By the end of this post you will be able to use this as a step by step guide on how to successfully build high quality backlinks to your website. As we know, backlinks are the lifeblood of most search engines and serve as a vote of endorsement for a website for specific keywords a site will rank for.
As most SEO type people know, all links/votes are not created equally. More work is usually required for getting better backlinks pointing towards your site.
Below is an exchange of email along with an attached guest post from probably the best guest post link builder I have ever seen. Instead of simply posting his guest post, I figured it would better serve my audience by highlighting the best points for those who are looking to use guest posts to build backlinks in the best way imaginable.
This is by no means a rip on Matthew, just simply too good to pass up. Look for my interjections beginning with Josh Here: Blah Blah
Step 1: Find your target
I have no doubt that Matthew took the time to find my site based on a set list of criteria. Is the site active? Does it fit my niche? Does it allow guest posting? What type of blog is it? What can I learn about this person via his about/contact/content and so on?
A little homework goes a long way. It would even help to go as far as making a few comments prior to proposing a guest post (didn’t happen in this case). But from what I have seen, Matthew looks like a well-educated, professional person who specializes in research. Only fitting, given the amount of detail he goes through to ensure the best possible links.
Step 2: Make contact
Below is the first email Matthew sent to me in order to make contact. You’ll notice a few things right off the bat where he uses my name and website in the subject line. This of course tips my interest because us humans love to hear our own name. Then this also serves a duel purpose of keeping track of responses from people after he has hit the send button. Now when I or someone else replies, he knows exactly where, who and what is being talked about.
First Email Sent
Subject: Josh, I Enjoyed Visiting Your Site At JoshWhitford.com – I Have A Question!
From: Matthew Papaconstantinou <weightlosstriumph@gmail.com>
To: josh@joshwhitford.com
Date: Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 7:30 PM
Dear Josh,
I enjoyed visiting your blog at JoshWhitford.com and enjoyed reading some of your articles. Your tips and techniques provide solid and valuable information to people like me who want to promote their blog.
I am writing to you because I would like to offer you an article that I wrote for your site. The article talks about my niche (weight loss ) and explains how my blog has already started enjoying good rankings as a result of me following your marketing strategies.
The article is informative, unique (never published in another site) and I believe your visitors will enjoy reading.
I would love that the article (see attachment) could find a home at JoshWhitford.com!
Let me know if you accept the article (or need me to modify it) and where it can be located on your site.
Kind Regards
–
Matt Papa
Publisher, WeightLossTriumph.com
Matthew Papaconstantinou, PhD
Washington University Medical School
Department of Biochem. & Molec. Bioph.
660S. Euclid Ave. 63110, St Louis, MO
Josh Here: In the beginning, look at the pumps being primed. A little flattery goes a long way. He quickly and clearly states what he wants and what he is after, plus a little more flattery. He also knows that people will not put up with content that can be found with a simple google.com search and will not post it. As far as I know, all his articles are in fact technically unique with much of the same content idea or same topic, just different wording. He wraps up the email by letting me know that if I don’t like anything, he is willing to correct it along with keeping the dialogue open for the details of where/when things will happen.
Step 3: Take time to produce good, original content
Below is the article that came attached in the first email Matthew sent. I left it completely original so you can see the links he was going for, along with giving him a little do credit for being so damn good at what he does.
By Matt Papa
Internet marketing has become a massive trend for many reasons—not just because of the hard economic times and widespread layoffs, but also because people want to work at home and spend more time with their families, and maybe most of all because individuals with an independent entrepreneurial spirit seek the freedom and innovation they can achieve through this kind of business.
But it seems like many people start at a disadvantage because they are going about it the wrong way—they want to make money without having an idea, a project or a product that they truly, passionately believe in and understand. You don’t have to be the world’s expert or have something that no one else has – that’s actually unlikely or at least quite difficult at this point in the growth of the home-based online business world. But to attract and keep an audience, you have to bring something special to your idea or your project – some added value that you and only you offer.
