Many webmasters or bloggers are infatuated with dofollow blogs. Not everyone is obsessed with them, but there are many who spend time or money trying to leave keyword comments on dofollow blogs, in order to improve their website’s search engine rankings.

They sell tools to find these dofollow blogs, they build apps to auto-fill blogs with pre-prepared generic comments. Some enterprising individuals offer blog commenting services: you can buy hundreds of dofollow comments left on blogs with your choice of keyword anchor text.

It is one of the easiest ways to get your link up on a webpage but this mass fetish with dofollow links conditions webmasters or marketers into thinking that blog comments should only be used for the sole purpose of getting immediate benefits like backlinks.

“Well, a link is a link. It’s better than nothing.” So they think to themselves at the end of an hour spent clicking on the auto-fill button and paraphrasing articles to make comments look ‘natural’. Don’t want to trip the spam filter now, do we?

Everything is streamlined towards one goal, to get that keyword link up. The bulk of one’s efforts are spent running some crappy do-follow search tool so one can go over and ejaculate comments on hundreds of blogs, discarding most of them once the deed is done.

Such promiscuity. And perhaps, such a waste of time and money. Why? Because these dofollow comments are junk compared to a high quality link recommendation within a relevant blog post. A blog post providing exposure that may result in a snowball of more citation links.

To be fair, the tactic of using dofollow blog comments as a link building tool is not entirely useless. They can direct some juice to websites you don’t care about, the ones you don’t intend to develop as a reputable brand. Basically, adsense or affiliate sites where you just want visitors to go in and come out via your referral link or ad click.

But even in these and other scenarios, blog comments can do more than just give you a few easy links. After all if your goal is to rank well in search engines, you should be pursuing a method that gives you a higher returns on investment. And such a method exists.

But to achieve that, you need to first do two things:

1. Abandon the obsession with dofollow comments. Focus on all blogs equally even if they have ‘nofollow’ turned on and don’t directly influence your rank. Blogs you comment on should only be selected based on factors such as their relevance and audience size.




2. Use blog comments as a first step to get more. Comments should be a preliminary and foundational step in an overall link + traffic building strategy. They are part of an overall plan to extract more valuable links from selected targets in the long run.

I used to think that in order to build links to my new niche site, I should just go find dofollow blogs and comment spam them. That’s all they were good for. After I gained some experience in site building and marketing, I eventually dropped this myopic focus on link building. I realized that there’s a much better way to use blog comments.

I’m not even talking about warm and fuzzy stuff like ’contributing to the discussion‘ or sharing knowledge, even though that’s a nice thing to do. I’m talking about a better way to use comments to get long term links that are better than dozens of dofollow blog comments.

You must be wondering: is there really more to blog commenting as a link building method?

The answer is yes. Having been a newbie before and gone down this path, I will offer some useful advice: If you only see blog commenting as a way to get instant links, you’re not maximizing their full potential. You are missing out on a lot of good stuff.

From my point of view, comments should be used holistically within a masterplan for getting what you really need: direct link recommendations from bloggers or site owners with a loyal audience, sending you high quality visitors that will convert well.

That’s the jackpot to aim for. That’s the ultimate goal. Not a bunch of approved comments with your precious keywords on a hundred semi-irrelevant blogs. Or even a thousand.

I’m not going to leave you high and dry. Next week, I will give you the exact comment strategy I use to build new sites into reputable authorities in their niche.

You’ll learn how to integrate blog commenting into a marketing strategy that gives you quality links and traffic. If you don’t want to miss that, consider subscribing to dosh dosh.

So what do YOU think about using dofollow blogs as a link building method? Do you do it and how well does it work for you?

P.S. Please don’t pitch any dofollow products, blog lists, commenter tools or search engines in the comments below. As you can tell, I’m trying to de-emphasize link building/spamming via dofollow blogs. Just a note for those who love to drop links without reading the post. ( ^ _ ^)

The Unhealthy Obsession With DoFollow Blog Links

The more people visit my web site, the more money I can possibly make, and perhaps the more fun I can possibly have.

Today, many websites had their Google PageRank reduced and many bloggers have been speculating about the causes.

Introspection is often forced. We don’t think about sustainability and our actions until unfavorable circumstances arises. If you only consider how a PageRank shift will negatively affect you after it has happened, you’re already screwed.

