Hi Robert,I have been hearing the term “link …

by Ana | Traffic Generation on March 18, 2011 · 32 comments

Comment posted on How to Build Links and Generate Traffic Using Web 2.0 Tools by Ian Belanger@Network Marketing Success

Hi Robert,

I have been hearing the term “link wheel” alot lately, but no one has explained it in such simple terms, as you have. I think my next project will have to be creating some mini sites and linking them to my blog, just as you explain it here.

Thanks for this great resource Robert and have a great day!

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{ 32 comments }

Bunnie March 30, 2011 at 12:58 pm

: QUOTE: Note from Ana: yes, the recent Google Panda update. They are looking for original content. But that mostly applies to RANKING, not necessarily link building. You are not aiming to necessarily have your mini sites rank for something : END QUOTE

Do you agree if I tend to disagree?

Building your link portfolio on links from pages that are of no value to Google, is same as aiming to get links through blog spamming which doesn’t work these days. If the outgoing site does not rank, what juice would be in the link?

Robert Brandl March 31, 2011 at 6:05 am: Hey Bunnie,
As I said in a comment before, of course you have to create some sort of value. Otherwise there is no reason to start it. I actually do recommend to get the mini page rank for a niche keyword - the combination of link building and a good ranking makes this approach extremely powerful.
Robert
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Scott Webb | Photography Business Growth March 25, 2011 at 8:44 am

I have created a whole slew of websites because I simply LOVE it. I started to treat them as mini-sites unknowingly.

For large articles, it’s easy to give a hint or a tease of the article without regurgitating everything over again. It can actually help you approach writing in a totally different way. Instead of explaining something or teaching something, it becomes a lead up to why people should click and read the other article on the authority type website.

Think about the holykaw site on alltop - It sometimes summarizes content from articles and then links to the rest. It’s especially amazing for those link posts because you can grab one of the points in the post and simply free form white for a bit.

I also think that mini sites would be great for pulling some content as a simple quote and then discussing that quote from the article. So really you only discuss a small part of a large article and then link to the main article. Maybe take a different stance and challenge your own thinking.

I love the advice. I am going to look at these micro/mini sites as little link machines. They become little niche promotors that will eventually grow organically anyways.

My question is where does this start to create diminishing returns? Post on mini sites once per week? 2x per week, anytime you post on the main site? once a month?

Has anyone tested different frequencies from separate mini sites?
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Robert Brandl March 25, 2011 at 9:25 am: Hi Scott,
Thanks a lot for these insights. Currently I have one static mini site (created with Weebly) that I hardly touch at all. Right now I am at the top of Google’s second page and I cannot see that much change over time. A couple of more backlinks and it should move up, hopefully.
My other mini site that I try to rank for a more competitive keyword is now on the first Google page (exact keyword match domain, created with Jimdo). I try to update it once or twice a month adding new blog articles. It even features its own twitter account now. Two updates per week sounds quite a lot - I don’t update my main project this often
Robert
P.S. I love your website!
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zams March 24, 2011 at 11:00 am

I agree that it is not an overnight project so, the point here is the consistency of building mini sites.. slowly but surely, it will strengthen the main site.
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Scott Webb | Photography Business Growth March 25, 2011 at 8:56 am: The fact that it’s not an overnight project is what I love about it. Many people will continue to search for the magic overnight sauce and not spend the time.
Marathon!
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Don@Internet Marketing Tools March 23, 2011 at 4:21 am

Mini Niche sites or even sites that just funnel traffic vis this method are very useful.

I personally used to use them as a basis for link building (http://thenexus.tk/parasite-hosting/). Essentially the basic plan similar to what you mentioned above is have a few targeted articles with in content links (the best type of link imo) and then ‘blast’ these articles with lower tier links such as Profile / comments etc. Due to the parasite hosts inherent DA these can take more ‘spammy’ links and create a stronger page for you and therefore a stronger links back. Not to mention the fact your competition can not replicate it with to much ease.
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Robert Brandl March 23, 2011 at 9:38 am: Interesting article, thank you.
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Thomas@IT-Blog and reviews March 20, 2011 at 3:57 am

Hi Ana
That is a very nice idea with mini sites supporting your main site. I guess it would take a lot of work to make great content on additional sites as well, but I totally see your point from a link building and SEO point of view.
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Robert Dempsey@Internet Marketing Strategies March 19, 2011 at 11:39 am

Hi Robert - very cool way to get more backlinks. Especially using WordPress and a single hosting account you could launch a metric ton of these sites, if you purchase a metric ton of domain names of course.

Question - when you publish content on these sites are you typically using spun versions of articles you’ve written? I’m trying to gauge the amount of time invested in these other sites.

Thanks for great ideas!
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Robert Brandl March 20, 2011 at 2:24 am: Hi Robert,
I am very glad you bring this up! In my opinion we should never forget to create at least a little bit of value.
Yes, I do use spun versions of my own articles but I do this manually and many times a whole new article will be the result. Depending on the project I tailor the article to a new target group or take out one specific aspect of a very long article.
Personally I am not a fan of mass article submissions because that does not really make the web a better place and Google doesn’t like it at all (no long term value).
To create the new version of the article and post it will usually take 20-30 minutes. Not the fastest way but a lot faster than creating a whole new quality article.
I also tried to buy content but my experience wasn’t too great as the quality was very poor and you have the problem that other people will buy the same text - therefore you have to spin it as well. In the end I didn’t find it worthwhile.
Many thanks again,
Robert
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Sheila Atwood@landing pages best practices March 19, 2011 at 10:30 am

Robert,

I am always interested in a long term approach to backlinks and this fits that bill. You are actually weaving your own web. When done right with quality posts on your mini sites, I can see how this would work well.
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Robert Brandl March 20, 2011 at 1:56 am: Hi Sheila,
Thanks, that’s exactly the way I see this approach working in the long term.
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Sandeep@CuriousLittlePerson March 19, 2011 at 9:11 am

Hey Robert,

Thats nice… are these link wheels? if im right ur referring to creating link wheels uisng web 2.0
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Robert Brandl March 20, 2011 at 1:54 am

Hi Sandeep,

You can probably call it this way although I didn’t really know the term before some of you guys mentioned it here.

