Wednesday, 2 March 2016

How About Adding a Slider to Your Website or Blog?

As you probably know, having great content is not enough to make your website or blog popular. You also need to have a modern and engaging design if you want to capture the attention of your visitors and convert them into regular visitors.
One of the most used design features these days is the image slider. It’s a great addition to any website because it allows you to display awesome images to your visitors with an interactive element, as the images rotate automatically or upon the click of your visitors.
If you are a WP user and want to display the content on your website in the best possible way, all you have to do is to install a WordPress slider plugin. Just select the info you want to display and that is it!
screenshot-5
Here are some of the features you will have access to:
– Responsive design
– Custom CSS support
– 38 layer effects
– 26 transition effects for Slider
– Navigation buttons and styles
– Video slide support
– Dailymotion, Instagram and Flickr embed
– Social sharing buttons layer
– Parallax effect
– Carousel effect
– Post slides
– Autoplay
– Layers (text, image and media embed)
– Hotspot layer
– Filmstrip support
– Right-click protection
– Timer bar
– Watermarks
– Slide duplication
WordPress Slider WD plugin is responsive and is sure to display your content at its best across all kind of devices. The slider is rich with numerous layer and transition effects, as well as enables you to display your slides using Carousel and Parallax effects. Fimstrip feature is another great way to show off your slides. Use text, image and media embedded layers to make your slides more functional and interactive, and give your visitors additional info adding hotspot layer to the slides. Image watermarking and right-click protection features will protect your images from illegal downloading and use.With CSS support feature you can add to the slider styling elements.
As you can see, with Slider WD plugin you will be able to completely customize any of its aspects, making sure that the slides behave exactly as you need them to. In fact you can create as many slides as you want and display them using the features that it provides.
A cool aspect about the Slider WD Pro plugin is that you can integrate it as a WordPress widget on the sidebars of your website, which is just a matter of dragging and dropping it into your theme. The Pro version also supports video slides and enables you to embed images from Dailymotion, Instagram and Flickr.
You’ll be able to add post slides to the slider, which will help your visitors to see the most successful and most read posts on your website up front, without spending too much time on finding them. If you want to enhance the reach of your posts and spread a word about your website social sharing buttons are there to help.
If you are not using a slider on your site yet, give it a try. To see all its features in action I encourage you to check the slider demo. It will certainly enhance the overall design of your website and provide a great user experience for your visitors.
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How Stellar Video Content Can Improve Your Blog

Every great blog starts with good quality written content that draws readers in and offers valuable information worth sharing. But even if you’ve found a working formula to keep your blog up to speed there are ways to improve it and offer visitors a better, more engaging experience every time. Adding good quality video content can help you to not only draw new readers in but also facilitate access to the information you are providing. There are many benefits to uploading videos on your blog but you should make sure to check a few essential boxes before posting video content in order to be sure that it is tailored to your readers’ needs.
Be concise
Any content that you create needs to manage to keep users engaged and often times less is more. If you’ve ever written a very long blog post that had great quality but failed to get a lot of traffic you know that you need to be as concise and to the point as you can in order to maintain reader interest. The same principle applies for videos so try to keep them as short as you can. Don’t skip on important information but make sure you don’t add unnecessary footage no matter how visually appealing or interesting it is. Editing your video to contain shorter scenes that quickly showcase the point you are trying to get across will help keep your users engaged and entertained and increase the chances your video has to be watched through and through.
Invest in quality
Every video blogger and Youtube personality will tell you that the quality of a video is one of the most important factors to determine the number of views it will garner. Users will more likely lose interest in watching a poor quality video simply because it is more difficult to follow so invest in the production process in order to create a video that is appealing and engaging. Investing in quality doesn’t mean spending huge amounts of money on expensive equipment but rather investing time in the production of great content, coming up with creative ideas that will interest users and editing it into an appealing format.
Get the music right
Adding music can help your video become more entertaining and interesting but you have to be careful when integrating it into your material. Make sure that it matches the theme of your content and is stimulating or engaging for the viewer. Don’t get in trouble because of copyright infringement and only use music that you have created or music that has a Creative Commons license. You can also ask artists for permission to use their melodies and credit them for it in your vide if they agree, which can be a win-win situation.
Make it accessible
One key feature of great videos that end up going viral is that they are accessible to a large, world-wide audience. Try to make your video content as easily accessible as you can in order to ensure that it gets more traffic and manages to reach a broader demographic. There are several methods that you can employ in order to make your video as viewer-friendly as possible. Adding online captioning can help you garner more traffic and make your content more accessible while providing translation for your video will broaden the audience that can view and follow your posts.
Exploit your creativity
Don’t be afraid to add your own unique twist to your videos and create content that represents your style. Just because it’s not written work doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t strive to make it your own. When you’re producing videos you can get away with crazy, whimsical elements that you couldn’t normally include in your written pieces since people watching love discovering video content that is out of the ordinary and showcases your creativity and unique perspective. As long as you are getting your message across clearly to your viewers the way in which you manage to do that is entirely up to you. Humor that anyone can grasp easily, a clean-cut format, a unique perspective and concise delivery are some of the most important factors to keep in mind when trying to create successful video content.
Avid reader, caring listener and freelance writer, Paul Groberts has been collaborating with Take1.tv for the better part of the last couple of years. Together with his wife,
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7 Tips to Supercharge Your Blog Growth in 2016

