It seems as though everyone wants something done quickly, or nearly instantly. We want success quickly. We want to be successful online and we want to get links to our web sites quickly. We want traffic to our web sites quickly.

There are many reasons why you would want to get an "influx" of links to one particular article on your web site. Perhaps it's a blog post. Perhaps it's just a new web site and a brand new domain name and you "want to do something" to jumpstart it somehow. I've put together a list of six things you can do right now to get nearly "instant links" to your web site. In many cases these six "techniques" of getting links are nearly automated, so your link will show up almost as fast as you can go check to see if it's really there. Some other techniques I've listed below are faster; and some require that you actually create some content (like writing a few blog entries).

I am not making any sort of "guarantees" at all whether or not these work or whether or not they're completely "white hat", meaning that if Matt Cutts from Google picks up on it he won't have problem with it. And I haven't tested each and every one of these to see if the "links count" at all the search engines. In any case, though, there are legitimate reasons as to why you would want to get a link quickly. One reason I can think of right now is that you need to get a URL crawled quickly; especially when you're going to syndicate the content on other web sites. Duplicate content can be a real issue nowadays, and it's important to make sure that the content on our site gets crawled first.

Here are fix ways to get nearly instant links to your web site:

1. Submit site to get-listed-quickly directories.

OneMission.com
Sign up as an editor, then add links in appropriate categories. Top level categories are better, not many links from home page http://onemission.com/

Easy Link Directory
A bid for placement web directory, submit a link to your site and bid to for placement; lowest bid is only $1. http://www.easylinktrade.com/

2. Add your own blog at a few sites:

Start a blog. Unique content, link out to trusted sites, add tags, to posts with appropriate keywords
http://wordpress.com/

Start a Squidoo Lens on your topic.
http://www.squidoo.com

Start a weather blog at Wunderground.com
Start a blog (choose free option) at http://www.wunderground.com/blog/

Other places to add your own content:
hubpages.com
zimbio.com

3. Add the link to your social media accounts.

Add a link to your social media accounts that you've already set up.
StumbleUpon
Del.icio.us/delicious.com
google.com/bookmarks
wirefan.com
simpy.com
folkd.com
blogmarks.net
corank.com
megite.com/discover
dropjack.com
a1-webmarks.com
jumpup.intuit.com
spicypages.com

If you have the option available to you, consider adding "link bait" type articles, content to the web site and use the social media sites to help promote that content.

4. Add your site to new social media profiles.

If you plan on using the new social media profile in the future, then it might make sense to set up social media profiles for the site. There's a good list of social media sites at www.socialposter.com.

5. Check for broken links at Web Directories

Check for broken links. Use a dead link checker to check for sites that are listed in the category where you want to be listed. Sometimes you can find a domain name that is listed (or one that you can buy) and redirect to your site with a 301 Permanent Redirect.
dir.yahoo.com
business.com
dmoz.org

Besides the Yahoo! Directory, Business.com, and DMOZ.org, there are most likely other authoritative sites or in your niche that list sites in your niche. Run a dead link checker script on those pages to find domain names, sites of formely competitive sites on your topic. Watch out for domain names that have trademarks, don't register those. Whether or not you actually get credit for those directory links is questionable, though. Once a domain name drops (goes pending delete) and is available, I tend to see them removed from the Google index. If you're after a directory listing, though, this may be an option if you don't want to wait or pay for the directory listing fee (some are as much as $299).

Here are a few broken link checker scripts:
Xenu
404 Checker
Dead Links

6. Make useful comments on some dofollow blogs.

Here's a list of some dofollow blogs (blogs that have removed the "nofollow" tag on their blog comments. Keep in mind that you really DO need to make a useful comment (especially on my blog) because most of these (if not all of them) are moderated. If you want a link from my blog, make a useful comment on a *recent* post, not one from 6 months or a year ago.

Comment Hunt
Do Follow Blogs
Courtney Tuttle DoFollow blogs
Link Building Bible

Like I mentioned before, there are many reasons why you would want to links to a site quickly; and you easily force a search engine crawl of your site by doing any of these things. I tend to prefer to do as many as I can, especially when it comes to a brand new domain name or when I need a link to an article or press release on a site that I know is going to get "syndicated" somewhere. Hopefully this list is helpful. If you know of any other ways to get a link that I haven't mentioned, feel free to comment about it.




Comments (37)

Another one - Make a presentation, upload it to AuthorStream and embed the presentation in your blog. Now go back to the presentation page on AuthorStream and see the Stats box of your presentation. You will find a link to your site there. I suggest that you always make a presentation relevant to your site/blog.

Bill

Good information. The social networking sites are great for traffic. Two other sites that are doing well for me are Flickr and YouTube. If you have photos and video that relate to your site, those can be great tools.

Great list, Bill. I Sphunn you :-)

Another one - Become a member of forums in your line of work/industry and help people out with your replies and hyperlink wherever appropriate. Its quite likely that people would give you a linkback from their blog if they think whatever you are writing is appropriate!

Looks like the link in point #1 is borked. Needs a y.

@Optimistic Rebel: Thank you for heads up! Fixed.

