A powerful way to increase free traffic to your site is through link building. However, to make this effective, ensure you are using ethical tactics. Link building revolves around creating links on other sites that point back to your site. As you publish quality content, these links will develop naturally, but you don’t have to take a passive approach. Here are some recommended and ethical ways of link building.
Ethical Approach #1 – Trading Links
Find other sites related to your subject matter and offer to post links to their content in exchange for them doing the same for yours. For example, say you have a site selling protein powder, find sites that sell exercise equipment. Take care and only collaborate with high-quality sites, low-quality sites, or those using unethical means can lower your ranking with search engines.
Ethical Approach #2 – Use Forums and Blogs
Search for forums and blogs related to your niche. When you find a quality site, create a user profile and enter your site information. Don’t hide who you are or how you’re affiliated with your site. Once you have approval to post, make high-quality posts that link back to your site. A good place to get started is Quora. Quora has a large following of user who post questions on a variety of topics. Find topics within your niche and answer these questions with links back to your site. The quality of your answer, and showing how you’re really trying to help others, will generate free traffic.
Consider adding a forum or blog to your own site if you don’t already have them. Bring together like-minded people who will attract more like-minded readers to your site. To learn more about this, read our article on building a community.
Ethical Approach #3 – Social Media
Besides forums and blogs, social media is a great way to create ethical links back to your site. Post links via Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram, etc. Use your quality content to create a following. To learn more about using social media to create free traffic, read our article here.
Ethical Approach #4 – Direct Contact
Look for other sites related to your niche, contact them directly to see if they would be interested in posting a blog or article that links back to your site. Some sites will create a blog post or article about your site, or they will allow you to post your own blog or article as a guest. Remember to do your research, you don’t want to associate with low-quality sites and risk lowering your ranking with search engines.
Ethical Approach #5 – Create an RSS Feed
Take the time to create an RSS feed for your site. This creates a simple way for your articles to link via several places. You can submit your feed to related directories to give your free traffic a boost. Top Rank Marketing has a nice list of updated directories here.
Using ethical link building is a powerful tool that can increase your traffic and your placement in the search engines.