spencer.

    I even build less link =).

    I only build 50 base link to my site in the first month with no keyword anchor text… just brand and neutral anchor text..

    Mike
    March 11, 2013

    Hello Spencer. Just wanted to say what a great website this is (im the guy that’s on your site for over an hour 🙂 ).

    My question to you is. Who are the 2nd Tier Links? I undestand the 2nd row. Web 2.0 points to the Niche Site. But who are the 2nd Tier Links? In your diagram they point to the Article Directories, Web Directories but dont know who 2nd Tier Links are

    Sorry for a noob dumb question. Im completly new and dumb to all this

    mike

    Dave
    March 11, 2013

    Hey thanks for the great post!
    I’m new to blogging and building websites. This is by
    far the best list of link ideas I’ve seen and the way you elaborated on these ideas was quite helpful. I’m definitely planning on reading more of your content.
    Thanks again!

    Jamie
    March 12, 2013

    Hey Spencer, Thanks for all the grate content I’m following the NSP closely and I just have a quick question for you.

    With the high PR expired domains that you register and point at your niche are you going to use expired domains that was previously related to the survival knifes niche in some way?

    Or will you use any high PR domain that you find even if they was previously unrelated to the niche?

    Thanks, Jamie.

    Luis V
    March 14, 2013

    Thanks Spencer. The content you provide is so good that I always keep coming back.

    Mukesh Dutta
    March 15, 2013

    This is my first visit to your blog and I regret I didn’t find it a year ago when I started my blog. This one is the best link building articles I have read so far! Thanks a lot!

    Rehayema
    March 18, 2013

    Hi, I just got my copy of long tail pro handbook. I just want to know. Do you have an affiliate program for long tail pro key word research tool? And if yes how can I join?

    Spencer Haws
    March 18, 2013

    Yes, there is an affiliate program; but only for those that already own the software (not the free version). Learn more here: http://www.longtailpro.com/become-an-affiliate-of-long-tail-pro/

    Nick Kizirnis
    March 18, 2013

    Hi Spencer,
    I have been working on a couple of niche sites that I hope to be able to grow over time, and so I am taking the first month of link-buildig really slowly. I am focusing on building pure white hat links by going to blogs in my niche and commenting on articles – turns out I’m having more fun doing that than I thought I would! I am not using any keyword anchor text at this point.

    I happen to check my link profiles at Day Zero and noticed that one of them had 9 unique domain referrers already. Neat! The other one had SIX HUNDRED. Holy crap, dude, it looks like someone has added tons of anchor text links back to my site. Some of the sites look OK, but a lot of them are pretty poor quality.

    Am I doomed? Should I not work on building links for that site, or keep moving forward building high quality links and hope it doesn’t amount to much? Should I raise hell? Disavow?

    OK, deep breath … any suggestions? I’m a little stressed.

    Thanks Spencer!

    Spencer Haws
    March 18, 2013

    Yes, link build really slow is a good idea. That’s what I’ve done with my sites. Did you buy a domain that was owned before? That’s probably why it has 600 unique domains. If your site never performs well, that could be a reason. However, I wouldn’t freak out just yet until you’ve seen how the site does.

    Nick Kizirnis
    March 18, 2013

    Hi Spencer,
    Thanks for the quick reply … actually its a new domain! I’ll just let it go, and I’ll continue to build the links I planned to create unless you think otherwise …. my thought is that some of those links may drop off anyway (according to ahrefs.com a few already have). I just got freaked about someone trying to take me down. 🙂

    Not paranoid.

    Thanks!!
    Nick

    James Petzke
    March 19, 2013

    This seems like a solid strategy. I’ve run into problems before where I built too many links using Fiverr, like you mentioned, and got a Google penalty because of it. But 100 base links sounds about right.

    Leon
    March 19, 2013

    G’day Spencer: I’ve only recently become aware of your site.

    I’m a mature-aged newbie and have just put together my first Amazon review site.

    Your advice on link building is starting to lift the veil of confusion from my eyes.

    Looking at the list of categories on this informative site, makes me realise I have plenty of reading to catch up on.

    John J. Ziemba
    April 12, 2013

    @Leaon
    Glad to see I ain’t the only “Mature newby” lurking about!

