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My Niche Marketing Strategy - Backlinking Strategy

In my previous niche marketing strategy update I discussed how I found related keywords to my niche topic to write posts on. And the pyramid content strategy, which is the strategy I used for my niche site content writing.

In this update, I discussed the step by step process of how I build backlinks to the site that is now ranking on the first page of Google for it's keyword "coping with depression" .

If you're still new to niche sites, read the article Introduction to Niche Websites and Blogging

Niche Marketing Strategy

Things to Keep in Mind about Building Backlinks

• Quality and relevance is always more important than quantity.
• Sending too many quality backlinks to your site at a time can harm your site. Build your links gradually.
• Do not try to re-invent the wheel. Simply follow in your competitors footsteps.
• Vary your backlinks sources.

I kept the above points in mind while building links to my niche site.

Quality and relevance is always more important than quantity

I made sure that I got my backlinks from sites relevant to mine, if from a directory I made sure I submitted the site to the relevant category.

Sending too many quality backlinks to your site at a time can harm your site. Build your links gradually.

Even if your backlinks are of quality, too much of everything they say is bad, especially for a new site. You don't want the search engines to start looking into your site.

The Step by Step Process of How I Built Backlinks to My Niche Site

I started preparing my blog for links right from the first post I made. Before I wrote the post, I connected my Wordpress blog to twitter using twitter tools, then set up account with 4 social networking sites.

http://www.google.com/buzz

http://lifestream.aol.com

www.linkedin.com

So every time I published a new post, twitter is updated including the 3 sites above. After seven posts I added more sites to it.

https://identi.ca/

http://friendfeed.com

http://www.plurk.com

http://www.livejournal.com

http://www.orkut.com

http://www.friendster.com

http://www.twibs.com

This allows me to have some backlinks to the site each time I make a post. And I don't mean tiny url backlinks. These are backlinks with my domain name and keywords in the URL for search engines to read.

At this time, my site was 10 days old with 10 posts.

Next I joined seven niche forums. Though I never had the time to participate in them, I simply created a link to my site from my profile in the forum where it is allowed.

When my site was 14 days old with 14 posts, I started commenting on related blogs and directories. How did I find these blogs and directories?

Remember I said do not re-vent the wheel and follow in your competitors footsteps?

Install Firefox SEOquake, then go to Google and type in your niche keyword, it will display the top ten sites along with some information, including the number of backlinks to each site according to Yahoo.

Click on the number of links of such site, it will then show you where these backlinks are coming from. Click on download above the links. You can download up to 1000 backlinks of your competitor.

After that when you're ready to start building backlinks, start from the site on position one of Google for your keyword. Visit all the sites that linked to the site and try to get backlinks there too.

Often they'll be directory links, blog comments, article directory and links from web.2.0 page, such as squidoo. Visit each of the sites and get your link too.

In a case where you can't get a link, move on, you have a long list to go through.

Since you have a lot of links to go through, it's pays you to prioritize. You need to know which sites linking to your competitor's site carries more backlink weight, so you can get links from those sites first, before getting from the others.

It helps you to rank faster. Sign up for free to SEOMOZ at http://www.seomoz.org/tools , after you sign up, sign in and under resources, click on SEO tools and click on open site explorer. Put the site address into the URL space provided and click on get link data.

It will display up to 20 URL addresses and titles of the backlinks, along with their anchor text, page and domain authority.

The higher the page and domain authority, the higher the weight of the backlink. So you can visit those sites with more weight first and create your backlinks with the same anchor text.

A quick tip for commenting on blogs is to make sure you use your keyword anchor text to create your backlinks.

If the site doesn't use a keywordluv plugin where you can include keyword with your name, then use "your name from your keyword" or "your name|your keyword" in the name field.

And if you know your comment really adds value, you can include your site URL at the end of your comment. The webmaster will approve it.

You have a long list of places to create links doesn't mean you should create them all at once, you can create 5 backlinks everyday and do other form of link building.

I tried to keep to three backlinks a day from this copy cat backlinking strategy, while I worked on other ways of getting links.

More on Niche Marketing Strategy

Create Anchor Sites

While I tried to get three backlinks each day from the copy cat backlinking strategy, I worked on setting up my anchor sites.

Anchor sites are sites or pages set up for the purpose of directing backlinks to your niche site.

These anchor sites will come from free blogs, web. 2.0 sites and article directories.

So far I've created the following anchor sites:

Web. 2.0 Sites

http://copingwithdepressiontips.wordpress.com/

http://coping-with-depression.tumblr.com/

http://www.squidoo.com/coping-with-depression-tips

http://kaydavid.livejournal.com/663.html

http://copingwith-depression.blogspot.com/

Article Directories

Ezinearticles.com

https://www.amazines.com

http://www.articleblast.com/

http://www.articlealley.com/

http://www.isnare.com/

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/

http://www.selfgrowth.com

http://goarticles.com

http://www.articlesbase.com

The web 2.0. sites are just one page sites with anchor text links back to your site, you can visit the links above to see what I did.