It’s all very simple to me. Google is an factor that is outside of your control. Sure, you can follow their rules or adjust your behavior to fit in but that still doesn’t put Google within your palm. What do good entrepreneurs do with uncontrollable factors? They create what-if contingency plans to accommodate for possible loss.

Keep this point in mind: People can do whatever they want to you and they often will. You however have the power to determine how you want to react to their actions. Google will adjust its PageRank scores in a way they deem fit (it’s their toy after all) and ultimately you must decide how you will cope with the possible results.

Image Credit: Sunset over Shinjuku

If your ad revenue is affected just because PageRank changes, then you’re not doing something right. Not exploring the right monetization options. Not having a long term business plan. Not making full use of the traffic you have. Not getting the right advertisers who know the value of your site.

And all these are factors within your control. Who cares what Google thinks about content or site quality? People are the ones who visit your site and decide if its worth reading or recommending to someone else. Google doesn’t own the way you write or think. They don’t influence the type of content you decide to put out.

I have never sold an ad based on my meager PageRank. Advertisers have approached me and have told me directly that they are interested in my websites because I rank for key terms relevant to their business and because I easily pull in a heck of a lot of targeted traffic that is likely to convert. And that’s what matters.

So what if PageRank weakens your position on a ranking list or advertising network? You don’t need systems that use PageRank as a metric for measuring comparative value. Really, you don’t need them at all. There are literally hundreds of different ways to build your brand and get valuable traffic from a variety of other sources.

Stop complaining. Pagerank is simply a webmaster fetish. It’s a inside joke that’s gone too far. Washington Post and Forbes were penalized. But do you really think Aunt Mary or Uncle Joe will give a toss about it? They’ll still type in the URL or click on the bookmark icon faithfully because they want to get the info-fix they need.

And that says a lot about creating remarkable brands that are trusted by your target market. Brands that bring in direct repeat traffic in the long run, despite unpredictable algorithm changes by corporations beyond comprehension.

I don’t see any point in blogging about PageRank drops or updates (yes, I’m guilty). I really didn’t want to write about this but I just couldn’t help ranting after seeing so many oh my god Pagerank dropped! posts all over the web today.

Maybe we can all stop getting so worked up over something so inconsequential.

Wanna read more advice on hot issues? Subscribe to Dosh Dosh.

Google PageRank Doesn’t Matter. Can We Stop Talking about it Now?

Usually developed in the form of a thought provoking or entertaining article, a useful application or a list of helpful resources, linkbaits work best when they add value to visitors to the web site.

This is because visitors are likely to link to something when the webpage is perceived as interesting or relevant to their own website or audience.

Four Characteristics of Successful Viral Linkbait

A viral linkbait is one that is designed with the aim of facilitating dissemination by visitors who come across it. It’s viral in the sense that its self-replicating and leverages existing social networks through the use of media like images or video.

I’ve previously listed several qualities of a good linkbait and now I’ll like to add three additional factors which will increase your linkbait’s potential for success.

1. Be Topical. Linkbaits work particularly well if they topical and relate to popular topics or cultural phenomenon at a specific time. This naturally appeals to most fans or enthusiasts of these topics and encourages links because the bait is fresh, new and relevant.

   Topical linkbaits will also catch waves of search engine traffic as visitors are likely to be searching for the topic associated with the linkbait.




2. Be Natural. Good linkbait shouldn’t look like link bait. The link-getting motivation should be subdued to a point where it’s not apparent at all. You don’t want to look as if you’re trying too hard for links.

   The entire linkbait should be a natural value-adding proposition that’s sold to the visitor from the moment he or she lands on your website.




3. Ease of Use. Linkbait will spread easier when it’s unique or easy to use, read or understand. While extensive resources and articles can provoke the bookmarking instinct, simple and user-friendly link bait may work better for viral dissemination.

   Don’t assume that everyone is on the same cognitive level (some will shun over-complicated material) and try to appeal to a general audience.




4. Encourage Distribution. While it isn’t completely necessary, it might be useful to encourage visitors to spread your linkbait by linking to it. You can do this by providing html codes for videos or customized images.

   You can also put up social bookmarking buttons, email forms or a simple one-liner to ask visitors to tell others about the website.