    Dave Fleming
    May 30, 2013

    G’day John and Leon

    No, there’s no shortage of us old newbies stumbling around the internet looking for the magic formula.

    This site though, has to be the most inspiring sites I’ve come across in my search for the Holy Grail. And I’ve spent some time and money trying.

    Thanks all, for your helpful comments and a special thank you to Spencer for his guidance and Longtail Pro Platinum. (and I’m not even an affiliate)

    Emmanuel Obarhua
    March 21, 2013

    Hello Spencer, that’s a great writeup. You’ve outlined great points, I think this will go a long way in building links for my new niche.

    Daniel
    March 22, 2013

    Spencer, I woud like to ask if you know something about foreign link building polices from Google. My websites are all in portuguese (pt-BR) and sometimes I ask myself if its fair making a great link empire with US based websites.

    For the blog comments, no problem with them. I’m capable to find some to build my quality comments, but directories are kinda hard to find great high PR ones over here. Sorry for my bad english. 🙂

    Congrats for your article.

    doddy
    March 23, 2013

    hello spencer

    do you use this guideliness as anchor text for 1 tier only?

    “10% – Exact Match – “dog training tips”

    20% – Partial Match – “best dog training”

    10% – URL Match – dogtrainingtips.com

    10% – Brand Match – Bills Dog Training Tips (if your site is billsdogtrainingtips.com). Note that if your site is dogtrainingtips.com, then “Dog training tips” is both an exact match AND a brand match.

    20% – Related keyword match – “puppy potty training” or “housebreaking a puppy”

    30% – No match – “click here”, “read more”, “get a free gift here”, “check out this super sweet website”, “Spencer is cool”, “Spencer is da bomb”, “Spencer needs to chill on the Spencer related anchor text”, “you get the idea!””

    and do you use any indexer service for index your backlink?

    thanks

    Spencer Haws
    March 25, 2013

    Yes, only for tier 1. Didn’t use any indexer service.

    Ori
    March 24, 2013

    Hi Spencer,

    Do you only plan to build links to your domain/main page or also build links to inner pages just for diversifying?

    If yes, what is the proportion between the links to domain/main page vs to inner pages (from the 100 links you plan to build)?

    Spencer Haws
    March 25, 2013

    I’ll link to the inner pages eventually…

    Ori
    March 28, 2013

    Can you please expand on this? How many links? What anchor text do you use?…

    Ori
    March 24, 2013

    Hi Spencer,

    Do you only plan build links to your domain/main page or also build links to inner pages just for diversifying.

    If yes, what is the proportion between the links to domain/main page vrs to inner pages (from the 100 links you plan to build)?

    Tigue
    March 27, 2013

    Spencer, Thanks for being so open with your niche site, it is very timely for me as I am building out a site at the moment too.

    I am curious as to the “Quality Web Directories” you mention. I am familiar with some paid directories but would be really interested in finding “several high PR directories that are free” as you referenced above as cost is an issue for me.

    Please consider creating a list of the top 50 (or whatever) Google friendly directories you use.

    Thanks for all you do!

    John J. Ziemba
    April 12, 2013

    Hey Tique.

    I also was curious, so I did a quick Google search and found these:

    http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/web-2.0-websites

    Mark
    March 27, 2013

    I too would appreciate to know about the top 50 free PR directories.
    Thanks!

    Fred Owusu
    March 29, 2013

    Great post Spencer. I stumbled upon your site on Facebook about the niche site you were building and decided to follow up on your link building. Last week I started learning more about linking with buying expired domain names with some authority and this week I come across your post….you definitely gave me a boost in confidence with the link building technique…I guess I was heading in the right direction. 🙂

    gambir ridge bartley
    April 6, 2013

    What a information of un-ambiguity and preserveness of precious experience about unexpected feelings.

    Steven
    April 7, 2013

    thanks spencer, it’s time to build more links!

    chris
    April 14, 2013

    I disagree with link velocity as it doesn’t really make sense. Think about it, you just published an article or perhaps a news story, it goes viral everyone is linking to it, the term you used in your story is google really going to put you on the bottom when everyone links to you?

