Written on August 21, 2007 – 3:58 pm | by Alexandru |

With this article I’ll try and cover both popular and less used ways of building up your incoming links. Obviously, you can drop your link everywhere and you can gather a huge amount of links in a relatively short time. But, you can also do it the clever way and achieve the same goal with a smaller number of links, from sites that are actually relevant to your topic. That’s what it’s all about in the end, links from sites that are in the same niche as you.

As an example for this article I’ll show you how to do link building for an auto blog. Feel free to do the same with your own niche.

1. Niche Social Bookmarking Sites and Categories

Here, you can look for both Digg like sites about cars and you can look for social media sites that have Auto categories.

• Netscape Auto Channel (PR 8 sub-domain) - (32 other channels in Netscape so you might find one good for your niche)
• Digg.com doesn’t have an auto category but when you do see car related news make sure you use the blog this feature and get a link from that article.
• AutoSpies.com (PR 5) - social media site for automotive news. They put nofollow on the links that are submitted but it’s a good way to gain new readers and if you have a good article maybe attract the attention of other auto bloggers that might be reading it.
• AgentB Automotive category (PR 3 site)
• Ballhype Autos category (PR 5 site)
• Hugg 2.0 Transportation category (PR 6)
• and there are more …

I’ll stop here because this is just to show you that there usually is a place for your social media link building. Just look around, use Google, and find them. Then submit your best stories to them. Another place to start for niche social media sites is this article: Top 25 Niche Social Media Sites.

2. Niche Forums

I don’t think that it’s really a surprise to anyone that there are forums for almost anything, like coffee forums, clock forums or even anything forums. Whatever your niche is, there is a very good chance you’ll be able to discuss it on some forum. Obviously, a link in your signature is an added bonus. New potential subscribers are another bonus, especially if you know what you’re talking about.

• CarForums.net
• Automotive Forums

3. Niche Directories

I know that generally people consider that directories don’t provide as much value these days, but in my opinion niche directories still have something to say. You might not find a directory for every possible niche, but there are quite a few that have them.

• AutoGuide (PR 5)
• Automotive Links (PR 4)
• Auto Elf (PR 5)

Just a Google search of auto directory or car directory will give you plenty of examples. Same goes with many other niches.

4. Niche DoFollow Blogs

DoFollow Blogs - usually blogs have url’s in comments with nofollow attached. There are some bloggers, those part of the DoFollow movement that remove the nofollow tag and give some link love to those that comment on their blogs.

You see the tagline of this blog in the upper right corner? The “some ethics attached” part. This is what I’m talking about. Don’t screw over other bloggers. Don’t spam bloggers that are part of the DoFollow movement. When I do post comments on DoFollow blogs I do it because I’m a subscriber and I have something to say. I don’t comment just for the sake of commenting. If the post doesn’t interest me I don’t say anything. If it does, I’ll say what I got to say but I’ll also try to make it a good comment. No “Nice article!” or other 2-3 words comments. The list of over 200 Dofollow blogs can be found at Courtney Tuttle. There are a number of niches that are represented there.

5. Make a Tool/Quizz for your niche

You’ve probably seen them around by now. An example is the “My blog is worth $xxxx” code, which people put in their sidebars. That one has a link back to the blog that released it. The same goes for the others as well. You do need to know some programming or know someone who does, but if you have a good idea and you promote the tool well, it can do wonders.

A quick idea of a tool for an auto blog: a tool that will let people insert the make, model and year of their car, then offer them a code that they can insert in their signature in forums, and it will show a gif image with some of the statistics of the car and maybe the value of the car, updated from the Kelley Blue Book. Can be used both by bloggers and any car enthusiast that wants to show off his car in forums. Obviously, that gif is a link to your own auto site/blog.

6. Create a WordPress Theme or a Forum Theme for your niche

A WordPress theme created for your niche will most probably be used by a small number of bloggers, but when it does they will be relevant links from the credit link you leave in the footer. One other thing you can do to promote it, you can contact bloggers writing about cars and tell them that you’ve made a free WordPress theme that will go better with the subject of his blog then the current one. Of course, contact bloggers that are not using car themes. Same goes for any other niche where you’re not writing alone.

A few examples of car themes for WordPress at WP Themes Free

How to create a WordPress theme: one written by Max, and another by WP Designer

If you know how to code, don’t limit yourself to just WordPress though. You could find a bigger forum in your niche for example and offer them a free custom VBulletin theme in exchange of leaving the footer links intact and pointing to your website/blog. Places with user generated content can be a good choice for this, because while bloggers write maybe a few hundred articles per year, forums tend to gather tenths of thousands of pages written by users.

7. Guest Post on Blogs In Your Niche

Look for blogs in your niche or related. You might want to skip trying to write for big network blogs (Jalopnik, Engadget, etc) and look for blogs maintained by enthusiasts. Guest blogging has already been discussed to death by others so I’m not going to waste your time by saying the same things. Just do good posts and put that link to your blog.

8. Blog Carnivals

Another topic discussed to death, but still valuable when it comes to gaining links from others in your niche. Head on to Blog Carnival and look for something that suites your subject.

Conclusions

These are not the only ways to do it. There are plenty of ways and chances are you already know them, but don’t use them (why??). Linkbait and long useful lists are just two that I didn’t mention here because others have exhausted the subject already.

Syndicated articles is an example that I don’t like because I don’t really want links from blogs or sites that don’t write their own posts. They will be marked as supplemental probably and they’re not that useful.

So, got a niche blog/site? Start promoting it. As you saw, it’s as easy as submitting articles to niche social media sites or writing on niche forums.

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