Link Trading Still Most Effective

Link trading is more effective than any other method in  SEO. Here’s why other methods are not as effective:

1.       Google is cracking down on paid links. They are getting better and better at identifying them and devaluing them.

2.       Article submissions are too easy for search engines to identify, making it easy for Google to devalue these links as well. Search engines know that webmasters and SEOs are spamming these sites for links.

3.       Press release links are pretty much the same story as article submissions

4.       Dofollow blog comment links are again too easy to identify. It’s also hard to get a relevant backlink unless you can find a blog that matches your vertical and allows dofollow links.

5.       Viral links or link baiting can get you a number of links, but you have little or no control over the keywords in the anchor text. Yes, you can get link weight, but will it help you to rank for your competitive keyword phrases?

6.       Directory submissions are again easy to identify and devalue.

7.       Social bookmarking sites usually apply nofollows on all links. Although I think that search engines are giving weight on these.

 

Link trading that works

A few link trading basics

1. Search Engines rank pages not websites.
2. Relevant link trading does work and will always work because it’s good for your users.
3. You may not have control over who links to you, but you do have control over who you link to. Let’s face it when you place links on your site to other sites you are recommending these sites. Make sure you place them on a relevant page and make sure they are worthy of linking to. I think that Search engines do take into account who you link to and that your site will gain authority by linking to sites the help the user.
4. Avoid placing links in big lists on a links pages, or making a “links” directory.
5. Don’t try and cheat on links. The experienced SEO will see it in a second, drop your link and keep you from trading with all the sites that they are working on. So you’ll lose way more than you’d ever gain.
6. You can also trade image ads and use alt tags to diversify your backlink portfolio.

Finish reading this great article here.