Do you know that a simple tweak to your blog can double, triple, or even quadruple your blog growth?
In 2015, I made slight changes to my blogging strategy and saw some massive results; for example, installing a simple plugin resulted in over a thousand extrasubscribers to my blog every month, and I was able to get hundreds of subscribers from several of my guest posts even when people were crying that guest blogging is dead.
With the right plan, you can supercharge your blogging and take your blogging from nobody to superstar status. In this article, I share 7 tips guaranteed to supercharge your blog growth in 2016; these tips worked really well for me in 2015, and I plan to use them even more this year. Enjoy!

Tip #1: Revise Your Guest Blogging Strategy

While many people claim that guest blogging is dead, I got thousands of visitors directly from my guest posts in 2016, and I got hundreds of subscribers each from several of my guest posts. In fact, I got over 1,000 subscribers from one of my guest posts. That was in 2015, when many people regarded guest blogging – especially for traffic generation – to be dead. Here are some of my tips to help you create a revised, effective guest blogging strategy:
1. Choose Your Target Publication Wisely: While I did a bit of guest blogging in 2015, my most successful guest posts were on blogs much bigger than mine: blogs like JeffBullas.com with hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors, ThePennyHoarder.com with millions of monthly visitors, etc.
The key to success with guest blogging lies in making sure you choose a blog that has an audience big enough to impact yours, and to ensure that the blog has an audience that will be interested in your blog because there’s relevance between the topic of your blog and that of your host blog.
2. Submit Resource Content as Guest Posts: I’m a huge advocate of publishing resource content, but I decided to take it to another level in 2015: I started submitting resource content as guest posts to other blogs, and the result was massive. Several of my guest posts had thousands of shares, resulting in thousands of visitors and subscribers to my blog.
Here are just a few examples:
Resource content can be very powerful. Imagine what can happen when you amplify the power of your resource content by publishing it on a blog much bigger than yours.
3. Implement a Content Upgrade in Your Guest Posts: I believe guest posting should always be a win-win situation: both you and the host blogger should benefit. Oftentimes, it takes significant effort to create a winning guest post, and one of the best ways to make best of this is by introducing a content upgrade inside of your guest posts. I did this in 2015, and the worst that happened was that editors of some of the blogs moved my content upgrade to the bio section. Even with that, those guest posts resulted in hundreds of subscribers.
Whether it is in your bio or directly at the end of your guest post, having a content upgrade will always lead to more traffic and subscribers for you. My student, Clement Lim, can testify to this: he started noticing an improvement in traffic and subscribers from his guest posts simply by implementing content upgrades in them.

Tip #2: Increase Your Blogging Frequency

For a very long time people have been debating whether it is better to publish content more frequently or to simply focus on publishing quality content whenever you feel like it.
If observing the successes of highly successful blogger is anything to go by, we realize that “blogging when I feel like it” does not a successful blogger make.
Seven-figure blogger Neil Patel gets over a million visitors monthly between his two blogs, and he hasrepeatedly documented that increasing blogging frequency led to significant traffic gains. This was also corroborated by data from Hubspot that revealed that blogging more frequently leads to more traffic, and that it’s better to publish 16 or more articles monthly.
If you want to grow your blog in 2016, you need to work on your blogging frequency.

