How to Build Links with Web2.0 Free Blogs

There are a number of best practices to follow when linking from web2.0 blogs. When outlinking, the goal is to funnel the “link juice”, pagerank and other ranking signals to your money site in the most optimal way. At the same time, we need to avoid sending negative signals, such as too many exact-match anchor texts on your links. We also will not link too many times from one web2.0 to your money site.

Can I link multiple times from my free blog to my money site? No! I know that nobody wants to hear this. It sounds unintuitive. Certainly, if one link is good, then two links are better? Yes, it does make sense, especially to old-school SEOers. No, it won’t help (at least in the long run), because it sends a negative signal about your blog network. This comes back to issues such as keyword stuffing, putting your keywords on the page as much as possible — it makes sense to us old-schoolers that this would help us rank, but it doesn’t. Another similar issue is the anchor texts we receive in the links we build, it almost kills us to not use the exact match anchor as much as possible, because years ago that is how you did it. Today, it’s the quickest route to the penalty zone.

Well, it’s 2015. Today, you can’t stuff keywords in your pages or it will over-optimize them. You can’t build too many exact-match anchor texts, or it will over-optimize them. Finally, you cannot link more than once from your web2.0s to your money blog. I’ll make one minor adjustment to that statement, that sometimes(maybe 25% of the time) you can link to your money site twice from the same article, to the same page. That is, the same page (not multiple pages) links to the same URLs (not different URLs). The reason for this is that two links convey twice the link juice (read our on-page SEO guide for an in-depth explanation and statements from Matt Cutts to back this statement up).

You may be wondering why you would only link once per free blog. Seems like a waste? First, there is the issue of diminishing rewards. Even many, many years ago it was known that if you get one link from a site, that’s powerful, but if you get two, that second one doesn’t offer that much more benefit — and if it turned out to be many (like a site-wide link) that it turned into a penalty. Next, remember that we’re trying to avoid the appearance that this blog is owned by you. I can’t emphasize enough how important this is. The more times that free blog links to you, the more it looks like you own that blog. That’s a horrible signal to send to Google. The fact that a second link offers diminishing rewards, and that it sends a signal that you own that free blog, it’s clear that it is only worth linking to your site just once.

Can I link to multiple money websites from my web2.0s? Again, I know nobody wants to hear this, but no!This is a major no-no! The sites you link out to are a footprint. This type of linking is what gets private blog networks busted. Here is a simple exercise. Go to any backlink checker, such as ahrefs or majestic, and find all the websites that link to your first money site. Next, find all the links that go to your second money site. Now, correlate those two lists and find the overlap. Wow, you just discovered your entire blog network. Google does this by algorithm.

If you, with some tools, can discover your entire blog network based on which sites they link to, wouldn’t Google, with it’s billions of dollars and team of engineers do the same, with the wealth of data available to them? Let me explain a Google feature you may be unaware of — do any search in Google. You’ll notice a little down arrow next to each SERP listing, click it. You’ll see two options, Cached and Similar. You’ll be shocked to learn how Google comes up with the “similar” sites. A group of websites link to site A. The same group of websites link to site B. That is how Google finds “similar” sites. Again, Google knows two sites are “similar”, and intrinsically related when a group of websites (think — your blog network!) links to these similar sites (think — your money sites). My point is this — when your blog network links to two of your money sites, Google makes the connection that they’re related. All the calculations are already finished to identify your blog network and how to identify your money sites, those tools are at Google’s finger tips. This data is used to identify private blog networks, or at minimum to send a negative signal that they may be operated by the same person. One thing for certain, Google is busting private blog networks — that goes for the type you build with registered and hosted domains, and it goes for link networks you build through web2.0s. You must avoid sending that “similar” signal to Google if you want your blog network to remain viable for a long time.

You can only get one link per blog. You can only link to one money site per blog. Sounds like a waste? Let me explain for a moment how it’s not a waste. Then, I’ve got some good news — things that you can do with your free blog network that will make them more powerful, and convey more link juice to your money site.

Here is the main reason it’s not a waste. If you did proper keyword research, and built your money site properly, when it ranks — you should be making fist-fulls of cash. People should visit your website, because you rank highly in Google, and that traffic results into lots and lots of money. When you’re making money, the blog network you built is worthwhile. If you are to flip a money site, it will typically sell for what it averages per month, for 16 months. A website only need make $200 per month, for an average of 3 months,you can sell it for $200 * 16, or $3200. The money is there to build your free blog network properly. There’s plenty of money available, even if your network is only linking to one site. Conversely, if you do it wrong, you don’t make anything. The bigger risk is doing it wrong.

Certainly, building a network of web2.0s is an effort. Even though they’re free — you’re investing much time and effort to build them. I understand that, because of all this effort you’re putting in, that you would want to get the most ROI out of it. To you, getting the most ROI involves perhaps selling some links from your network, or maybe you would create multiple money sites, and reuse the free blogs to get twice the promotion out of them. I understand that, because after years of building links, I still find it hard to accept this, myself. Old habits die hard. Instead of squeezing your network for every last drip of juice, a better strategy is longevity. You want your network to last a very long time. You want it to stay effective. Perhaps you’re used to building links that barely work, and you think you need more, more, more! No — those links you built were ineffective, and often provided negative signals, so it may have seemed like you need a high volume of links to rank, but in reality, you simply need fewer, more effective links to rank. This guide to using web2.0s is explaining how to make the “effective” links. You’ll be surprised at how much better you rank when you avoid negative signals like the plague.

Now for the good news. You can link from your blogs to multiple other blogs in your network. You’ll build two types of blogs using the same free blog platforms. You’ll make a tier-1 set of blogs that only link to your money site (these are the ones that can only link once), but you’ll make other web2.0s that can link to multiple tier-1 blogs (these will be your tier-2 blogs, and they can link out to 5 to 10 tier-1 blogs, depending on how many you’ve made).

In addition, the page that links to your money site will be the most important page of your free blog. While only one page will link to you, every page of your free blog will link to that page, sending the optimal amount of link juice through to that page, so that it can forward the highest amount possible back to your site. To accomplish this, you create one post on your blog — and that post links to your money site. Next, the additional pages of that free blog will link, in content, back to that page, making your money-site-link page the most linked-to page on that free blog. So then, even though you’re only getting one link, that page is tier-1 to every other page on that entire blog, where those additional pages become a tier-2. If this sounds confusing, the next page has lots of graphics to illustrate the point fully.

Click through to the next page to learn more about how to construct link pyramids with your free blog network. There’s lots of pictures!