I have recently been hearing a lot about using blog networks. Should you be using them in your online link building strategies? Honestly, the answer is no, and I will tell you why here in just a minute. I am also going to show you an alternative that will be better in the long run. First of all, you need to look at the reason you are building links in the first place.
Why are you building links?
If you don’t know why you need an online link building strategy, then you need to really think about what you are doing. Links serve 2 puprposes for your site.
1. get traffic.
2 get rankings in search so that you get more traffic.
Now, if you are building links for any other reason, let me know. Those are the two things that you need the most. Now, notice I put traffic first, and there is a reason for that as well. IF you are just building links for search engines, then stop wasting your time and go get a real job.
There are hundreds of places to get traffic online, and search is only one of them. Everywhere you post a link you should focus on the traffic you can get from that site. The funny thing is, if you do that, you will get better search rankings with less links ( thus doing a lot less work). Now let’s take a look at blog networks, and what they do for you.
The Idea of Blog Networks
Blog networks as part of your online link building strategies simply don’t work. They start off with a good idea, but they cannot deliver on the promise. What is a blog network? Simply put, it is a network of blogs that you can autosubmit content to, usually spun content, giving you instant backlinks to your site. Now, the idea was simple, and a good one I might add. Blog owners get free content, and posters get free backlinks from hundreds of sites.
Why They Don’t Work
The problem is all on the side of the blog owners. Think about it. if these blog owners are too lazy to post to their own blog, do you think they are going to write hundreds of articles, and build links to your posts? All too often, the answer is no. These blogs never see any traffic, and the owners do nothing to promote their sites. This leaves you with content on a site that is never seen.
Now, this is not always the case. I have seen a few that actually took the time to promote the sites. I have even run a few myself, and got some decent results out of them. However, after months of submitting articles to some popular blog networks, I have realized the ROI is not there. It was a total waste of time, and the link value disapears. This means you have to keep submitting more and more articles to keep the link juice flowing.
As a short term strategy, you can get fast links, but long term, it just takes too much work. Now, if someone builds a blog network, and polices it to make sure every blog gets promoted, and has a minimum traffic rating to keep your blog in the network, the idea would be awesome. Otherwise, it is largely a waste of time.
Now. tomorrow, I will show you how to quit wasting your time, and give you a new alternative to blog networks to build links to your site fast.
This post was written by...
James Pruitt – who has written 234 posts on IMRelations Media.
I Started my internet marketing journey in 2008, as I began building simple affiliate sites. Through the years I have worked as a freelance writer, publishing my own blogs and websites, written several ebooks, and now work mainly to help others build their online business through my marketing consultations, personal coaching, and relationship building.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
What if the people on the blog networks would put a link to your main site on their blog rolls? Would that be effective in the long run? Or is it a lot more effective to get traffic from fresh articles with links pointing to a page on your site?
– Ray
Honestly, Blog roll links are pretty worthless. Although you get some link juice from those, you will get more from having links in the main content. Also, my focus is always on direct traffic. I have never seen much from the blog roll links that are out there. I get most of my traffic directly through the main content of the articles that I haave out there.