Tip #3: Publish More Comprehensive Articles

Resolve to publish more comprehensive articles in 2016; gone are the days where you can just slap articles of 500 words on your blog to meet some content schedule. Various sources have shown that content length matters, and high-profile marketer Neil Patel has repeatedly featured studies to show that content length influences traffic and blog growth. Neil recommends publishing content no less than 2,000 words.

Tip #4: Create a Resource on Your Blog

In 2015 alone, resource articles resulted in hundreds of thousands of visitors to my blog; in fact, most of these visits came from resources I had published years ago.
The average article on my blog has a short shelf life, and traffic usually dies down within months of publishing an article. Things are different with resource articles, though: with every resource article I publish, traffic never dies. In fact, after some time, with almost all of my resource articles, traffic starts to pick up, eventually surpassing the traffic the resource generated when it was first published and heavily promoted.
Here are some good examples of resource content to inspire yours:
The above examples include resources from 4 different categories: writing, education, web hosting, and marketing. It goes to show that you can create a resource for your blog no matter your niche.
Here are some tips:
  • Identify a common pain point in your niche that people need a solution to
  • Instead of giving people tips to solve this pain point, give them a solution. For example, instead of telling people to do outreach to promote their business, give them several outreach templates that they can use
  • Make sure your resource content is specific; the more specific a resource is, the more likely it will spread.

Tip #5: Install the SumoMe App

If the only thing you can do this year is to install and properly configure the SumoMe app, your blog will thank you for it. In 2015, installing the SumoMe app resulted in thousands of extra email subscribers from my blog EVERY MONTH. Here are two key SumoMe apps I recommend installing:
1. The Welcome Mat: The SumoMe “Welcome Mat” shows a full-page opt in form that takes over your screen immediately people visit your blog. They can either cancel the form, scroll down to continue reading, or opt in to your newsletter. Usually, though, a good percentage of your readers will opt in; I get an average of 4.4% conversion rate, site-wide, from the Welcome Mat installed on my blog. For me, that’s over a thousand extra subscribers monthly.
Below is an example of a Welcome Mat in action – screenshot taken from Zac Johnson’s blog:
Zac Johnson Welcome Mat
Here’s a screenshot showing options I’ve gotten through my Welcome Mat:
Bamidele Onibalusi Welcome Mat stats
2. The Scroll Box: The SumoMe “Scroll Box” introduces an optin form that is triggered when readers scroll through your blog; you can configure your optin form to trigger after readers scroll to a certain percentage of your blog. Because the form is only triggered when readers scroll, it will only appear to engaged readers, leading to an improved conversion rate.

Tip #6: Create a Content Upgrade

I created my first content upgrade early 2015 and, thousands of subscribers later, it’s contributed immensely to the success of my blog.
I wrote an article here on DBT about my experience with content upgrades early last year, and, needless to say, it’s a strategy I’ll be leveraging for increased blog growth this year.
Here are some tips to help you with your content upgrade:
1. It Does Not Have to be Complicated: Most people fail to create content upgrades because they assume that it has to be complicated. No, it doesn’t. Most likely, people aren’t interested in your free 165 pages ebook. Instead, they’ll appreciate your short report, compilation of your best blog posts, a quick resource or tool, or even a video.
2. You Don’t Have to Create New Mega Content: The first month of creating my content upgrade last year, I got 700 subscribers directly from the content upgrade; within two months, I already had 1,200 extra subscribers. This wasn’t because I published new content that was a big hit; instead, it was because I updated existing content – popular content I published years ago – to feature my content upgrade.
Simply update some of your popular old articles to feature your content upgrade, and you’re good to go.

