2 Proven Deep Linking Strategies to Grow Your Google Presence
June 5th, 2008 by MarkI think one of the best aspects of SEO is that it’s both cumulative and compounding in nature. It’s cumulative because every time I put a page on the internet it has potential to rank, bring me traffic, and make me money.
As long as I don’t let the domain expire or let it go stale with a lack of links, it stays on the web forever (basically) with very little maintenance. If I add 500 pages per year to across all my sites, the net I’m casting on Google gets a little wider with every single page I add.
Your Authority on Google Can Grow Exponentially
The compounding element of SEO comes from our ability to add pages and links within one domain, and with each new link and page, the entire domain becomes exponentially stronger.
So while my Google net is getting incrementally bigger each time I add content, the entire net is also becoming stronger and more effective every time any one of my pages gets new links. This compounding effect is why sites like this one can achieve high rankings for keywords they’ve never really targeted with nothing more than internal links.
So how can you enjoy the full compounding benefit of your SEO efforts? There must be hundreds of answers to that question, but the answer I’m offering today is deep linking. As you strengthen the individual pages of your site by getting them links, you increase your entire site’s ability to rank exponentially.
How to Drive Link Strength Deep Into Your Site
The real question, then, becomes “How do I build links to the individual pages of my site?” We’ve posted in the past about strong internal linking strategies and also the use of the related posts plug-in. Internal linking is powerful, but if your deep links are going to help the entire site get to a new level of authority, they need to come from other sites. So here are the two strategies that are guaranteed to yield results:
1. Blog Carnivals
For any of you not familiar with blog carnivals, they’re basically group writing projects hosted by sites as a way of sharing good content and community building. You can find carnivals relevant to your topic at the Blog Carnival website. It will walk you through the simple submission form you see below. What you’re going to do is submit a post of yours that best fits with the theme of the carnival.
The deep linking power comes from that fact that if the host of the carnival likes your submission and accepts it, you’ll get a link from that site directly to your post. And very often you’ll get another link to your home page. It’s not uncommon for authoritative sites to host these carnivals, so there are some quality links to be had if you’re willing to do the work of regularly contributing posts to the carnivals in your niche.
**Blog Carnival Bonus Tip**
On the submission form after you’ve pasted in the permalink you’ll often see a space for you to enter your name or the name of your blog. Find a way to get your desired anchor text into that name and it will make the link pointing to your homepage that much more effective for SEO.
Be warned - there are some carnival hosts who feel this is spam and will refuse your submission based on your use of a keyword as the name on your submission. Others will understand why you’re doing it, and as long as your submission is high quality and relevant, they’ll give you the link with your anchor text.
The big upside of blog carnivals is they usually give you both a link to the post you submit and to your homepage. They can also be a source for traffic and more links. I’ve had people find my other blog this way and like it so much they added it to their blog roll. That may not happen often, but it’s nice when it does.
The downside of blog carnivals is submitting to them can be time consuming and tedious. It’s a low leverage method for deep linking, but it’s a good way to get started when your site is newer. Eventually the goal is to have your content be good enough to attract links of its own (Court’s post on starting a blog has received over 1400 external links - a lot more than blog carnivaling will ever get me). At that point, submitting to carnivals doesn’t make sense anymore from an SEO standpoint, although you may still want to do it occasionally for community buidling purposes.
One last thought on Blog Carnivals: DON”T SPAM THEM. You’ll quickly ruin whatever name you’ve established for yourself if you aren’t submitting posts with the intention of contributing to the quality of the carnival. This can be a good supplemental link building strategy, but if you take it too far you’re not going to make friends.
2. Article Marketer
Yes, it’s our old friend Article Marketer. Sometimes Court and I feel like A.M. is the nerdy kid in high school that nobody else will talk to, but we know he’s cool, so we’re going to stick with him even if everybody else thinks he’s a loser.
So in this edition of Article Marketer Does Not Suck, I want to show you how to use the html Author Bio on the article submission form to give a link to both your home page and one of your subpages every time you submit an article.
It’s pretty simple. On the form you see where you can create the html author bio with up to two links. All you have to do is have one of the links (with your main homepage anchor text) point to your homepage, and use the other link (again with the anchor text of your choosing) to the page you’re trying to build. Repeat that process as many times as you like. Remember to vary your anchor text to avoid Google Bombing.
Here’s how it will look (sorry it’s so small):
And that’s it. Using this strategy I was able to get the ranking you see below for my ecommerce site. It’s a #9 ranking and the keyword isn’t particularly difficult, but it shows the power of linking to a subpage.
