Those are the most natural types of links. Obviously, don't use a software to do this...I don't do forum postings because that takes up way too much time, but I regularly make blog comments on authority sites in my niche, I'm usually the first to comment and I get a bunch of traffic. These comments are usually my #1 source of traffic too.

Apart from blog commenting and forum posts, what is your strategy. Would you care to share?

I quite agree that forum commenting and blog posting may have been overused, sort to say, and that’s why they are now considered as spammy techniques (at least spammier than article submission, press releases etc.). Nevertheless, there are authority blogs and forums in almost any niche and if you take your time to increase presence there, then the SEO job turns into some kind of reputation management.

The point is that one should probably focus on commenting/posting on very relevant blogs/forums and if you make a valuable contribution to discussions there, then it’s nothing wrong with having a backlink from this post. I believe that there is a way to turn a range of SEO tasks into kind of promotion, increasing brand awareness and improving your online presence in general. For instance, think about blog comments and forum posts as an opportunity to create so-called ‘editorial backlinks’ – those placed within a body of text.

I also don’t really care about a link being either do- or no-follow, because they will diversify a backlink profile anyway. So, if you choose to make input to authority blogs and forums and leave (may be fewer) meaningful comments there, then forum posting and blog commenting are pretty good techniques for diversifying the backlink profile, as well as for building reputation.

There is nothing unnatural about them, but yes, you can avoid them altogether.

Not necessarily. If you leave comment on high-traffic nofollow'ed blog - the SEO value of it is zero, however it maybe a good traffic source for sometime and brand promotion provided your comment is indeed helpful and vaualble to the blog readers.



Content relevance is an SEO myth. Link quality is of unmeasurably higher importance, while relevance is irrelevant!

Content relevancy is a myth? What are you basing this on? Have you carried out test studies on this? If so, can you elaborate on this? I'm constantly busting my ass to create relevant content on my linking blogs, articles and web2.0s. If this is futile, then I could put anything on there and make my life a lot easier.

You need to be careful about these SEO tactics. It is actually a good strategy is used correctly. Only do quality comments on blogs which are relevant to your website and I mean make sure the comments are seriously good, not a load of spam like - Good Article.

In regards to forums, again make sure they are 100% relevant to your website and again do not spam the forum with unnecessary comments. Ensure you give a quality answer to a query that someone has posted or even provide a quality post.

However do not rely solely on these two techniques, you should be looking at the social side of your website as well as guest posting to relevant authority blogs with a quality article.

Cheers,
Neil

I have a few thousand forum post with sig. links, they're old post/links & they're defiantly in the same niche as my own sites & never spam. The niche forum traffic never stops, love it, wouldn't trade it for anything.

The trick (If you want to call it that) is to actually give people something they can use. I don't do articles so I'm not sure how that would work out, I know most folks around here are into articles.

What I've found is, If you know how to do something that has a learning curve (takes a lot of time to learn) then you have an advantage that will keep forum traffic flowing into your site. Everyone is noob at some point in their life, so they need help (bingo/traffic).

Here's a basic example. Say there's a job forum, thousands of daily unique traffic, you don't own the niche forum. So create a site with downloadable resume templates (download traffic is easy, lol). Prime the forum traffic by posting the free templates directly on the niche forum, no self promotion, no sig. links. Help out by answering relevant questions (be legit). Build up a good rep., then add the sig. link later. Keep answering legit questions on the same niche forum.

My point is, most people need help learning how to structure a job resume & the niche traffic is endless (everyone needs money/jobs/careers). The niche is also evergreen (never goes out of style).

So how would you monetize something like a free resume template site? You could have a resume writing service, use the free templates as lead generation traffic. You could use Adsense, or maybe your own product that breaks down how to create a great resume, interview tips, statistics (who's hiring in 2013?, or whatever). Make it a point to offer something good, because that's where the traffic comes into play by posting links for you, or telling other people what you have to offer.

As far as SEO, forums usually blow, most pages are low PR, most threads have pagination links that no other pages outside the thread link to.

Stick with same niche forums as direct traffic, give them something useful. If your one of those guys that walks around with his hand out asking everyone what can you give me, well, ignore this comment because building up repeat quality traffic doesn't work that way.

Nice tips...Yukon. Very interesting stuff.Thanks for the share

Everyone is always hammering down my throat the need for natural backlinking. My money sites provide local services, so I will never get leads through blog commenting. I just wanted to know if I need them to make my linking structure look natural or can I get away without it? Anyway, doesn't google turn a blind eye to back linking now, if you are creating good quality resources with which to link from? It's kind of like they know it will never go away but are now demanding those who do it, create link resources of high quality. Say if I had a blog network of twenty websites, all with great content focusing on different areas of a niche and linked this back to my money site, how would Google have an issue with this?

I'm not sure why you'd consider leaving legitimate comments (in other words, comments that you'd approve yourself) as spammy.

Also, forum posting is a GREAT way to drive really targeted traffic to your site or offer. I do it daily and it's still one of the best converting sources of traffic I've experienced. As with blog commenting, don't post junk just to get your sig / link seen and you'll be fine.

They are only spammy if you spam through them. Use blogs and forums to interact with people, help them when you can and build friendly relationships. If you can do these things, these techniques will only benefit you.

As few people here have said - nothing wrong with these type of links, actually these are one of the most natural links you can get.

So why not:

1. find blogs relevant to your niche and post good useful comment there
2. find forums relevant to your niche and offer tips, advice and info there.

Try to actually help people with your knowledge and you will be surprised at the response.

Blog commenting can be effective provided your comment is valuable. But we don’t recommend it. Aside from the reason that most sites are moderated, it is also time consuming. Deleted comments would cause negative link velocity and could decrease your rankings.

Thats just it, you know? Who actually posts websites or web20's or backlinks or comments other than for seo purposes? The whole google/seo'er thing has become a huuuuuuuge game of chess. Check. Check. Check. Check. Bloggers used to blog, now they facebook. Info sites used to be for just info, now they are for monetarization (except for the angelic Wikipedia). Google started with being the goto site for information, and now it has to constantly be trimming it's hedges. What was the original question? Oh well, no time, gotta go build some more backlinks, gotta stay ahead of the game!! :p