What is a Link Wheel?
Some of you may be asking, “What the heck is a link wheel?” A Link Wheel is a new, effective SEO strategy that is created by writing multiple articles on a specific subject that all link together to form a wheel. To construct your link wheel, you should include at least two links in each article. One link should point to the next article in the wheel, and the second link should point back to the website that you are trying to promote, which is called a “hub page.” The main web page is called a hub page because the satellite articles surround it to act like the spokes in a wheel that are connected to each other and are also connected to a central hub.
Any website can host your articles, but to get the most bang for your buck you need to use websites that are already established and that consistently produce high page rankings. Some examples are Squidoo, HubPages, Quizilla, WordPress, and BlogSpot just to name a few. These websites specialize in hosting short articles or blog type posts.
Okay, so now we know the definition of link wheels and how to build them. Now, how do we use them to their full potential? If you’re trying to promote a particular website then most likely you have already developed a set of keywords that most closely describe the content of your promotion site. Most often you can write one or two solid articles containing your keywords and then just rewrite them or spin them to basically make the same points and arguments, but that don’t say the same thing word for word. These supporting articles will make up the spokes of your link wheel and then they will link back to your promotion site or hub page.
After constructing your link wheel, you will need to make sure that its exposure is maximized. One very effective way to do this is to use social bookmarking sites. Social bookmarking sites are places where people go to construct lists of sites that interest them and that they want to bookmark in case they want to return to them later. These bookmarks are also viewable by other users, which can generate visits to your link wheel. The bookmarks are also easily indexable by web search robots. This will get your articles included in web search results, which is what you are ultimately after. This is the main way that a social bookmarking site can really help to drive traffic to the site that you are promoting.
The results of your link wheel vary depending on the exposure of the articles that construct them. Their exposure often depends on the strength of the keywords that you have selected and how they are promoted. If you have used strong keywords and maximized the exposure of your articles, you should start to see your sites show up in search results and hopefully increase in page rank in around 60 to 90 days. Link wheels take a little time to become established, but after that they can really start to pay off by driving traffic to your promotion site. Link wheels are a very effective tool for any long term SEO marketing strategy.
