Jun 23
How to Set Up a Link Building Campaign for a Web Site or a Blog
You look familiar. Are you on Twitter? Subscribed to my feed yet?
Building up good quality inbound links to your web site or blog is still the best long term strategy to ensure your site will be found by your target audience. Below is a set of instructions to help you set up a link building campaign for your own site, or for a client’s site, using Microsoft Excel. You will need to create 5 or 6 worksheets (tabs) within the spreadsheet, to keep track of the various aspects of the link building campaign. The first five worksheets will need eight columns each (A – H), with the following headings:
Column A – Number
Column B – Search Engine Name
Column C – Search Engine URL
Column D – Link Page (address of the category page you want your site listed on)
Column E – Submission Page (address of the page where you submit your site)
Column F – Date Submitted
Column G – Date Added
Column H – Submission Comments
The sixth worksheet (tab) will contain all the web site or blog information required for submitting your site to search engines or directories.
Submissions Tab:
The first task is to add the details of your web site or blog into the submissions tab. You will use this information for each submission. Submission information includes:
- Web site/blog name,
- Web site/blog url,
- In the case of a blog, it is helpful to list the rss or atom feed address as well as the standard url,
- Short description (150 words or less),
- Long description (250 words or less),
- Anchor text (the short sentence of text you wish to have listed with your link),
- Keywords,
- Your name and email address (for tracking submissions only).
Please note: When writing your web site or blog descriptions, do not use overly promotional language and do not repeat the name of your web site or blog within the description. Most directories do not accept submissions which breach these two rules.
Tab 1: Major Search Engines
The first tab will contain a list of the major search engines and directories. For a comprehensive list of major search engines to include, visit: http://www.searchenginewiki.com/CategorySearchEnginesMajor Once you have your list imported into the excel spreadsheet:
- Check each one on the list to see if your site is already listed.
- If your site is displayed in the search results, write ‘already listed’ in the comments field.
- Once you have checked through the list, begin submitting – record the date in the ‘date submitted’ column.
- Always submit your website/blog to the most appropriate category.
- Note in the comments column any directories or search engines that require payment. Depending on your budget, examine the directory to determine if it is worth paying to get your site listed with them or not.
- Some sites will require you to sign up as an editor or member in order to be eligible to submit to them. Record all relevant membership data in the comments column.
Tab 2: Minor Search Engines
The second tab is to contain a list of minor search engines and directories. To view a comprehensive list of minor search engines to include, visit: http://www.searchenginewiki.com/CategorySearchEnginesMinor
Submit your site/blog as per the instructions for the major search engine tab.
Tab 3: Niche Search Engines and DirectoriesThe third tab is designed to contain a list of niche search engines or directories which may be relevant for your site/blog. The search engine or directory itself may be targeted towards your niche area or it may contain a category which is directly related to the subject of your site/blog. To view a comprehensive list of Niche search engines to include, visit: http://www.searchenginewiki.com/CategorySearchEnginesNiche
Submit your site/blog as per the instructions for the major search engine tab.
Tab 4: Regional Search Engines and Directories
The fourth tab is to contain a list of search engines or directories from a particular region of the world. You may not wish to have a regional focus in regards to your link building campaign, but if you want to target a particular region, you will need to submit your site to directories and search engines from that region. For a comprehensive list of regional search engines or directories to include, visit: http://www.searchenginewiki.com/CategorySearchEnginesRegional
Submit your site/blog as per the instructions for the major search engine tab.
Tab 5: Blog Directories
This tab is only relevant if you are conducting a link building campaign for a blog. The fifth tab is to contain a list of blog directories. Sometimes the submissions page will ask for the rss address instead or as well as the standard url. (This is the address people use to subscribe to your feed). For a comprehensive list of blog directories to include, visit: http://www.searchenginewiki.com/CategoryBlogDirectories
Submit your blog as per the instructions for the major search engine tab.
Follow Up:
After you have made your submissions, wait about six weeks and check to see if your site/blog is listed yet. If it is listed, write the date in the ‘date added’ column. Keep checking about once a month until all submissions are finalized. Some may take quite a long time to get around to listing your site/blog. If a directory or search engine does not intend to accept your submission you may receive an email indicating the reason. Sometimes however they will not notify you of the outcome either way.
Some search engines and directories require payment for submissions. Sometimes paid listings are worthwhile if the directory is very popular with a high page rank (5 or over) or contains focused relevant categories. Feel free to skip them and stick to free submissions only if you are working with little or no budget.
Happy submitting!
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June 25th, 2008 at 8:03 am
Solid advice. You might consider a tabless approach, where you assign one column for “type” of submission. This will then allow you to use excel’s autofilter and sorting functions. For example, six months from now, imagine you have made hundreds of submissions. You could then, with a quick filter button, see every submission that met any given criteria, be it simple like “blog”, or a more complex, like “regional directory” + “fee based” + “link obtained” + Non-recip, etc. Having the ability to output that on a single sheet has so many benefits.