Tip #7: Ensure a Faster Website Experience

Research shows that 40% of people will abandon your website if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load. It has also been established that Google uses site speed as a ranking factor.
A slow blog can cost you half of your traffic. Having a faster website leads to better user experience, more traffic, and improved search engine rankings, and it’s one way to take your website growth to the next level in 2016.
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3 Ways to Replicate Your Competitors’ Backlinks

Are you lagging behind your competitors when it comes to your search rank with Google? Search algorithms are constantly evolving, and keeping up with them can be difficult. In fact, search engine optimization can pose a challenge for any company, necessitating knowledge of keywords, tags, content creation, and backlinks.
One of the best things you can do to boost your search ranking is to build backlinks to your site. In this article, we will explore how to shortcut the process by stealing backlinks from your competitors.
Why Backlinks Matter
Backlinks are one of the key metrics that Google and other search engines use to rank web pages. Google’s search algorithms are proprietary, but they do make certain information available to the public. One of the things that has a big impact on a site’s search rank is its authority – a measurement of how much value the page contains. When a reputable website links back to your page, it works like an endorsement. Google assumes your page has credibility when you have high-quality backlinks.
According to SEO authority Moz, the best kinds of links are those that happen organically. Editorial links – the kind that happen when an authority website or publication discovers your content and links back to it without being asked – carry a lot of weight with Google. However, links that you ask for can be almost as effective if you handle them in the right way.
Method #1: Analyzing Your Competitors’ Backlinks
A good way to build up quality backlinks in a hurry is to steal them from your competitors. That might sound nefarious, but it’s actually not. The word “stealing” does not refer to any wrongdoing. Rather, it is a description of a way to find opportunities for backlinks by analyzing what your competitors are doing and capitalizing on the data you find.
The first step to analyzing backlinks is to do a simple Google search for an important keyword. For the purposes of this exercise, you should start by writing down the URLs of the top ten websites that appear in response to your search.
Analyzing backlinks is relatively easy. One of the best free tools available is Mondovo. It allows you to plug in the URL of your competitor and view their top backlinks, anchor texts and broken links. It also gives you the option to filter by countries, IPs, C-class Ips etc.
Once you have a list of sites, you can check them out manually and consider asking those sites for a link. It can be helpful to visit the site and see what kinds of things they are linking to so you can suggest a page of your own.
Method #2: Evaluating Broken Links
One alternative is to take your analysis of the backlinks to the next level, and look for broken links. You can accomplish that by using the same backlink report that you generated previously. Just select all the displayed URLs and at the bottom of the screen, there’s a green button titled ‘Check Link Status’. Click on that and wait for the report to get generated.
mondovo
Once the report is generated, go to the same backlinks tab and click on ‘Filters’. Then under ‘Filter By’, enter ‘Link Status’ under Select the Field, ‘=’ (without quotes) under Type of Search and ‘Not Found’ under Criteria and then click on ‘Add Criteria’. Lastly, click on ‘Filter’.
Upon clicking on Filter, you will see the list of pages that have broken links.
Broken links to your competitors’ sites represent a golden opportunity for you. Once you have a list of broken links, you need to figure out what content used to be on those pages so you can replace it with new content of your own. To do that, you need to use a tool like the WayBack Machine – a website that stores archives of web pages.
Links can break for many different reasons. If a competitor changed their URL or moved their content, the link might be broken. They might also have removed the content, thus rendering the link unusable. Whatever the reason, the broken link is something you can use to your advantage.
For each broken link, follow these steps:
1. Look up the link in the Wayback Machine and read the content.
2. Decide whether the content is relevant to your website. Not every article you find is going to be something that you would want to have on your website. Remember, SEO is not just about keywords anymore. The quality of your content has a huge impact in your Google rank, so don’t take this step lightly.
3. If the content is relevant, decide whether it is something you can improve upon. It’s not enough simply to rewrite your competitor’s content. Your goal should always be to improve upon the original content. That means adding something new and unique. Examples might include:
a. Updating outdated content
b. Adding your unique perspective
c. Approaching the topic from a new angle
4. If the content is both relevant and something you feel you can make better, then go ahead and rewrite it and put it up on your website. It is very important to do this step first, before you reach out to the site that linked to your competitor’s page.
5. Email the webmaster of the page with the broken link and propose your new material as a replacement for the broken link. Include a link to your new content – this is why you need to write the new content first – and politely request a link to your page.
6. You may sometimes find that more than one backlink leads to your competitors’ defunct page. If that is the case, then it’s a good idea to email all of the sites with a request for a backlink. You can expect to get a decent success rate with this tactic, probably between 10% and 20%.
Method #3: Google Alerts
The third method you can use to replicate backlinks is to use Google Alerts to monitor mentions of your competitors online.
To set up an alert, go to Google Alerts. At the top of the page, you will see a search box. You can enter anything you want, including:
-The name of your competitor
-A chosen keyword
-A product name
Whichever option you choose, Google will sweep the internet and send you an email whenever the search term you have entered is mentioned. You can then visit the site where the mention was posted and determine whether it poses an opportunity for you to obtain a new backlink.
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24 Clever Ways To Get Backlinks To Your Blog

