See my previous post on SEO traffc: Search Engine Ranking for Tweets
Think Outside The Fish Bowl
One way link building is bread and butter of any successful SEO traffic strategy, no question about it.
Effective one way link building strategies = increase targeted website traffic.
We all know that the one who gets the most high quality, “juicy”, “do follow” links will win the high Google ranking prize.
The challenge is, of course, to find those powerful backlinks.
The two most popular one way link building strategies used these days are blog commenting and forums. It certainly makes sense, and I personally use those 2 link building strategies as well.
The trouble is everyone else doing it, and since it did not take long for Google PhDs to figure this out, Google is looking for a much more diverse link building pattern to award its highest ranking to and increase your targeted website traffic.
I found some excellent (read KILLER) one way link building strategies that I am going to share with you today - with the help of Steven Clayton of theimblueprint.com.
One Way Link Building Strategies To Increase Your Targeted Website Traffic:
1. Squidoo Lists
Squidoo.com is a great place to get one way links back to your site. Type the following into a Google search:
“add+to+this+list”+site:squidoo.com
You will be presented with a huge list of Squidoo lenses where you can add your site, with custom anchor text. Many of these have very high PageRank as well!
This one way link building strategy might not increase your targeted website traffic per se, but it will certainly help you to move up Google search engine ranking.
For extra credit, append +”keyword phrase” onto the end of this query, and you can target your links for relevance.
For example, if you were trying to rank a fitness site you could type:
“add+to+this+list”+”fitness”+site:squidoo.com
2. Social Media Profiles
Many social media websites will provide high-quality, “do follow” links to the websites that are listed in your profile (or multiple profiles - you can set them up for each niche you are in).
As of the time of this writing, some of these social media websites include:
www.linkedin.com,
www.flickr.com,
www.twibs.com,
and www.zoominfo.com.
3. Article Marketing Links
Of course, we all know that the purpose of article marketing is to be republished and to increase your targeted website traffic.
However, I write most of my article as a part of my one way link building strategies.
Each article I publish includes 2 links back to my website/blog; each article gets published to at least 3-4 different article directories. That’s 6-8 quality backlinks per article!
Obviously, the more articles you write, the more one way links you build.
By the way, don’t be concerned about duplicated content when submitting your article to more that one directory - you will be just fine, I promise:).
However, submit it to Ezinearticles first - they tend to be a bit more picky when it comes down to unique content.
4. Relevant Lists and Resource Directories
There are many websites out there that function as resources for people interested in a particular subject.
For example, a site may publish a list on weight loss resources. If you are in a weight loss industry, it’s a great place for you to be added to. Not only will you get a highly relevant one way link, but might also potential bring more targeted traffic to your website.
- Side note: there’s been much discussion about how much weight Google puts on the relevancy of your backlinks. Is your one way link building strategy based upon how relevant to your topic the linking websites are or can you get a link from a tractor repair site to your weight loss website and still increase your search engine ranking? To be quite honest with you, there is evidence supporting both points, but you definitely cannot go wrong if you choose to build your links based on relevancy.
Back to the post though.
So how do you find these resource sites for your link building?
I’ve found the following Google search queries to work very well:
“Keyword phrase” + “add url”
“Keyword phrase” + “add site”
“Keyword phrase” + “add website”
For example, if you’re looking to build backlinks to a weight loss related site, you can search for:
“weight loss” + “add url”
Google will return a huge list of sites that will allow you to add your web site, thus creating a relevant link for your niche. This makes is a great one way link building strategy indeed!
- A word of caution: some of these sites may ask for a reciprocal link, they will want you to link back to them as well. Don’t get into this trap. Reciprocal links do not provide too much value these days and better be avoided altogether.
And now last but not lease one way link building strategy:
5. Easy .EDU Links
I am sure you are aware of the great value one way links from .EDU sites can provide for you - Google loves them!
If you always thought that they were unobtainable, this again.
All you need is a willing college student!
Many schools give their students web space they can use however they want to. Of course, that space is hosted on a .EDU domain.
What if you could talk a college student into letting you publish a couple of article on their site?
Don’t know any college students? Think again. There cannot be that many degrees of separation between you and a college student. Cousins, neighbors, parent’s friends’ children… Worse comes to worse, there is always Craig’s List and bartering:).
It’s as simple as that.
I hope you will add these one way link building strategies to your overall SEO plan (you do have one, don’t you? If you don’t, get on my list RIGHT NOW, so that we can start working on one for you!) and thus increase your search engine ranking and your targeted website traffic.
Happy link building!
Your are right: you don’t have to comment or retweet, but would it help if I told you it would be much appreciated?







{ 50 comments… read them below or add one }
HI Ana - I too enjoyed the search query suggestions.
Do you still feel that article marketing is effective the way you have suggested despite the recent ‘shake up’ with the Panda Update, etc.?
I am trying to focus on getting a few more worth while and diverse links lately … back linking is not really one of my favorite tasks… and I am sure I am not alone but if I set a schedule and a little time each day I am sure it will pay off and become more routine.
