Leaving Work Behind

3 Niche Site Link Building Strategies Explored In Detail

Tom Ewer

Last week marked a big change in the approach I will be taking with my mass niche site project. It started with a decision to put my production line method on hiatus (with a reveal of the lessons I had learnt that led me to making the decision).

I then moved on to reveal that I will be experimenting with different link building strategies, in the hope of finding one solution that works effectively (which I can then scale up). Special thanks to the following guys who offered their thoughts:

Today I am going to reveal the “contenders” – those strategies that I intend to move forward with. They are not however set in stone – I am opening these strategies up to comments and criticism. I would love to get your feedback on them! If you are building niche sites yourself and experimenting with different link building strategies, perhaps the following list will be of some value.

1. Pat Jackson’s Mass Article Marketing

Cost: $16.40 per site (bulk discount)

“Mass Article Marketing” is not the name of this strategy – it doesn’t actually have a name. You can find this link building service over at the Traffic Planet forum, where it is has been available for nearly six months (edit 23rd May 2013: this service is no longer available). My sincere thanks go to Tory McBroom for introducing me to it.

Here is a breakdown of the service, in a nutshell:

  1. You provide 2x URLs and keywords
  2. A related article is written and spun
  3. The spun article is then submitted to the following services:
  4. All of the article URLs are then run through Pat’s Unique Link Indexer
  5. Finally, the articles are converted into a RSS feed and submitted through Bookmarking Demon.

In theory, this service provides a large quantity of well-indexed, low quality links across a wide variety of article submission sites.

Pat’s service has previously utilized article submission services that have subsequently been de-indexed by Google – and that may well happen again. But I think it highly unlikely that all 9 of the services listed above will be de-indexed in the near future, so I think the service is pretty safe on that front.

Article marketing is a tried and tested link building strategy (especially for niche sites), so I think that Pat’s service could work well for the low competition keywords that I am targeting.

I have just one main concern, and that is using just two anchor texts / URLs per submission. I would prefer to use say 4 in the following arrangement:

I have asked Pat if this is possible, and am awaiting his response. I will likely still use his service if the answer is no, but will be less comfortable in doing so.

2. Tory McBroom’s Stack Modulation Strategy

Cost: $12 per site (approx.)

Thanks again go to Tory McBroom for recommending this strategy to me. At its heart, it is akin to a garden-variety link wheel, but with a few differences. Most notably, it doesn’t include the use of any web 2.0 properties such as WordPress.com and Squidoo. Here is the strategy as I understand it:

  1. Sign up to 5 “do-follow” social bookmarking accounts, such as:
  2. Manually bookmark your “money site” (i.e. your niche site) with those 5 new accounts
  3. Hit those 5 links in addition to your money site with this social bookmarking Fiverr gig
  4. Hit the resultant links in addition to the 5 original social bookmarking links (but not your money site) with this comments Fiverr gig

So theoretically, your money site is hit with around 200 social bookmarking links in addition to 5 heavily backlinked high authority social bookmark links. The idea of a link building strategy revolving entirely around social bookmarks and comments is new to me, and instinctively feels like it is lacking any real “quality”. However, I do have to question the logic behind my thinking – is a social bookmark any less valuable in Google’s eyes than some low quality article link? I don’t know.

One of the best things about this strategy is its cost. The Fiver gigs come to a total of $10, and it wouldn’t take long for a VA to create the social bookmarking accounts and submit the links. I have two questions though:

  1. Which social bookmarking sites would you use?
  2. Would you create a new account for each and every site, or create just one account that you use for all of your link building?
  3. Are the particular Fiverr gigs Tory has recommended the best for the job?

3. The Link Wheel

Cost: $27.50 (approx.)

What post such as this would be complete without a link wheel strategy? A link wheel method got my very first niche site to #1 in Google back in August 2011 (for what experience has taught me is a relatively competitive keyword), so in my opinion it is definitely worth revisiting. However, I did all of the work myself and it was pretty labor-intensive – can it be effectively scaled? Here is what I have come up with:

  1. Take the primary article from your money site and spin it
  2. Create web 2.0 properties at each of the following websites:
  3. Add a spun version of your primary article in addition to some relevant images and a video
  4. Link back to your money site from each web 2.0 property with a variety of anchor texts
  5. Use a private link building service (contact me if you want to know more) to hit each web 2.0 property with a drip-feed from a mass article submission service (such as Unique Article Wizard).

I like this strategy. You get 6 links to your site that are relatively high-authority to start with, and you get plenty of link juice from the six mass article submissions. I know that web 2.0 properties of this type do not get taken down by at least the first five sites listed above (as I have previous examples that are still standing). Posterous is an unknown for me – has anyone used it successfully in a link wheel?

The main issues with this strategy are scalability and cost:

This is by far the most expensive strategy out of the three, but if it is the most effective, it would be money well spent.

What Next?

I have outlined above the three link building strategies that I plan to move ahead with in the near future. As mentioned in my previous post, I have 12 sites that I am going to be using in this link building experiment. Each strategy will be tested on 4 sites.

By the time you read this post, I may have in fact already ordered Pat Jackson’s service, but I will not have started on the other two strategies. Because before I start, I would love to know what you guys think about them. So please, be forthcoming with any questions, comments and criticisms!

Creative Commons image courtesy of Jakob Montrasio