Blogging is becoming increasingly popular as a hobby, as well as, as a source of earning. Either you make a blog for earning purposes, or as a hobby, in both of the cases, it is important to get traffic. One of the most popular ways to get traffic is via backlinks. These are the links on other blogs, websites and forums which redirect to your blog. Here we will discuss some of the methods which you can use to get quality backlinks to your blog.
HERE ARE SOME WAYS FOR THE HARD-WORKING BLOGGER
1. Build up Great Content
Whatever you may do, you can never deny the importance of quality content. Try to write the best content with accurate information, facts and figures from the most reliable sources. People are attracted by content if they like the content, they will share your link and refer people to your blog, earning you some quality backlinks. Make sure the content is genuine and is not updated. People love the most recent content. To know how to write a popular post, read this guide here.
2. Get a “Link To Us” page
On popular websites, there is a feature of linking to the blogs of the same niche. If you are doing great work in your field, you can get a link to us page on a popular website. You can get such pages by reviewing some of their products or featuring their products in your posts. Such pages generally are good sources of backlinks.
3. Get in the Eyes of People By Networking
Post actively on various forums and cite your own blog as a reference. People use such forums as a source of infotainment. If you post sensibly using accurate content, this can get you quality backlink with traffic of the related niche.
4. Social Media
Social media is the best backlink platform of this age. Use the social media like Facebook, Twitter, PinTrest, Google+ and Youtube to get backlinks. Create a Facebook page, YouTube channel and Twitter Profile even before you start blogging. These are the chief sources of backlinks in the starts. Try to make these popular by getting as much likes as possible. Create captivating social media posts and link them to your blog. Present the posts in such a way that people are compelled to click on your link out of curiosity. You can use captivating pictures or catchy lines for that but remember never to disappoint the user.
5. Reveal Your Achievements
If you have achieved anything important in the field, share it with people on various forums. You can use the social, print and electronic media for it. People of this age follow facts and figures. Give them some facts about yourself to follow. When people come to know about your achievements in the Niche, they will follow your link.
6. Guest Blog
Look for the websites in your Niche which feature guest blogging. Go to them and write an attracting blog on your Niche. Once you have done that, link the blog to your own blog as the reference site. Guest blogs are one of the easiest and the most reliable ways of backlinks. This can serve as a good backlink too.
7. Find Unlinked Mentions
Find the websites which have mentioned you and not linked to you. Once you find such websites, email them thanking for mentioning you and ask them to link the mention to your blog. There are various tools on the web which can trace out the unlinked mentions of your blog on the web. This can be particularly useful if you are mentioned by a notable website.
8. Use Yahoo Answers
Many people use Yahoo Answers to get the answers of everyday problems. Answer the questions on Yahoo answers and mention your own blog as the reference site. If you do not know the answer, do research on the topic and then answer it but be authentic on the topic otherwise you will have a bad impression on the people and they may not like to visit your blog again Remember! If you satisfy a visitor, they come again otherwise, they do not.
9. Review Your Blog on Blog Review Forums
Blog review forums are the forums to review the blogs in order to make it easy for the new visitors to see which blog is a better one. Find some active blog review forums and post reviews to your blog on them. People often refer to such forums to discover some good quality bogs. You can get a lot of traffic from them. Do not forget to link them back to your blog. Again! Be honest.
10. Write Controversial Blog and Post your Link in a Forum
Controversial topics are fun and useful. They attract the supporters of both points of view. Write about the controversial topics but try not to be too partial about one of them as you may find yourself in trouble. Also if you are too biased towards one issue, the supporters of the adverse cause will start to dislike your page and never come to it again. Link these blog posts to your social media platforms and also on the forums related to your niche.
11. Compare the top people of the Niche
People are always interested in the top people of a niche. Write articles and posts related to them. For example if your niche is cricket, compare Sean Watson and Brian Lara or if you are writing on cars compare Brain O’ corners driving with that of Dom. But never give a final verdict. Leave it up to the reader. Giving a verdict may spoil your reputation if you are not right. People are interested in such things and share them with their friends on various forums. Such posts will serve as a natural backlink.
