Step 17 : User Profile

One of the more popular ways to get backlinks these days are through user profiles on websites.  There are no lack of sites that offer free user profiles. Another benefit is that many of these profiles are connected to powerful web pages, so Google will view a link from them, more favorably.

***NOTE*** One way Google values websites is by using it's “Google PageRank (PR).”  Installing the Google toolbar will let you see a webpages Google PageRank (PR).  I won't get into PR fully, but basically it is an overview of the quality and quantity of links pointing towards a certain page. Google ranks sites on a scale of 0-10, with ten being the highest rank. The higher the PR of a website, the more valuable a link will be from that site.

You can find many websites that are a high PR (6+) that offer profiles to users.  The profiles may be PR 0 themselves, but since they are connected to a high PR site, they are more valuable.

The key is how to find these profile sites. There are such a wide variety of these kind of sites, that no one method will encompass all of them.  Your best bet is to keep your eyes open for high PR sites and see if they offer a user profile. 

Most of these profiles will either have specific fields to fill out your links (like web directories) or else you will have to use the code we talked about in earlier lessons and post it in a space like an “about me” box.

To find these sites you can also do Google searches for “free profile backlinks” and there are some good lists available on tech blogs.  You can also purchase packets of these links from a service like Angela's Backlinks which costs about $5 a month.

You might consider signing up for this free service:  http://www.paulieciara.com/freeweeklybacklinks/   This service sends you 5-6 sites to get profile links from every month (usually).  They include helpful pictures to teach you how to get the backlinks.  That is the KEY!  You can only really learn how to find and create these links by doing it. 

***NOTE*** All profiles will need you to insert an email address.  Don't use an email address you use regularly.  Go to Gmail and create an account you will use just for these backlinks. That way you can avoid the spam.

To get you started, here are ten high PR sites that offer links in their profile:

www.ted.com
www.digg.com
www.linkedin.com
www.viddler.com
www.poynter.org/
www.newsvine.com/
www.fastcompany.com/
www.mixx.com
www.dailymotion.com
www.collegehumor.com
Action Item:

• Visit the ten websites above and create a user profile that includes your website link