Internet Marketing Tycoon

**tekmox** · 10-30-2006, 07:17 PM

Hi there, I am pretty new to this link pop thing and I've been reading up a lot about it. I've came to an understanding that I should go and look for competitors for my site and do a backlink search on them to see what websites are link to them.

So, I've got a list of competitors for my website and I was wondering what would I do with the backlink list. In most cases of those list, I've find that it's none quality websites and I've came to an understanding that quality websites > quanity of websites.

I've also looked within DMOZ and some other directories for linking options. Would I just start emailing away at their websites? How did you all go about doing all of your link pop campaign?

Thanx a lot for your help in advance.

**vangogh** · 10-30-2006, 07:47 PM

Looking at who links to your competitors is one of finding sites to link to you, but it's not the only way.

Ultimately the best way is to create content that people want to link to on their own without you having to ask. That takes a lot of work and you obviously need some people to find you first.

To find who links to your competitors do what's called a link search at any search engine:

link:http://www.competiorsdomain.com

Google only shows a small sample. Yahoo will show the most. Some of the sites that show up may not give you a link, but some might. You at least get to see who links to your competition. Ideally you should be looking for competitors who show up when you search for your keywords in a search engne.

You can also look for directories. Most directories aren't the greatest links to have, but if you can find nich directories for your industry they can be good. Try searches for things like:

"your keywords" + "directory"
"your keywords" + "submit url"
"your keywords" + "add url"
"your keywords" + "submit site"
"your keywords" + "add site"

and any other similar thing you can think of. I warn you though it's really tedious. Most of the sites that show up should have a form you can fill out and submit your site. Sometimes you have to hunt through the site a little to find it and some of those sites will require you to pay or give a link back. I never give links back to the directories though.

The best kind of links though are the ones that are harder to get. If you can find a site that's related to your industry that will give you a link and it's a site where most of your competitors will have a hard time getting that link then it's one you want. If you like to write, article writing can be a good way to get links.

Here's a tutorial I wrote on some seo basics. One of the posts in the turorial is specifically on building links.

It also doesn't hurt to practice a little seo karma.

**jc_from_jimco** · 11-01-2006, 01:53 PM

I totally agree with Vangogh when I come to Practicing Karma. I have a question for you Tekmox, Are you operating any blogging software like wordpress or typepad? If not you may want to look into it. Since the Jagger update in 2005 Google , In my mind anyway", has shifted focus to natural linking, I think its thier way of telling us we are going to have to be active to stay competitive,

Having a blog is like setting up a virtual office that u can use to exude out information about you particular subject. I prefer wordpress because its free and It gives the user a lot of flexibility when displaying content . Not to mention Social software offers you on of the best opportunity for natural linking.

Something to also seriously consider is that Google wieghs other factor into thier algorithms like site age and athority of incoming link.. When was the last time you tried asking best buy for a backlink

**tekmox** · 11-01-2006, 03:33 PM

Actually I do have a blog and I update it pretty often. I've been blogging for about 3 months now and I find that traffic have been coming from some of the blog pages because they get index in google pretty fast.

Google somewhat sees my site as an authority within my topic because I've noticed the site have ranked pretty well for articles that I've put in.

Thanx tho for the heads up, because I've been reading up on the forums about how people would look for their competitor's backlinks and try to link to them or go into directories and try to get a link from those people. Now I know is a tedious job to start out with but I guess it'll pay off in the long run.