A Case Study of a Viral Linkbait: A Transformer Quiz

Which Transformer are you? is a short quiz I’ve come across today while reading the news at Digg. After I took the quiz I decided to do a quick writeup on the website, because I felt it exemplified the qualities needed for a good linkbait.

The website itself is rather new; a look at Google’s cache shows that as of the 3rd of August, Funflip.com was still a parked domain at Godaddy. The quiz was perhaps developed to acquire some quick links and authority for the domain.

Here are some points I’ve noticed:

• No Branding. The actual purpose of the site is unknown as the site homepage just shows the transformer quiz and nothing else. There are no other branding elements available and aside from the incongruent domain name, the linkbait (quiz) is natural enough to attract participation.




• Use of a Popular Topic. The Transformers movies was recently released in the cinemas and the quiz is riding on the buzz still generated by it. People are more likely to link to the quiz if the topic is still fresh and interesting.




• Provides Linking Options. The last page of the quiz provides some html codes and quiz badges you can grab and put up on on other websites or forums. The badges automatically link back to the quiz homepage.

  A simple link is provided for visitors to grab for IM or email although I think an email form would have been much better.

Possible Points for Improvement

I would put up some popular bookmarking buttons to encourage users to bookmark the homepage. Putting an visible link back to the start of the quiz would be great as well because some visitors might want to retake it.

I would also recommend putting up an opt-in email form to encourage subscriptions for any specific newsletter or notification list. This way you’re not only getting links but also making full else of the traffic you get. This might not work for this particular Transformer’s quiz but will be applicable for other scenarios.

For more viral marketing ideas, subscribe to Dosh Dosh’s blog feed.

How to Make Viral Linkbaits Work: Four Characteristics of Success

These keywords will send visitors searching for information on a specific topic to your website and allows you gain a new reader or make some money from whatever affiliate program or ad scheme you are running.

I’ve recently set up several websites for some friends and link building was my main concern because I needed links for the webpages to be indexed and start showing up in the search engine.

I’ve previously written about the best way to get traffic for new websites and this article complements that by focusing on ways you can use to quickly acquire some links that will help your website.

15 Link Building Strategies for New Websites

This collection of link building tips are likely to guarantee that you will receive free links from already established websites. This differs from content-oriented development strategies which hope to gradually attract natural editorial links.

These link building tips focus more on targeted link placement or link insertion, whereby you are likely to control the specific anchor text used. Some of them include agreements made with others and others involve one-way action on your part.

1. Submit your site to Web Directories. This is a pretty monotonous process that can get you several hundred backlinks if you have the time. An alternative would be to hire a manual directory submitter. Here’s a list of web directories you can use. You can also find some blog directories here.




2. Submit Press Releases to PR sites. A basic press release about your website’s launch can be released to several PR websites, who will distribute it to various online news outlets. A good way to get a free link. I recommend using PRWeb and PRLeap.




3. Reciprocal Links with Similar Websites. Its important to pick sites that are of high relevance so you’ll not only get links but traffic. Reciprocal linking can be useful from the beginning but don’t overdo it. You can find link partners by emailing them directly or searching through webmaster forums.




4. Squidoo Lenses. A Squidoo lens is fairly easy to create. It only takes around 15 minutes to set up one fully and you’ll be able to insert a bunch of anchor text links to your website along with your feed content. Hubpages is another similar site you can use.




5. Article Submissions. Create a short article on your niche topic and submit it to article directories for a backlink and some traffic. You might get more links if your article is picked up and published on other websites. Here is a list of article directories, sorted by Alexa and PageRank.




6. Social Media Profiles. There a whole bunch of social websites online which allow you to insert a link to your website on the profile page. Sign up for some of them, preferably using a username and avatar that brands your business or you as a person. This might come in useful when you decide to promote your site via the social website in the future.




7. Social Bookmarking/Voting Websites. Certain social voting websites like Netscape or Digg are often crawled by search engines and their links do help to get a website indexed. 3spots has the biggest list of social voting and bookmarking websites I’ve seen so far.




8. Forum Signatures. Sign up for some forums in your niche and start contributing to ongoing discussions. Insert a link to the homepage or some inner pages of your site.




9. Create a Tool, Theme or Widget. Pay a designer to come up with an add-on application or template that is related to a specific social network, popular website or platform. Include a credit link that points back to your designated website.




