Finding partner webmasters for getting backlinks to your webpages is one of the most challenging operations when it comes to Off-Page Optimization.

If building backlinks with submission directories, article directories and social media platforms is largely a matter placed on your own hands, getting backlinks from other niche related sites involves human interaction and success can be rare, especially if you’re new on business, with no authority and little value for veteran online marketers to share.

Nevertheless, there are some strategic aspects for finding link partners upon which I’m going to focus in this post.

Here is what we’re going to cover in the following lines:

1. General rules that must guide your link partners research campaign;

2. Where to look for one way backlinks;

3. How to sort out potential reciprocal link partners;

4. How to make my paid links invisible for Google’s senses.

Firstly, here are some…

General Rules when searching for Link Partners

> Focus on finding webpages with a maximum of 25 outbound links. As you know, a webpage shares its PageRank amongst all the outbound links.

Don’t thicken the raws of those 50 or more beneficiaries of a backlink from an authority webpage because it won’t make any difference in your PageRank figure.

> Make sure the webpage you’re targeting is indexed by Google or any other preferred search engine. The backlink from a page which doesn’t appear in the Search Engine’s index is worthless. You check this by accessing “cached” section in the SERP. Look for an index in the last three weeks; older than that is no good.

> Stay away from bad neighborhoods of online community- unless your niche market consists of adult or gambling websites, stay away from them, including link farms and webpages with spammy activities.

> don’t respond to impersonal link exchange proposals

> use multiple anchor text variations; when submitting to multiple directories, change your website’s title and description. Keep in mind that there is a -5 Google penalty associated with having narrow anchor texts pointing to your webpages.

Next…

Where to look for One Way BackLinks

As I mentioned in Hijacking Your Competitor’s Linking Sources, the best way to get quality backlinks is spying on your competition. The results will not always be complete and satisfying but, this is the best place to start researching.

I reiterate my recommendation for using Yahoo! Site Explorer to digg into our competition’s link building secrets, but if you want to get really focused I suggest you invest 47 bucks and get SEO Elite Software. With it you’ll be able to find exactly what pages are providing backlinks to your competition, what’s their PageRank, Alexa Ranking, whether there are no-follow/do-follow links.

After building your list of potential one way link partners, you have to contact them or create a link bait on their content pages. One way links, although more valuable then a reciprocal link, are hard to get because whenever you make a proposal, instantly the “what’s in it for me” question appears. If you’re met with a “NO”, try establishing a reciprocal link for mutual benefit. Note: before looking for niche relevant domain names to build backlinks from, exploit the top 50 article directories available. Better still get an edge with your article distribution by acquiring an article submission software to distribute your backlinks on hundreds of different domains.

How to sort out potential Reciprocal Link Partners

Reciprocal links come second after submission and bookmarking tactics as frequency of use when optimizing the Off-Page side of SEO.

There are many who initiate reciprocal links with spam emails and the ones who respond to this kind of approach are marketers with poor websites struggling with SEO.

The right way of finding reciprocal link partners

> search for link partners that are targeting keywords placed outside the first hundred. In this area the competition is not direct and you stand better chances of finding people who want to link with you.

> search for possible partner websites throughout submission directories such as Yahoo Directory, DMOZ, Best of the Web, Gimpsy and Search Sight. A great tool is SEO Elite.

> contact webmasters with content pages that provide complementary information for your readers; being in the same market doesn’t necessarily mean that you are in competition.

Finaly…

How to make your paid links invisible for Google’s senses

> buy only one link per page.

> use 5-7 variations of anchor text and make sure it’s congruent with your Page title tag.

> make sure there is themed content surrounding your anchor text.

> blend your paid backlinks into more natural links.

> you decide which keyword phrase will be the anchor text on the partner webpage.

As a rule of thumb, search for backlink partners that provide valuable content for your prospects. First build a solid reputation and your website authority will grow naturaly.

Please let me know if this post was of any help. leave your feedback in the comments area below.