And the directories sites I have 3 articles so far. About all the sites approved my articles, except isnare and articlealley.

The last time I submitted an article to directories, I didn't bother submitting to both directories, since it's taking too long for them to approve the articles. So I submitted to seven active article directories.

It seems like a lot of writing when you look at it but it's not, not really. You write once and spin into several copies.

My Article Spinning process

Article spinning allows you to create several some-what different copies from one original article. So you don't have to spend all your time writing articles for link building purpose.

You might not be too comfortable with article spinning just like me. I mean, the thought of re-writing one article and feeding it accross the web makes me sick.

But re-writing an article just to submit to about ten directories is fine with me, having to submit to more is what I am not comfortable it.

Moreover it helps your website get ranked higher, which will offer value to people, so that's fine.

There are a lot of article spinning softwares, some cost money while some are free. Honestly I see no need to use a paid spinning software, the free ones are good enough to get the job done.

Some free article spinning softwares are:

http://www.SpinnerChief.com/

http://www.EasyArticleSpinner.com

http://www.FreeArticleSpinner.com/

For my web 2.0. sites, I wrote one original article, then I spin that article into five and used it to create the web 2.0. pages above.

Then for directories, I write one original article, submit that original article first to ezinearticles.com before spinning it and submitting to the other directories.

Ezine articles is still the best article directory there is, so I like to submit the unique article there first before spinning it.

The first article I spinned I used spinner chief. With spinner chief, you spin each word of the article.

Create different words for a word, so that when you spin the article, it picks a word randomly to form each new article, thereby creating different versions of the article.

I realized spinner chief takes too much time to create the different words and edit the articles. Some of the words will not flow well with the article or fit well into the sentence.

So I tried easy article spinner, with easy article spinner, you only rewrite or rephrase each sentences twice, so that you have three sentences, and then when you spin, the software randomly picks a sentence each to form each new article.

Using easy article spinner to spin an article of 500 words takes me two hours and the editing is easier.

Actually the articles don't really need editing since you simply rephrased each sentences, but it is still advisable that you read through the spun articles before using them.

I don't think the level of uniqueness of each article using spinner chief is higher because at times you won't find words to replace some of the words in the article.

So as long as you're not submitting to too many directories, easy article spinner is great. It's what I have been using to spin the articles I submit to directories and they've all been accepted.

Another Way to Get Quality Backlinks

Squidoo Lists

Squidoo has very high page and domain authority, so getting backlinks from there should help a site. So at times I do a search for squidoo articles related to my niche that welcome people to add a URL to a content list.

Below is the code I use to search for such articles on squidoo:

"add + to + this + list" + "your niche keyword" + site: squidoo.com

Sending SEO power to your niche site from your anchor sites

Usually those one page sites you create though sit on a domain with high authority but the page usually has a PR of 0. It gives the backlinks going to your site from the anchor sites some weight if you send some links to your anchor sites.

A good way to do this is through social bookmarking.

I tried to do some social bookmarking but it was taking too much time. And some of the sites where not responding so I ignore it completely.

If you have the time, yes please bookmark the URL of the web.2.0. sites you created and your article directory links.

What I did instead of bookmarking was pinging. I pinged all the URLs of the web.2.0. sites I created and also each time an article I submitted to a directory is approved, I ping the URL.

In fact someone told me that anytime you create a backlink, you should ping it, whether from blog commenting or any other place. I use pingler.com to ping my backlinks URLs.

Aside that pinging could give the backlink you created some weight, it especially helps the search engine to find and index your backlinks quicker.

Niche Site Ranking

During my last update I said that one of my niche site blog posts was ranking on the first page of Google.

Well now for over a week my niche blog itself is now ranking on the first page of Google, second position (falling to third position at times) for its keyword "coping with depression".

In case you didn't guess, my niche site is the second site on the image above for the keyword "coping with depression. The domain again is copingwithdepressioncenter.com , you can confirm for yourself.

This update was written wednesday 27th of July, that is 2 days to the end of the challenge, I started my niche site 29th of May.

In less than two months I achieved my goal, and all I did to get to this point I have taken the patience to explain in detail in all the updates I have written thus far.

On the last day of the challenge, I am going to write about what's next for the site now that it's ranking on the first page of Google.

You don't want to miss that part I assure you, there'll be a lot of useful information for you just as there always is for those who follow this site's content. So if you haven't join the Beginners Blogging Guide Weekly now's the time to do so.

For questions and comments on my niche marketing strategy, click here . Or add it below.

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