Everyone in the SEO community is aware of the power of having an effective link building strategy, but since recent updates at Google took place the playing field has changed.
More emphasis is now being given to one way incoming links, and far less value for reciprocal links. The big question is: ?How can I get a good crop of one way links??
By far the easiest way is to write articles for publication on websites. The principle is simple and it works because webmasters are hungry for page content. In return for giving webmasters free content they agree to publish your profile, which contains a link to your website.
It should not be underestimated just how powerful this can be, but there are guidelines that need to be employed if you are to be successful. If you are new to article writing and wish to cash in on this invaluable technique, then the guidelines are listed below.
Firstly, at most of the article directories to which you wish to submit your article there will be guidelines, read them and comply. Otherwise your article will not be accepted and you are wasting your time.
A requirement of all article directories is that the submitted article should be grammatically correct and spell checked. Many directories use human editors who will reject articles with bad grammar or misspelled words. Avoid this by composing your article in Word, or similar, with grammar and spell checking turned on.
Keep paragraphs short. Research has shown that people browsing the internet are put off by large chunks of text. Short paragraphs will attract more webmasters to read and possibly publish your article.
Do not include tables or lists in your articles, some directories forbid it. Webmasters will format your article as they want it anyway. For the same reason do not use bold or italic.
Make sure you are writing useful informative content, otherwise why would anyone want to publish it? Also, as your objective is to gain links to your website, write content that is related to your sites content.
Try to make an interesting title for your article. Something that clearly states what the article is about, but is also distinctive. This separates your article from the thousands of others on the same subject.
By publishing articles on the internet you are establishing yourself as an expert on your chosen subject. Reflect this in your profile. Also, make sure you include a live link in your profile. The anchor text of this link should contain the major keywords for the page it is linking to.
Conform to these simple rules and you will be successful.
Earlier in this article I recommended that you compose your article in a word processor, so that it could be grammar and spell checked. However, the completed article should be copied and pasted into Notepad or similar text editor.
The reason for this is that if you copy from a word processor document you will be copying hidden characters that the article directories don't want. Copy to a text only editor and then make sure that word wrap is switched off.
If word wrap is switched on then the article will contain hard line breaks, which some directories don't accept.
Now all you need to do is find some article directories to submit your article to. The following link lists many article submission sites: http://www.articlesbeyondbetter.com/linkdevelopment.php , but is by no means comprehensive.
Do a search for article directories in your search engine of choice to find many more.
The more you submit to, the more success you will have.
Good luck and get writing.
Richard Brennan is internet marketing consultant at proSEO Zone. Read more about http://www.pro-seo.co.uk/managed-link-strategy.shtml>link strategy
