Build It Well

Before we go into the many areas with high traffic that can be utilized to bring people back to your website, let's discuss the mechanism of the backlink in more detail. This is going to be the string of text that will be used to bring people from one area of the WWW back to your website. For that reason, you want to be sure that you build these backlinks in the best way possible, to not only attract people who might be reading, but also to get the search engine's attention too.

THE BACKLINK

A backlink is a piece of HTML that is embedded in other text and that is generally highlighted via a different text color and bolding. It uses an anchor text format that in its simplest form is like this:

          Myanchortext

What appears to a person reading your backlink is the text that is written in the “Myanchortext” area. The actual URL that you point to is not viewed, only the anchor text. This is important to remember so that you build your links in a way that is not only interesting to your readers, but that is also search-engine friendly too. This way, you double your chances of getting traffic, not just from visitors who are visiting that page, but also from search engines that are analyzing the anchor text of these links for content.

MAKE THEM INTERESTING TO BOTH!

One of the biggest mistakes people make when adding backlinks to high traffic areas is that they don't pay attention to the details of the link. Instead, you will see poorly built links that say, “Click this,” as their anchor text. Honestly, is that an invitation to either a person or a search engine that will grab either one’s attention?! No! You have to take the view that you only have one chance to grab that person or search engine's attention, and that is going to be done via the quality of your backlink. Make it count.

Try to use keywords that you've researched in your anchor text to grab the search engine's attention. However, don't just leave it at that. Also, try to make the copy as interesting to a visitor as you can so that he/she literally feels compelled to click your backlink and be directed back to your site. You can do this by adding quality comments related to your niche in other areas and then choosing to tell people about some fabulous offer or information that is on your site instead of inviting them to click. Tell your reader why he/she should click on that link; don't just ask him/her to do it!

It's All About Marketing

At first, you will have a little trouble figuring out what is working and what is not. For that reason, it's a good idea to track the results of your backlinks so that you can fine-tune how you present them based on the results you obtain. That means that when you insert a backlink into a high traffic area, you want to get a good idea of how it is functioning. How well did your copy attract people to click through to your site? Even in email marketing, you want to know not just how many people have opened your emails, but how many have clicked back to your site when they read the copy. This will give you a good idea as to what is most attractive to your audience and what will help you to build copy that almost seems like you're reading their minds.

USE A URL SHORTENER OR ANALYTIC PROGRAM

There are various tools you can use to gauge the traffic levels coming back to your website via your control panel. They will even show the referring site to you. The problem is that you want to be even more specific than that. You want to see which links and marketing copy are more effective than the others. For that, you want to track traffic by each link. You can do this by using a URL shortener, or you can buy a service like AWeber.com for email marketing that offers an analytic program to track link click-through rates. When you are first starting, try using a free URL shortener, like http://bit.ly, to track how many people are clicking on your links without paying anything. It'll help you get used to tracking links and what to expect when you post a link.

PLAN YOUR MARKETING STRATEGY

Next, you'll want to set up links to various promotions and offerings and set up a marketing strategy for different sites around the WWW to generate exposure for those offerings. For instance, say you are marketing an ebook. You've decided that you want to market it on Facebook, Twitter, and some blogs. You set up the shortened URL, and then you think of several interesting ways to frame your link to attract attention. Create different variations using keywords in your anchor text, but use your shortened link.  After, you've brainstormed several versions, you might want to use one version on Facebook, a different version on Twitter, and a different one on blogs. You send a status update to Facebook using one version, a status update to Twitter via another, and so on. You look up the results and see which version was the most attractive. You will find as you do this more and more that some interesting patterns will show up, not just with the sites themselves, but also with the demographics that you are trying to leverage. You may find that a link you think is awesome gets very few hits, while another that seemed somewhat vague gets the most hits. There are a few variables that can affect this, and when you've got some results, do some analysis.