Manual link building is exactly what it sounds: you or your outsourcer find places to put a link back to your site then you go ahead and do it. Without using software to do the job for you – with the possible exception of letting software track down possible places for you to put a link back to your site.
Find places that are happy to accept your link
Some sites such as article directories are happy to accept your link so long as you provide them with quality content.
That means the content should be original – written by yourself or a trusted outsourcer – not rehashed rubbish.
It should also have reasonable quality grammar and, of course, be spell checked.
Different sites will have different standards but with things like articles it’s best to choose sites that have an editorial process before your article gets published. This protects you, your readers and the site you’re publishing on.
At this stage, you may be thinking that video sites like YouTube accept links but don’t go through an editorial process.
That’s kind-of true. Because the sheer volume of videos means that a manual approval system would need the internet equivalent of the infinite number of monkeys who would eventually type the complete works of Shakespeare. So computers and volunteers (the people watching the videos) do the process instead.
Social bookmark your links
In the modern world, it’s apparently OK to brag about yourself.
You can send out Tweets, put up posts on Facebook and generally tell everyone how good you are.
Whether they believe you is another matter but Twitter, etc are happy for you to do this and Google will take note of this in its algorithms.
Of course, if your Tweet or post is noteworthy, other people will notice.
In the case of Twitter, they’ll re-tweet it.
On Facebook, they’ll like it or comment on it.
And, again, Google will take note of this. So will the sites you’ve originally used.
Which means it’s worth taking the time to do this kind of manual link building properly.
Don’t just click the social media button on a page and leave the auto-generated suggestion without amending it or turning it into your own words.
That’s lazy!
And it’s also not a good idea because anyone following you will know. Whether that’s a real person or a computer stalking you.
Which, in turn, will reflect on the quality assigned to the link.
Put yourself in the clicker’s shoes
Ask yourself a very simple question:
Would you be happy if you clicked on the link you’re about to create?
If the answer is yes, that’s great news.
If the answer is maybe or no or “no way!” then think again.
Manual link building is much more about quality than quantity.
So if the link you’re providing doesn’t give extra value to the person likely to be clicking it, why are you creating it in the first place?
When you start to answer that question honestly and create good links that are of value to people, two almost magical things will happen:
The search engines will assign more importance to those links.
The people who click your links will hang around on your pages for longer, start to trust you and start to spend more money with you
Which turns your manual link building from a chore into a profitable learning adventure!