Hey guys,

In this post, I want to talk about completely free advertising techniques that you can use to generate visitors to your website, whilst simultaneously building backlinks.

Backlinks are links to your website from other websites on the Internet and you can make your website achieve higher rankings in Google by increasing the number of backlinks to your site. To achieve ultra-high Google Rankings, you’ll also need a few high quality backlinks from websites that Google considers to be high in authority (a topic I’ll be leaving for a future post) – in this post, I’ll be concentrating on getting lots of easy backlinks from low-authority sites (quantity over quality).

No doubt you’ll already know and be using some of them already but I hope you find something in here that’s new to you. If you have any other backlink-building methods you’d like to share, please tell us in the comments section below

The original format of this list was first written for one of one of my businesses (Dutton & Co) and was entitled 40 Kickasstastic Ways to get Backlinks – I have since amended it and cut some bits out for use here on my blog – however, you can grab a copy of the original report by signing up to the Dutton & Co Internet Marketing newsletter.

I should also mention this is not a post that will hold your hand and tell you exactly how to do it. I have a lot of pride in the quality of my readership because you’re all intelligent folk, so I expect you to be able to grasp the idea and do a little research, due-diligence and legwork yourself before you put the it into practice.

Saying that, if you do have any questions, feel free to ask

So without further ado, hold onto your hat because here’s my 30 Totally Free Advertising Techniques:

1. Awards – Give out awards to webmasters in your field such as best website or best new website. Send them an image of trophy and some text (with your backlink) that they can proudly display on their website.
2. Local organisations – If you do work in the community such as volunteer work or work for your local church, ask the webmasters of the organisation’s website’s to link to yours. Most will do so as it shows their appreciation for your help and costs them nothing.
3. Software repositories – There’s loads of free software directory websites out there and each piece of software links back to the the developers website. Create a new piece of software using your website content (executable PDF, screensavers etc.). You’ll need to create a PAD file (research this). Use software such as Robosoft (free trial) to submit your freeware to loads of repositories at once.
4. Website valuations – You know those websites where you type your website in and it tells you how much it thinks its worth? Well they’re usually crap at valuations but good for backlinks because many of them create a page on their website for your websites address. They aren’t permanent (unless you keep visiting them) but are a nice easy way of getting a few temporary backlinks and letting the search engines know about your site. Examples include Surcentro and Cubestat.
5. Testimonials – If you use a product or a service and you think it’s good, send the business a testimonial they can use on their website. Include your name and website URL, of course.
6. The BBC – Some high authority websites such as the BBC don’t mind you commenting on their website with links (providing your website doesn’t look too spammy). If your website is new, don’t put any ads on it yet and get a few links from BBC and suchlike. A few weeks later when the story has been forgotten, you can put the ads on your website.
7. Article marketing – write articles, include your link at the bottom and submit to article directories such as ezinearticles, goarticles and articlesbase. Use an automated article submitting tool to submit to many directories at once. Use article spinners to re-word an old article into a brand new one.
8. Blog comments – Leave intelligent comments on high quality blogs you like (and even ones you don’t).
9. Forum posts – If you regularly contribute to forums, make sure you include a backlink in your profile and your signature. Even if you don’t regularly contribute, still add your link to your profile.
10. DMOZ – In my experience, the Open Directory Project isn’t as great as it used to be and it can take ages for your link to be published (if at all) but it only takes 2 minutes to submit your link and you might get lucky, so it’s worth a shot.
11. Directory submissions – Submit your site to other big directories, directories related to your industry and directories related to your geographical area. Use automated programs to submit to loads of directories at once. Examples include Google Places and FreeIndex.
12. Squidoo lenses – Squidoo allows you to create webpages about any subject and you can link back to your website from them.
13. Hubpages – Hubpages is very similar to Squidoo – create a quick page & link back.
14. Youtube – Record yourself talking about your website for a few minutes and upload the video to Youtube. You can add your link in the description box (they are nofollow links but in my experience, they can still affect your rankings, but even if it doesn’t, there’s so many people using Youtube the potential traffic you can get if you spend a little time promoting your video can be very high).
15. Guest posting – Bloggers are always wanting to increase the content of their websites, but sometimes don’t want to do it themselves. Offer to write a post for them and include your link within the content.
16. Press releases – Write a press release about the launch of your website or even the launch of your software and submit to PR websites such as free-press-release. Some of the big ones you have to pay for but some are free. Make sure you learn how to write a proper press release to avoid rejection.
17. Social bookmarking – Bookmark your website on social bookmarking websites such as delicious and tagza. Use SocialMarker.com to quickly whizz through them. Have your friends vote your link higher
18. Social News – Similar to #15 but news instead of bookmarks – sites such as digg, reddit and stumbleupon.
19. Internal Linking – It’s often neglected but linking to your own content from the same website is a great backlink to have. Make sure you do it with the content itself rather than via navigation and sidebar areas. I have a small website that has a Google pagerank of 3 on the homepage and many of the subpages have a Google pagerank of 2 when the only backlink they have is from the homepage.
20. Link exchanges – Swap links with other websites that have a similar traffic volume, complement the offers on your website and aren’t competitors.
21. Ask for backlinks – Find websites related to your field of expertise and ask for a backlink. They can only say ‘no’ after all – and if you don’t ask, you don’t get. Be nice, complement them on their website and tell them that their visitors may also be interested in some free information you provide on your website.
22. YAHOO! Answers – Answer questions on YAHOO! Answers and cite your website as the source. They are nofollow links, but in my experience that’s doesn’t make them worthless. You could even get two accounts and ask a question with one and answer it with another (people don’t really do that, do they? lol).
23. Google Groups – Participate in Google Groups – similar to YAHOO! Answers.
24. Wikipedia – If you’re offering some awesome unique info about a topic, add your link to Wikipedia. Or even create a new Wikipedia entry about yourself, your business or your website. Again nofollow links, again they’re not worthless.
25. Craigslist – Put a classified ad on Craigslist. Not as powerful as it used to be but I still use this tactic from time to time.
26. Create more websites – If you don’t own any more websites, make some. They’re cheap to set up, promote them and before too long you’ll have your own network of websites to get backlinks from.
27. Website templates – Design a kickass website template or WordPress theme and let people use it for free. Upload it to free template websites. Make sure you include a backlink to your website in the footer as credit for your work.
28. Website Apps/Plugins – Similar to templates, create useful plugins, apps, modules etc. which include a backlink to your site.
29. Social Networking – Twitter, Facebook, MySpace etc. – perhaps not great for backlinks but great for traffic and the more people that are aware of your content, the more chance there is of someone giving you a backlink.
30. RSS Aggregators – Submit your website’s RSS feed to RSS Aggregators.