10. Blogs on Other Blog Platforms. Use existing blogs you have on other blog networks. Or set up different versions of your blog on different blog networks like Wordpress.com, Blogger and Xanga. Link to specific webpages on your website.




11. Comment on Other Blogs. Start commenting on relevant and popular sites in your niche. Don’t just spam for links but focus on building a relationship with other bloggers as well. Write a relevant comment and try to avoid using keyword names or signature links.




12. Guest posting on other blogs. Like article and press releases, this one involves having readily available content you can send out to certain blogs in your niche. This is great for getting relevant links and traffic.




13. Hold Contests. Some websites often offer contests in a bid to attract anchor text links from bloggers. An example is this iPhone giveaway on Gary Lee’s site. Contests allow you to determine the specific anchor text but its possible that too many links using the designated keyword may harm your domain instead.




14. Collaborative Projects. You may need to develop an article specifically for a writing project, blog carnival or meme but it will usually get you a couple of backlinks, depending on the number and generosity of the participants involved.




15. Offer your Expertise. This will apply if you have a specific skill set such as web design, copywriting, translation or SEO. Write to an established website and offer to revamp/optimize their website in return for a mention or credit link on a webpage. This offers excellent branding, particularly if your offer is picked up by a website with a decent audience.

This list is by no means comprehensive but are just some of the off-site methods I use to build links for very new websites. After I get a bunch of links, I’ll usually focus on niche networking and the development of exceptional content that’ll help to rapidly build a readership.

For more link building tips and strategies, subscribe to Dosh Dosh’s blog feed.

15 Link Building Tips for New Websites

For the average blogger, the increase in search engine traffic means a bigger audience and possibly more long term profit from the display of on-site or privately arranged advertisements.

Understanding how to consistently send more search engine traffic to your website requires an appreciation of the Long Tail theory and subsequently the effective manipulation of traffic-directing long tail keywords.

First coined in by Chris Anderson in a seminal 2004 article in Wired Magazine , the Long Tail is a socio-statistical theory which suggests that the collective sales of products in low demand can exceed that of popular products and bestsellers.

Applying this theory to mass market retailers like Amazon , Anderson suggests that catering to minority tastes and making low-demand products consistently available will allow businesses to achieve higher profit margins, than if they were to solely focus on high-demand/popular products.

Here is the Long Tail in a Nutshell:

The theory of the Long Tail is that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of “hits” (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail.

As the costs of production and distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers.

In an era without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of distribution, narrowly-targeted goods and services can be as economically attractive as mainstream fare.

When applied to websites and search engine traffic/marketing, it simply means that most websites are likely to receive most of their search engine visitors through a variety of low-volume search queries instead of a handful of major keywords.

Therefore focusing on developing the keywords which receive lower volumes of search traffic will lead to an increase in the overall amount of visitors from search engines to your website.


What are Long Tail keywords?

Long tail keywords are simply multi-phrase search queries which visitors use on search engines to arrive at your website. These longtail keywords are much more targeted than the general or main keyword topic and they literally embody a visitor’s need for specific information.

Here is an example. ‘Credit Cards‘ is the general keyword topic and long tail keywords within this niche includes terms such as the following:

• credit cards for people with bad credit
• list of low interest credit cards
• benefits of small business credit cards
• good canadian credit cards for students

These long tail keywords are actual search queries, therefore optimizing your site and creating content to match these search queries will allow you to attract visitors who search for information via these and similar search terms.


Benefits of Long Tail keywords

Here are four main reasons why you should consider optimizing your website for long tail keywords:

• Long tail keywords lead to higher conversions. Visitors arriving through multi-phrase search queries might be more likely to make purchases or convert on affiliate programs or recommendations. By targeting these longtail phrases, you are effectively targeting a market of potential buyers.




• Long tail Keywords are Easier to rank. It is much easier to make your website rank well on search engines for longtail keywords because of the generally weaker competition.




• More Visitors to your website. Targeting long tail keywords will gradually lead to more search engine traffic because you’ll have a lot of pages indexed and ranking for specific phrases related to your website/business. This means increased visibility and therefore a much larger amount of search engine traffic.




• Higher monetization potential. Search engine visitors are very valuable because they are targeted individuals who are seeking specific information and hence are more likely to click on contextual ads or subscribe to your site newsletter or blog feed. This grows your audience and allows you greater monetization potential in the long run through product sales or the use of third-party ad networks.

