Link Request Strategy – Pretending Your Human

Posted on Oct 19, 2009 by Rick to SEO

Cartoon courtesy of WittyComics.com

As an SEO and webmaster, I get a number of emails each week asking me the same silly question, “Will you please link to my website?” And honestly, I read every single request for one very selfish reason- I want to see if other SEOs have come up with clever ways to request links from strangers. Almost always, I am disappointed.

In the past, the SEOs at SEObook and SEOmoz have written pretty solid posts about constructing effective link request letters and also avoiding common mistakes. They list a few guidelines that can go a long way:

• Send link requests only to relevant websites – Seems obvious, sure. About 3 people a week mess this one up and ask me to link to their auto parts e-commerce websites.
• Personalize the link request – If you actually visit the website from which you are requesting a link from and take time to learn a little about it, you can make mentions of the website’s content, tools etc. in your request. This will show the webmaster that you’re actually paying attention and that you care about his/her content.
• Be professional – Show respect to the recipient of your letter and clearly explain your proposition. Don’t make up stories about google magic and improved search engine rankings. Just be straight-forward and honest.
• Add value – Will the webmaster that you’re contacting actually benefit from adding a link to your website? Do you really have content that their visitors will find useful? If not, don’t waste anyone’s time. The Web is already full of garbage, please don’t add to it.

While there is no one right or wrong way to request a link (even the worst requests probably yield some results), there is a general rule that can be followed to ensure better requests-

BE HUMAN! When constructing a link request letter, pretend you’re going to actually have to read it to the webmaster that you’re sending it to. That’s right, pretend you are going to have to approach this individual on the street, at a convention or in a bar and actually request the link in person. The point of this exercise is to help you gain perspective of how good or bad your request actually sounds.

For example, if you run a website which sells red bunny rabbits, would you really walk up to the webmaster of a sports-related website and ask for a link? Or, would you feel like a complete ass in doing so?

The shotgun approach of mass link requests through email is not only ineffective, it also contributes the garbage which fills the Web around us. Stick with a “human” approach to link requests and you can’t go wrong.

Tags: link building, rants

4 Link Building Techniques that You Haven’t Tried

Posted on Oct 31, 2008 by Rick to SEO

In an increasingly-competitive search environment, it’s more important now than ever to have a solid strategy for building quality links to your website. Inbound link quality and count still seems to be one of the most influential factors in determining search rankings. Many of the traditional techniques used for building links, such as article marketing and link exchanges, are still pretty effective and important to an SEO campaign. To gain a competitive edge, however, one has to be creative and adapt new ways to attract quality links. Here are four link-building strategies that you may not have tried.

Contests
Both online and offline, contests have always been a good strategy for creating buzz around a brand, product or business. Consumers love opportunities to win free stuff and are usually attracted to contests. Next time you’re running a contest, promote it on popular contest promotion websites and social networks. Attractive contests are viral by nature and word of them can quickly spread across the blogosphere. If you’re contest is unique enough, you may get a lot of press from this strategy.

Guest blogging
Guest blogging is when a writer posts to another writer’s blog. There are many incentives for guest blogging including; increasing exposure, monetary compensation and of course, backlinks. Contact bloggers in your industry or in related industries and offer to write a good article for them. In exchange, ask for a link back to your website. It may take a little work to form a good relationship with blogging partners, but it will be worth the effort if you can acquire a link and traffic from new blogs.

Job Fairs
College job fairs are not only a great place to find new talent for your organization; they are also a good place to find quality .edu links. Most colleges and universities promote upcoming job fairs online, often linking to the websites of employers who are sponsoring the job fair. If you’re organization recruits new college graduates on a regular basis, be sure to follow-up with the organizers of these events and make sure you’re getting a link back to your website. Sometimes, all you have to do is ask for a link. From the perspective the search engines, .edu links are a strong indicator of the importance of a website. While it may not be feasible to attend these events just for the purpose of gaining a link, it is worth a little extra effort to get a link if you’re already attending.

Charities
Links from non-profit organization websites can be great because many of these sites already have strong trust. Do you regularly donate to any charities, non-profit organizations or foundations? If so, make a phone call and see if they’ll link to your website as thanks for being a supporter of their organization.

