Link Building With Google Ad Planner - Step By Step
July 7th 2009 8:30 AM
Categories: 
I first heard about Google Ad Planner from a post on competitive web intelligence on Avinash Kaushik’s blog. Something I haven’t seen discussed before is using it for building links.
Ad Planner is the best free tool I’ve used to identify the most frequented and relevant websites in any niche. Here is how to use it to identify the most valuable link building opportunities:
Let’s say I want to find websites in my niche that add value to my visitors, and would be a source of quality traffic. Here is an example of how I go about doing it.
1. Log into Google Ad Planner
2. Click on Search By Audience. This lets you specify your target audience.
3. Identify your target niche and audience by setting filters. In my case, it is an online marketing niche. Here are the settings I used:
A) Keywords Searched
online marketing, search engine optimization, social media optimization , web analytics
B) Geography
United States
C) Language
English
D) Demographics
Male & Female, Ages 18-54
E) Category
Business: Advertising and Marketing
F) Sites Visited
All
By changing these filters, you can target as broad or as specific a group of web as you would like.
4. Click on comp index to rank the sites from most to less relevant. This ranks sites from highest concentration of your targeted visitors and niche to lowest. The websites returned are those that people who fit your specifications in step 3 frequent. If you can get links from these sites, or even link to them, it will pay dividends, assuming your website is in fact useful for the niche you are targeting.
In this example, it is clear that my target visitors frequent SEOmoz, SEOChat, SearchEngineWatch, SearchEngineLand most often. These sites are high value to link to and obtain links from. I can easily refine my search to target a narrower, broader, or shift in my target niche.
Conclusion
You can use the Google Ad Planner to find the best websites to obtain links from or link to for any niche. The level of control and functionality is much higher than any free link building tool I’ve seen in terms of screening and selection criteria. It could be a very useful part of your strategy to build links, and send links.
Have you used Google Ad Tools to identify link building opportunities? What do you think of it? What are some other tools you use to build links?