Now that page of my site not only ranks on its own, but it passes authority back to the rest of my ecommerce store. That’s the compounding effect of deep linking.
There are more deep linking strategies out there. What are your favorites? I’ve heard of people using squidoo lenses, hubpages, and obviously social bookmarking to accomplish the same goal. What have you tried and gotten results from?
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June 5th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Well… I’m trying to use AM but using that HTML code you posted above AM keeps sending me email that there is a problem with the fully qualified URL. Even though the HTML code resolves to the correct site.
Guess I’ll have to call them tonight and find out why they hate me
June 5th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Send me the code you’re trying to use and I should be able to see what’s wrong with it!!
June 5th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
I noticed Blog Carnivaling first on Living Off Dividends. I had no idea what it was. This post just answered any questions I had about them. It sounds like a great fit for my newbie site Revenue Reservoir. Thanks for the info Court.
June 5th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Thanks for the compliment Ben. By the way - did you get the email from me earlier in the week? We got the form you submitted and replied back but never heard from you. Let us know!
June 5th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
I’m just starting to use deep linking as I’m fairly new to the IM field. How do you decide which long tails to use. Some of your internal links don’t appear to be keywords per se. Do you research and then add those in or just try to get part of the keyword in the phrase so it looks more natural?
BTW, being fairly new, I decided to test keyword sniping to see if I could do it correctly using your posts, and I’m up to #13 in google without quotes and #2 for google with quotes for my term in a time frame of 2 months. Also, I’ll be able to double keyword snipe this term. I have about 10 ideas researched and am going to be going at it more fully after I finish opening cottages. Thanks for teaching this method and showing that google will bounce you around for a while, it has helped me from being discouraged since I expected it.
Medic
June 5th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Sorry - not sure exactly what you mean here. Is your question about what pages we choose to point deep links to? If it is, I can tell you we point deep links to pages we have built around a specific keyword for which we know there will be a nice payoff in traffic.
June 5th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Sorry, one more question.
I am interested in using AM. I know you use it to to try and build a lot of links through others publishing your articles. How long should you wait to use it for a new site seeing how you want to build links naturally and not too quickly?
Thanks,
Medic
June 5th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
It really depends on the site and the niche. If the site and the domain are both brand new, then yes - you might want to take it easy and build into it. At the same time, I wouldn’t overdo the caution. Court and I have submitted as many as thirty articles per week to article marketer with links pointing to a single site and we didn’t have any negative repercussions.
June 5th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Do you use blog commenting as well as a deep linking strategy: ie linking to a relevant blog from your own relevant post?
June 5th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
I haven’t spent much time using comments as a linking strategy Lissie, but it could pay off if you did it right. First, the blog would need to have the Do - Follow plugin (they usually have they ‘You Comment, I Follow’ icon on them).
Then, you’d have to make sure your comments were high quality and contributed something meaningful to the conversation. I know many site owners are pretty wary of people embedding links in their comments unless there’s an obvious benefit to the dialog on the site.
If I’m being completely honest with you I’d say that blog commenting as a method of link building is probably not the best use of your time on an ongoing basis. It’s not a bad way to get started when your site is brand new, but soon you’ll find it’s too time consuming relative to the links it yields.
June 7th, 2008 at 12:07 am
I think it depends a lot on the type of blog or site you’re promoting. For a flagship or personal blog like this or bloggerunleashed, I think commenting is a wonderful way to build links. They might not be as easy or as quick as articles, but it allows you to interact, build brand, and build relations… while building links. That isn’t so important for affiliate sites though.
I’ve also noticed that internet marketing readers actually click through on comment links.
Lastly, comment link building allows you to get higher PR links than articles. Its harder to get the anchor text. Its not bad if you’re marketing your flagship or personal blog though.
June 5th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
I’ve been using A.M. for about three weeks now, and it’s a big time saver for me. I have the paid version of the service. I find their service a little slow moving and their servers have gone down a handful of times since I’ve started using them. That’s my only complaint so far.
I’m already beginning to see results, and I haven’t found a service that can beat what A.M. offers so far so I’ll be sticking with them for awhile. Thanks for the recommendation.
June 5th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Glad to hear you’re getting results from it. And thanks for the confirmation that it works. It may not work forever, but it works now, and thank goodness.
June 5th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
Ok now, I’m putting up the same question/comment on Court’s, Vic’s, and Griz’s websites. I’m hoping to get an answer from them personally or from the (vibrant) community on these websites.
