It has been quite some time since I last visited an “SEO” related topic on my blog. However lately I have been looking and learning more about it and the changes the search engines have been making.

Today I want to discuss the top ways you should no longer be building backlinks in 2008. In a post tomorrow I will cover the top ways you should be building backlinks for 2008!

Lets get started…

Buying/Selling Text Links- Sometimes it seems as if people have been buying and selling links since the age of the dinosaur but fact is they have only been doing it for a short while. However the search engines found this problem early and pretty much put a stop to it this last year by hitting link sellers hard!

Its kind of like drug dealers, if cops just go after the users its pretty much a losing battle. But if they hit a seller who supplies the users on a daily basis they just took out the seller and the users in one shot!

Google has done the same by taking out link sellers when they can.

Buying links for your sites these days is tricky and down right dangerous, you don’t want to be caught buying links when google comes knocking on your door, trust me!

Social Bookmarking – I am not really sure why but people seem to have the notion that social bookmarking is a great way to get higher rankings in the search engines. While I will admit they are great for a short boost its simply impossible to stay on top with this method for very long.

Social bookmarking puts you into a relative category but not onto a relative website so your pretty much just spinning your wheels after the initial search engine boost (that will drop in a week or two).

Forum Signatures – This is another method that people seem to have a notion about that needs to be put down. Forum signatures will not help you get better search engine rankings unless your in a super small niche that is easy to overcome.

The main problem with forum signatures is its timely or expensive to buy signatures for the sole purpose of better rankings. If you read my “Maximizing your signature clicks” article you will see what signature links are really all about these days!

Link Trades (Reciprocals)- Link trading whether it be two-way or a three-way has been around for some time as well, the problem is the search engines can spot these right away. But don’t worry not all of you are in trouble for doing these, it really depends. Did you trade links with a relative website or a site about pickles?

If you are going to link trade at least do it with relative sites so it appears your trying to help the search engines provide good results for its users. Not just gaining ranks for yourself to make more money!

If you are looking to get more traffic to your blog then this is the post for you. In order to do this right you need to think like a visitor thinks, don’t understand? Not to worry, let me break it down for you…

When someone visits your blog what do they see? Perhaps a gorgeous wordpress theme, perhaps not? Maybe when they come in they are plastered with advertisements all over the place, maybe you don’t have any listed at all?

Whatever your visitors see will either make them come back or steer clear forever more. What I like to do is get my family to look over the site and see what they see because they are kind enough to list what they see so I can correct it or stick with the parts that work!

You could do the same, just ask your friends or family members. Now, you may be wondering what this has to do with traffic? Well tbh right this second im not sure but I will type it here once I know…

So now that you have some info as to what visitors see when they enter your site you can tailor your site to suite everyone’s needs and more then likely you will have some happy rss subscribing campers!

Thats the key really, the key to big traffic is return visitors. You need to somehow convince your readers that you are worth coming back to over and over again.

If you don’t they will find a blogger who does and they will be lost to you forever!

So I will now leave you with a question… What are some ways that you feel are good ways to get return visitors? We know now that its important but how do we do it? I would love to hear any of your input to the subject while I think myself!

I am sure nearly all of you have heard of UBD because of the infamous JohnChow blog of which his theme was created by UBD. Well UBD has now been open for business for 1 year and they are running a contest and giving out some great prizes!

Grand Prize- Brand New 8GB iPod Touch and One Copy of our New UBD Citrus WordPress Theme (coming next week). Three runner-up prizes include copies of our new UBD Citrus WordPress Theme.

How To Enter

1. For one (1) contest entry – just reply to this post with a comment. Only one comment per person will be counted.
2. For five (5) contest entries – write a blog post about the UBD 1-Year Anniversary Contest and link back to this post. If your blog post does not appear under the “Pingbacks,” leave a comment with a URL to the post.
3. The winner will be randomly chosen Monday, September 1st, 2008. UBB will draw the winner via streaming video from the UBD office.

Official Contest Rules

1. The contest runs from 12:00AM PST Friday, August 22nd, 2008 to 11:59PM Sunday, August 31, 2008.
2. Winners will be chosen Monday, September 1, 2008 through a random drawing.
3. Only one (1) comment entry per person and one (1) blog entry per person. The total number of entries any person can receive is six (6) entries.
4. Prizes include (1) grand prize of an Apple iPod Touch 8GB ($299 value) and three (3) copies of our new UBD Citrus WordPress Theme ($99 value) – coming next week.

Contest is open to everyone world-wide.  Once again congrats to UBD for a 1 year anniversary and I hope one of my readers wins! Later everyone!