6 Steps For Link Building And Driving Traffic With Social Media

Everyone knows that link building is important for organic ranking in the search engines. As Social Media has evolved rapidly over the last two years, I’m now asking myself, ‘Can Social Media be leveraged to increase my website’s authority’ Three questions naturally fall out of this question:

1. Using Social Media, is it possible to build quality back links to my website?
2. How would I go about starting to build those backlinks?
3. Should link building be a separate exercise or can you build good links and drive more quality traffic at the  same time

I have been investigating these questions and have come to the following conclusion:

From my experience I have found 6 Main Steps In Implementing A Project That Drives The Right Type Of Traffic And Simultaneously Builds Quality Links.

Before discussing these steps, I would like to put them in context by reviewing some background information on social media.

Why is Social Media So Valuable?

Links obtained from social media are completely organic and highly valuable.

The more social media sites that link to your site, the greater is the authority of your site with the search engines.

Getting keyword rich backlinks from social media sites is directly related to how much credibility you’ve built up within the various social media websites. This credibility is linked to the quality of your articles/feedback/discussions.

The more you engage people with consistent, quality content, the more likely your chances of getting linked to by other sites, blogs, forums, press releases and rss feeds.

It is the diversity and volume of these secondary links that will be critical in helping your site climb up the rankings on the search engine results pages (SERPs).

So What Type of Social Media is Relevant for Link Building?

I would suggest you focus on the following:

Blogging:

By owning a blog you get to share your thoughts, ideas and business with a huge audience. If your content is useful enough you will get links and loyal followers too.

Your blog can be used for the twin objectives of building links and at the same time driving traffic.

Some good blogs for understanding SEO are Matt Cutts, SEO Book and SEO Scoop.

Forums:

These involve discussion threads and you can build links from these sites by commenting and leaving a link to relevant content on your site.

Some sites have rules that insist that you post several comments without links before permitting you to add links.

Start threads that will entice people to reply or click the link in your signature, when you reply, reply with something helpful. Ask your own questions. Using forums in this way builds a good reputation for you and your brand, earning traffic as well as links.

Follow the golden rule of all comment placing on social media sites. Do not insert spam links or engage in direct promotion.

Spam links consist of links to irrelevant content. Engagement in excessive self promotion using your profile on various sites will get you reported and your account can be terminated.

A couple of good forums are Webmaster-Talk & Web Pro World

Article Submission:

There are many online article submission sites you can use to showcase your articles. As with blogging, if they are interesting and helpful enough, they will earn you links and traffic.

Most of these social media sites require an article length of around 500 words – this is to help to ensure that the articles that are submitted are worthwhile reading.

There are many free article submission sites online such as eZineArticles and ArticleBase.

Social Networking Sites

These sites put you in touch with people of similar interests. You are able to create groups that you can send updates to, network with other members and on some sites post articles that the members of the groups may find interesting. Some examples are LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, & Reddit

Twitter is not good for creating SEO links, but Linked in and Facebook are excellent.

If your user profile is properly constructed it will enable linking back to your site.

Here Are The 6 Steps:

1. Build a Blog

My recommendation is to use Wordpress since that is free and is designed for rapid indexing by the search engines. Be sure to install it on your web server and not use a copy hosted on wordpress.com.

Set up an RSS feed to enable visitors to sign-up for notification of future blog topics. At the end of each post you should insert the following call to action:

“Liked this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!”

2. Create High Quality Relevant Content

High Quality Relevant content can be defined as content that your target market is going to find interesting and engaging. Part of writing good content is knowing what keywords your target market use.

Do some Keyword Research and be sure to include a keyword in the title of each blog post that you create. Also use the tags for relevant keywords used in the first paragraph of the post. Use categories to help visitors navigate and find topics that interest them.

3. Research Social Media That Is Relevant For You

This will be social media that attracts the type of audience that are likely to be interested in your blog topics. The best way to research this is to look at each social media site and see if there is an interest category or group that deals with the type of service or products that you are selling.

4. Open An Account On Relevant Social Media Sites

Be sure to take a lot of time to build your profile. Make sure to choose sites that allow links to be followed and avoid sites with “No Follow” for external links.

Here are some tips on profile creation:

• Use your real name and not an alias as it will increase your credibility
• Upload your photo – use a real photo and not an Avatar type illustration
• If the network uses a short description that is displayed with your photo on every blog comment you make then be sure to craft this carefully
• If possible, link your profile to display your latest blog posts.

5. Post Discussion Topics To The Social Media Sites With A Link Back To Your Blog

You should pose a number of questions that relate to your blog article and ask for opinions. Give a link to your blog article that gives your views and ask for comments.

6. Use Google Analytics To Track Traffic From Each Referring Site

This will tell you about visitor volumes to your blog. Look for traffic from sites that you have not posted to as these secondary links will be due to content syndication by readers of your original post. If you can generate enough of these secondary links you will see an increase in your rankings by the search engines.

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