Wikipedia is become the number one resource for almost anything. More and more people are using wikipedia as a reference and it has even become normal to search wikipedia instead of Google. I do not like the fact that people are trying to spam the wikipedia however I do understand that Wikipedia is a key source of quality traffic.

Even relevant links to commercial web sites will often be removed and classified as spam. The nice thing is that you don’t need a back link from Wikipedia to have Wikipedia generate a nice amount of traffic for you. Here are some alternative methods that I am successfully using:

1. Indirect links. Links to online news sources, other wikis, scientific papers, universities, government pages and similar links are normally very sticky in Wikipedia. The key here is to place links, where appropriate, to web pages that link your web site, or even web pages that mention your websites, your company name or your products.
2. Images. Upload images to Wikipedia or Wikimedia, and mention your URL in the description. You could also release the image on the condition that a hyperlink must be included to your site. This is my key source of live Wikipedia back links. Even without a mention of your website or product name, an image could still be very powerful. You could even watermark your image so that your URL is clearly visible in the high resolution version of the image.
3. Comment pages. Yes, people do look at them! Even though the links on these pages doesn’t carry any ranking juice, they could bring in traffic. Sometimes it is not appropriate to link to your site, but you could still mention it, or mention your products. When adding a link on a comment page it is best to combine it with a question? Comment pages are a nice traffic source.
4. User pages. With in reasonable limits you are allowed to edit your user page the way you like. With the rel=”nofollow” on the links they will not help your search engine ranking, but user pages could rank well. Choose a username from one of the low (or medium) competition search phrases and sign up. Then edit your user page in a way that will attract users to visit your website. It is best to get as many links to your user page as possible.

[tags]wikipedia, traffic building, online visibility[/tags]