Beware: Non Bloggers will find this a tad Bit Boring! But if you want Backlinks, Bear with me. The rest of you might as well Begone, or Bend over to take a Bludgeoning of Bewildering Backlink Bull$hit in the Backside the likes of which you have never Been Blasted By Before…..

It is amazing the lengths people go to to get backlinks to their blog. They beat themselves black and blue, bend over backwards, doing backflips to get other bloggers to bend their way. I’m no different. I have rushed hither and yon like a chicken with it’s head cut off, following good and bad advice with abandon. The only thing about it is, all this activity sure has shown me what doesn’t work well for my situation, as well as what does. This morning I have done some serious house cleaning on my online portfolios, ditching a bunch of useless dot info sites that I don’t need and trying to figure out if I should scrap even a few of the dot coms or just ‘farm’ them out (wink wink nudge nudge). My biggest problem is lack of time, what with a full time job of over 70 hours per week and a family and a social life, etc. I don’t need to spend all of my valuable time on sites that have tanked and are just wasting internet space.

I used to participate in link memes and other crazy stuff to try to get traffic. I spent hours on ‘social linking‘ activities, trying to get ‘friends’. While this did get me some results, mostly what it got me was really busy and out of time. A lot of people will count social sites like facebook as entertainment. You know, if all I want is entertainment I would be better off picking up a book or going to see a movie. Facebooking is more like turning oneself into a computer zombie with limited typing opportunities. If I’m gonna be a zombie, I might as well be a sci fi movie zombie, so I can eat popcorn without getting my keyboard all greasy.

Dofollow comments have gotten me results, as has Keyword Luv. In fact, they seem to be really helpful. The problem is the time it takes to visit all those blogs and actually read them in order to make a relevant comment. A lot of us just fall behind on the time and energy. Also, leaving comments will never get you right to the top in the search engines, and I think this was confirmed at Make Money Online With Grizzly although I don’t recall exactly where on his site I found that tidbit. Since he is one of the Top Bears I tend to believe his info. Also, after leaving hundreds of dofollow comments, I never did reach number one for any of the keywords I targeted. Go figure. It did help, but just couldn’t get me over the hump.

One really useful activity is writing and submitting articles to directories so that others can use them on their sites. Every time you get free backlinks and it works really well. The problem is it takes a lot of time and energy to submit all of those articles. Even with a service like Unique Article Wizard it is still very time consuming. However, that service does speed up the process a lot. For a better explanation of article submissions and such, read this Unique Article Wizard Review.

By far one of the most successful services I have used is ConnectContent, which I discussed in my post How to Build Backlinks For Beginners. I have had quite a bit of luck getting results from this site, and it is highly recommended by many ‘gurus’ out there including Grizzly. And speaking of which, backlinks are also findable at Griz’ site so go check it out if you haven’t already.

From my lowly position at the bottom of the SEO pile, I guess my conclusion is that for most of us, moving up in the SERP’s is going to take time, persistance and work. Basically, persistance is the main virtue of most endeavours. Without that one thing you might as well forget huge successes online. Without persistance, you probably won’t succeed in marriage, child rearing, brick and mortar and real life carreers, or any other worthwhile endeavour. Heck, without persistance, you can’t even wade through all the crap on TV to find a decent program. Now excuse me while I get in a little ‘me’ time. Where is that remote?

Ah, those wacky backlinks. Everyone wants a whole honkin’ armload of ‘em. Trouble is, it seems so confusing at first. What are backlinks? Are there good ones and bad ones? Where can I get them? Do they actually honk? Hopefully after you read this you will have a few clues on how to build backlinks for beginners. If you don’t have a website or blog this will probably perplex, bore or lose you in short order. Sorry, next time I will try to be more entertaining.

A backlink is simply one website linking ‘back’ to another. The reason they are valuable is that your site, blog post or other online missive will be ranked higher by the search engines (such as Google). A high SERPS ranking means traffic. And traffic is good! Unless you are in road construction, and then it is just a pain in the rear…

A backlink is always good, but some are way more valuable than others. The most common links back to your site might be comments on other blogs, online friends referring to your posts, or someone sending visitors to look at a picture, etc. A lot of the time these links are to your name, or “this article” or ‘Hat Rack Blog”. A really good backlink would be one like “how to build backlinks for beginners.” Why?
Because people might actually search for that phrase or those keywords online. They won’t probably search for “this article”, so Google will never send you any traffic because someone else’ site linked to you with the anchor words “this article”.

Where can you get excellent backlinks? Well, you can ask for them. If someone links to your article about golf shirts with an anchor like “here”, you could email them and ask if they would change it to “designer golf shirts” or whatever keywords you are looking to get traffic for. You can trade links with other sites, preferably relevant ones. A relevant site such as “Grady’s Golfing Tips” can give your golf shirts a much better link than “Stupid Funny Videos”. Unless there is a post with a funny golf video, then the link could also be good from there.