Fist of all let me say that I run a personal finance blog and totally got off on the wrong foot when it comes to monetization. Vic would probably call me a dumbf**k but hey I’ll take it. I deserve it and let’s face it, he’s got the goods. So slowly but surely I’ve been correcting stuff and averaging a healthy 3% CTR in spite of it all.
I have been testing the waters when it comes to article runs but I have this one big question. On my blog I can branch into many different topics, like credit, insurance, loans, investing, retirement, and so on. I have been lucky with a few long tail keywords and could definitely do a bit of keyword sniping to rank higher.
I see that when Vic’s does his article runs, he links all his anchor text to his home page. I was wondering if in my case it would make sense to do the same or link my anchor to the specific post that is related to it. That is, instead of linking anchor text “401K” to my home page, would it be better or not to link it to a 401k post. I was thinking that linking to a specific article on my website would make that specific post show up in the SERP and not my homepage. It would then take the reader directly to the post he did the search for and not to my homepage, which at the time of the search might have an article he’s really not interested in.
Thank you in advance. And of course, constructive criticism is welcome!
June 8th, 2008 at 12:43 am
you are absolutely right
and google gives an overall authority based on deep-links so your site will rank higher for other terms too
June 6th, 2008 at 12:52 am
I haven’t yet tried blog carnivals, but I’ve been messing around with Article Marketer and like what I see so far. Would you say that the free service is a decent way of getting links? It seems as though the articles get sent to a variety of article directories, but beyond just the time it takes for an article to get approved, has anyone noticed an absolutely HUGE difference between the free and paid versions? $200/year is a little steep, but I want to do everything possible to maximize my revenues.
June 6th, 2008 at 10:20 am
To be honest, we’ve heard nothing but bad things about the free version of Article Marketer. It seems to be something where you need to buy the membership to get any real benefit from it.
Is it $200 per year? I thought that was the “published price” but the ongoing deal they have is that when you buy one year you get the second year free, which cuts the per month expense in half and makes it a little easier to deal with.
June 6th, 2008 at 1:20 am
I’m not a fan of blog carnivals but I have seen a lot of success in the past with article marketing - especially when promoting affiliate products.
Great write-up Mark!
June 6th, 2008 at 9:32 am
I haven’t heard of blog carnivals before, very interesting stuff. People don’t really talk about them that much, but it seems that they can be a reliable source of traffic. These two strategies are awesome, thanks for the tips!
June 6th, 2008 at 11:08 am
I have not had much luck with Blog Carnivals in the past… We need to modernize this idea and bring a new flare to it. I have some ideas if anyone is interested!
Warm geeky regards,
Karl “TheAdmiN” Gechlik
June 6th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Mark,
You mentioned that some people have had luck with Hubpages and Squidoo and I can say that they have definitely helped me. I work in super-targeted niches, creating small blogs with high-quality content, then splattered with Adsense. I find that adding Hubpages and Squidoo to my “to do” list of marketing tasks really moves things along.
Google isn’t a huge fan of .info domains, but I’ve been able to rank 3rd in Google for my main keyword within 2 weeks by using a combination of keyword sniping tactics, article submission (I juse Go2Articles and Ezine Articles only) and creating high quality pages on Hubpages and Squidoo. It is definitely a bit more work to create that much more useful content, but it’s worth it when your sites really start bringing in steady traffic and, as a result, revenue.
Sara
June 6th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Thanks for adding to the conversation! It does seem like a lot of work, but it seems like it would add some decent links, and from more varied sources - both good things. Congrats on your rankings.
June 6th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Would you recommend using the paid version of AM verse the free version? Having an article submitted to 10,000+ sources seems like a lot, will using the paid version result in that much more traffic?
June 6th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Yes to the paid version, no to the free version. Article Marketer isn’t for traffic, it’s for links. The wider the distribution, the better.
June 6th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
I’ve had success in the past with other sites by doing article marketing, blog carnivals and also guest posting on others’ blogs. I’m actually surprised that not everyone who reads this blog has heard of blog carnivals. They’re a great way to get traffic and new readers.
June 6th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
I would like to use AM but I am unable to gain access. I have requested
their confirmation email numerous times to no avail. I have emailed them twice
and no response. I paid for one quarter thru paypal which they accepted
and still no access. I paid on 31 May 08 and its now 6 June 08. I didn’t
think the Internet was that slow in getting access to something you pay
for.
I also submitted a support ticket with High priority and no reply in 4 days.
I guess I will have to go thru PayPal and request a refund.