Perhaps you do have a unique product. If so, that’s a big advantage. Even so, you are still going to need to find effective ways to reach your potential customers and build up their interest in your product. Selling is selling, whether it’s online or door-to-door.
Style without substance and substance without style are both incomplete packages. Neither one will get you far for long.
What you have to sell is yourself and your unique voice and perspective on the value of your product and the needs of your potential market. That’s one reason blogging has become an almost essential part of any online business.
My niche: the weight loss market
Personally, I didn’t have to go out looking for a niche or product to market, because I already had a dedicated interest–the problem of obesity and helping people overcome their weight problems and achieve better health. My research had already given me many ideas and a lot of practical and scientific information, and I really felt a call to share that with other people. Blogging and creating my own website were just natural outgrowths of my desire to inform and share my knowledge.
Because I already had a good background in my topic, I had a head start on many people trying to build businesses online. Not just because I knew things, but because my interest was strong enough and real enough that I was willing to put in a lot of time and energy to build my site, whether I was making money or not. It was a labor of love, which gave me the motivation to stick with it while I learned what worked and how I could make it financially profitable as well as personally satisfying.
A major advantage I had was the magnitude of my niche’s potential market (no pun intended). It is a niche, but a big one. The reality is that two out of three people in the US are overweight, and many of them would like to find a way to help themselves lose weight. So I had no doubt that there was a potential audience and a potential market for the information I wanted to share. I just needed to find the way to put it all together.
My product: The Medifast diet
I had learned about Medifast through my extensive research into successful weight loss programs. It’s a great product that has been around for 25 years and has been tested and recommended by more than 20,000 doctors.
I was aware that Medifast has a great reputation – Forbes business magazine recently named them one of America’s Best 200 Small Companies. When I learned that they also have an affiliate program for marketing their plan, I realized that this could be a great opportunity for me to draw more people to my website, provide them with information and products that would benefit them, and also start earning some return on my investment of time and energy in weightlosstriumph.com.
An affiliate program like Medifast’s works like this. Once you become an affiliate (at no cost to you), you build into your website a link or links that will guide interested readers to the sponsor’s own site—in this case the Medifast site. Each time one of your readers goes on to purchase one of their products, you receive a commission (for Medifast, 20 percent) on that sale. Medifast helps make their links particularly attractive by providing their affiliates with coupons to save your readers money—and make using your link even more inviting.
I could see that this was a perfect opportunity for me, and that I had a perfect website for Medifast. But I also knew that building a true internet marketing strategy would take a little more know-how than just plunking down a link onto my website.
If I could master the internet marketing skills I needed to transform my interest and my blog into a really valuable place that could help people make their weight loss dreams come true, I could also start to make good money online.
Niche + Product + Marketing — Putting it all together
Before people can start clicking on my Medifast links and thereby help my website earn money, first they have to find my website. So how did I go about increasing my visibility and building traffic for my blog? To make the most of my Meidfast affiliation, my website had to find its way to the top of Google’s search list for crucial keywords like “Medifast coupon code” and “Does Medifast work“. But there’s a lot of competition for these keywords.
I knew that just as I wanted to be a go-to site for anyone who is looking for information about Medifast and other important weight-loss facts and opportunities, there are go-to sites experts…like Josh…for people like me who are looking to learn about creating a successful blog and website.
One thing Josh Whitford helped me grasp is the importance of building a community and creating effective backlinks for achieving these search engine rankings. As Josh explains in his helpful 5 easy ways to build backlinks for your blog ,“Everything about search ranking and page rank is based on the foundation of good backlinks and anchor text links. The more links you have pointing towards your blog on certain keywords, the higher you will rate for relevancy of those keywords.â€
Josh also has some really great advice on creating and maintaining a blog that will be a magnet for your niche community. He has three great tips for making your blog successful, but in a way they all boil down to one common factor – commitment. You have to believe in your subject and be committed to it – to making sure that your content is sound and fresh and that you keep it that way by sticking with it. It’s all part of building a community of readers who can trust that will find something new and valuable each time they come to your site.
