writespeak
02-04-2006, 03:05 AM
The topic of how to find and get inbound links to your forum comes up as part of SEO. Let's put together our ideas here.
Some ideas to start:
Inbound links you create
- Include a link to your forum in your signature when you post at other forums. Use relevant keywords in the anchor text. At the other forums, be sure to post only useful, relevant content and to stay within the rules. If you're seen as a spammer or someone who causes problems, your forum will lose credibility along with you. OTOH, if you gain the respect of others, people will be more likely to want to look at your forum.
- If you have other sites, link to your forum from that site.
Inbound links you ask for
- Submit your site to relevant directories. Most are free.
- When you have content at your site, invite the webmasters of relevant but non-competing sites to link to your site. Exchange links when reciprocal links are relevant to both sites.
- If you can access the stats pages of related forums (that is, if they aren't password protected), see what sites link to them, and ask for links from the webmasters of those sites.
- Create a Toplist directory (http://www.forumuniversity.com/campus/toplist.php) that your members can submit links to. The idea with Toplist directories is that when the listed sites have a reciprocal link to your forum and people click on that link, their site's position on the Toplist rises.
Inbound links that you don't need to ask for
- Create content that people will want to link to. Write articles that each focus on one topic. If you cover A, B, and C, for example, and webmasters just want to link to an article about B, they'll be less likely to link to it if it also contains content that isn't relevant to their site.
- Include a link to your site in some of your articles and submit those articles to free article directories with the condition that the link remain in the article if people publish it elsewhere.
- To help people find the articles at your site, use keywords in the articles and particularly in the titles.
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More ideas, anyone? For example, how do you find link partners? How do you ask webmasters to link to your site? What methods have been successful and not so successful for you?
Lois
Some ideas to start:
Inbound links you create
- Include a link to your forum in your signature when you post at other forums. Use relevant keywords in the anchor text. At the other forums, be sure to post only useful, relevant content and to stay within the rules. If you're seen as a spammer or someone who causes problems, your forum will lose credibility along with you. OTOH, if you gain the respect of others, people will be more likely to want to look at your forum.
- If you have other sites, link to your forum from that site.
Inbound links you ask for
- Submit your site to relevant directories. Most are free.
- When you have content at your site, invite the webmasters of relevant but non-competing sites to link to your site. Exchange links when reciprocal links are relevant to both sites.
- If you can access the stats pages of related forums (that is, if they aren't password protected), see what sites link to them, and ask for links from the webmasters of those sites.
- Create a Toplist directory (http://www.forumuniversity.com/campus/toplist.php) that your members can submit links to. The idea with Toplist directories is that when the listed sites have a reciprocal link to your forum and people click on that link, their site's position on the Toplist rises.
Inbound links that you don't need to ask for
- Create content that people will want to link to. Write articles that each focus on one topic. If you cover A, B, and C, for example, and webmasters just want to link to an article about B, they'll be less likely to link to it if it also contains content that isn't relevant to their site.
- Include a link to your site in some of your articles and submit those articles to free article directories with the condition that the link remain in the article if people publish it elsewhere.
- To help people find the articles at your site, use keywords in the articles and particularly in the titles.
----------
More ideas, anyone? For example, how do you find link partners? How do you ask webmasters to link to your site? What methods have been successful and not so successful for you?
Lois