Forum Signatures and Blog Comments
- ARTICLES |
Inside High Traffic Academy, I mentioned forum profile links as one of the poor sources for backlinks. This is because they don’t count for much – if anything – in search indexing, and as a matter of user activity, aren’t often followed. So, there’s no real value to be had there.
Forum signature links, on the other hand, can be a useful part of your backlinking strategy. That’s because, unlike profiles, forum signatures are published and displayed with every comment you make. Think back to the social bookmarking section, when I encouraged you to share other users’ content as well as your own, because every time you do so you effectively create another opportunity for your social profile, with your link in it, to be indexed.
Well, forum profiles don’t work the same way, but signatures do, so you can create a whole bunch of occurences of your backlink just by engaging in conversations that are a worthwhile part of networking anyway.
Here’s how to start using forum signature links:
Find the right forum(s).You need forums that have a policy of allowing do follow links in their signatures. Otherwise, your signature won’t be indexed by search engines, which defeats the major purpose of building backlinks.
This site searches the web for the type of forums we need, using any search term you specify. I tested it out using our old High Traffic Academy example, and it quickly came back with almost nine million results, including these:That’s quite a start. There are definitely some usable hits to go off of in there…and High Traffic Academy sounds awesome.
Join and build your reputation.This is the part that requires the most patience, but it is worth it in the long run. Many forums have anti-spam measures that require you to post a number of times before you can have a signature, in order to demonstrate that you are a person and not a bot. This takes a little time, but really, it’s something you should probably do in order to get some credibility anyway. Don’t try to rush the posts by banging them all out in fifteen minutes, either. That can look spammy and get you banned from the forum, and then you’ll have to start over.
Edit your signature.With the anti-spam test passed, now you can edit your signature and include backlinks. Don’t go overboard here – one or two per signature is fine. You’re going to do this one more than one forum, so don’t feel compelled to put all your eggs in one basket. That’s an easy way to get dinged, either by the forum moderators or by Penguin/Panda.
Repeat! Follow this same procedure for several forums. Stay true to your niche, at least reasonably. For example, you could reasonably make a connection between High Traffic Academy and a forum about internet marketing. And keep up with the conversation in order to keep those backlinks fresh.
Blog Comments
Commenting in blogs is another excellent way to build up natural looking backlinks that pass the Panda and Penguin tests. No matter what your site niche, there are certainly several blogs that relate to it and have a solid audience already, which means they are prime soil for you to plant some backlinks.
This strategy follows a procedure similar to the one we used for forum signatures, but we’ll still go over it in detail to make it easy.
Find the right blog(s).Just like when we were looking for forums, we need blogs that allow do follow links in their comments. There are a number of search engines out there for just this purpose. The one I had the most success with was DoFollow Diver.
For the sake of consistency, I again searched for blogs matching our High Traffic Academy niche.
Read and comment.
Once you have found a good, relevant post to comment on, read it through and come up with a brief, thoughtful comment, including a natural backlink. On the High Traffic Academy post, someone has already done just that:
That is a high quality backlink that probably took all of about 2 minutes to put into place.
Repeat for volume.
Obviously, one backlink on one food blog is not enough, so you would go back to the search and move on to the next result. Don’t spam one blog, and don’t use the same comment over and over again. Those are both spammy practices, which will likely result in deletion by the site mod and/or a penalty from Penguin/Panda. Keep doing this over time, just like the forum signature strategy.
If you are more savvy and up to the task, you can use SEOQuake to find blogs that have higher PageRanks to comment on. This will maximize exposure and provide a more efficient platform for building backlinks. That particular strategy is not within the scope of this module, but there are tutorials out there on the web for this, and it bears mentioning here that you can add that into your blog commenting bag of tricks.
Tired of building backlinks? Looking for other ways to get targeted traffic? How about getting 100,000 targeted visitors to your website today? Impossible? I'll show you how I made $48,333 in a single week - click HERE.
Forum signature links, on the other hand, can be a useful part of your backlinking strategy. That’s because, unlike profiles, forum signatures are published and displayed with every comment you make. Think back to the social bookmarking section, when I encouraged you to share other users’ content as well as your own, because every time you do so you effectively create another opportunity for your social profile, with your link in it, to be indexed.
Well, forum profiles don’t work the same way, but signatures do, so you can create a whole bunch of occurences of your backlink just by engaging in conversations that are a worthwhile part of networking anyway.
Here’s how to start using forum signature links:
Find the right forum(s).You need forums that have a policy of allowing do follow links in their signatures. Otherwise, your signature won’t be indexed by search engines, which defeats the major purpose of building backlinks.
This site searches the web for the type of forums we need, using any search term you specify. I tested it out using our old High Traffic Academy example, and it quickly came back with almost nine million results, including these:That’s quite a start. There are definitely some usable hits to go off of in there…and High Traffic Academy sounds awesome.
Join and build your reputation.This is the part that requires the most patience, but it is worth it in the long run. Many forums have anti-spam measures that require you to post a number of times before you can have a signature, in order to demonstrate that you are a person and not a bot. This takes a little time, but really, it’s something you should probably do in order to get some credibility anyway. Don’t try to rush the posts by banging them all out in fifteen minutes, either. That can look spammy and get you banned from the forum, and then you’ll have to start over.
Edit your signature.With the anti-spam test passed, now you can edit your signature and include backlinks. Don’t go overboard here – one or two per signature is fine. You’re going to do this one more than one forum, so don’t feel compelled to put all your eggs in one basket. That’s an easy way to get dinged, either by the forum moderators or by Penguin/Panda.
Repeat! Follow this same procedure for several forums. Stay true to your niche, at least reasonably. For example, you could reasonably make a connection between High Traffic Academy and a forum about internet marketing. And keep up with the conversation in order to keep those backlinks fresh.
Blog Comments
Commenting in blogs is another excellent way to build up natural looking backlinks that pass the Panda and Penguin tests. No matter what your site niche, there are certainly several blogs that relate to it and have a solid audience already, which means they are prime soil for you to plant some backlinks.
This strategy follows a procedure similar to the one we used for forum signatures, but we’ll still go over it in detail to make it easy.
Find the right blog(s).Just like when we were looking for forums, we need blogs that allow do follow links in their comments. There are a number of search engines out there for just this purpose. The one I had the most success with was DoFollow Diver.
For the sake of consistency, I again searched for blogs matching our High Traffic Academy niche.
Read and comment.
Once you have found a good, relevant post to comment on, read it through and come up with a brief, thoughtful comment, including a natural backlink. On the High Traffic Academy post, someone has already done just that:
That is a high quality backlink that probably took all of about 2 minutes to put into place.
Repeat for volume.
Obviously, one backlink on one food blog is not enough, so you would go back to the search and move on to the next result. Don’t spam one blog, and don’t use the same comment over and over again. Those are both spammy practices, which will likely result in deletion by the site mod and/or a penalty from Penguin/Panda. Keep doing this over time, just like the forum signature strategy.
If you are more savvy and up to the task, you can use SEOQuake to find blogs that have higher PageRanks to comment on. This will maximize exposure and provide a more efficient platform for building backlinks. That particular strategy is not within the scope of this module, but there are tutorials out there on the web for this, and it bears mentioning here that you can add that into your blog commenting bag of tricks.
Tired of building backlinks? Looking for other ways to get targeted traffic? How about getting 100,000 targeted visitors to your website today? Impossible? I'll show you how I made $48,333 in a single week - click HERE.