We discussed one way to build links to your site last week. Here’s another way for you to find sites that will link to you. Once again, get your trusty xcel spreadsheet handy to take notes. You’re going to use the same list of keywords you created from before, but this time just pick your top 3 - 5 most important keywords.

1. Go to Google and do a search for the first keyword. Look at the results and try to find your competition.

2. Next, copy and paste their urls (domain names) into your excel sheet. Make sure to only pick sites that are your direct competition. If you’re a sheet metal fabricator, pick sites that also specialize in sheet metal fabrication. Do not pick any information sites like Wikipedia, which only talk about what sheet metal fabrication is.

3. Next, you want to head over to Yahoo. You’re going to do a “back link check” on your competition. (The reason you need to use Yahoo is because Google won’t display all the back links.) Go to your spreadsheet and pick the first url from your competitor. I’ll use the Ecreativeworks site as an example. You want to type in “link:” then copy and paste the url, in this case http://www.ecreativeworks.com right next to it. It should look like this:

Then click “web search” on Yahoo. What you’ll get is a list of all the sites that are linking to your competitor’s site.

4. Now here comes the work! You need visit each site and decide if they are sites that you potentially would want a back link from. Don’t spend much time on each site, just copy and paste the link into your excel sheet for now. You want to compile the list of sites first, then research the sites when you are all done. Once you’ve gone through all the sites linking to the first site, you can start over again in Google with another keyword. Sometimes you get lucky on the first try and find a lot of great sites. Other times you may have to look through more.

5. When your list is complete, it’s time to look at all the sites you listed. When you visit each site, look at the bottom or very top of the page for links that will show you how to submit your site. These links are often called “Add URL”, “Submit your Site”, “Add a Link”, “Advertise with Us”. Many of these sites will charge your money to get links, but you should also find sites that offer free links.

Now you need to actually submit your site! In my next post, I’ll discuss ways to speed up the process of submitting your site.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 11th, 2008 at 12:10 pm and is filed under General, Link Building. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.