    Steven
    April 21, 2013

    Hi,Spencer
    I’m afraid the squidoo is no longer useful for SEO, since it seems that all backlinks of lens are nofollow

    Steven
    April 21, 2013

    I’m sorry, it seems that you have to enter your URL into the specific “Link List” module of lens, then you can land a/some backlink(s).

    Other url scattered in other module will be tagged as ‘nofollow’

    BeachTraveler
    April 24, 2013

    hi there, I started with a fully new domain for a niche site. I wrote 8 articles of my own and they are full of information I guess. My on page SEO is OK if not super. My main link building way is to create a lot of web2.0 sites (should be about 10-15 now), social networking sites, blog commenting etc. I always made sure whatever I am doing does not fall under blackhat. But I am not getting expected results. Is that because my domain is too new? It is just 20 days older. But I am giving a lot of afford for sure.

    I see at top 10 there are websites like youtube, wiki, tripadvisor. Can I overtake them any day? What to do next, any suggestion? I am currently on 18-20 pages on Google which I know never can make anything for me.

    Alistair Gill
    April 26, 2013

    Spencer, great post with lots of insight as usual! For what it’s worth, I for one would be interested in learning a little more on your process for outsourcing some of the link building work to virtual assistants. Where do you find them? What do you look for when selecting one to work with? How do you handle giving them directions and ensure you get the necessary quality. Maybe an idea for a future blog post? Thanks again for your insight

    Spencer Haws
    April 26, 2013

    Yes, a good idea for a future post.

    Jeff G
    April 28, 2013

    This is a great post for link building! You list a lot of great strategies that I haven’t thought of! We are testing Long Tail Pro right now for keyword research and it is truly great!

    So far for our website, we have looked at competitors backlinks and tried to get as many of those as we can and then we turn to directories. We are #4 in the results for and as far as I can see, the ones above us have .edu, .gov, and .org links and are doing some paid sponsorships. What would you recommend is the next “link source” we should go after to try and beat them?

    Spencer Haws
    April 29, 2013

    Higher quality guest posts or using expired domains is likely to help.

    Dean Eng
    April 28, 2013

    RE: adding geo location to keywords to lesson competition?

    Hi Spencer:

    I hear ‘gurus’ say add the city name around
    the keyword to lesson the competiton, ie,
    sell house Seattle

    whereas “sell house” might be highly competitive
    but “sell house Seattle” much less.

    The problem I’m finding is that by adding
    the geo location, ie, Seattle there is nothing
    showing up in the Google’s keyword tool.

    So does that mean the number is so low
    that I should not target that keyword?

    Note, this is for buying and selling houses
    so one deal means a huge payday.

    What are your thoughts?

    Thanks man!

    Spencer Haws
    April 29, 2013

    If there is no traffic for the exact keyword, its likely not worth it. However, even with a little bit of traffic, these types of keywords can be profitable.

    Mike
    May 2, 2013

    Spencer, how do you leave a comment on another blog without placing links in the comment? How does “using your name only” link back to your site?

    Spencer Haws
    May 2, 2013

    Mike, just like when you commented here on my blog. There is a field for “URL”. If you would have put a URL in that field, it would have been your name “Mike” that would be clickable. That’s what I meant.

    Jay
    May 3, 2013

    Thanks for the info so If I leave a genuine comment like this it counts as 1 link towards me?

    Mike
    May 3, 2013

    Spencer, is it bad to leave comments on fellow niche sites which are your same niche?

    Spencer Haws
    May 6, 2013

    If its a real comment, then its fine.

    Shahid
    May 4, 2013

    Hi,

    How much of the link building did you do..You said you hired Layeredlink and hired a VA to do your directories submissions .I am thinking a outsourcing my link building. How much do think that should cost?

    Thanks for the inspiration and advice

    Spencer Haws
    May 6, 2013

    I did some comment links on my own. I’ve detailed my costs here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/niche-site-project-income-report-for-april-2013/

    Hasan
    May 7, 2013

    Good point man. Thanks! I’ll star web directories and also article directories 🙂

    But most of the blog are no follow. Can’t find do follow blog 🙁

    Charles
    May 8, 2013

    Hey Spencer

    Great info. Will your assistant be spinning articles for the first tier?