Five Ways to Find and Target Your Long Tail Keywords

Here is a list of five methods you can use to discover the long tail keywords that are relevant to your website and niche. These methods consist of effectively utilizing several online web tools as well as basic content development tactics.

1. Keyword Analytic and Tracking Programs

HitTail and 103bees are two keyword/analytic programs you can use on your website. You’ll just need to drop a few lines of code in your site template and both programs will start to suggest specific long-tail keywords you can use. They can be considered some sort of a lazy and semi-passive way to develop a range of long tail keywords.

I’ve personally tried both analytic packages for several weeks and didn’t find them to be really useful because of several reasons:

• Poor Keyword management interface. If your site receives a lot of search traffic, the analytic programs will give you a lot of suggestions, sometimes far too many for you to implement.

  Filtering and selecting specific keywords from the list presented still requires some degree of time and work, not to mention that the weak interface makes it impossible to group, sort and tag keywords according to specific to-do time frames and priorities.




• No built-in search volume measure for each keyword phrase they suggest. You might want to run the list of long tail keyword suggestions you receive through a search volume analyzer to find out which one to prioritize.

  Links to free keyword tracker programs like Wordtracker and the ability to sort the keywords according to approximate search volumes would have be very useful indeed.




• Weak performance for new sites. If you’ve just started a new website or blog, these packages will not help because if you don’t have any search hits, you won’t get any keyword suggestions.

  It also means that even if you start getting a little search traffic, the keywords suggestion will come rather slowly. This doesn’t allow you to plan and create content in advance to match your search marketing campaigns.

However if you are pressed for time or am unwilling to do research on your own, these analytic packages might come in handy.

If I were to pick one program to use, I would go with 103bees because they offer more statistical features than HitTail while acting as a SERPs tracker which enables you to monitor how your keywords are ranking on the search engines.

HitTail only allows one website per account so if you want an analytics tool for several websites, 103 bees would be better as they allow you integrate and monitor multiple websites within the same interface.

2. Internal On-Site Search Boxes.

Monitor what keyword phrases users are searching for on your website and create pages with these exact keywords and variations of these keyword phrases. This is a passive and useful way of developing long tail keyword rich webpages.

Your visitors are effectively doing all the research for you and their search behavior usually corresponds in some way to the general public’s search habits.


3. Online Keyword Research Tools

In my previous article on how to pick your blog niche, I’ve written about how keyword research tools such as the Google Adwords Keyword Tool and SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool can help you determine the profitability of a niche.

These tools can also help you to develop a broad range of secondary keywords when you type in a core keyword such as ‘credit cards’. Both of these tools will give you a long list of tools sorted according to their search volume.

For example, here’s a query for the keyword ‘credit cards’ on both Adwords and the SEO Book tool:

These keywords and phrases are components of long tail keywords you should target. What you should do is to keep a list of these keywords in an accessible document and when you write any article, be sure to include at least one of these keywords as your title tag.

This can be done systematically and you should go through the entire list at least once or twice.You should connect these keywords with a variety of phrases which are similar to search queries.

For instance, if I were to use the first few items on the Adwords list above for ‘credit cards’, I would include specific phrases before or after the keywords.

Here are some examples of possible page titles:

• How to pick a credit card
• 4 ways to apply for a credit card
• Bad credit cards to avoid

Another tool you can use is Google Suggest, a search box which guesses what you are typing in it and offers suggestions in real time. This uses data from the overall popularity of searches it sees and can be a useful way to narrow down your searches to specific keyword niches.

Note that these keyword suggestions are not longtails but rather categorical keywords which each contain a whole bunch of long tail keyword phrases. Google suggest should only be used to narrow down your search so you can do further analysis through keyword tools or competitor analysis.

If you are using Firefox as a browser, I highly recommend installing the Customize Google extension because it allows you to have Google Suggest functionality on the usual Google search boxes as well.


4. Competitor Analysis: Finding their Long Tail Keywords

Learning how your competitor gets traffic to their website is a powerful strategy because your competitor has already targeted a whole bunch of long tail keywords. You’ll only need to optimize your site and create new pages which target these keywords as well.

Depending on your overall link profile, on-site optimization and site strength, you will stand a chance of ranking better than your competitor on the search engines.