Writing ezine articles, leaving dofollow comments, making link badges, and the list goes on. I’m not an expert on any of these topics so I will let you research these on your own.

The best way is still to communicate with other site owners to obtain high quality, one way relevant backlinks with your chosen keywords. Sound hard?  A search engine community network such as ConnectContent can help you work toward obtaining these links with a minimum amount of work.

Is this type of thing ‘legal’? Will you get in trouble for it with the G man? The answer is no. All the ConnectContent network does is allow members to communicate their link term preferences to other members.

So if you are a blog owner or  website builder in need of quality backlinks, take a look at ConnectContent.

Hopefully this brief post gives you some helpful information on how to build backlinks for beginners.

We all want to get ahead. We all want more traffic, more comments, more backlinks, more online friends. How can we attract these desirable outcomes? There are a lot of methods and techniques you can use to go after your fame, or whatever you are trying to achieve with your online ventures. I’m going to put my effort into helping others reach their goals, and I’ll tell you why. This is going to be aimed at things you can do on BloggingZoom, and other social networks, but it applies to ‘normal’ life in some ways too. Keep in mind that online you really need to learn SEO as well.

Let’s examine the case of a person who finds BZ and thinks “What a great idea! I’m going to join up and get busy submitting my articles. Finally, a joint that doesn’t penalize me for putting in my own work.” Now, with several articles submitted, this new member is barely making any progress at all. “I don’t get it,” they cry out. “I thought this place was going to help me get more exposure.” As they look at how well other people’s posts are doing, they become enraged, grab a high powered rifle and climb the nearest watertower.

It doesn’t have to be this way. First of all, sitting on a tower can be pretty lonely and cold. And, second, there are things you can do to ensure your success. If you are too busy planning your shooting spree, I’ll leave you to it, but otherwise, lets crack a Blue Beaver Beer and come up with a more reasonable course of action.

You have to give before you can get! If I, or many other BZ users, see five of your articles all submitted at  nearly the same time, and I know darn well you haven’t bothered to read anyone else’ work, I probably won’t read yours and I won’t make you my friend.

It’s that simple.  Your profile will show what you have been up to, so don’t think you can hide it. It doesn’t matter how good your articles are if other people can tell you are being self serving.

On the other hand, if I am looking at various entries, and I notice that not only has a particular user zoomed these articles, but also commented on them and commented on the respective article’s blog, I am going to be predisposed to like that person by association. If I see their name on an entry, I’ll probably read it even if it’s not in my main interest area. I will try to like it. I will try to comment when I have to struggle for something to say. I will probably zoom it.

Another area that needs emphasizing is comments placed on a blog. It costs nothing, and takes such a small amount of time. All of you know how good it feels to know that someone out there is paying attention. There are times when a new blogger is wondering if it’s worth it, maybe ready to throw in the towel. Well, you need that new blogger. You need that person to read your articles! You can’t afford to let them quit. I know that most of you produce how-to and other helpful posts, to show others what you know. I love these articles, and all those new to blogging can really use your help.

And all you veteran bloggers with the scars to prove it, I know you appreciate the comments too. If you like your commentors, reply to them! If I go to a blog and I feel like maybe the writer doesn’t even read the comments, I will only leave a couple before I give up. If my comments get answered, I know that there is a two way street there. It isn’t all about them.

So there you have it. Share your toys, help others, play nice, and you too can get ahead in this world. And stay away from water towers. You never know who might be up there.

I have to apologize. I am sorry I have a life. I am sorry I have a lot on the go. Sorry for not being Superman!
Since Ernie and I kicked this blog off, I said I wouldn’t apologize if I missed a few posts. But lately, Ernie has been shouldering the load while I work on a lot of other stuff.

For instance, I want to move to a Wordpress powered site, which will happen soon ( as soon as I figure out how to do that!). I study up other sites to get more Blogging tips. I have a bunch of artwork on the go. I work up to 12 hours a day on my ‘real’ job. I have a wife and three kids. I have an overactive imagination and I spend time ‘daydreaming’. I try to read one book and watch two movies a week. I have been going camping every other weekend. I’m getting a lot done, so why do I feel guilty if I miss a few posts here?
I guess I made myself a commitment to do this blog, and I don’t want to let myself down. There isn’t a lot riding on this right now, just personal stuff. We are pretty low on the totem pole compared to the ‘bigtime’ bloggers. Thousands won’t get mad at me for missing a few days. Of course, 2 or 3 people might be a little disappointed. Ernie might get to feeling he is all alone out there. And all of our hard work could stall out as far as SEO, etc.
Since I’ve been so busy, I may have missed any of you out there who backlinked to us, favorited us, or whatever. Comment on this post, and I’ll catch up with it right away. Thanks for reading. This message will self destruct in 10 seconds.