    Also, I have heard talk about proxies so that backlinks don’t all show that they came from your one IP address. If not in this case, do you ever need to address this in seo?

    Thanks
    Charles

    Thomas
    May 14, 2013

    Hi Spencer,

    I am a little late to this conversation, but thanks so much for the information! I will definitely use these techniques for my Experimental Income website.

    – Thomas

    Ally
    May 17, 2013

    Hi Spencer,

    Do you know Link Emperor ?
    What are your thoughts ?
    Or should I spend this money on a VA ?
    (I can spend 500$ per month on linkbuilding)
    Ally

    Spencer Haws
    May 20, 2013

    Never heard of Link Emperor.

    Randy
    May 18, 2013

    Hi Spencer,

    When you do your site promotion do you try promote your site socially?

    Really nice job on the site. Your blog has been a great learning tool.

    Thanks,

    Randy

    Spencer Haws
    May 20, 2013

    I don’t promote my site socially…usually. (haven’t for this example site).

    John
    May 18, 2013

    Hi Spencer,

    In regards to the method you use to get high page rank links that are relevant and in content. Do you link to your niche site using a different hosting account and IP address or no? I have heard of this strategy before but I was advised that the best way to implement this strategy was to set up a c class hosting account so you didn’t leave a footprint.

    Do you use various c class hosting accounts for this strategy or do you just link these expired authority domains to your niche/money site using the same hosting service and IP address as your niche/money site?

    I currently have some websites that I’m not doing anything with that are related to sites that I’m currently building links for and they have good pagerank. However, I haven’t used them to link to my related money sites for the fear of leaving a footprint and because I currently can’t afford to host them on separate c class IP addresses. I hope my question made sense. I really would like some clarity on this, and any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

    Spencer Haws
    May 20, 2013

    John, if you are using your own private network of sites then yes, you need to use multiple c-class IPs. However, for this site, I have not linked to my niche site with any of my own expired domains, so I don’t have to worry about that.

    Scott Bottomley
    May 26, 2013

    Hey Spenser and the NP community,

    I’m in need of some help. I’ve recently started to build 2 nich sites. One is moderatley competetive while the other should be a cakewalk (I chose it to make sure I could rank for an easy term and then move up to more difficult keywords).

    Both seem to be “sandboxed” if that is a true term. With rank checker on LTP i am ranking 3-4 page on yahoo and bing and 500+ on google. I know it takes some time to level out and all but I think I have a larger issue.

    Here is the part that seems strange. With the newer (easier) site I was ranking on page 2 of google with ZERO link building (I told you it was an easy term). Then I decided I would throw a few blog comments at it last night. I used a name (pen name) as the author or anchor text and left only relevant comments on relevant blogs (and PR 1-4). I may have left 4 or 5 of these comments. I long into LTP this AM and I dropped off the face of the Earth (+500).

    Now I think my problem with the +500 ranking from my more difficult 1st site was anchor text. I think I was too aggressive. So this time I used a name to take that out of the equation. I did however comment with the same Pen Name I had used with my first site and used the same gmail email account. Could that be it. Am I flagged by Google or something? Is that possible?

    Any help or advice from you Spencer or any member of your readership would be great. I just can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong. Especially why I suddenly went from page 2 (15th spot) to > page 500…

    Spencer Haws
    May 27, 2013

    Did you comment on old blogs/posts? Did the pages have lots of other comments? I ask because perhaps they are seen as spammy comments.

    Matthew4500
    October 15, 2013

    Hey, Spencer—

    Just to clarify—is it a bad thing to comment on old posts? And is it a bad thing to post on pages with a lot of comments?

    Matthew4500
    October 15, 2013

    Nevermind—found this on another one of your posts: “So, most of the comments I made were on new posts that had either no other comments or only a handful of comments. A few of the blogs I commented on did have lots of other commentators, but not most.”

    Dash
    May 26, 2013

    Spencer, your “contact me” section says to leave a comment as it is more likely to get responded to:

    I have commented maybe once or twice on your site, and a couple of other times on other sites. I’ve noticed that when I check my backlink history on majesticseo for example, I have incoming links from EVERY post on your website. It is like this with one other site as well.

