Day 19: Google Alerts and Link Building

Robert from the 30DC team created a nice little video about how to use Google alerts www.google.com/alerts. Once again this is quite a well known technique for keeping up to date with new content indexed in Google related to whichever niche you are interested in. By setting up rules/filters in your email system you can also keep all of this data organized.

Robert does however add an interesting little tip about using a unique phrase in any new content you produce that no one else is using and then entering that phrase into Google alerts so that you can monitor when your content is showing up in Googles search results.

Robert also released a sort of link building in a nutshell video which outlined the basics of getting back links to improve search engine rankings. Link building is a rather simple process, the more links you have pointing to your site, the more Google believes you are an authority on a particular subject therefore the higher you will rank.

However there are a few key things you need to know in order to be able to build back links effectively

• Some links hold more value than others
• One way links are better than reciprocal links
• Links from sites with related content are better than non related
• The higher the PR or authority of a site linking to you the better
• Links from .edu and .gov sites are more valuable than standard domains such as .com and .net
• Linking should be natural, in other words if you get too many links too quickly Google will sandbox your site. The sandbox is where a site is placed if it is suspected of using strategies to manipulate Google’s search results.
• Do not exchange links with sites which are not indexed by Google or have PR0 and only exchange links with sites which are related in some way to your own.

There are hundreds of different ways of getting back links to your site, however the best way is simply to create quality content. This will encourage other sites to link to yours without you having to do any further work yourself. Links will be one way and most likely from related sites.

Submitting articles is another excellent long term strategy, you can submit your site to search engines, directories, RSS directories, comment on other blogs or web 2.0 type sites such as Squidoo and HubPages the list goes on.

It’s definitely no secret that back links are the most important thing for getting your sites ranked well in the search engines and unfortunately can be the most time consuming task. Master the art of link building and you will have great success making money online.