Good list, a nice mix of just traffic sites and links. I would add blogspot to the list (I know its not a favorite) as well. G likes there own blogplatform. There are a ton of other free blog platforms out there now.

Getting links from your signatures at dofollow forums is also one fast method to be get your content listed and crawled by the search engines robots. - Rif Chia

LOL Bill. I laughed out loud when reading this.

It's amazing the differences in how SEO types view things, huh? I think you know how I feel about this blog post. :-)

It's also the reason Google and any other engine worth their salt are de-valuing these types of things more and more all the time.

I agree with you..these are really great ways to gather links..also try doing some article submissions on sites like Ezines..^^ it will surely help a lot!

Very helpful. I even picked up a few pointers. You did leave out writing and submitting short articles to article directories. This is a great way to get a lot of incoming links to your website very quickly and it won't cost you anything but your time.

Rand Fishkin's blog contained the following instruction, which offers a great, easy way to pick up links:

At Yahoo!, try a brand search plus a negative linkdomain, e.g., "seomoz.org" -linkdomain:seomoz.org to find people who've mentioned your brand/site but haven't provided a link."

All I do is use the search find sites which mention but don't link to my site, thank them for the mention, and request that they link to my site to make it easier for their website visitors to access the information on my site. What could be easier?

I've not followed up, but my guess is that a very high percentage of folks who like my site enough to mention it will be happy, upon receiving my polite request, to link to it.

There are also several other good tips in the same blog http://www.seomoz.org/blog/my-give-it-up-presentation-from-smx-advanced-in-blog-format (posted on 7/29/08).

Between your great tips and Rand's, I'm very excited about the prospect of quickly picking up some good links. Many thanks.

Everybody has an ebay account, but not everybody knows that you can get a blog from ebay. It's easy to get a link by posting an article yourself. Here's my example: http://blogs.ebay.com/ballparkbob

"I've not followed up, but my guess is that a very high percentage of folks who like my site enough to mention it will be happy, upon receiving my polite request, to link to it."

This is unnatural. Going to a site and asking them to link to you because they're already talking about is a capital offense.

I found this info sooo useful. I agree article and directory submissions is one of the best way to gain links. Other great thing that is free and works are classifieds. The only problem with those though that most if not all classifieds have an expiration dates and may be time consuming to go back and keep re-posting and updating the expired ad. But overall, it works great.

Add the link to your social media accounts. This is what i missed out. Thank you.

I like to do a lot of blog commenting. It has at least 4 benefits.

1. Learn from others blogs
2. Get a link
3. Get traffic if you write a noteworthy comment
4. Meet other bloggers and network

Thanks for the Information. I applied all the steps here right away while reading it. I also ended up as a volunteer editor for dmoz. Right now I still have a list of dofollow sites to visit. Very useful and this is a great post.

Wow.. A cool nice information. I really liked that much. I started adding to the social bookmarking sites

Great article.

StumbleUpon works great for new sites. No doubt that Digg is King, but only when you get a bunch of faithful diggers.

I always enjoy a fresh perspective on link building, especially the dead link/directory idea. I'm scrambling to DMOZ as we speak.

I was not commenting on Blogs when I saw the "no follow" while viewing their source code. I NEVER knew that there were Blog Directories for "do follow" Blogs. Unbelievable!!! What a wealth of information in this article. I saved them all in my favorites and will definitely visit each and every site! Thank you so much. I hope my competition does not find out about these.

Very helpful & informative info! I must say Im kinda new to all this but Im learning quick....its people like you who help me and that has been furthering my bizness - so thanks!

Thanks for the grate help. I am searching for this kind of information. Now I GOT IT.
Cheers

You provided very useful information. I know about this posting through my friend and i find excellent information.
Thank you

Great info! This is the kind of stuff I've been looking for.


There is a lot of excellent information contained here. Any blog owner can benefit!

John from antivirus 2009 removal

A short list of valuable site to building back-linking. It's really very beneficial for me as one who just start learning this SEO stuff

Wonderful insight on how to get reliable free links if you have some time on your hands. When might some of the tools be ready for Explorer?

Whoaa!! those were sweet list of blogs to comment on, thanks for sharing this ideas, as it will makes my job much faster and better, again thanks a lot for enhancing my link building skills.

yes absolutely correct, these url very helpful for me..

Thanks for this valuable information, I have faced this problem with my site. Also you provided good list of the sites.

Thanks,
Larry M. Wong

Thanks! This was a great post. I have so many tabs open right now....this is gonna keep me busy for the rest of the day. I'm glad I found it.

Another one is to update you Google profile assuming you have a link to your site in your profile...

Nice article. We're always on the hunt for more social media sites to help broaden our horizons, and the 404 check was very useful too.

I don't really think adding comments on the do-follow blogs is going to be much help though, unless you find a do-follow blog specifically related to your niche. It seems like it would take more time than its worth.

Great ideas. I've found that posting my website in my status bar on facebook and twitter have gotten me lots of views as well.

Bookmarking and submitting to directories are really great for me. However, I don't focus on do-follow blogs only. I would comment on something that interests me, do-follow or not.

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Search Engine Optimization Manager, Vizion Interactive
Chairman of the DFW Search Engine Marketing Association