My site is growing and has a promising future – not only because it’s a great topic that I love, but also because marketing know-how like Josh’s has helped me raise my search engine rankings significantly.
I was lucky that I already had the passion and the enthusiasm for my own subject – best weight loss programs. But being part of Josh’s community has helped me key in on some of the practical things I need to know about and do to keep my blog alive and lively.
Josh Here: Now I don’t really believe that Matthew learned anything from my blog about marketing ideas or how to build backlinks. This guy knows his stuff. But like I mentioned above, a little flattery goes a long way. His article is original, one of a kind and serves as a well-written piece, but tying in weight loss to marketing doesn’t seem to be natural as I have no incoming links about weight loss or anything like that. Almost all my links are related around marketing, unconventional, ideas, josh, techniques and just about every combo of those.
But notice how he took the time to read through a few of my posts and to draw that content into the topic at hand. By doing so he is making his post about weight loss into a marketing post, along with adding link juice to some of my own pages. This makes you think this guy isn’t being selfish, he is just trying to add content to the community and enhance the reader and user experience (probably both, a little bit).
Step 4: The follow through
For the sake of keeping this a little shorter I won’t publish the emails my girlfriend Lindsay has exchanged with Matthew via her Dog Blog. But rest assured that he will go to whatever length possible to make sure that his posts meet your standards and gets published.
He makes sure to keep the dialogue going by following up with relevant emails regarding a new or interesting topic. He will go to length to lay on the flattery thick through the process, like telling my girlfriend how good she looks in her about page picture. Ha, silly Greeks. Be careful with that one, don’t want to accidently piss someone off. I just think it’s funny.
Step 5: When there is gold, dig
Now, I haven’t been this far with Matthew yet and might guess it doesn’t happen. But in any case, I would presume that following up with a blogger after he or she publishes your successful blog post would only be natural. This opens up the opportunity for future guest posts. I would give a good 2-3 months depending on how often the blog posts to follow up again and see how things are going and whether or not the blogger would be interested in another guest post about xyz.
As you can imagine, taking this approach could be a full-time job, and I have no idea when this guy finds time to sleep, but in the end it must be worth the effort via clients or affiliate programs to justify the time spent.
or
Instead of taking the cold calling approach to guest posting and building backlinks, you could develop relationships with people. Building a community would make this whole wine and dine experience much easier. I could simply pull up Skype and ask, hey can I write a post about blah blah blah to get a couple links? … Just another approach to the same end.
In conclusion
If you made it this far you have way too much time on your hands. Or, you are probably in the business of building backlinks for the purpose of ranking a website over another. The formula is as follows:
- Find appropriate active niche blog
- Research and produce good content
- Make contact and use flattery
- Follow up and correct anything needed
- Rinse and repeat
No related posts.
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LinkedIn
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That post was epic, almost grizzly-esque. Excellent points made by both of you. Basically a lesson in human nature I might add. The techniques used work almost 100% of the time. Flattery 101 when accompanied with something useful is hard to resist. I hope many people will read this and follow. To get a link on my site, just send me some sort of gift card. I am easy.
I would love to see a follow up post where you list all the longtails people use to find this article. That would be interesting. There was some serious SEO applied here. U R Da man!
Well Griz is my hero and I cant help but to aim for what works. The technique works so good that I even posted it here using it as an example of what really works, ha. Flattery with good quality will work every time. I have a gift card on it's way.
I am sure there will be a few long-tail from this one that's for sure.
I have to admit that I have never done a guest post or ever tried. It always seemed like too much work for me.
) for the humans,
I agree that he did seem to do everything right in order to get to his end goal of “anchored back links” but it just seems like there are easier ways.
I'd be curious to know what other ways this dude gets links. I'll have to fire up the SEO Quake tonight on his site while I drink a beer and see if I can break it down.
