There are tons of methods to get backlinks, like forum profiles, blog commenting, directory submission, link exchanges, blogging on 3rd-party websites (like blogger.com), etc.

If you've been here a while (if not, subscribe here), you also know that I don't employ just one method. I use them all! I call it Backlink Diversity (future product alert!)

Anyway, I just was notified of this neat little Firefox plugin called Social Monkee that gets you 25 backlinks a day, free, from different Class-C IP addresses (this is good because all of the backlinks come from very diverse websites).

Of course, Social Monkee works even if you don't use the Firefox browser. It's just a tad tedious if you don't. Fair warning.

Plus, of course, there is an option to upgrade for $47. I'll be honest with you–I'm trying the free version first. If I like it–and it brings results–I'll consider taking the plunge.

But for now, it's the free Social Monkee for me. You should check it out. You really have nothing to lose.

One of the best (easiest, most effective, and free) ways to get backlinks is through making comments on blogs. Now, these aren't just any comments, and if you do this right, not only will you get more backlinks, but you'll get some direct traffic, too!

In a perfect world (we'll call it "Bill's World"), you would browse websites and blogs and make comments whenever you felt you could add to the conversation. Ideally, when you did make a comment that the site owner approved, you would get a link back to your site so that people reading the original blog could visit your site if they liked — or were intrigued — by your comment.

It's sort of a "comment club," where people making intelligent comments are recognized for their contributions and people just looking for a backlink or — worse yet — making silly comments that are inflammatory, offensive, or just plain stupid, don't.

Commenting on blogs is really a win-win-win. The publisher/owner gets a conversation going, which serves to bring more people in the conversation as well as getting return visits to see how/where the discussion has gone; the commenter gets people to visit his site and know more about him (plus, he gets the link), and the readers get to soak it all in and maybe even enjoy the experience.

A few years ago, Google muddied the comment waters by making up this attribute called "nofollow," which caused a tissy in the blogging community as well as the SEO community. It was Google's intention, I think, of making the commenting system less SPAMMY (there was — and still is — a lot of that). The idea was that Google's search bots and algorithm would not follow the comment link and would give it little to no weight in its ranking.

(This is highly convoluted stuff. Bottom line is Google caused a lot of confusion with this and WordPress and other blogging systems took Google's lead and made the "nofollow" attribute the default.)

Lots of folks will tell you that it's not worthwhile to comment on "nofollow" blogs, as they're called. I disagree: Your comments will still "count" as a backlink.

You may ask, "Huh?" And my answer would be, "Uh huh."

The evidence shows that some of this "link juice" still passes, even on a "nofollow" blog. Not that it really matters.

You still get the link. You still get the direct traffic that comes as a result of somebody clicking on your name in the comments. All is well and good.

There also is the notion that you ought to pick roughly equal numbers of  "no follow" and "do follow" blogs to comment on, as this practice looks far more natural to the search engines than just going for backlinks from "do follow" blogs.

How Comments Work

The standard commenting system, employed by default by WordPress, is one where you, as the commenter, type in your name, email address, website URL, and text for your comment, like so:

When your comment is approved and published, your name will be the anchor text to your site, as such:

See the blue text up there? The anchor text, billspaced, contains a link back to my site.

Now, you can get a little fancy and rather than typing in just a name, you could type "Joe the Plumber" which will set your backlink to use your keyword (if you're a plumber, of course) or you could go a bit farther with "Joe the Columbus, Ohio Plumber."

These tactics, if used judiciously, can result in a better backlink than your standard name. However, this tactic could also backfire because the website owner could decline your comment submission or — worse yet — mark it as SPAM if he uses one of the anti-SPAM comment plugins in WordPress (Akismet is the one I use and I highly recommend it if you have a WP blog).

There are some other neat plugins that blog owners may use. CommentLuv is one that is fantastic and one day I may actually install it here. I really like it and it's one of the blog attributes I seek when I want to get some backlinks from blog comments. There's also an extension of that one called KeywordLuv that lets you — even encourages you — include keywords in the name field (as in the examples of Joe the Plumber above).

