Hey everyone! I’ve spent tha last few hours of the day testing out the forum and finding out there’s a lot of work to be done. I invite everyone to sign up to the beta release of these forums because we’re running on a different open source forum CMS than most. I decided to go with UseBB because like my sites they’re both somewhat new and growing, and I kind of wanted to hack around with some new CMS besides phpBB or vBulletin.
UseBB is put together by a small team of coders who are very passionate about the code, and are currently working on a very much needed version 2. I liked the ease of the setup as well the look and feel of the whole forum. The template draws from the other forums in feel and style making it a easy on the eyes, and lets the reader focus on the content. Currently I’m running version 1.0.9 which is lacking in a few key features suck as private messaging, user groups and attachments. Version 2 is hopefully on its way very soon because I know how important private messaging is.
I’m going to do my best to rank the forum very quickly for the term ‘link building forum(s)’ as well promote from this blog. On that note, I’d like to call on my fellow bloggers to write a post about the forum if they want to help out..no pressure. I know starting a forum can be very tough so I’ll be honest and say I’d have no problems taking in feedback, critisicm and advice.
The forum is also going to need moderators and this is something I’d like to implement catiously over time. I’d like respected bloggers/podcasters/writers who are in the industry to join as moderators to help build a solid community. To help pay back my moderators I will be sharing advertising slots within the site to share the wealth for the time and effort put in. Please contact me if you’re interested in becoming a moderator.
Forum Sections And Why I Chose Them:
Link Building Chat:
The first section of the forums is the Link Building Chat. This is the usual area for chatting about everything and anything link building. I don’t want to clutter the forum with so many sections mainly because I believe a cleaner forum will grow faster. There are so many different sites to link build with so I imagine this section will be the most active part of the link building forums.
0day Link Building Techniques:
Second is an experimental section of the forum for 0day Link Building Techniques which will share secret techniques that only a few eyes will see. To get into this forum you have to submit to me your technique to be approved into this section. I know this sounds kind of sktechy but I cannot see any other way and I will uphold your intel with the utmost privacy. Since others within this section has shared some of their secrets, it should make it worth exposing yours to gain access to all the other information.
Social Bookmarking:
The third section on the forum is for Social Bookmarking and I’d like people to talk about promotion and link building with various social bookmarking sites. This is also a good place to announce your niche bookmarking site, or a new one you’ve discovered. I love social bookmarking because you can get both do follow links and targeted traffic.
Blog Post Exchanges:
Fourth up is a concept I’ve wanted to see on other popular forums but haven’t come across, and that is a place to exchange Blog Posts. I want to be able to exchange blog posts either one-way or do some various 3-way methods to get more content rich backlinks. If you’re also looking for a guest poster this is the place to ask or request.
Do Follow Blogs & Forums:
The fifth section covers everything do follow for both blogs and forums. It seems this is quite the popular link building method at the moment that’s very mainstream. There are plenty of other ways to get better do follow links, but blogs and forums are just so damned easy to find.
Blogroll Link Exchanges:
My sixth section on the forum was an obvious choice for this type of forum. I imagine 99% of the members will have some sort of website that will want link exchanges for. I want to promote this but keep the exchanges niche based so you can build a solid link neighborhood. Doing too many unrelated link exchanges will only weaken your sites strength in the search engines as well hurt others you’ve traded with. Keep them to a minimum and when you trade with someone, stick to that deal.
Link Building Related Links:
The seventh part is all about promoting your media weather that be a video, blog post or article somewhere on the web. The Related Links section is not a place to spam the with crappy information or the whole forum will start going to the dogs. Sponsors are welcome to post news about products as well, but if you have an affiliate program for that sponsor let me know. Running a forum also costs money so I’d like to cover the basics.
Social Media Marketing:
Last but not least is the section for Social Media Marketing. Using social media platforms and link building for that content is a very effective way of ranking for a hot keyword. I am a big fan of affiliate marketing with Youtube and Squidoo so you will see me being very active in this section.
So I hope I can build these forums up to be a fun place to hang out and learn as well conduct business within the community of link builders. I believe this niche is only beginning to blow up and I’d love to help it grow to become something respected.
Enough already….Visit the Link Building Forums.
I’ve had the pleasure of chatting with a full time link builder and cartoonist extroidanaire. He goes online by the name of SEOKevin and can be seen here in the comments. He is responsible for my now favorite comic strip of all time(sorry Calvin & Hobbes), Kevin & the Googlebots. The comic is based around many hilarious scenarious mixed with real life mixed in with a whole lot of well thought out SEO humor. I know if I showed this to my normal friends they would most likely not enjoy this as much as you folks. IF anyone from one of the bigger SEO sites such as Search Engine Journal see’s this comic then I’d urge you to get it on as a weekly feature…this is one form of comedy not to be missed. Here’s a taste of Kevin’s work and if you like what you see, get in contact and let him know you enjoyed it so he keeps putting them out!
Busby SEO Test or Busby SEO SPAM Test
I used two different tools to analyze the backlinks of the first two listed there, Yahoo Site Explorer and Backlink Watch. It took me no longer than a few minutes to sell all the blog comments these contestants have used, as well a bunch of other link spamming on sites such as DeviantArt. Now the way these contestants have used questionable tactics is not something you’d want to do for a client, or even for your own site. In the long run Google will catch onto this but for now there’s no doubt that anchor text is still the number one way to rank.
So go ahead and check out some of the contestants links from DeviantArt, blog comments and link exchanges. The comments left behind on blogs are the usualy one liners “thanks for the great information” which defeats the whole purpose of commenting on blogs, and is now a form of spam. This kind of link building gives us all a bad name.
So without getting too nasty or diving in any more into this silly contest what are your thoughts? Am I being rude and unfair? Have you been spammed by a contestant and want to vent? There is a positive and that is the example and real world results you can see from link building, good or bad.