When building a network of backlinks to a site, many people are unaware of how to do so without being penalized by Google. If you’re about to begin a backlink campaign, I recommend that you plan it out carefully. By building your backlinks slowly and consistently, you can create a network of sites linking to yours and increase your pagerank. The key is to do so steadily over time.
When you ask for a backlink from, try to get the owner of the site to place the link in the content of their web page with anchor text. For SEO purposes, this type of link works best. Ask them to link to a specific page or post on your site, as well, instead of simply linking to your main URL. This increases your reputation with the search engines for providing unique content, if different site owners are linking to different places on your website or blog.
Be sure to request links from relevant sites, as well. Find other site owners in your niche, and offer to barter or exchange links with them if necessary. Avoid asking completely unrelated sites to link to yours. If they do it on their own, it’s one thing, but when asking for links try to stick to related sites. Once your site is getting some traffic, you can branch out a bit, but when it’s new, you’ll want to stick to sites in your niche.
To avoid penalties from search engines, try to keep your link building to fewer than five links per day at first. Avoid sites that sell massive numbers of backlinks, as submitting your site to them is a sure way to be targeted and penalized. It looks suspicious if you have no links for two months, 1,000 links the next month, and only one or two the following month. Instead, aim for a pattern of slow growth by adding a few backlinks a day for months at a time. Over time, as your site grows, the number of links you build per day can grow, as well.
If you continue this back link building process, over time you’ll develop a high quality network of related sites linking back to yours. Your page rank will grow, and you’ll be establishing your new site as a leader in its niche. Just keep in mind that link building is a slow, gradual process, and will take time. Ask for anchor links when possible, request links from relevant sites, and build your network of links slowly, and you’re practically guaranteed a strong page rank and search engine presence.