There is one other WP plugin that site owners employ, and that is one of the many variants of "top comments."

Ways to Find Great Blogs On Which To Comment

{{{4.95}}}I don't necessarily use these methods often, but they are definitely effective. I generally just browse around for whatever topic I'm currently writing about — or have just written about — and contribute to the conversation and I use the URL of the article I just wrote (CommentLuv makes this easy because, by default, it picks your last post as your URL for your backlink).

I am going to show you several ways to find good blogs to comment on. Basically, we will be looking for "footprints" that these commenting systems/plugin leave and once you know them, you can simply use Google (in the examples below) or another search engine to find them.

(Remember — I cannot say this enough — make value-added comments. Add to the conversation. Say something intelligent. Please.)

Method 1 — CommentLuv

In Google's search box, enter the following text string where keyword = "dog training" exactly:

If you want to find all the CommentLuv enabled sites, just leave out the keyword. If you want to look for these types of blogs with "internet marketing tools" as the keyword, it would look like so:

Method 2 — KeywordLuv

In Google's search box, enter the following text string where keyword = "dog training" exactly:

Method 3 — Top Comments

In Google's search box, enter the following text string where keyword = "dog training" exactly:

As always, there are numerous variants on these methods — feel free to modify them as you like; share them here in the comments if you find something especially worthwhile / effective.

Method 4 — Comment Kahuna

One final method I use to find good blogs on which to comment is actually a tool. It's called Comment Kahuna (just click the link and you can download it), which is free.

One Final Thing

When I do make a comment that I find is later approved and is "do follow" I bookmark the site. These are sites that I go back to when I set up another of my own sites for which I need to build backlinks quickly.

Once you know the "footprint" of the various commenting systems, you will be able to easily make comments to get valuable backlinks.

Please, however, make relevant backlinks that add to the conversation. Do it for the blog owner, but do it for yourself, too (no need to get tagged as a SPAMMER).

Tying It All Together

When I start a new site, I always employ this system: 5 x 5 A System for Building Backlinks

It's my "proprietary" system (big deal, nothing earth-shattering here) that I use to get my site's content indexed quickly, get it ranked highly as quickly as possible, and get traffic flowing to it in a matter of days rather than months.

Next up: Article Submission

• Build ranking in the Search Engines
• Drive direct traffic, too (don't discount this one)

Put don't put all your backlinking eggs in one basket. Many IM guys try one tactic and that tactic may work – for now. But what if the Big G catches on?

For example, linkwheels are pretty popular. The idea is to get backlinks to a "money page" by writing articles and submitting them to popular article directories as well as Web 2.0 properties like Blogger.com.

One popular linkwheel method goes something like this:

• Write article. Put in two links – one to your "money page" (the page you ultimately want visitors to see and act on) and one to a Web 2.0 property.
• Write a second article or post with 2 links again, this time one to your money page, the other to the first article (prior bullet).
• Repeat, always linking to your money page with one link and with the other link pointing to the last article you posted.

This is all fine and good. What you're doing is building the rank and PR of the articles and posts to Web 2.0 properties (by backlinking to them) as well as getting a ton of backlinks to your money page.

However, linkwheels are pretty easy to spot. Especially if you do your linking with the same properties and in the same sequence every single time (so, don't do this).

What if Google decided that it would discount – or worse yet, disregard - any backlinks from linkwheels? Not that they would or have plans to, but what if they did and this was your only (or primary) backlinking methods?

You would be screwed, plain and simple.

So what I do and wholeheartedly recommend is to diversify your link building methods.

5 x 5 A System for Building Backlinks

I have a very simple system that I follow every day until I'm comfortable with my website's position in the SERPs. I call it a "5×5" system, very similar to a very popular strength-training system in the bodybuilding field.