Thanks again Ana. Lovely to be here… it’s been a while. no wonder I was going through ‘Ana’ withdrawals!
Jayne
Jayne Kopp invites you to read: What is Personal Development?
So good to see you back, Jane!
I am with you - I really don’t like link building either…
Article marketing: because of the Panda update, you can’t really generate much traffic from the articles since most of them were de-ranked (although I’ve been seeing some climbing back up lately).
However, the links building purposes, it still works with one major change: you can’t submit the same articles to several directories. Google deems it to be duplicate content and will index only one of them.
for those tips. I have heard about the .edu strategy but I had a hard finding anything that made sense. I have a daughter in college!
You’re most welcome, Chintan. Glad you found this helpful.
Ana i have a question on forum commenting.Many forums are not providing do follow signature links and the rate of clicking that signature links are also very low.Then why this technique is so important.Even we can’t promote our site freely if we have signature links to that site.
Web stats Counter invites you to read: Daily Unique visitors are different than Monthly Unique visitors
I wrote this post quite a while back and now looking at it I don’t actually use most of these techniques any longer.
Forum links simply don’t have much value, whether do or nofollow, but take so much time to acquire. Pain in the neck, if you ask me…
Ana | Traffic Generation invites you to read: Deep Linking: How To Rank Well For Your Inner Pages
Nice article i love it..It helped me alot in searching the proper directory for my websites using the proper keywords and the information provided by you is really nice thanks for sharing
Hello Reihaan,
You are welcome. It’s nice to know that I was able to helped you.
All the best,
Ana
hi anna
thx for the info, very intresting does it apply only to content based sites, as my site actually sells products and has no content?
nevertheless i will try some of the methods to obtain so back links thxs!
Hi, Raja:
It definitely applies to ALL websites.
Google applies the same ranking algorithm whatever the nature of your website is, so you still need to acquire high quality links pointing to your site (like you just did by posting a comment on my site).
Welcome to my blog, by the way.
Ana
Hm - interstingconcept -I wonder what the international equivalent would be for EDU l inks. I am in Europe
.
It’s always a pleasure to check your ideas
Frieke Karlovits
Frieke Karlovits invites you to read: Network Marketing Today – Thoughts on MLM Scams
Hi Ana
Only found your site today and already found lots of useful info.
I work hard at link building but this is one of the few articles I’ve read which gives solid “how to” advice.
Many thanks - I’ll probably start with the Squidoo lists.
Keith Davis invites you to read: A splash of colour
You are so very welcome, Keith - the biggest compliment you can give me is to use the tips!
Hope to see you back soon.
~Ana
Ana invites you to read: Bloggers Get on Board – Or Else…
Hi Ana,
You have covered a good list of sources given for one way links. One way to get those data automatically for some of them, is to use Google alerts to automatically have them sent back to an email address.
Press release sites are another good link juice source.
The debate about relevancy is interesting but how long will the big G support non- targeted backlink sources?
As for me I used article directories and blogs a lot in the past.
But I like the fact that you have spread the ways to get the backlinks, as at the end of they day, those one way links have to come across various class c sources to give more ranking power. Getting all one way links from one source only will not help much in ranking gains.
Louis
Louis invites you to read: Why Does My Web Site Sometimes Disappear In Google – Understanding The Google Dance Process
Very true, Louis.
And of course this is not an exhaustive resource for one-way links; just a few underused strategies.
Thanks for your input; always appreciated.
~~Ana
Thanks for those tips. I have heard about the .edu strategy but I had a hard finding anything that made sense. I have a daughter in college!
Thanks.
Greg invites you to read: The Home Office Deduction – Uncle Sam Will Pay You To Work From Home
There you go, Greg - one degree of separation!
Glad I could help.
These are brilliant tips Ana!
Now that’s thinking outside of the box, LOVE the last tip. Half my family are in college albeit in Australia, but that’s still edu.au.
Thanks again for sharing this post on my blog so I could read it. Now I am actually linking to it as part of my weekly link love
Awesome Ana, definitely won yourself a regular reader in me

Alex invites you to read: The Ultimate Keyword Research Resource – Available Now!
Well, thanks, Alex - glad I was able to give you a tip you can use.
Your link love is greatly appreciated; I am off to check out your post.
~Ana
Ana,
Awesome job of providing us with some powerful arrows for our SEO Quivers.
Your posts are really adding to my understanding of SEO Traffic and
how to best optimize our blog for optimum traffic.
Thanks for sharing,
Dennis
Lead, Follow and Share !
Dennis Wolf invites you to read: Boost Your Brand with Avatars and Favicons
Hey, Dennis - I do love sharing very practical advice that could be used right away. I think this post is definitely one of those.
I’ve used all these techniques myself and they are all great for link building.
~Ana
Ana,
Thanks for your response. No, home business are not my keywords. I have a few different sites, the one that ranks #1 is for christian home business - less competition but much less searches also. I have done a lot with seo, but always trying to find more ways to get good backlinks.
Thanks so much for your help.
I was not sure about your level of SEO knowledge and very happy to hear that you are doing well, Laurie.
Anything I can help with - just let me know.
