This is a guest post by Kenneth Javellana. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guest post guidelines.
At the heart of every successful online business is good traffic. By that, I mean traffic that is high in both number and quality. You already set up social media accounts for cross-promoting your website. Basic link building techniques like blog commenting, forum posting, participating in guest posts, and link exchange are quite familiar to you as well. As a matter of fact you constantly do them to keep the traffic flowing. With everything set in place you can now move on to link wheels, a more advanced way of attracting high-quality traffic. Although its effects are not immediate, a link wheel proves to be beneficial for any online business.
The concept behind it
A link wheel consists of a set of websites with links flowing from one to another. These links will close in a circular pattern. In the middle of this pattern is your website. All other sites should be linking to it. Below is an example of a basic link wheel.
Now ideally, you should use Web 2.0 sites and link them towards a main website. Web 2.0 sites could be blogs, social networking sites, photo-sharing sites, or video sharing websites – anything that promotes interaction. The purpose of building link wheels is to dominate the web with content. In turn, that will increase your brand’s visibility on search engines and the amount of traffic that flows to the target website. Web 2.0 sites also help to ensure that you bring in quality traffic to your website. Of course, proper implementation of a link wheel is necessary. All elements of a link wheel need to be related to the products you are trying to sell or the theme of the target website. This will increase chances of conversion and decrease your bounce rates.
There is no specific pattern when creating a link wheel. They can be made as simple like the illustration above or complex like by setting up separate blogs which Web 2.0 properties link to before linking back to your website. When planning to create a link wheel, just remember to stick to a pattern and use a variety of Web 2.0 sites. A Web 2.0 site must never be used more than once in a link wheel.
Benefits and uses
The main purpose of a link wheel is to generate traffic that is both high in number and quality. Where this traffic leads is entirely up to you. Internet marketers commonly use Web 2.0 properties to generate traffic for their websites. However, other business models also use it to strengthen their social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. A link wheel can therefore be used as an internet marketing strategy or as a social media strategy.
Now before you create a link wheel out of whim, look into your business model and analyze what you need the most. Is it traffic that you need or do you want to multiply your followers on social networks? Clearly define what you want to happen so that you can create an appropriate pattern. Slowly build your link wheel over an extended period of time to make it look natural. Once set up, give it some time and you will slowly find yourself nearing your goal.
This post was prepared by Kenneth Javellana. During his spare time, Ken enjoys writing articles that tackle SEO techniques and tips on blogging. He also writes for his business at BroadbandExpert.com, one of the top internet providers.