…and, I agree with Steve, very Griz-like… lots of content for the spiders, and well crafted information (content is KING
AL
I am sure you'll find a lot of good stuff reverse engineering some of his stuff. Obviously he knows his stuff and does it very well (well managed). I agree that asking friends for a little love doesn't hurt either. One things for sure having friends and knowing how to get links without friends sure helps either way.
The best part about this post is that half of the content was already produced for me. Just needed to add a few elements and organize it into a digestible way for my goal.
Fantastic post Josh and reason for my first comment (I believe). Matt is certainly getting around as he did a guest post on my Dog Blog too, I won't spam you with a link. The points you make are very good. Matt came across polite in his emails and offered a great unique article offering advice and even though his links were not even relevant to the Dog niche I was more than happy to have some very good content from him and let him have some good backlinks.
People really do forget just how far simply contacting other webmasters and being polite and providing good content can get you.
I have to hand it to anyone that can get backlinks from an Internet marketing blog and a Dog blog within a few days of each other, make the content relevant and all for a weight loss site. A good lesson for us all I think.
Who would begrudge someone who is obviously putting the hours in and providing such good content, we should all see the value in this.
@Dave Thanks for stopping by and dropping a comment. I think you highlight the important parts of the post. For good backlinks produce good content and politely contact others with dog blogs, ha.
There is definitely a lot of link variety/blending that Matt is achieving. I wonder what other type of links he racks up in the process.
More than anything putting in good time and effort will result in lots of good content/links. Pretty simple formula.
Great post. I have always been an advocate for guest blogging as, from a backlink perspective, it gives you an easy way to fully diversify your IP range and you can build a relationship as well.
Another option not talked about so much is to utilize those who actively comment on your site by personally emailing them and building a relationship that way then segueing into a guest post offer or better yet, a trade.
Of course, I am talking strictly in terms of backlinks and not actual traffic produced because most bloggers who are trying to rank for keywords think in those terms. Traffic and exposure on a different network will go a long way if you are wanting to brand yourself as an authority in your community.
The problem that most guest posters have is making the content strong enough in the first place to get interest. I think that if you aren't willing to let it all “stick” out, your chances of impressing both the webmaster and their visitors is limited.
I personally contact a lot of the folks who comment on my site alot. I think it is just good business.
Hello Josh!
You have made an excellent analysis of the project. You are right on. I only want to point out 4 things:
1. I like being sincere when I compliment people. Your girlfriend looks really pretty. When I discovered your site though, I figured out the relationship…end of story.
2. I do like the content of your site. Your tips and techniques are worthy of attention and appreciation.
3. I am glad my post serves as a good example for gathering backlinks. The backlinks would have been even more powerful if the Title Tag had remained as intended: “From Pounds to Dollars – Monetizing My Weight-Loss Blogâ€. But, again, I understand the reason why you modified it.
4. People often make the mistake that they need to get backlinks from relevant sites in order to rank high in the search engines (SE). So, they try to place their links in the “comments section†of relevant blogs by commenting on other people’s blogs. The problem with this approach is that, a website that is relevant to yours is most likely a competitor as well. And who wants to have links in their website that point to a competitor? Nobody.
Things became clearer to me when I realized that SE rank pages, not sites. Therefore, I only needed backlinks from relevant pages, not necessarily relevant sites. By offering another webmaster a page (an article) that intelligently “bridges†the two topics (yours and theirs) you can gain quality backlinks. That means, backlinks from a page that relates to your page. The whole point therefore is to find a way to thematically “bridge†the two pages.
When I saw Josh’s site, I quickly realized it is a quality site. I then tried to find a way to develop an article that would naturally combine the topic of Marketing (in order to satisfy Josh) to the topic of Medifast (to satisfy myself) and place some relevant anchor text (to satisfy the SE). I came up with the idea you see above.