There are two ways to find your competitors keywords. One is to visit their websites and analyze their webpages, check out their title and meta tags, along with their backlinks if you have the time. The benefit of this detailed research is that you’ll come to understand your competitors a lot better.

A faster method to perform competitor keyword analysis would be to use free online keyword parsing tools like SEODigger, which allows you to immediately find out which keywords your competitor is targeting by simply inputing their site URL.

SEODigger can be inaccurate when it comes to actual keyword ranks but is generally useful as it shows you various keywords which your competitors are ranking for at the moment.


5. Natural Long Tail Keyword Development

This is the simplest way to develop long tail keywords because it doesn’t require much research at all. All you have to do is to make sure that you update your website or blog more frequently by adding new webpages and core keyword-friendly content.

The key emphasis here is frequency. If you’ve just started a new blog, get it indexed by Google first and then and post as frequently as possible to increase your content visibility on the search engines.

A high frequency of blog posts, each with specific variations of your keywords will help you to gradually get more search traffic.


Dosh Dosh’s Long Tail Keyword Development Strategy

To make things easier for you, I’ve broken down the procedure of finding and developing your long tail keywords into a simple five step process. By following this strategy, you should be able to effectively grow the amount of search traffic you receive daily.

1. Enter your core keywords in the Adwords Keyword Suggestion tool. Download the entire list in a text or excel format.




2. Perform competitor analysis manually or through SEO Digger.




3. Compile in one list, all the longtail keywords from both of the above steps.




4. Start to create webpages or blog posts and include at least one keyword + a phrase in the title. For Wordpress users, install and use the SEO Title Tag plugin.




5. Optional: Set up an keyword analytics package to receive keyword suggestions and track existing keyword performance

Final Thoughts

This article on using Long Tail keywords to attract more search traffic is an companion piece to my series of tutorials on niche blogging, because niche blogs require consistent search traffic for effective growth and monetization.

If you already own several blogs in profitable niches, these tips on long tail keywords will undoubtedly increase the amount of traffic you receive from search engines.

It has worked remarkably well for me and I’m absolutely confident that you’ll see the same improvement in search traffic figures as well.

For more information on ways to increase search engine traffic for your websites, do consider subscribing to Dosh Dosh’s blog feed.

How to Find and Target Long Tail Keywords for More Search Engine Traffic

With most webmasters eagerly anticipating the upcoming PR update, this article dispels several unfounded myths and situates the focus on PR within a balanced link building/SEO strategy.

Written for both internet searchers and webmasters, Danny uses a large variety of official documents from Google to come up with various explanations which define PageRank and examine it’s relationship with search rankings.

The article also highlights the key differences between the actual internal PR and the “Toolbar” PR, which is what you see if you use Google Toolbar or the brilliant SearchStatus Firefox extension, a extraordinarily helpful SEO tool which I highly recommend.

Here is a excerpt from the article, on the difference between internal and toolbar PR:

Internal PageRank are the PageRank scores that Google uses as part of its ranking algorithm. Those scores are constantly being updated. In contrast, the PageRank scores that Google allows the world to see — Toolbar PageRank — is a snapshot of internal PageRank taken every few months.

The conclusion to Danny’s excellent writeup is also noteworthy because he brings out an important point that can be overlooked when building links for your website:

If you really want to know what are the most important, relevant pages to get links from, forget PageRank. Think search rank. Search for the words you’d like to rank for.

See what pages come up tops in Google. Those are the most important and relevant pages you want to seek links from. That’s because Google is explicitly telling you that on the topic you searched for, these are the best.

So if you’re trying to rank well for those lucrative keywords that help you make money, remember to not only buy relevant ads that send you strong referral traffic but also search optimized keyword links from similar websites in your niche.

While an attractive Page Rank will help you make more money from link selling, a more important long term strategy is to ensure that your website consistently receives organic search traffic, which you can monetize through on-site ads or affiliate recommendations.

An Informative Guide to Google PageRank: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know

As the Wordpress theme gets released, promoted and downloaded by other users, the link to your website (which you paid for) will show up on other Wordpress blogs.

As everyone knows, Wordpress themes are notorious for their ability to send massive amounts of links back to the theme designer’s website. I’ve already written about how Chris Pearson’s Cutline theme contributed immensely to the link popularity of Tubetorial, his other side project.

