RedGage

Money-Maker Memo #16

Link Building

Links act as roads that direct traffic from one website (or page) to another.  Link building is the act of increasing these inbound paths to your content through hyperlinks.  The more hyperlinks pointing back to your RedGage content, the more likely your content will show up on search results.  Link building revolves around the strategic techniques used to place these links in the most effective places. 

Creating quality content is the first step, but websites will sit and collect dust if efforts to direct traffic are ignored.  If we don't create a direct path to lead people to our content, how will people ever get the opportunity to view it?  It is as good as hosting a lemonade stand on a piece of property without any streets! 

WHY USE LINK BUILDING:

1)  Link building creates awareness and validates your sites
2)  Link building helps search engine optimization
3)  Link building brings traffic from relevant sites and can facilitate genuine relations

There are many ways to build your links online.  Here are a few suggestions:

*Social Networking Websites:
Post your RedGage links to your profiles on social networking sites and use these accounts to promote your content.  Utilize the 'About Me' sections that allow you to add links or your other websites to your profile page.   

*Social Bookmarking Websites:
Use these bookmarking websites to submit your content pages.  If you submit your RedGage content pages to bookmarking sites like Digg or StumbleUpon, you are putting your hyperlink out there for people to view and vote on.  It will also help your websites indexed. 

*Website Directories:
Check out free and local website directories that list various sites into categories.  Submit your links to these directories for more exposure.

*Article Directories:
Just like website directories, there are also article directories.  You can create and submit your relevant articles (with links) to these websites. 

*Question/Answer Forums:
If you have information- find the people who are looking for it!  Search for forums of people who have similar interests.  If you write a blog about making organic dog food, search for 'How to make organic dog food' and see which forums come up.  Posting your links just anywhere can be irrelevant, so go after the people who have a question to your answer! 

*Make Guest Posts:
Link building is often a two-way street that requires permission.  After you have posted your links on all of the pages that you manage, try reaching out to other people.  Whether you ask a friend to add your link to their blog roll or you ask to be a guest blogger on another site, use your connections!