The Link Building Matrix

The blue pill or the red pill? If given the choice which one would you take? If you take the blue pill you will return to your online website and everything will be the same as before (including your rankings), or take the red pill and let's see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

So what is the Matrix? The Matrix is a simulated world where nothing is real, and yet we use it to communicate, share and do business on a daily business. When the Matrix began it was a simple experiment, but as the Matrix grew, it became more and more complex to find whatever it was you were searching for. Along came the search spiders moving one link at a time, scanning across the virtual world, and searching for information became easy.

But the Matrix has a fundamental flaw. The Matrix was available to only those who were linked-in to it.

What is the link building Matrix?

The link building Matrix is the strategy to build the "right kind (Matrix) of quality links" for the purpose of creation of multiple doorways to your site from diverse sources, all leading to you (or your website). The more related credible websites and popular user communities pointing to your website, the better will be your link reputation. Building a strong link reputation will ensure higher search rankings.

So let's explore the various sources for building quality links that can enhance your link building campaign and build link reputation. Please note that the points below are not listed in any particular order or prominence or importance.

1. Directory submissions: Submitting your website to high page ranked and relevant web directories will get you links and access to the community of web users. Web directories are like the yellow pages, and who amongst us have not opened a yellow page to find a service, product or person.

2. Article Submissions: Submitting your articles to high page ranked and relevant article submissions sites will get you links, access to the reader's community, and add to your credibility as an expert in your domain.

3. Social Bookmarking: Submitting your stories/ articles/ blog posts to high page ranked and relevant social bookmarking sites will get you links, access to the user communities, and add to your link reputation (once the vote's start coming in). User generated content and user communities are gaining more importance with search engines by the day.

4. Blogger Reviews: Submitting your website to high page ranked and relevant blogs will get you high value links, access to the community of readers of those bloggers, and build link reputation. A recommendation or review from prominent bloggers with a good reader's base is a very credible link, and readers generally trust the recommendations of the blogger so they may visit your website. If you finding it hard to get bloggers to do a review, start your own blog and build links from there to your own website.

5. Announce PR: Submitting your news releases to high page ranked PR release sites will get you the links, access to the PR community, and often journalists looking for a good story.

6. Social Networking: Creating your business profiles on various high page ranked and relevant social networking sites (Facebook, Linkedin) will get you links, access to the community, and often new friends.

7. Video Submissions: Submitting your videos (how to, interviews, tips and advice, promos etc) to relevant video sites will get you links, access to the community (YouTube), and increase your view ship base with users who loves to watch rather than read.

8. Vertical Engines: Submitting your website to relevant vertical search engines (catering to your industry/ type of service) will get you links (at times), access to their community of seekers, and targeted traffic.

9. Industry Portals: Requesting for link from your industry specific portal can be very helpful for getting a quality link, access to their community of users, and add to your credibility in the business.

10. Discussion Forums: Also participate in Industry specific discussion forums and add value by giving your inputs and comments. All comments are linked back to your website. Though these links (with comments) don't hold much value with search engines, it can hurt to get them, and if your comments are interesting enough you may get a reader who clicks to your website.

11. Go Local: Get your address on Google Maps, Yahoo Local etc. Not only will it be a quality link, you will also get listed in the local listings on search results page. Local listings are always displayed before the global listings. E.g. A user from Mumbai searching for the services of a SEO expert in Mumbai would prefer to check the local listings first to find vendor in close vicinity.

12. Wikipedia: Getting a page/s on Wikipedia with a link to your website will add to your link reputation. Keep in mind though that you cannot promote a person, product or company on Wikipedia. All content on Wikipedia must be verifiable, written as if for an encyclopedia.

13. Blog Commenting: By leaving wise and meaningful comments on relevant blogger's sites will get you a link but ensure that your comments are adding value to the bloggers community of users.

14. Answering Questions: There are many sites where users ask questions and other users answer those questions. Sites like Yahoo Answers are a great way to get links, access to the community of users, and be the helpful person that you are.

15. Make Friends: In the linking world, building a link is like making a friendship. So make friends with someone who has a lot of friends... you get me. But beware, like in between friends there can be misunderstandings, in building good links there can be misunderstandings. Make sure there is a win-win for all parties involved.

16. Building Content: At the end of the day if you have great content, other websites will want to link back to your content so that their user's community benefits from your content. Many times they may do so directly (depending on the copyrights), or even request you if they can link to your website. This is by far the best link building strategy.

BEWARE: In the link Matrix there are many Agents who give out sweet promises of seemingly impossible feats of building thousands of quality links to your website overnight. I guess the truth is out. Some of us dumb SEO's actually spend months and months working hard to implement a link building campaign. If there was some shortcuts believe me I would have been the first one to jump at it, but in the link building world there are no shortcuts just good ol' passion, know how, contacts and persistence.

Reload your Link Matrix?

So what are you waiting for? Boost you link building campaign with a healthy mix of Directory Submissions, Vertical Engine submissions, Discussion Forums, Article Submissions, Social Bookmarking, PR Announce, Deep Linking, Special Freinds, Blogger Reviews, Commenting on Blog, Social Networking, Video Submissions, Google Maps, Yahoo Local and more...http://www.seo-optimization-experts.com/seoblog.html