In my last 2 blog posts One Way to Build Links to your Site and Link Building: Let your Competition Lead the Way, I showed you two ways to find sites to build link from. Now it’s time to actually submit your site and start building links!

The first thing you need to do is prepare for submitting your site. There is certain information you’ll need, so in order to make the process faster it’s best to create and put all that information in one place. This way you can copy and paste it every time instead of typing the same thing over and over and having to create it on the fly.

Open up a new Excel spreadsheet. On the left column list these fields: URL, Email, Title 1, Title 2, Title 3, Description 1, Description 2, Keywords, User/Pass, Address, Phone

The URL, the address and phone of your site are easy. For the email address, make sure you give a valid email address that your check on a regular basis. Some sites will not include yours without a reply back. Also, some will send a reply once you site is listed.

You will notice there are 3 spots for title, this is because some sites will allow you to use keywords, some will not. So in Title 1, enter in the official name of your website only. On Title 2 and 3, enter in the official name but also add in a few keywords. When you submit your site pay attention to whether you have to use only the title of your site. It will be clearly stated somewhere if you do. If not, pick one of your titles with keywords to use. If you’re submitting to lots of sites, change up the keywords as you move along.

There are 2 spots for the description. You want to write a short one and a long one because many sites have a limit to the amount of characters you can or have to use. For the short, write a couple sentences briefly describing your site. For the long one, write 3 or 4. I suggest using some copy from home page to write your description. There a couple of rules to make sure you follow:
1. Do not use words like “best”, “greatest”, “#1” or your site will not be included. I suggest using some copy from home page to write this.
2. Do not use the title of your website again in the description.

There are 2 spots for the description. You want to write a short one and a long one because many sites have a limit to the amount of characters you can or have to use. For the short, write a couple sentences briefly describing your site. For the long one, write 3 or 4. I suggest using some copy from home page to write your description. There a couple of rules to make sure you follow:

Next, go to a new worksheet in you excel spreadsheet, or just create a whole new one. Across the top, you want to add the following: Website, Submitted, Added, User/Pass, and Notes. Next, copy and paste links to all the sites you gathered in the left column. When you submit your site make sure to enter the date, user/pass if needed, and any notes about the site that you want. Here’s what this spreadsheet will look like:

Now here’s the toughest part – waiting! Some sites will add your link within days, some may take weeks or months and some may never include it. Follow up once a month to see if your site has been added, but don’t obsess over it. Or an easier way to follow your links is by setting up a Google Webmasters Tool.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 at 2:59 pm and is filed under General, Driving Traffic, 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.