Okay, so there you have it. My 30 totally free (and sometimes overlooked) advertising techniques.
I’ve used all of them at some point or other, but from my experience (and this is my bonus 31st technique) the single best way of getting quality backlinks is:
31. Create top-notch unique content!
Not only does this attract natural free links from all over the Internet, it also gives you a much better
chance of being linked to by a big authoritative website.
By making great content, you’ll get great backlinks, which will, in turn, give your website high authority with the search engines. When you have a few big websites to your name, you can quickly make your other websites more authoritative by linking to them.
This is what all the great Internet Marketers do – and you can too but it does take time and effort. That’s not to say that you can’t make a quick killing using the other backlinking methods, but it all depends on the keywords you choose to target and the competition for those keywords.

Shortcuts are available but there is an element of luck involved, too.
If a big Internet Marketer is targeting the same keywords as you, then chances are you’ll lose the rankings war because the big marketer will dominate the niche by backlinking from their authority domains.
Occasionally you may find an undiscovered market with little competition and dominate it yourself but the key to long-term sustainable success is to own high authority domains yourself – then you have the power to increase the rankings of your own smaller websites.
So many beginner Internet Marketers make the mistake of making websites solely to make money. Please understand that if you want big success then you must create (or buy) authority domains as well as creating your money-spinning low authority sites.

This takes time (if you build from scratch) or money (if you buy) but once you have your own network of quality authoritative websites, you can then compete in the big competitive markets, which is where the big money is.
Well, that’s it. I hope you enjoyed the list and learned something from it. And, again, if you have any other backlinking tips and tricks,please leave a comment below