Robert

Mavis Nong March 23, 2011 at 3:21 pm: Some call them wagon wheels. Web 2.0 sites no longer rank on their own - but the links are cool.
Thanks for sharing, Robert.
Mavis
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Dennis Edell@ Direct Sales Marketing March 19, 2011 at 7:39 am

Excellent tips with s big caution flag on using Wordpress.com for backlinks…..read their TOS a few times before getting slammed.
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Robert Brandl March 19, 2011 at 8:29 am

Hi Dennis,

Thanks a lot for bringing this up! I think they mainly want to prevent spammy sites that are put together automatically or contain lots of duplicate content. As long as you try to create some sort of value there won’t be a problem in my opinion.

Many thanks,

Robert

Dennis Edell@ Direct Sales Marketing March 19, 2011 at 8:26 pm

Nothing affiliate/sales related either, that’s the biggie.
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Robert Brandl March 20, 2011 at 2:04 am: In this case I would use the two services I suggested: myself I am running affiliate projects with Webnode.com and Weebly.com and never had any problems. As they have high Page Ranks (7 and there should be no problem in terms of reputation.
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Mavis Nong March 23, 2011 at 3:17 pm

I know, Dennis. My friend’s WordPress.com mini sites got shut down for using them in link wheels
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Ian Belanger@Network Marketing Success March 19, 2011 at 6:38 am

Hi Robert,

Thanks for this great resource Robert and have a great day!
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Robert Brandl March 19, 2011 at 8:22 am: Hi Ian,
Thanks for your comment. I didn’t even know it was called like this
My inspiration for this strategy came from Pat Flynn (THE Backlinking Strategy That Works).
Many thanks and good luck to you!
Robert
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Alexandru Petru March 19, 2011 at 6:14 am

Hey Robert,

This is a interesting strategy, especially because you can use this mini-sites to promote not only one of your websites, but rather all that will come. You can simply create a new article about the theme of your new website and publish it on your network of 2.0′s.

Also, this can be great with blogs from authority domains like wp, blogspot and other free blog platforms that existed for some time.
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Robert Brandl March 19, 2011 at 8:10 am: Hi Alexandru,
Exactly, I like this strategy because it brings you great flexibility. You can simply add more links to support your guest posts, articles or other mini sites.
Good luck building your Web 2.0 sites!
Robert
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Janet @ The Natural Networker March 18, 2011 at 11:25 am

Robert, aloha. Dashing out the door, however, saw Ana’s tweet so came off to check out what was on tgc. Look forward to reading it in detail and clicking links over the weekend. Ana, loved your additional comments.

Since I am getting ready to create a min-site (blog) with a focus on social good, this was an especially timely piece for me. Thx so much. Until later. Aloha. Janet
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Riya @ Couponseasy March 18, 2011 at 10:42 am

I have heard about Links wheel and I think mini sites have same purpose to help you to create link wheels for your main/niche site. But I personally feel that it could be time consuming to promote your mini site so that it can rank well and attract huge traffic and then divert those traffic to your main site.
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Robert Brandl March 18, 2011 at 10:54 am: It certainly does take a bit of time. But that’s mostly the creation of the site itself. To add an article from time to time will not take hours and hours of work. And once you manage to get on the first spot of Google it should be possible to let it there and not touch it for quite a while (depending on the competition of your niche keyword).
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GabrieIe Maidecchi March 18, 2011 at 9:07 am

That’s a good way of doing it Ana, especially if you don’t have time or resources to make a real website for your project.
For some new line of products in my company we were not really sure wether to go for a minisite approach or not. Since it wasn’t much about content but about the products themselves we opted to go for the landing page approach, to keep things within the main domain. In our case that should be the best approach, but we’ll see how it goes in time.
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Andreas@Online Advertising March 18, 2011 at 8:47 am

The problem with mini sites is that if you are not able to create the same quality content there as on your main site and don’t attract a sufficient readership through content quality and marketing over a significant amoung of time on each of your mini sites, then the links will have not much more effect in terms of SEO and increased rankings than forum profile links (which go towards zero).

Robert Brandl March 18, 2011 at 8:59 am: Hi Andreas,
Thanks for your comment! If you choose the right niche keywords your mini site can rank quite well in Google. Therefore you can get a good amount of readers to your site. (Who will then visit your main site, hopfully).
Of course the links on your mini sites are only as good as the backlinks the mini site gets. But you can always put up one or two high quality articles that people will want to link to.
Robert
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Facebook Application March 22, 2011 at 6:37 am: Hey Andreas:
Yeah you right man..Is is impossible to maintain your website is good according to Google..Google want some unique content or not a duplicate or fake content on website.Ana Your tips is too good but where we put the good content.Its to hard to make the mini website.
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