How I Got Listed on a PR 8 Site with 1,000,000 backlinks

[Chris Munch]

The best links you can get in the eyes of Google are:

1. True natural links where an author of a site chooses to link to you.
2. When the link comes from a big authority site that also has loads of natural links to it.

I score such links on a regular basis on my blog network. Today I want to share one such link and how I got it...

I was listed on ReadWriteWeb.com - a hugely popular blog which is a PR8 domain, with 1,000,000 backlinks according to Yahoo, and 200,000 monthly readers according to Compete.com.

Here is my link...

source: readwriteweb.com

I did nothing to get this link but create awesome content. I spent about a day looking up studies that had been done on the effect of website speed in terms of how it effects rankings, usability and conversions.

I put all this information together and in one post had more collated data on the results of various studies than any other post out there on the internet (to the best of my knowledge).

Now in order to get sites to link to you then you need to get them to see your content, so that they can see it is good, and decide to link to it. This falls under two main strategies...

1. Contact Them

Here you try to simply pitch your work to the site and the authors. You could do this by sending in a news tip (many blogs have a contact form or email for pitching them stories), sending out a press release (not the SEO link building kind, one through a reputable PR distributor like webwire or PRWeb), or trying to network directly with authors.

2. Rank in Search Engines

Bloggers and reporters use Google heavily for their research. If you have content which they will likely be researching for particular stories, then if you can rank for the keywords they'll likely search for then they may link to you as a source of information.

So you try to optimize the title of your post so that it reflects keywords they might search for. I prefer to go after a number of longtail phrases in the title to maximize the chance of being seen.

It was strategy 2 which worked for me in this case.

I had the title: 'Effect of Website Speed on Users | Statistics Reveal Slow Loading Times Cost Sites Serious Money'

The title is a bit long, but it does give me a good chance of ranking for countless longtail terms. e.g:
- User Statistics Website Speed
- Website Speed Effect
- Slow Loading Time Costs
- Website Loading Time Statistics
- Slow Loading Time Effect
etc.
There's probably close to a hundred different longtail combinations I could be ranking for. I won't rank for all of them, but I'll rank for enough that I'll get seen, and as time goes on and more links come in, I'll rank for more of those terms and rank higher for them.

Since this is something people will likely be researching for a long time this is a relatively timeless article that can be referenced for a long time to come, and I maybe just need to update it once a year.

Its a One Off?

Well there's certainly some luck involved in this pulling off. But you make your own luck. If you keep creating content like this you will eventually get found. I've had links from the mainstream press like the BBC.co.uk and USAToday.com in this way on other sites I run.

Truth is, in this case I was not even really trying to get links, the whole site is currently in pre-launch mode and I am just putting up some content to gain traction. I have not even got the design done yet!

I get a lot better results when I actively hunt out potential linking sites (so option 1 above) and tell them about the content which they may like to link to. I have got links from major sites like Gizmodo, TheSun.co.uk Mashable.com etc. in this sort of way.

There is a hit and miss element to it, but the more times you try the more times you hit, and the power of the link juice is phenomenal (it will raise the rankings of your entire site, not just the page linked to), plus you usually get decent direct traffic too allowing you to grow your readership.

These are the sorts of links Google WANTS to see, and they reward them as such, and I've found it the most powerful way to develop trust with Google.

With all the talk about autoblogging, and quick link building tactics discussed here, I thought it would be good to point out that doing this the natural way by making awesome content, and promoting it in a white hat manner, is still an option available to all of us.

If you want to try, tell me a niche and I'll try and come up with good linkbait article ideas...

[Michael55555]

interesting. good info. thanks.

[Chris Munch]

Surprised something like this did not get a bigger response or more questions.

I guess so many people are focusing on automatic everything. Although I think the real money is in producing something valuable which requires the human touch, and to me seems like a lot more fun.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by ChrisTew

Surprised something like this did not get a bigger response or more questions.

I guess so many people are focusing on automatic everything. Although I think the real money is in producing something valuable which requires the human touch, and to me seems like a lot more fun.

Good job. Would love to see what kind of Pr you eventually get on your article (Good navigation from a high PR page nearby?).

Yep - Sad but true. If you can't push a button to get a bunch of weak backlinks many people will never be interested. you need short and long term strategies but too many just want to hear about the fast.

[Jayson L]

I personally think that is quite the accomplishment! I have been noticing that less is more for me lately. If I get my backlink on 5-10 sites per day with the content being directly related to the link posted back to my site, I'm seeing better results then posting on hundreds and thousands of sites. I even see this with AMR. If I write a good article, then spin it so each article will read well and only post it to say the top directories rather then all of them available, I'm having better luck.

[Chris Munch]

Originally Posted by Jayson L

I personally think that is quite the accomplishment!

Thanks, but I think anyone can do this. It just requires more up front effort and persistence, but the results are great in my experience.

Like any strategy it takes practice and you'll get better with time. I have plenty of misses, but get a lot of hits, and get them more frequently.

I have been noticing that less is more for me lately. If I get my backlink on 5-10 sites per day with the content being directly related to the link posted back to my site, I'm seeing better results then posting on hundreds and thousands of sites. I even see this with AMR. If I write a good article, then spin it so each article will read well and only post it to say the top directories rather then all of them available, I'm having better luck.

Completely agree. I have found that focusing on quality and not quantity is the way to go.

Google's algo is geared to reward those real editorially chosen links, and for the most part it does an excellent job at this, which is why getting links from a high authority trusted resource gives such an excellent boost to your overall rankings, especially in the long term.

In building links, its better to often forget about building links, and just try to produce awesome content that people want to share and making sure people find out about it, and ultimately that boosts rankings.

[mayorlan]

Good strategy here.This is a good way to augument other backlinking method.

[bidtraffic]

Its actually easier to create a winning website now. People are obsessed with the latest and great software that will print you money automatically.

If you create quality content or a unique user experience, visitors will flock to your site. You won't even have to promote it. Quality sites are self promoting

[socialbookmark]

What you did is great and thanks for sharing your way. But however you got a quality backlink, but the pagerank of home page is 8 and its not such great that you think.

[Natlex]

That's great but I see it as a bit harder for my health website. Reason being I think people would always rather link to wikipedia then any other health site. But if I do a blog I'll keep your idea in mind and try to provide some content that others might want to link to. So far I only get facebook "like" links...

[linkjv]

Natural links are always good.
Sometimes, writing articles a linked to related site too.

[dburk]

Originally Posted by socialbookmark

What you did is great and thanks for sharing your way. But however you got a quality backlink, but the pagerank of home page is 8 and its not such great that you think.

Hi socialbookmark,

Yes, this is true the backlink is not from a PR8 page and is not nearly as valuable as implied. However, the information Chris provided about how he got this meritorious link is very useful and a worthwhile contribution to this forum.

@ChrisTew, Thanks for sharing this useful information!

[Chris Munch]

Originally Posted by Natlex

That's great but I see it as a bit harder for my health website. Reason being I think people would always rather link to wikipedia then any other health site. But if I do a blog I'll keep your idea in mind and try to provide some content that others might want to link to. So far I only get facebook "like" links...

Wikipedia is always competition for resource content, but there's countless examples of small websites being highly referenced if they have great content.

Its often not too difficult to offer something beyond what Wikipedia offers and present more thorough and useful data.

Wikipedia's pages tend to be quite generalized on a wider subject, where as a niche site you can hone in on something more specific and of interest.

Creating graphs on heath stats from freely available data is a great trick, and then allow others to embed those graphs and include a linkback to your site.