Here's what I do (every day), put very simply:

1. I make 5 comments on other blogs. I don't necessarily care about PR or whether they are "do follow." I just make 5 value-added comments. One tool I use for this purpose is Comment Kahuna.
2. I make 5 forum posts in relevant forums. The purpose here is two-fold: One, I get the backlink, and Two, I build credibility in my industry.
3. I use "Angela's Backlinks," a very popular service that gives you roughly 30 high PR sites you can visit to get a backlink each month. (I know, 30 sites is only good for 6 days of backlinking here, but I have been a customer for quite some time and each month I can go through old packets to fill in 5 a day for a month). I highly recommend this service! Especially for a brand-new site. There really is nothing better than getting 30 very high PR backlinks when you first fire up a website.
4. I submit my site to 5 directories a day. There are a host of sites that have nifty indexes of literally thousands of web directories. Just find the appropriate category and then find the "submit URL" button. I used to use Directory Submitter by Brad Callen, but it seems to have been taken down and I lost my original copy. But everything you need is on the web – you just have to find it.
5. I make 5 submissions to social media sites like digg, StumbleUpon, Facebook, Twitter, and the like. A good "meta" social bookmarking site is Social Marker.

This is the bare minimum that I do with a new website. I also write a TON of articles, set up dozens of Web 2.0 properties, etc. I'll write more on this later. This will give you a really good start on building backlinks to a brand-new blog.

If you do the math, you'll have 750 backlinks by the end of your first month. Not bad. In fact, good enough to rank very high in the SERPs for well-chosen long-tail keywords.

I do have a few tricks up my sleeve for automating some of this, but I'll leave that for another post. If you want to learn more about any of this, just leave a comment.

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Commenting on blogs is a strategy that is well worth your time. You’ll want to find a few of the top blogs in your niche and leave regular comments on them. You will get a backlink to your website, but just as importantly, you’ll get visitors when people click on your website link.
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This is great because it can help you get the attention of an authority that is already in the niche (the blog owner), and you may gain some of their traffic, which is highly targeted.

Seriously, you can really never have too many backlinks. And one-way backlinks are better than reciprocal backlinks, all other things equal.

Here's a quick way to get over 400 one-way backlinks – One-Way SEO Links.

Here's a strategy I use to get TONS of backlinks to my sites. I call it Backlink Building Wheels.

Step by step:

1. Write an article for an article directory like ezinearticles.com or GoArticles.com (here's a good starter list of article directories). I like goarticles.com because it's quick, easy, and the search engines love it. Place one link in the body that points to a page or post on your site. At the end of this, you'll edit this article to complete the wheel. But for now, just place one.
2. Write another article that is similar to the first one and publish it in a blogger.com blog (free easy setup). In it, place two links – one to the page you want to promote (the SAME page as in #1) and one to the actual article that gets published in #1.
3. Write another article, this time on Live Journal. Two links – one to the same page on your site, the other to the article in #2.
4. Repeat 5-8 times. I use GoArticles.com, blogger, Live Journal, Squidoo, hubpages, and wordpress.com.
5. Go back to #1 and put in another link – this time to the LAST article you posted, thus completing the "Backlink Building Wheel."
6. Using social bookmarking services like ping.fm, promote all of the articles above.

This is a very productive strategy for getting relevant backlinks to your site. It may sound cumbersome, but once you get the hang of it, you can create one of these wheels in less than 15 minutes. Time well-spent for getting quality backlinks, if you ask me.

This strategy works well with other backlink building services such as Angela's Backlinks. Simply use #6 to promote the relevancy of each backlink you get.

http://backlinkwatch.com/

It’s a 4-step process:

1. Go to google and type in the keyword you want to check
2. Open the link above, type in the URL of the top sites from Step #1 that you want to check backlinks for
3. Study the list
4. Go get some backlinks!

I suggest you go to the links found in the results from #2 and use only the “do follow” links (“do follow” is a misnomer — choose any of the links that don’t say “do not follow”).

If you get some of the backlinks that your competition already has, in addition to using the strategies found at Traffic-Building 101: Backlinks, you will build up some quality backlinks in no time.