It sure would be nice to get an answer from them. Does anyone have an
email address for them other than the one they have on their website and
PayPal account?
Thanks,
Phil
June 6th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
[…] internet it has potential to rank, bring me traffic, and make me money. As long as I don??t let thhttp://courtneytuttle.com/2008/06/05/2-proven-deep-linking-strategies-to-grow-your-google-presence/Opposition councillors line up to rip mayor over bid for expansion of power East York […]
June 7th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
I agree that Blog Carnivals are awesome ways to get backlinks. How do you ensure (or at least politely suggest) that they create a backlink to your domain as well as the permalink?
June 7th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Hey Mark,
thanks for the great info.
I was wondering what is your opinion of isnare.
In terms of linking how do they stack up with article marketer.
Thanks,
Len
June 7th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
I found this post very useful and informative, and i will now check out the other posts you have hyper linked within this post. Thanks for the info.
June 7th, 2008 at 11:38 pm
blog carnivals really helped my past blogs in terms of ranking… though i can say one has to make sure he doesn’t look spammy…
June 8th, 2008 at 10:56 am
[…] Court’s IM School - 2 Deep Linking Strategies to Grow Your Google Presence […]
June 8th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
I’ve checked out blog carnival, but can’t find a good match for a category. Too small of a niche, perhaps? I make handmade soaps, lotions, etc. Maybe I need to do more “how-to” posts and put it in the hobby section. The only one I’ve done so far is “how to make goat milk soap”, and that’s not for the hobbyist!
June 8th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Great post … I have noticed that traffic does come quickly after a carnival mentions my page. After the initial traffic tapers off remaining steadfast pays off because traffic does seem to build. Slowly at first but picking up steadily in time. At least that has been my experience. Thanks for sharing.
June 9th, 2008 at 1:23 am
Thanks for information. I think, i must try it. I hope i get more traffic.
hhttp://thefinanceinformation.wordpress.com/
June 9th, 2008 at 1:40 am
Well here is something I did not know about, great info!
Thanks alot Mark!
June 9th, 2008 at 8:09 am
Hey great post Mark!
I have a question though. I’m looking at starting a blog using keyword sniping. The sight that is first has over a million incoming links on the entire website, but the page I’m looking to beat has only 7.
My question is do I try beat the one million or the 7? It would make a BIG difference so I’m hoping you say the seven.
Thanks in advance
June 9th, 2008 at 9:41 am
I’m still fairly new at internet marketing and I’ve been using article marketing the whole time and seems to be working real well.
June 10th, 2008 at 4:52 am
How about commenting on blogs? That can get you deep links, provided you add something useful to the coonversation.
There is also a plugin “Commentluv” that would allow blog comments to have two links instead of the usual single link.
June 13th, 2008 at 1:27 am
Another question about AM… Let’s say that I sign up for the lifetime subscription, can I post articles as different authors, and have the author bio link to different sites? If I can’t post articles as different authors, can I still link to different sites in the author bio with each article?
July 5th, 2008 at 3:01 am
[…] the like-minded people at Court’s Internet Marketing School feel the same way. In their post about deep linking strategies, I found this: I think one of the best aspects of SEO is that it’s both cumulative and […]
August 13th, 2008 at 6:32 am
Interesting idea about the Blog Carnival, i will check it out
August 20th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
The article marketing tip is a sure fire one. Also it is important to note that not all article directories are created equal, Ezine links typically outrank all the article directories, so gets some strong links from them when you start to build out.
August 27th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
[…] 2 Proven Deep Linking Strategies to Grow Your Google Presence […]
August 31st, 2008 at 3:35 pm
The blog carnival tip is an interesting angle, I’ve never participated in one of those, but I have a great computer blog that would be a perfect candidate.
September 10th, 2008 at 3:47 am
this is good article for me. i am finding related making index. deep linking good idea. thanks again.
September 13th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
I am a avid user of article marketer and an affiliate. But what do you think about Ezine Articles? I have found this to be more user friendly than article marketer.
Anyway, excellent post. I got all motivated to hit up the blog carnivals again. Keep on rocking in the free world!
September 17th, 2008 at 5:30 am
I never joined Blog Carnival yet. But from what you’re writing here seems that it’s worth to try. There are so much things we must learn in order to be successful in blogging. And the most difficult part is building huge amount of baclinks.
October 3rd, 2008 at 6:58 am
I am still new to blogging and doing my best to study and apply all the information I stumble upon. Your strategy is good I will apply it right away.