July 1st, 2008 at 1:19 pm
[...] How to Set Up a Link Building Campaign for a Web Site or a Blog [...]
July 25th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
[...] Please see my previous posts about link building to learn the best way to approach it, particularly Sarah’s excellent post on How to Set Up a Link Building Campaign. [...]
August 21st, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Very practical information and actionable. Thanks.
October 29th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Very excellent article on link building. As readers each of us
will modify the basic information to suit our own particular needs.
In my own case, I simply do not ever pay for listings or links –
I would rather use that money for direct advertising to very highly
targeted groups. Overall, everything you have written makes perfect
sense and sets up a way to organize your link building efforts.
Thanks for the good information.
February 6th, 2009 at 4:17 am
Very informative article, which I found quite useful. Cheers ,Jay
February 10th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Articles also play some part in internet marketing. As articles are read by visitors there are more chances for visitors coming to the sites. Articles should be relevant to the theme of the site
March 8th, 2009 at 9:58 am
How to subscribe to RSS feeds? johnhoma
March 8th, 2009 at 11:14 am
@johnhoma Please see http://www.askdavetaylor.com/how_do_i_subscribe_to_an_rss_feed.html
March 13th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
Thank you for the great article on link building its given me a different view on how its done and will help me out a lot. I do practice what you have mentioned right up to the following up on the ones that are waiting approval.
March 16th, 2009 at 2:17 am
Very helpful article. I have been looking for specific information on link building and this was just what I needed.
April 17th, 2009 at 11:49 pm
[...] How to Set Up a Link Building Campaign for a Web Site or Blog [...]
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:26 pm
[...] Kalena’s link building post describes how she recommends organizing directory submission (may be applied to other types of link building by submitting, e.g. article distribution). The link detail spread sheet is organized into the following columns: [...]
June 27th, 2009 at 3:26 am
[...] Another link building spreadsheet from Kalena describes organizing a spreadsheet for directory submissions. Her system creates 5 or 6 Excel worksheets for different aspects of the link building campaign – columns in each workbook have the same headings. Read more about Kalena’s system here. [...]
June 28th, 2009 at 10:15 pm
[...] Ask Kalena link building help [...]
June 29th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
I keep my link data in a single sheet. I have a column where I put a some notes re submission. When you use excel 2007, you’ll love the filter function.
January 19th, 2010 at 6:37 pm
Great post. Link building is definitely on the mind of many new bloggers and website owners out there.
February 5th, 2010 at 5:03 am
We have heard that using linking building services may cause your site to be sandboxed or delisted by google.
Does this happen? Any thoughts on this?
February 7th, 2010 at 8:58 pm
Hi Mike, Google wont punish a site for a legitimate link building campaign unless you start linking in ‘bad neighbourhoods’. A manual link building campaign increases the number of backlinks pointing to your site gradually over time. When deciding on which sites or directories to submit to, look for reputable sites with a good solid page rank (at least over three but over five is better) and be sure that the site or directory has good quality content.
March 2nd, 2010 at 8:43 am
I am looking for the best autoresponder service I have been with with AWeber from the very beginning (for a couple of years now.) Thanks that you remind me I should write a post about their latest service updates. – Best regards
March 6th, 2010 at 5:53 pm
Thanks for confirming my thoughts about link building, just one more thing with directory submissions…As the major search engines look at the content around the anchor text link, it’s best to change you site descriptions as many times as possible or they might be considered as duplicate content and nullify the link altogether.
March 9th, 2010 at 11:30 am
[...] How to Set Up a Link Building Campaign for a Web Site or a Blog [...]
March 11th, 2010 at 2:08 am
Interesting
March 12th, 2010 at 1:15 am
Link building is the key to success on the search engine. Better link building campaign better and early ranking.
This is only the beginning. You need to use the other sources to create backlinks like article submission, press releases, social bookmarking, social networking, link exchange, classified and more. Nice post Kalen or Sarah.
April 7th, 2010 at 9:29 am
We are about to offer a link building service but are yet to find a reliable program that can quickly show us all in-links coming to the website we are building links for. Apart from yahoo site explorer and Google webmaster tools, does anyone know of such a program or service?
April 7th, 2010 at 10:50 am
@Brett – have a look at RavenTools.com. I’ve been pretty impressed with their service and depth of information. Aaron also has some fantastic backlink tools at SEOBook.com/Tools
April 18th, 2010 at 3:18 pm
I found your advice very helpful
April 21st, 2010 at 1:57 am
Hi, thanks for the great advice. But, I would like to know if paid SEO is even better compared to self SEO. Which site is good for paid SEO? thanks.
April 28th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
While it’s definitely important to have a secure host, security starts with the end user. If one uses weak passwords, then they could be hosted at Fort Knox, and it wouldn’t matter.
August 22nd, 2010 at 6:25 pm
Awesome blog post thanks for sharing your tips. I will be sure to use your layout for future clients. Also, for directories I always go after yahoo dir, business dot com, and botw dot com :) They are great link juice!