Link Building for Leads and Profit – Lesson 1

In this mini-series on Link Building for Leads and Profit, I will be talking about how to get more quality links to your blog. These are strategies that I am actually using, they are not just hearsay. I see a lot of people doing this stuff wrong and teaching this wrong. I have even seen top leaders giving out information that can actually HURT your rankings.

It’s not really their fault. They are just getting old, out dated information and passing it along. But since Google has rolled out their Panda and Penguin udpates, things haven’t been quite the same. So listen up closely so you don’t waste your money on things that actually tank your rankings.

In this series, we’ll cover the following:

1. Main Concepts of Link Building
2. What is a Quality Link and Where do They Come From?
3. Things that Used to Work that Don’t Anymore (this one will take a couple of posts!)
4. Evergreen Strategies that Will Always Work for Building Links
5. What I Am Doing to Get Links Now…

But before we get into all of this link building stuff, you’re going to need to take an honest look at your website and be brutally honest with this one question:

Does your website look professional?

The reason I ask this question, is because I have personally looked through over 80 network marketing blogs in the last few days and 75% of them looked TERRIBLE. There is absolutely NO reason for this. With over 10,000 WordPress themes in existence, you should be able to find a professional one to use on your site. If you don’t know where to look for professional WordPress themes, you can start here.

Here are the biggest issues I saw with the websites I visited:

• Terrible Design – If your site looks outdated it makes you look unprofessional. Would you want to join someone’s team who has a terrible website? Your prospects won’t.
• Overly Promotional – Visitors come to websites because they are looking for something of value. If the main message on your website is “buy my stuff” or “join my business” you probably aren’t connecting with your audience very well. Consider taking down some of your ads, getting rid of your ginormous pop-ups, and ask yourself if your site communicates that it’s giving value or trying to sell something. (It’s probably best to get a second opinion on this…)

Here are some examples that I found of good looking blogs that provide helpful content and that aren’t overly promotional. Please take notes:

• http://mlmblog.net/ – This site provides news about networking companies and leaders as well as helpful info on blogging, facebook, and other topics

• http://whoisstevehawk.com/blog/ – Another blog that has a good layout, professional design, and helpful information. While it is promotional, you don’t feel like he’s trying to get in your wallet

• http://onlinewealthpartner.com/ – The blog of the Pescosolidos, there is a lot of genuinely helpful content on this site, especially about Facebook marketing. It is definitely not over promotional, and looks very clean and welcoming.

So if your blog doesn’t look like one of those, you should really consider getting a new one. Now. You can do all the Link Building in the world, but if your site is hideous and makes people feel uncomfortable being there, it really won’t matter. Getting good rankings includes more than just links these days, and design is becoming more and more of a factor in rankings as well as user experience.

So your homework for today is to evaluate your blog and ask someone if it’s any good. Ask people in the networking industry and people outside of it. Heck, you can even ask me if you want and I’ll shoot you straight.

If you have any questions or comments, leave them in notes below