5 Reasons Why Copying Links is Bad for You

When you start out in link building, almost everyone recommends to check out your competitors. And I agree: it is very important to know who you're dealing with in the SERPs.
Many people additionally recommend to "get" all those links your competitors have built so far. However, this can be a potentially dangerous and rather inefficient approach to link building. Let me tell you why.
1. You will never truly lead the rankings
It sure does sound promising and logical. Just copy all the links that can be copied of, say, the top 20 ranking websites for your target keywords. Depending on your niche, this may or may not be a ridiculous amount of work, but it can be done if necessary.
However, this has one implication: even if this works out great and you reach the top (e.g. rank #1), you will never become an actual leader. Your ranking will probably stick for a while, but if just one of those 20 competitors is actively building links on a daily basis, he passes you in no time.
Now if you approach the issue more thoroughly, you can try to copy all new links as soon as they appear in your favorite link research tool as well. This still has a serious problem to it, though: it's not natural.
2. It's unnatural and may get you penalized
Google watches link growth and link building velocities very closely. If all of a sudden, you start "obtaining" a healthy chunk of your competitors' links (which they probably acquired over a couple of years), your site is likely to be checked by one of Google's quality raters.
This can trigger severe penalties, rendering all of your work useless. If you're really unlucky, Google may even trust all of your links less, effectively devaluing even the links you've had before.
3. You risk being reported
SEOs really don't like to see their hard work copied. But it happens all the time nonetheless.
However, some competitors might take this very seriously and report you to Google - and you may be in for a penalty and link devaluation once again.
4. You depend on link research tools
I bet if there was no Yahoo! Site Explorer (and similar services), 90% of all link-building SEOs would be out of work. Way too many SEOs actually depend on other peoples' link building strategies.
5. You're not seeing all the links there are
All available tools can only return a limited set of link data. Some do a better job than others, but no tool can show you all the links that Google has actually taken into consideration to build their rankings.
Savvy competitors hide their own link networks anyway.
But I need those links!
I know you do. But if you're really dependent on copying other peoples' links (which you shouldn't be!), at least do it the smart way.
This means absolutely not getting a link on the very same page on a target domain unless it's highly relevant.
Also, slow and steady wins the race. Don't pull one allnighter after another acquiring all those precious links at once. Set limits! Depending on your niche this may be one link a week or ten links a day. This also greatly depends on your existing link profile.
If you're just starting out, get your first links elsewhere anyway!
But most importantly, and this is my advice to you, instead of being a copycat, try to learn, understand, adapt and apply. Find new link sources, discover new link opportunities, broaden your horizon. If you do, the sky is the limit.

Back to Basics: Seven Simple Sources for One-Way SEO Backlinks!

SEO can be mainly split into two key areas, which both must be looked into if you want to get anywhere with the search engines. Firstly there is the onsite SEO, where the website is looked at from a technical perspective in terms of how ell built it is and how good the content is on it. A lot of technical people can get on these easily but struggle on the second SEO technique, which is offsite link building.

Other websites need to mention and cite yours in order for them to send you some authority. Think of it as reputation. If Google visits a site and sees they are referencing yours, they will send you some power for the keywords and themes around that link. This is the basic principle why you should link build. Posting links on Twitter and Facebook with a URL shortener might not work though, because these websites are ‘no follow’ meaning power is not passed onto the link destination. But where do good one-way links come from?

Directory submissions – There are few good articles directories nowadays, but some of them are still worth the effort. Make sure the directory you are submitting to is unique-content-rich!

Article marketing (don’t confuse with guest blogging!) – This is a broad way to get links, and includes writing of articles that you can  publish on other people’s sites with your website as a link.

Blog commenting – Commenting on other people’s blog posts can be a good way to get links.Comment naturally though, by reading the post and having a good comment to say. You can drop a link in the post here or through your name when you submit the comment to be moderated.

Forum links – Similar to blog commenting, you can post your website on forums to get a little bit of power. Users on profiles will sometimes have your website as a link in their profile signature meaning your link can be seeded over a large number of pages on a website. Of course, a link should not be your priority: get involved and network! Add value to the community to avoid being called a spammer!

Homepage links – These are getting links directly on homepages of other websites on their blog roll, footer, or sponsored link section. Don’t overdo with these: homepage links make Google think you are a spammer

Social bookmarks – Join some social bookmarking websites and submit your articles, website and blog posts (don’t spam!). Submit other people’s articles as well to add value to the social network, don’t just link-drop.

Web 2.0 properties – These are like platforms you can create to put links wherever you want. Websites such as WordPress, Blogger and Squidoo are great places to make websites and pages where you can link to your site. Don’t forget a presence on Twitter and Facebook too as every little helps.

Remember a mix of anchor text when getting your links because it needs to look natural to Google. Don’ spam out your site with thousands of bad links with the same anchor text. I hope you have found some of these link sources useful, and good luck getting to page 1!

5 Most Effective SEO Methods

Off-page optimization or Link Building is one of the most important SEO challenges every website owner has to face. You can do whatever changes you wish to make on your website: changing structure, playing with keyword density and so on and optimize your content in different ways, but when you wish to make other people do something on their site for you, it's a different story.

The important question is "how to get links to my website?' well there are 5 effective ways to build links to your website in order to boost your link popularity and get you better search engine optimization rankings.

1. Article Submission

Write unique articles on a topic relevant to your website and submit them to the biggest article directories like ezinearticles, articlebiz, etc. There are lots of them on the Internet and most of them allow you to put 1 to 4 links to your website either in the body of the article or in the resource box or both.

The link value you get from article submission is not very big, but the upside is that you shape the content yourself; therefore the link will come from a topically relevant page. As an extra bonus you get some traffic from the article and if it's good enough it will be republished on more websites and blogs.

2. Blog Commenting

Blog commenting is another link-building technique that has become quite popular these days. Search the web for authoritative blogs in your niche that allow do-follow commenting and share your mind there. Make sure you read the post before commenting and try to make a point with your comment; don't just go on spamming blogs with links to your website, or you'll just get your comments deleted and end up with no links and a spoiled reputation.

3. Social Media

Social media websites can provide tons of valuable links if you manage to bring your SEO to the top. But you'll need all your creative power to do that and maybe a bit more. Since social media sites are seeing more and more spammy content submitted to them by marketers of all sorts and fashions, running a successful social media campaign gets harder every day.

4. Submission of Press Release

Write a press release about your company or product and submit it to PRWeb and similar resources. Take the time to make your press-release newsworthy and the chances that it will get syndicated increase depending on how good you manage to make it.

 5. Directories Submission

There are a lot of directories on the internet where you can submit your website. Although links from them won't give you any drastic jump ups in the rankings, they are still worth submitting to, especially if you have a young website. Make sure you submit your URL into a relevant category. These link building techniques will get you quality and relevant links that will add good value to your website's search engine rankings. To get the best results in SEO with your link building always keep track of the links you get and evaluate your off-page optimization campaign. The most efficient way to do it is to use special tools for link building.