    The result of this is that I had 221 incoming links all indexed on one day.. when I put only one comment on your blog!

    Needless to say, I’m curious as to why this happens… and I didn’t enter my website in this time!

    Spencer Haws
    May 27, 2013

    It probably shows up temporarily as linking for lots of my pages because I have a sidebar with the latest comments. These will disappear when your “recent” comment moves off the sidebar.

    Ray
    May 31, 2013

    Great post, as always! Quick question, and perhaps I missed this in other comments, but how long do you find that it generally takes for your backlinks to begin showing up/become indexed? I’ve been checking out my competition, and while they show up in LTP as having a decent # of juice links, it appears that all of their links are coming from sites with completely unrelated content. Mine are not yet showing up, then again, it’s only been a short while.

    Spencer Haws
    June 1, 2013

    It will take a month or so to show up…often

    Ankit
    June 5, 2013

    Hey Spencer,
    Really nice job on the blog. I have been following it for a month and now I have planned to jump in the field. I have created a website with around 4400 exact match searches. I had a question:
    Do you use proxies for posting comments on blogs and forums or do you use the static IP.
    Thanks in advance and ignore if it’s noob.

    Spencer Haws
    June 5, 2013

    No proxies.

    Ankit
    June 6, 2013

    Thanks for the reply, appreciated. One more question, I forgot to ask last time…
    While creating the web 2.0 blogs, social bookmarks, article directories, do I need to use proxies there. If I don’t use proxy then won’t it leave a footprint. I am asking these questions because I have started this project with an empty pocket, and it would be awesome if I could save some extra bucks.
    Again thanks in advance… 🙂

    Spencer Haws
    June 6, 2013

    No proxies. You create the Web 2.0s – they are all different websites. Google doesn’t know what from which IP address those Web 2.0s were created. (Unless I’m missing something, but I’ve never worried about this and done just fine).

    Nicole
    June 12, 2013

    Hey Spencer,

    You’ve mentioned and are an affiliate of the Point Blank SEO Link Building course…while doing some research I came across this post:

    Could you comment on the validity?

    http://marketingchris.com/outed-point-blank-seos-jon-cooper/

    Thanks

    Kris Wenzel
    June 15, 2013

    Thanks for the great articles Spencer. I’m in middle of link building and came across your article with Pat Flynn

    I especially appreciate all the link source you have spelled out. It is much easier to work off a list.

    Many thanks.

    Michelle
    June 22, 2013

    Oh Spencer,

    Lots of great info here, but my eyes however are glazing over. I have an ecommerce site that is in a highly competitive market, my competition dominates the the first page of google but something inside me says I can do better.

    At times I want to throw in the towel, then I stumble upon posts like this and a fire is once again lit and I’m encouraged to start the fumble process again. The link building course might be good for me. I’m a visual person and need to SEE the process rather than hear/read it. So thanks for the course recommendations.

    Thanks!
    Michelle 🙂

    Nate
    June 25, 2013

    Spencer I’m hooked. Love these posts. “I’m not an expert in link building but I *am* an expert in keyword research.” Hmm, the designer of Longtail Pro – do you think?

    Point being, you’ve demonstrated that keyword research and content can get you 90% there (especially with the comparison in the “copycat” post).

    Thanks for the morning inspiration, now time for me to get after it!

    Garrick Dee
    June 26, 2013

    Been a squidoo member for the past 2 plus years, and they’re pretty strict in content being created, they want more “personalized” content and their filters are pretty strict. So if you’re writing a lens for squidoo make sure that it’s not only unique but also personalized.

    They’ll take down a lens if its too “promotional” in content. I’ve seen some pretty good lenses being taken down.

    the quinn singapore
    July 11, 2013

    I am regular visitor, how are you everybody? This paragraph posted at
    this web site is truly good.

    benifits of graphic designs
    July 15, 2013

    It’s genuinely very complicated in this busy life to listen news on TV, so I simply use the web for that reason, and take the latest information.

    Joey Augustin
    July 21, 2013

    Spencer,

    I love the site and your podcasts and have been utilizing Long Tail Pro for my first niche site.