12. Get Subscriptions
Prompt people to subscribe to your newsletter when they come to your site. If they do, email them daily or weekly headlights with links to your blog for details. Depending on the way you have designed the emails and the time you send them to the subscribors, you can get a number of visits from the emailed backlinks. This can be a helpful way of getting quality backlinks.
13. Use .gov and .edu
You cannot really use them. You want to be an educational institute or a government agency to do that. You can use them in a different way. Link to them. Request them to link to your site. You can do so by sending them an email describing your services related to the educational field or chrity works. Google greatly regards such referrals.
14. Create a Wikipedia Page related to your Niche
Wikipedia is written by users like us. Make a Wikipedia page related to your niche. Provide some information on it and mention your own blog in the references. Even if there are pages about everything related to you, edit them and add your links in the references. People regard Wikipedia and the mentions on Wikipedia as an authentic source.
15. Write Posts like 10 ways to…
People are attracted to such posts as 10 ways to clean a car blah blah blah blah. You can also use lines like 10 greatest mysteries, 10 creepiest stories depending on your niche and what may attract the target group. Such posts, even if they are not much authentic, get shared on the social media very often and are a good backlink source.
16. Troll People
Trolls are awesome. Publish an article like “Samsung Bought Apple” This is absolutely wrong but such posts get shared too much. Please remember disclosing within the same post that this is a troll but in such a way that no one can tell that in the first sight. If you fail this, you can be sued by Apple or Samsung or both of them none of which will be a great idea.
17. Use Graphical Content
A small neat diagram is worth 10,000 words. It is a Chinese saying and is considerably true. Graphics attract people much more than the written content. Try to incorporate appropriate and related graphics in the content. It can be videos, animations, pictures and other things like them. People share them on various forums giving you backlinks.
18. Review latest products in your Niche
People are generally interested in the latest products in the field. If you are running a blog on cars, for instance, post a review for the latest Audi and refer to your site for all the information about cars. It does not matter if you have driven the Audi or not. You can read the reviews from various sites and develop an understanding on what the car will be like. In this way people interested in cars will automatically come to your blog.
19. Create a News Section
News is always a matter of interest for many people. Create a section with news to attract the visitors looking for the latest news on the niche. Try to update this section very often. Updated news gets shared on the social media readily and are a source of backlinks to your blog.
20. Use the Newspapers and Magazines
Yes you can use them. They often feature experts of various fields. You can contact the editor to be featured as the expert of your niche. (If you have a good enough blog they will agree readily). In your interview, you can mention your blog as the source of authentic information on the subject. There are many people in the world still taking newspaper as the best source of information. They will definitely visit the blog you mentioned to find out more on the subject.
21. Broken Link Building
Visit the websites of your Niche and look for broken links on them. Once you have found one, you can ask the webmaster to include the link of an article of your own blog. In this way the traffic from that site to that article will come to the same article on your site. The webmasters are also happy to agree to you because he is suffering the loss of traffic due to the broken links. So providing him the related link will be good for him too.
22. Photo Attribution
Google has a service of searching with photos. A photo can be uploaded and searched. If you are running a blog having a large number of photos, you can attribute the photos to your blog and people interested in them will come to you to find out what the photos are about. This is useful for people who are running blogs containing the photos mostly they have captured themselves.
23. Get Translated
This is important to make yourself more popular. Translating to your local language and that of some nearby areas can be effective as everyone cannot understand all the posts in English. Once you translate a post, you can post it like Read in Spanish “Audi A8 E-tron”. This will now attract the people who cannot read anything other than Spanish. If you are running a blog or website on a very large scale like the global scale, consider translating it to French Chinese and Spanish. Everyone does not understand English.
24. Compete With the competitor
This is a very good trick. If you are out of ideas of getting backlinks, you can use this and it works almost all of the times. Simply google out your competitor and see where is he listed. You can then use the same ways to backlink your own page.
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