How To Perform Link Building Research

Writing by Nick Stamoulis

We’ve talked about it in the past, the importance of the link building aspect of search engine optimization. But do you know how to go about finding the sites you want to obtain links from? The process is simple but time consuming.

Here are some strategies to use to find relevant websites to your niche:

• Straight Search Method – This one is a bit intuitive. After you’ve performed your keyword research just Google your keywords (the ones you want to use as anchor text) and see who pops up. Chances are, the sites that come up are competitors, but you may find some complimentary gems in there as well.
• Linkdomain Method – To to Yahoo! and type in Linkdomain: followed by your competitor’s website. You’ll have to do this for each of your competitors – the ones that matter, any way. Don’t use http:// in your search, which lists the sites that link to that competitor. Make a list of those sites that might make good link partners for you.
• Directory Search – Some directories are still good sources of links, such as DMOZ, Yahoo! Directory and BOTW. Perform an allinurl search in Google. Type allinurl:directory followed by your keyword in quotation marks. This should return a list of directories with categories related to that keyword. Another thing you can do is perform a straight search for directories and your keyword.
• Social Search Method – If you’ve been bookmarking your sites at any of the popular social bookmarking websites then search those sites for categories related to your niche. Find other sites that submit there and contact them for a link exchange or ask for a direct link with no reciprocal necessary.

There are more ways to search out potential sites that could provide relevant links, but this is your basic start up plan. It should keep you busy for awhile. Relevant ongoing link building takes many forms, online publicity, article marketing, social media marketing and more!