If you’ve never heard of a link wheel, in a nutshell here it is… Several Web 2.0 sites linking to the “next” web 2.0 site and all linking to a “hub” (generally your main website or blog).
Here’s a diagram
Now, this is a traditional link wheel and while there is nothing wrong “theoretically” with this model, for some reason the all powerful Google feels that this process is “cheating” or spamming their system. So, while the concept still works and is valid in your SEO efforts, we need to change some things up a little.
Before I discuss what your “new” link wheel should look like let my give you the system to creating a link wheel.
Step 1: Create 6 – 10 Web 2.0 accounts
Before we move on it’s important you understand what I mean by web 2.0 here. To put it in as basic of terms as possible, I consider a Web 2.0 property anything that allows you the user to create content for the site.
The reason why this is beneficial to us, is that we can create content that is good and valuable, but that also links to our websites or blogs as well as our other web 2.0 properties.
Notice I said Good and Valuable, that’s the key. I’m not telling you to spend hours writing well researched articles, but I am telling you to not just publish junk.
Here is a list of good Web 2.0 properties you can use for this process. (Note: most of these sites have “follow” tags so they can pass on their authority to you)
While this is not every Web 2.0 site available it is a good starting point. You will want to set up an account for at least 6 – 10 of this sites (if not all of them).
Step 2: Build out each Web 2.0 property
After you have your accounts set up and you’ve confirmed your email. The next step is to build out your web 2.0 property.
You can see an example of one I did on Squidoo at http://Squidoo.com/onlineparentingtraining
You will see that it has content as well as links to other web 2.0 sites I’ve built, as well as links to our main hub, our home page.
Remember, the key here is that you don’t want to use the exact same content for each web 2.0 property and you are focusing on 2 -3 keywords or keyword phrases.
In the example I gave you the keyword phrase I was focusing on was Online Parenting Training.
You will note that we have around a 4% density of the keyword on the page. We have also used the keyword phrase in the Title as well as an image alt tag. In other words the same SEO principles apply to these pages.
Step 3: Create a “link wheel” between Properties
Once you’ve created your 6 – 10 web 2.0 properties all focused on the same 2 – 3 keywords or keyword phrases, you will want to have each property link to your main hub, whether it is your main site or your blog. You will then want them to link to ONE of your other Web 2.0 properties.
The key here is to NOT let Google make the connection that each web 2.0 site is linking to the “next site” in the chain (like the example picture above).
You want your links to be sporadic like in the example below.
You’ll note that Blogger doesn’t link to any Web 2.0 property and only to the hub. This is so we don’t “complete” the wheel.
You will note though, that each web 2.0 site links to our hub.
Step 4: Basic Marketing
After you have completed your “link” wheel you will need to do some basic “marketing” for each web 2.0 property.
Here’s what I would suggest:
| 1. | Bookmark your web 2.0 sites using SocialMarker.com |
| 2. | Submit your web 2.0 sites to several Directories using Free Directory Submitter software |
| 3. | Ping your web 2.0 sites using: Pingler.com, PingOMatic.com & Pingoat.com |
Step 5: Repeat the process
The last step is to repeat the process choosing 2 – 3 new keywords or phrases.
Again, the reason why we want to do this is for several reasons:
| 1. | These web 2.0 properties have very high PR. (example: Squidoo.com has a PR of 8 and has a do-follow meaning it can pass some of it’s “link juice” to your web 2.0 page as well as your hub page) |
| 2. | This is a FREE way to generate anchor text back links to your website |
| 3. | Because I said so…  |
I hope you found this post helpful…
Please post your reply and let me know your thoughts or how your Link Wheels are coming along.
No related posts.
6 Responses to Link Wheels… Do they work?
Leave a Reply
Hi Joe,
I’ve been using pinger.fm.com to do all my pinging. Should I change to the one’s you recommeded? Does it matter? If I ping something, the url is changed to a shortened ping.fm url. Does this take away any of my “link juice” or using bitly too
Thanks!
Robine,
Thanks for the reply. No, if you’re using ping.fm already and it’s working for you then great. My philosophy has always been, “if it aint broke, don’t fix it”. Keep up the good work!
Joe Hupp
Hi Joe,
Great explanation of how to create a link wheel. But I have a question…..when you build out a Web 2.0 site, like Blogger, is one post sufficient for each set of 2 – 3 keywords?
Thanks!
Don,
Thanks for the question…
I generally do more than one post but I make sure they are spread out. On sites like Blogger, etc the average posts I do are 3 – 4 and I spread them out over 1 month.
Also here’s an updated example of a Squidoo Lens that we did that got a Page Rank 2 and is ranked very high in Squidoo.
http://www.squidoo.com/the-concussion-epidemic
Hi Joe,
All a little confusing for me at the minute, just been listening to your vid about profile page rank, then found this page. Can you recommend someone to construct a link wheel for me?
Regards Nigel.
Nigel,
I would suggest going w/ a service like BacklinkBuildr.com. The “Full Speed Ahead” package offeres a 10 site link wheel each month.
If not a service like that I would use FreeLancer.com and post a project there to have a link wheel done.
Hope that helps.
Joe Hupp