Linkbuilding without blogging?

[EcommerceSite]

I am looking at starting to do some link building for my site. I have already done directory listing. What are my options for link building without blogs? Things like Wikihow?

[KeriMorgret]

Have you read the Link Building section of the Beginner's Guide to SEO at http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo/growing-popularity-and-links ?

[Greg_Gifford]

When you say "without blogs" are you saying you don't want to use other blogs as a resource for possible links, or you don't want to create a blog for your own website?

There's a big reason that so many SEOs will talk about blogs when they're discussing linkbuilding. If you can build up a relationship with a local blogger, it's fairly easy to get them to write a post about your business/product (depending on what industry you're in, obviously).

If you don't want to have a blog, you'll need to carefully examine the content on your website. Using a blog lets you write extremely specialized content, so it's easier to share that content and get links. It's all about being useful and unique. If you're not going to have a blog, you'll need to make the content on your website even more awesome, because if it's just like all the "other guys" that do what you do, there's really no reason to link to you over the other guys.

But, that being said - check out your competitors using OSE and see what they're doing. That's going to be your best gauge of what you should go after. Check out Garrett Finch's Link Prospector, it's pretty awesome at helping you come up with a good starting list of targets.

[EcommerceSite]

Yup. That is the same stuff I have read everywhere. Was hoping for something different.

[EcommerceSite]

We will be working on blogs in the future. Right now I am looking for alternative ideas such as WIkihow. Is it better to try Wikihow or about.com? What are the other comparable sites?

[Greg_Gifford]

You've got to look at the quality of the site and how it's going to "count" if you get a link. Anyone can get a link by setting up an about.me profile... so while you've got a  link, it's not going to be as valuable as one that you earned with good content.

The source of the link matters, as does the context.

It's not just a numbers game anymore - you've got to get links with real value. Typically, if it's a website where any Tom, Dick, or Harry can get something out there with a link on it, it's not going to be a very valuable link.

You want links from relevant sites, and you want them to be from sites that you can't just go fill out a form or publish a post on.

[EcommerceSite]

Before I look at the quality of the site, I need to know what sites I should be looking at. I can't find any sort of resource for that. For personal use I search the web on a regular basis and have used both about.com and wikihow.com. I know there are other sites like that I have not used. Is there any list out there of sites like these?

[Greg_Gifford]

Your best resource is to use Open Site Explorer to research the backlink profiles of your competitors. Grab the URL of someone in your area that does what you do, put it into OSE, and download the list of URLs it spits out. THIS is your "list" of sites that you need to use to get links from.

Like I said, a link from about.com or wikihow.com aren't going to count for much, because anyone can get a link from those sites. Building links doesn't mean just going out and filling out forms to list your site on directories or going to public article sites and putting in articles that link to you. Because of that, you'll be hard-pressed to find a list of sites like those that you could use, because there aren't really any SEOs out there who would recommend that tactic.

Check out what your competitors are doing - that's your best source of relevant links for your particular business.

[KeriMorgret]

Some of that really depends on the industry. For one person a link from Vanity Fair in a directory would be awesome, and for other people it wouldn't help at all but a link from Geek Dad would make their day.

[TakeshiYoung]

You should check out Point Blank SEO, they have the most complete listing of link building strategies out there:

http://pointblankseo.com/link-building-strategies

[EcommerceSite]

That is exactly what I was looking for. Thank You