    I researched your survival knife guide site using Long Tail and discovered that you have like 5,000 juice page links. How is this possible without spammy or black-hat type backlinking techinques? I looked into some of the links and they were on sites that I would consider basically spammy link farms. Am I missing something?

    Thanks and take care.

    Spencer Haws
    July 22, 2013

    Joey:
    Yes, you are missing something.
    Please read my article here: https://www.nichepursuits.com/is-my-niche-site-a-victim-of-negative-seo/
    Many of the links ARE spammy and “black hat” – but I didn’t want them or build them (and they didn’t help in my opinion). Someone else did as a negative seo campaign. I wish I could get rid of them or stop it.

    keyword research
    July 25, 2013

    I do not drop a bunch of responses, however after reading a bunch of comments here How to Build Links for Niche Sites | Niche Pursuits.
    I actually do have a couple of questions for you if it’s allright. Could it be just me or do a few of the remarks come across like they are coming from brain dead visitors? 😛 And, if you are writing at other social sites, I would like to keep up with everything new you have to post. Would you post a list of all of all your public sites like your linkedin profile, Facebook page or twitter feed?

    Mosharraf
    July 30, 2013

    I have started blogging for 5 months. I think I should read your article before starting my linkbuilding campaign. I am sure I will do better after reading your article. Your article is a clear blueprint of linkbuilding specially for newbie like me. I hope you will continue your writing. Best of luck. Long live! Thanks!

    Bryan
    August 5, 2013

    I so love this post. Spencer do you create a list of sites/directors and focus on those for every website that you launch?

    Jacob
    August 8, 2013

    Thank you SO much for this post! I’ve been looking all over the place for a blog posting that outlines a structure (or idea) of how to work on ranking up my site. Definitely going to bookmark this so I can read over it a few times. Thanks again!

    Restauracja Malbork
    August 20, 2013

    Ahaa, its fastidious discussion on the topic of this article here at this webpage,
    I have read all that, so at this time me also commenting at this place.

    Salini Dinesh @ SiteSprint
    August 24, 2013

    Hi Spencer,
    Very good and informative article about link building.
    Building links from a single source can be dangerous . So we need to maintain a balance between different sources. I think guest blogging and blog commenting are two effective methods to get quality links.

    Kevin
    August 29, 2013

    Hi, I am a quiet reader of your Niche Site Project and this step is what makes me the most troubles.
    Ranking in the first listing in Google.

    So I have found a keyword which I think is just like a gold nugget.

    It have an Avg Keyword Competitveness of 35 and 100K searches.

    Now my problem is how can I rank such a site. It is from another country with another language then english.

    Aren’t there any services which can rank your keyword even better? I mean I can find thousands of “SEO” Specialists but I am afraid of losing my money.

    Please some advice and best regards 🙂

    Titus
    August 30, 2013

    Hi Spencer

    Some are Claiming that Getting listed in Dmoz Will Boost Up Dmoz Directory is it so ?

    Frank
    August 30, 2013

    Hello Spencer,

    Thank you for producing an informative site. The suggestions and responses on this blog will come in handy with my own seo strategy.

    My industry (brand development) is highly competitive, and finding other ways to help boost rankings is a must.

    Good job!

    Jonas
    September 19, 2013

    Hi,

    When you submit articles to Article directories or Web 2.0 directories do you submit the same article to all of them?
    IE say you are submitting Article 1 do you ‘Spin’ it or does it have the same content no matter if you submit it to EzineArticles or GoArticles?
    Thanks,
    J

    Spencer Haws
    September 20, 2013

    Original aritcles is better…but they at least need to be spun if doing the same article.

    Kathrin
    October 3, 2013

    My reelatives all the time say that I am wasting my time here at web,
    but I know I amm getting knowledge every day by reading such fastidious posts.

    Mihai
    October 10, 2013

    Hi Spencer,

    I am at the backlinking stage with my niche right now and I was wondering if you could help figure this one out.

    How many backlinks should I make for my domain root and how many should it point to my pages (percentage or a ratio)?

    Thank you very much!