If you don’t have the technical skills needed to create a Wordpress theme, you’ll still stand a chance of having a footer link to your website in thousands of blogs through a successful theme sponsorship.

What are the benefits of sponsoring a Wordpress Theme?

Theme sponsorship can be an effective method of link building that may help your SERP (Search Engine Results Page) ranking because you have the option of choosing the specific anchor text to use for your link.

This can be a long-term link building strategy that helps you to increase your keyword rankings, which means a lot more search engine visitors to your website and higher ad earnings as well as product/service sales.

Successful theme sponsorship may also help you to rapidly increase your website’s Google Page Rank, because it will receive a large volume of one way incoming links, each with a certain amount of PR and authority.

While nobody knows for sure how Google calculates its Page Rank algorithm, we can assume with some level of certainty that a large variety of incoming links with PR can help to positively benefit any website’s Page Rank.

An Example of a Sponsored Word Press Theme

All (or most) of the themes from Thomas Silkjaer aka the Undersigned, a popular Wordpress theme/plugin creator, feature sponsored footer links.

Here are screenshots of a theme with a specific link to an advertiser site.

Note that you can find many live examples of blogs using his themes by running this specific Google search.

The white theme above is known as Water 1.1 and is one of the 10 most downloaded Wordpress themes (with over 22,000 downloads).

As a result of this theme sponsorship, there are literally thousands of blogs with sitewide links to a website that sells Poker Tables. A peek at Weber Poker Table’s backlinks with Yahoo Site Explorer confirms this.

Theme Sponsorship As Link Building Strategy

Most of the Wordpress theme designers I’ve come across are rather discreet about their sponsorship arrangements. However, I recently noticed that several webmasters have started explicitly pushing theme sponsorship as a link building strategy.

One of them is Themey, a website that openly promotes Wordpress Theme sponsorship and purchases. They are currently charging a minimum of $200 for a footer link in their Wordpress themes.

An excerpt from their website on the topic of theme sponsorship reads:

Wordpress 2.x has had over 1.2million downloads (and that statistic is from October 2006), whereas themes.wordpress.net has less than 1,200 themes for users to download (as of today, 21 January 2007).

Some very quick math shows that there is only one theme for every 1000 Wordpress downloads.

Imagine the cost of buying a text link ad on 1000 blogs?

Popular themes can easily achieve more than 1000 downloads in matter of weeks so I think the estimate above is reasonable. It should be noted that not all Wordpress users agree with the practice of leaving unrelated sponsor links in the blog template and some have actively taken steps to remove the advertiser links. I do however think the majority of Wordpress users either do not care about that extra link or are oblivious to its presence or function.

My personal take is that if you don’t like themes with sponsored links, you shouldn’t use the theme. This is because using it and removing the sponsored link might not cohere with the designer’s stipulated copyright regulations.

Making Money with Word Press Themes

From the perspective of a website designer, Wordpress themes can provide you with a relatively decent source of side income. Let’s suppose you produce one Wordpress theme a week and charge $150 for a link. You’ll make around $600 a month for your efforts.

Judging from the recent theme sales in various webmaster forums, one can safely assume that there is a strong demand for Wordpress theme sponsorship.

Perhaps we can assume that there is a steady market of webmasters out there who view theme sponsorship as a viable long term link building tactic.

Where can you find Wordpress Themes to sponsor?

If you’re interested in getting your link in a Wordpress theme, I would suggest privately contacting specific Wordpress Theme designers and asking if they could create a custom designed template that allows you to sponsor a specific link.

Another alternative is to browse around the various Wordpress Theme websites and email specific theme authors who have a history of allowing sponsored footer links in their theme.

Occasionally, theme authors will also hold theme sponsor auctions in various webmaster forums and you might want to visit Digital Point Forums if you’re interested in participating in a theme sponsor auction.

Your thoughts on Theme Sponsorship and Link Building.

Three questions I’ll like to ask all SEO enthusiasts/experts, Wordpress bloggers and everyone else out there:

1. Do you think theme sponsorship is an effective and beneficial long term link building strategy?




2. Correspondingly, do you think that Wordpress theme authors should or should not sell sponsored footer links?




3. Will you remove a sponsored link if you are using or plan to use a sponsored Wordpress theme?

Link Building through Word Press Theme Sponsorship: A Good Idea?