Ana,
This is great information - thank you! Can I ask a question? I have never known quite what to do with Squidoo. I put in the phrase you suggested - “add+to+this+list”+”fitness”+site:squidoo.com (only I put in home business instead of fitness.) I got to some places in squidoo, but I don’t know where I can leave a link with anchor text. Are you referring to the comments section, because I don’t see how I can do one with anchor text.
Thanks:-)
A couple of things, Laurie:
1. First of all, there is a lot of debate about the relevance of the websites that link to you. My personal opinion, as well as many SEOers I respect, that it does not really matter. With that in mind, don’t narrow yourself down to home business, just do a general search.
2. I hope “home business” is not one of your keywords. There are over 5 billion (with a B) website competing for the keyword; the chances of you getting on the first page of Google with it are non-existent.
3. When you are on a Squidoo page, look for lists that the lens owner created. Under those lists, you should see 2 buttons, one of them will say “Add to this list”.
Mind you, you won’t be able to add your website to all of them; some of the lenses are moderated, and the owner might not like your website for whatever reason.
Hope this helps!
Hi Ana,
Great value as always Ana.
I have heard most of these before but never really tested them, especially
the EDU sites. Better now than never.
Thanks for sharing!
Tommy
I hear you, Tommy - most of us really do know everything we need to know to dominate search engines; however, implementation is a different story.
APPLIED knowledge is power!
Thanks for stopping by.
Hey Tommy
Worth Information i found in this Ana Website.
I have heard the Edu links important for any website especially for small websites.
Thank For Sharing
Roses Mark
Facebook Applications invites you to read: Attack of the Androids- Ushering in the Age of the Android!
Great ideas that I didn’t even know about. I will start implementing many of them. Thanks for the info. Great job!
Ray
Thank you, Ray.
I have a suggestion for your blog that might help your visitors stay longer.
When I went to your blog, what I saw was an optin form to the left and “Subscribe Now” to the right.
I did not see any content to grab my attention, which is what one expects when visiting a blog. Considering that 85% of your visitors will judge your blog “by it’s cover” and will never scroll down to see what’s below the fold, you are potentially losing many interested folks that way.
In other words, your blog looks like a lead capture page above the fold; and it almost made me want to leave as well.
Plus, you basically have 2 conflicting calls to action for your visitors: one is opt in to my list, the other one is subscribe to my feed. When given choices like this, the visitor will most likely do nothing. So choose what you really want them to do and showcase that - my suggestion would be to still keep it above the fold, but move it to the sidebar and move your content above the fold, so that the visitors can see what your blog is all about without having to “work for it”.
Hope this helps!
Ana
Great article Ana-yep Ezine Articles are probably the most picky re duplicate content-but how much content on the ‘net is actually completely original anyway?
Cheers Kiaran
You are so right, Kiaran - “original” has taken on a completely new meaning now, huh? It’s all about who can tell the same story better.
Thanks for stopping by!
Ana
You propose some really great strategies here. Getting back-links is a never-ending process when you have a site or blog. Every tip, trick or guide is like finding gold. Anything that will help you get more back-links is worth a try (well, maybe except sketchy things like text-link-ads)
You are so right, AJ - building links is a never-ending process; unless Google changes its algorithm in the near future, of course:).
Thanks for stopping by!
I liked the first tip a lot. I just wrote a post and got Todd Falcone’s Squidoo lens to give me a link!
Thanks, great idea.
Great way to leverage your knowledge, Richard!
Hey Ana,
Great new site. I see a lot of changes I like from your other site.
This is a great post too. Good advice on the edu links. Shoot me an email and I’ll send you a link to the guy I use. He’ll get you 200 edu links for $65. Can’t beat that. I wish he had an affiliate program. lol I would rack up on that.
Some of your search queries were new to me. Thanks for the great info. I’m gonna check it out.
Thanks Ana,
Chris
Thanks, Chris, I will definitely get in touch.
Great value here, Ana!
Thank you for sharing.
I love the look of this site. Sleek and classy.
Much success to you!
Tragena
Always a pleasure to hear from you, Tragena. Thanks for the compliment - I am working on redesigning the site, as well as the topic.
Have a blessed day!
Once again Ana, you provide us with useful information.
I had no idea that these searches could be done in Google - really helpful, thank you.
Michael
Hi Ana,
You have provided some awesome value in this post. I knew about a couple of these but the Google Search Queries suggestion is gold - thank you!
~Marcus
My pleasure and thanks for stopping by, Marcus!
Wow Ana,
Thank You for sharing the tips, they are more then just a tip-life savers in some cases… well, time saver for sure!
Have a great day!
With Respect,
Slavik G
I appreciate the vote of confidence!
WOW !!!! I learnt some great ideas here, thank you so much for the information, you are truly awesome!
Hi Ana,
Great tips! Most of them I didn’t even know about so I will get busy implementing them.
Thanks for sharing!
Ilka Flood
The Enlightened Networker
My pleasure, Ilka - thanks for stopping by.
Fantastic resource Ana, you could put that all in a report
Thanks for all of the search query examples.
Thanks, Peter - I thought these were pretty good tips:) too.
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