    Cheers,

    Mihai M

    Spencer Haws
    October 14, 2013

    I usually do higher to homepage: maybe 75%, then 25% other pages. Ideal would be closer to 50/50

    Tarun Kumar
    October 17, 2013

    It really helped me to build links for my niche site. I am now focusing to rank this blog on top for the keyword ” earn money online “. Please help me, will I get succeed or it would be a waste of time.

    Zoli
    October 17, 2013

    Great post! Thanks for being so transparent with your strategies. I’m definitely learning a lot about building websites and doing SEO. I’m loving the learning process but it does get tiring at times. I haven’t gone as far as using Unique Article Wizard but it sure is tempting. Can you elaborate why you wouldn’t recommend this service?

    Spencer Haws
    October 18, 2013

    Mostly spammy websites/links, that’s why.

    martha
    October 23, 2013

    Hi Spencer 🙂

    I have studied almost all of your posts about how to build small niche sites and how to make the right link building, read many ebooks and i believe that by following each one of your instructions right now, i can say that i am ready to start building my niche site. I have found a long tail keyword that has low competition, 2$ cpc and 5 monthly searches. I bought the exact keyword for my domain name and i am ready to start. I will use amazon for the related exact matching name products as my niche. I dont have adsense account and i know that it is really difficult to get approved right now, but i have registered with other adsense alternative networks . I also know, that i wont earn as much as google pays its publishers but it it an income too so no problem to me:)
    I am really excited and anxious the same time until i start see any traffic coming to my site few dollars:)
    I wanted your help, how many weeks it will take approx to start see my site ranking even at the 8th position of google, or lower? Will i earn money even my site is at the 8th position? Or the niche sites must me ranked at the first 3 positions to earn you money? How soon i will see traffic coming? Please advice me) asap.
    Friendly,
    Martha

    Michelle
    October 23, 2013

    How quickly will you know if your keyword is a dud.

    kenny
    November 1, 2013

    To build link the web 2.0 is considered a good source to link for, what is web 2.0 exactly and why it is considered good source to link for.

    Kathy
    November 15, 2013

    Great article! This is the type of information that are supplosed to
    be shared across the net. Disgrace on Google for not positioning this publish higher!
    Come on over and talk over with my site . Thanks =)

    Kaley
    November 21, 2013

    Post writing is also a excitement, if you know then you can write otherwise it is complicated to write.

    rocker switch
    November 27, 2013

    I like to disseminate information that I have built
    up with the 12 months to assist enhance team overall performance.

    david
    November 28, 2013

    Hi, great post
    do you manually do those first 100 links?
    what time do you take to build those 100 links? a day a week?

    about The High Pr sites: clever tactic: ive manage to put 4 of my keywords on second and first page of google just with that tactic, but i didnt do the 100 links first. maybe i should go for it now.

    Just to be clear with the anchor text variation to build those 100 links: should i send all those links to my main domain name url? or should i split those 100 links to the main 3 urls of my site?

    thanks

    david

    david
    November 28, 2013

    last question one PR site i bought when i make a redirect check says there is a 302 redirect on one url of the site all others are fine (no301).
    What should i think about it?
    can it be a reason why my site is stuck on page 2 and 3?

    thanks

    david

    over-blog.Com
    December 2, 2013

    Hi, There’s no doubt that your site could possibly be having browser
    compatibility problems. Whenever I take a look at your site in Safari,
    it looks fine however, if opening in IE, it has some overlapping issues.
    I merely wanted to provide you with a quick heads up!
    Aside from that, fantastic website!

    Ryan James
    December 18, 2013

    Great point Richard. You never know what is going to be irrelevant next week regarding link building!

    It’s never a bad idea to diversify. What is working for you best right now?

    dave
    December 27, 2013

    Nice article, about web 2.0 i have been looking up to where i can get a better explanation like this.
    thanks

    John ExpectingNoReplyButWouldLikeOneMrSpencer
    January 2, 2014

    Hey spencer, I am following your advice on creating blog comment hyperlinks and some good directories.

    What if your homepage url is very competitive and you chose your niche site for the landing pages? My domain is basically non existant on google, but my landing pages are ranking on page 4 after 4 days.

    Should I make backlinks to the landing pages? Or just the homepage?

