Link Building with Online Communities
A good inbound links campaign should be rooted in generating reciprocal links with high-quality, high-relevance, non-competitive websites. These are the greatest value to your rankings. However, it is important not to neglect less rigorous methods of gaining inbound links. In the game on quantity versus quality, quality will usually win out, but it’s best to have both.
An excellent way to spread your links on the web is to locate newsgroups, forums, and other social avenues on the internet. Be sure that they allow links to be posted before going to the trouble, as that is the ultimate reason you will be contributing. Once that is out of the way, jump in as an active member. It doesn’t take much; one post per day to each of these groups with a few worthwhile comments on the active discussion will net you plenty without making you seem like an overzealous link farmer.
The style with which you link will ultimately determine how you are received in these societies. Unless your website is particularly relevant to the discussion at hand, just post the link(s) in the footer of each post. This is a commonly accepted method and shouldn’t throw up too many red flags. Remember, though, that search engines don’t care how prominent or enticing the links are. So, while advertising your link in fantastically large, bold letters at the top of each post my draw a few extra visitors, it won’t do anything additional in terms of SEO and may very well get your account removed from the site in question.
As always, don’t be surprised when these links take awhile to be counted. Individual forum threads, for example, rarely generate much PageRank. However, over the long run, the hundreds or thousands of posts you create can add a great deal to your rankings. Approach this exercise as you would any other link building strategy, namely, with consistency, and you’re sure to net a hefty increase in your site’s rankings over the long haul.