@Leo, thanks for hanging out. I like weaving in the relationship building/management is a very good thing from many angles (friends, community, traffic, ranking, authority and the like). I am firm believer of the 1000 true friends rule of thumb and think it goes beyond just interacting. Like below:
http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/...
Matt, thanks for coming by and adding some more pieces to the puzzle of building quality backlinks. Knowing that pages are each unique in of themselves and bridging the content, topic, and each parties interest into one place is not only important but an art form. I believe that you are sincere in your dealings with others and have made the process highly efficient resulting in lots of good ranks. I appreciate your honesty and good will.
Good work guys. I love getting emails from people who say they want to guest post because I have sites with subscribers I feel like I need to feed with constant content – but the time isn't always there to write. I've made lots of good friends w/exchanging guest posts
Thanks Chelle, I agree guest posts are a good way to start a relationship along with commenting.
Great post. I have always been an advocate for guest blogging as, from a backlink perspective, it gives you an easy way to fully diversify your IP range and you can build a relationship as well.
Another option not talked about so much is to utilize those who actively comment on your site by personally emailing them and building a relationship that way then segueing into a guest post offer or better yet, a trade.
Of course, I am talking strictly in terms of backlinks and not actual traffic produced because most bloggers who are trying to rank for keywords think in those terms. Traffic and exposure on a different network will go a long way if you are wanting to brand yourself as an authority in your community.
The problem that most guest posters have is making the content strong enough in the first place to get interest. I think that if you aren't willing to let it all “stick” out, your chances of impressing both the webmaster and their visitors is limited.
I personally contact a lot of the folks who comment on my site alot. I think it is just good business.
Hello Josh!
You have made an excellent analysis of the project. You are right on. I only want to point out 4 things:
1. I like being sincere when I compliment people. Your girlfriend looks really pretty. When I discovered your site though, I figured out the relationship…end of story.
2. I do like the content of your site. Your tips and techniques are worthy of attention and appreciation.
3. I am glad my post serves as a good example for gathering backlinks. The backlinks would have been even more powerful if the Title Tag had remained as intended: “From Pounds to Dollars – Monetizing My Weight-Loss Blogâ€. But, again, I understand the reason why you modified it.
4. People often make the mistake that they need to get backlinks from relevant sites in order to rank high in the search engines (SE). So, they try to place their links in the “comments section†of relevant blogs by commenting on other people’s blogs. The problem with this approach is that, a website that is relevant to yours is most likely a competitor as well. And who wants to have links in their website that point to a competitor? Nobody.
Things became clearer to me when I realized that SE rank pages, not sites. Therefore, I only needed backlinks from relevant pages, not necessarily relevant sites. By offering another webmaster a page (an article) that intelligently “bridges†the two topics (yours and theirs) you can gain quality backlinks. That means, backlinks from a page that relates to your page. The whole point therefore is to find a way to thematically “bridge†the two pages.
When I saw Josh’s site, I quickly realized it is a quality site. I then tried to find a way to develop an article that would naturally combine the topic of Marketing (in order to satisfy Josh) to the topic of Medifast (to satisfy myself) and place some relevant anchor text (to satisfy the SE). I came up with the idea you see above.
@Leo, thanks for hanging out. I like weaving in the relationship building/management is a very good thing from many angles (friends, community, traffic, ranking, authority and the like). I am firm believer of the 1000 true friends rule of thumb and think it goes beyond just interacting. Like below:
http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/...
Matt, thanks for coming by and adding some more pieces to the puzzle of building quality backlinks. Knowing that pages are each unique in of themselves and bridging the content, topic, and each parties interest into one place is not only important but an art form. I believe that you are sincere in your dealings with others and have made the process highly efficient resulting in lots of good ranks. I appreciate your honesty and good will.
Good work guys. I love getting emails from people who say they want to guest post because I have sites with subscribers I feel like I need to feed with constant content – but the time isn't always there to write. I've made lots of good friends w/exchanging guest posts
Thanks Chelle, I agree guest posts are a good way to start a relationship along with commenting.
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