SEO Basics: Community Backlinks

I’m hesitant to say “social media” as the phrase is now associated with sites such as Digg, Stumbleupon, Facebook, and other major social websites. However, social media on the internet used to simply consist of forums and similar entities.

All webmasters who are passionate and actively participating in their niche should be able to find some sort of forum, wiki, or related niche site where they can actively participate. In addition to enjoying their participation, webmasters can also receive a substantial amount of traffic from these sites.

The Reasoning

Why participate in such sites when you could simply comment on blogs or submit to Digg? Here a the main reasons:

• All of the readers on a niche wiki or forum are pre-qualified visitors. The simple fact that they are reading forum topics or wiki pages about a specific niche means that they are truly interested in the subject. On Digg or StumbleUpon, all of the visitors are completely untargeted which results in a high bounce rate (rate at which people quickly leave the site upon arriving)
• All of the members of the wiki or forum are on the page to read the information. If what you posted is interesting, then perhaps the reader will want to read other things you have posted. Unlike blog commenting, where the vast majority of blog readers don’t read all the comments, forums are there for the sole purpose of an exchange of ideas.
• Like article marketing, forums allow you to create credibility and establish yourself as a resident expert of sorts.

The How…

AVOID putting links to your site in your posts. This is generally frowned upon and unless your link has complete relevancy to the subject, you may wish to avoid posting links to your site. Self promoting comments are often considered as spam.

You should simply create a signature and add your website in the signature with prominent styling. Of course, be reasonable. Don’t create a signature with an enormous font. Simply engage in discussion and be an active member.

In wikis, frequent contribution, discussion and a few interspersed links to your site may be all you need to do. Several years back, I had one link on a niche wiki site that generated the entire websites traffic. Over time, the traffic obviously came from other sources but I never had to market the website when it was new. (Keep in mind that the website had good content too. Good content is still better than links.)

Conclusion

Hopefully this article has given you some more ideas on how you could market your website and get traffic. There are a lot of ways out there to promote yourself online, you just have to find it.