A one way link is a link
that points to your website without the need for you to point back to the other
site.
The search engines
generally view one way links as being more valuable than reciprocal links. The
main reason for this is that they tend to be harder to get. So in the eyes of
the search engines, harder to get means more valuable. Simple, huh?
There are a number of
different ways to get one way links. Most of them involve some time and effort
on your part but it is possible to delegate this kind of task to other people, using
sites like Rentacoder once you start getting some money in.
Articles are an
excellent way to get one way links. You submit an article to a site like EzineArticles and make sure that your author's bio link
at the end of the article has a link back to your website. You have control
over the keywords used in the link, so you can vary them from article to
article. You also have control over which page is hyperlinked, so you can vary
that from article to article as well. Articles submitted to EzineArticles are checked
by a human editor, so they need to be reasonably good quality and 100% original.
Don't worry – you're not subjected to the same kind of rigorous standards that you
would be by your English teacher. A chatty article is fine
.
If you're not a very
good writer, you have two choices. You can follow the instructions in books
such as Write Like A Maniac, which talk you through the process. By
the time you've finished that short, chatty, book you should be churning out
good quality items in next to no time. Alternatively, you can outsource your
articles to people all over the world at sites like Rentacoder.com. Standards vary, so you have to carry out your due diligence
by checking the potential writer's feedback and some sample articles. Once you've
done that, you should be able to get reasonable quality articles written on
near enough any topic imaginable for a handful of dollars apiece.
Pace out your article submissions.
Set yourself a timetable and do your best to stick to it. A regular pace of one
article a month is better in the long term than a flurry of half a dozen
articles then nothing.
Whilst EzineArticles is
currently the best article directory, you should also consider submitting your
articles to other directories as well. You can do this yourself, which is very
time consuming. Or you can use an article submission software program,
something I've personally not had much success with. Or you can do as I do and
use an article submission service that costs very little and sends out your
article to almost all the article directories (with the notable exception of
EzineArticles). My preferred service is iSnare. They've been going a long time, don’t
cost very much and do the job. At the time of writing, their charges are
between $1 and $2 per article that you send out.
The next way you can
look for one way links is through the myriad of small directories that exist on
the internet. There are services out there who do this for you but the problem I've
found is that they don't vary the anchor text that is submitted, so the links
will be very "samey". Which the search engines don't like. The other
snag that's often mentioned is that all the links are submitted in a very short
time period. Search engines don't like a sudden burst of new links. In my view,
this isn't too much of a problem as each directory takes its own time to
include you, so the links will appear over a period of days, weeks or even
months.
A better alternative in
my view is to submit to these directories yourself. I use a piece of software
that semi-automates the link
directory submission.
It keeps track of which directories are accepting additions. It also keeps your
standard text and completes most of the forms for you, which is a great time
saver. On top of that, it keeps tabs on which directories you've submitted to,
so you can spend a few minutes or hours at a time and not worry about losing
your place. Plus it sorts the directories by page rank, so you can tackle the
ones that are likely to give you the best search engine boost first. Check out
the demo version they offer before deciding whether or not
the software is for you. Longer term, you can always outsource something like
this.
