Link Building with SXC

January 11, 2010 by Collin LaHay
Filed under: Guest Post, Link Building 

If you’ve ever needed images for a website or project, you may be familiar with the free stock photo website SXC.hu. The site is popular with many webmasters because of its 350,000 royalty-free photos, but it has a lot more to offer than great pictures: high PageRank backlinks.

Using SXC’s blog feature, you can get a number of dofollow anchor links to your site. Each blog post is made up of a title, a lead, and a body. The lead of each post is displayed on your profile page, so this is where you want to place the links. SXC profiles can range in rank from PR3 to PR6.

For an example, take a look at my profile page here. At the bottom, you can see where the links will end up. Because I have posted several photos and commented on numerous other images, my profile is PR5. I recommend commenting on other users’ pictures and submitting any good quality photos you have. This will increase the number of internal links to your profile. SXC is a very authoritative site so if you promote yourself internally, there should be no need to build external links to your user page.

Here are a few tips:

  1. After registering, go to “My Account / Blog.” You must preview your post before publishing.
  2. Use the code [url='site.com']anchor text[/url] for links. Remember, they must be in the lead section in order to appear on the high-PageRank profile page.
  3. Your profile page will show your latest three posts only. Plan accordingly.
  4. Your blog has a page, too. So you really get two links
  5. Be careful not to check “Recommend for front page” accidentally.
  6. You can go back and edit posts later to change a link.

On a final note, you can also post URL links in photo comments by simply copying and pasting the link. While it won’t have an anchor, the link will pass PageRank and is a good way to get a page indexed. One thing I like to do is use SXC images for my blog posts, go back to the photo, and post a thank-you comment with a link to my content.  SXC photographers (myself included) love to know where their work is being used.

This is a guest post submitted by Daniel Foster. He writes about the latest software and technology, including TurboTax Deluxe, on his blog.

Comments

16 Comments on Link Building with SXC

  1. USA Blog on Tue, 12th Jan 2010 5:52 am

    2. Thanks Daniel !

  2. Michael Erik of 2 Make Money Online dot ORG on Sat, 16th Jan 2010 2:51 am

    3. Excellent idea! Will this also work with a site like photoreflect.com? I imagine there are also tons of additional stock photo sites to try this with as an added inlinking bonus, plus sell your pics online with as yet another way to make money online for more than one way of monetizing your web presence.

  3. Woodstock Homes on Sat, 16th Jan 2010 12:19 pm

    4. Great tip, thanks Daniel. What a great site for new pictures!

  4. Hilarious video clips on Tue, 19th Jan 2010 12:53 am

    5. Great post! I am always looking for more free photos for my blog. Having links too is icing on the cake.

  5. searchbrat on Tue, 19th Jan 2010 7:21 am

    6. Nice tip, just one point. Does it take long to get your photos verified ?. I created an account, uploaded some photos and these are still pending. You can’t get a blog until you have photos verified.

  6. Woodstock real estate on Thu, 21st Jan 2010 7:49 am

    7. Same with me searchbrat. I have had photos pending for over a week now. Are they still running this site or is it dead?

  7. Daniel on Wed, 27th Jan 2010 6:19 pm

    8. Thanks for the comments. Unfortunately, I did not know you needed photos verified to use the blog feature. The site recently changed hands and approval times vary greatly. I’ve had images approved in 24 hours and sometimes waited 2 weeks. But seeing as you have to wait for PR to pass to your profile any way, it shouldn’t really matter.

    As far as quality of photos submitted goes, your picture needs to be professional. A simple photo of your cat won’t do it. Here are some rules for uploading photos:
    http://www.sxc.hu/help/4_1

    Keep in mind that this is a great opportunity for a really good backlink. It’s not often that you find a free PR5 link that hasn’t been spammed to oblivion.

  8. fitness on Tue, 30th Mar 2010 9:17 pm

    9. Great post! I like it

  9. Pete on Tue, 6th Apr 2010 9:55 pm

    10. A few weeks ago when I first read this article, I checked the PR of daniel437′s profile page that’s linked in the post, and it was PR5. Checked again after the last update in April, and it’s PR0. Still has 768 inbound links, according to Yahoo site explorer.

    Is this still a worthwhile strategy for getting a backlink with a high PR? Or did I check the new PR wrong? If I checked it right, what caused the huge drop?

    I actually do some amateur photography, so this seemed like a good idea and a fun chance to put some pictures online even if I didn’t make any money from them, but it’s a lot of work for PR that may quickly drop to zero even with massive (too massive?) backlinking work.

  10. Gifts on Sun, 18th Apr 2010 2:58 pm

    11. Hey Pete, his page is still showing as a PR5 for me, this still looks a great way to get some good backlinks.

  11. PhotographerMike on Thu, 13th May 2010 10:46 am

    12. Thanx, this is nice way to get site indexed :) For verification you can use any picture made by yourself with trees, and blue sky. It’s easy to take this kind of pictures using even cheap camera, little colour corrections in Photoshop, and photo looks professionally. Really. Blue sky and nice tree or group of trees. :-)

  12. Forest River Rv on Mon, 17th May 2010 10:39 pm

    13. Thanks Daniel for sharing great informative post. I like this new way for link building. Today i visited first time in your blog & after read your post i becoming a big fan of your blog. I have rad many blogs of link building & SEO but i never heard about this kind of link building technique.
    Thanks again for this info.

  13. Bruce on Wed, 19th May 2010 10:32 am

    14. Great post! I like it

  14. ayu on Sun, 23rd May 2010 9:29 am

    15. Great tip, thanks Daniel. What a great site for new photo?

  15. cheap shoes sale onle on Wed, 26th May 2010 1:33 am

    16. this is really great place to learn more seo skill and link building.thank you so much.

  16. Photo Contest on Mon, 12th Jul 2010 5:28 am

    17. Thanks for sharing such a nice and useful post. Thanks Daniel ! This is the new to build link for our website. I will be using it very soon.

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