    Spencer Haws
    January 2, 2014

    Nice name 🙂 . Build links to where you are seeing results – so to your landing pages/niche sites.

    Ian McAuslin
    January 17, 2014

    Great info here Spencer….I’m a little late to the party but it’s great to hear about back linking strategies that still work after the google updates.

    Thanks for the bit on expired domains, my plate is full right now just getting to 100 links but this will be something that I will look into seriously as my niche is uber competitive.

    As you initially wrote this piece in March of last year, is there anything in particular that you would approach differently now?

    Thanks

    Ian

    Spencer Haws
    January 20, 2014

    Yes, quite a bit has changed. In fact, I’ll be writing a post in the next day or so that discusses the fact that link building is ever changing and always will be…

    henji
    January 17, 2014

    Hey Spencer Haws!
    So you carefully choose one person for each job of you. you maintain your job, or when you reach the number of links, you stop it?

    Upender
    January 23, 2014

    Hi spencer, Still these strategies work?
    I am doing link building using web 2.0. Will it work??

    http://jailbreakiphone5s.net/
    February 12, 2014

    You migt buy this iPhone4 with pay as you go and Sim free gives.

    With the iPhone, it literally changed the way individuals think about mobile phones.
    So exactly whats new for the iPhone 3rd generation?

    http://www.examiner.com/
    February 13, 2014

    You don’t require a background in criminaql to become a
    private specialist. In each historfy there is often a beginning and a list
    of highs and lows throughout tthe whole year.

    http://www.webdesignquoter.com
    February 13, 2014

    You want visitors to feel like in curb. If you want to find
    inexpensive web design, make necessary research on private personal
    if practical. In fact, the Internet possess an important impact us.

    http://basketballbettingpicks.net
    February 13, 2014

    Discover be a reliable test for Doss Santos. And don’t look now, but Tony Romo has stopped turning inside the ball whenever.
    We are ery excited abouut partnering with BET to make the BET Experience at L.A.

    galaxys4dealsuk.co.uk
    February 13, 2014

    Money-making niches three epidermis deals including
    contracts, pay g andd SIM free deals. A few months ago,
    Samsung updatred its former color palette and presently has more
    than six colors tto select from.

    My top recommendations

     

    How 7 Niche Site Owners Are Using Link Whisper To Grow Their Sites

    By Dan Morris

    Surfer SEO review.

    Surfer SEO Review: Is It the Best All-In-One On Page SEO Solution?

    By Eric Burns

    RankIQ review.

    RankIQ Review: Is This AI SEO Toolset Worth Your Time and Money?

    By Amy Derungs

    jasper ai review.

    Jasper AI Review (Formerly Jarvis AI): Is It Still The Best AI Writing Assistant?

    By Dan Morris

    Content Pit Review: Is it Possible to Find Fast, Inexpensive, and High Quality Content?

    By Brady Cargle

    Want to learn step-by-step how I built my Niche Site Empire up to a full-time income?

     

    Yes! I Love to Learn

    Latest articles

     

    beauty business names.

    Start a Business

    975 Creative Makeup & Beauty Business Names

    By Will James

    how much do affiliate marketers make.

    Affiliate Marketing

    How Much Do Affiliate Marketers Make? Hint: It’s A Lot!

    By Ashley Simpson

    Artificial Intelligence

    The Ultimate Guide to AI for Bloggers 🔥

    By Spencer Haws

    Success Stories

    How Elysia Cartlidge Earns $15k/Month From SEO Traffic To Her Side Hustle Recipe Site

    By Samara Kamenecka

    nail salon names.

    Start a Business

    520 Cute & Classy Nail Salon Names You Can Use

    By Will James

    monsterInsights vs google site kit.

    Wordpress

    MonsterInsights vs Google Site Kit: Which is Best To Add GA To Your Site?

    By Steve Allen

    View All Articles

    Ready to find your niche?

    I would love to learn about…

     

    Subscribe

    Join Over 67,000 People Like You!

    Learn how to build a business online

     

    • We will never spam or sell your information.
    • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Cookie Policy

    © 2023 Niche Pursuits

    • Earnings Disclaimer
    • Amazon FBA
    • Crafted by Fhoke

    Niche Pursuits is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.