Oddly enough, some of the best links you can get won’t come from your online efforts. Your actions offline, such as involvement in charities, professional organizations, etc., will provide the best opportunities for high quality links. Take a minute to ask yourself or your clients what they are doing in the ‘real world’ that might provide a linking opportunities online.

Tags: link building

Link Building Resources

Posted on Sep 6, 2008 by Rick to SEO

Since link building is such a critical process, it’s no surprise that there is so much hoopla over what the ‘best’ and ‘worst’ strategies are. I’ve put together some link building resources below that can help SEOs of all skill levels. Every time I get stuck for link building ideas I take a look trough some of these lists and always get something new. There’s always a fresh approach and I’m sure that at least one of these resources will give you some fresh ideas.

* 131 (Legitimate) Link Building Strategies from Search Engine Watch

* 101 Link Building Tips to Market Your Website from SEOBook.com

* 17 Creative Link Building Ideas from Search Engine Journal

* 5 Rare & Valuable Link Building Tactics

* The Link Building Rap from YouTube.

When all else fails, research where you most successful competitors are getting links from and go after those links. It’s a tedious process but will pay off. Link building can be a tedious process but unfortunately, it’s also one of the most important processes in SEO. Happy hunting…

Tags: link building

Building Links by Marketing Quality Content – Back to the Basics

Posted on Jul 21, 2008 by Rick to SEO

There are many different approaches to effective link building, many of which are effective under the right circumstances. Some approaches will provide instant and measurable results. For example, submitting a website to a niche directory may provide a link once the website is submitted and/or paid for. Other approaches, while you don’t always see immediate results, can create a steady stream of inbound links over time.

Creating Quality Content
Time and time again we hear that ‘quality content is king’ when it comes to improving website visibility and rankings. Creating quality content can mean anything from writing a great article or creating a great online resource to building a helpful application free for others to use. The more quality content you can produce; the more there is for the search engines to digest.

Another big advantage of producing quality content its’ tendency to increase the number of inbound links to your website. As other webmasters and bloggers find content you’ve created; some may find it useful enough to link to from their own website or blog. The search engine logic of assigning so much value to inbound links is rooted in the very concept that good, useful content will attract links.

Marketing Quality Content
The ‘build it and they will come’ philosophy doesn’t always apply when trying to gain exposure to content. While it’s possible that others will stumble-upon content you’ve created, sometimes it doesn’t hurt to help this process along. Here’s what you can try:
1. Write an interesting, informational and unique article related to your niche, create a useful application, or compile a useful resource on a topic relevant to your website.
2. Submit a link to your new content to websites like Digg, Technorati, Stumbleupon or other similar websites. Here, you’ll be presenting your content to peers for review. If they like it, you’ll receive votes and more exposure.
3. Visit forums where people interested in your content may visit. It’s important that you’re an established member of this community before posting. You’re reputation in the forum will make you suggestion more trusted by those in the community. If you’re not a member of any relevant forums, get going now. Social media marketing is always easier when you’re already apart of the social scene.
4. Make it easy for your website visitors to recommend the content to others. This can be accomplished by adding a ’send to a friend’ link or by adding links that make it easy for visitors to recommend your content to the popular social networks like those listed above.

As I mentioned at the beginning, this particular method of link building can take time. Don’t worry if you’re content didn’t shoot to the top of Digg on the first day. The important goal here is to get your content as much exposure to the right people as possible.

The main benefit and what makes this such an effective link-building technique is that this is the link building technique that keeps on giving. As time passes and your website attracts more visitors, you’ll have more opportunities to build links without any additional effort. If you’ve provided truly great content, you’ll hopefully continue to periodically receive links to your website.

Tags: link building

Effective Link Building Tactic – Syndicate Your Content

Posted on Jul 10, 2008 by Rick to SEO

Article syndication is one of the most effective link-building tactics you can use in your SEO campaign. The goal of this tactic is to distribute articles that contain links to your website to many other related websites.

To be effective at this tactic, you need to start with by creating several well-written articles. Your articles should contain valuable information about a topic related to your website, have entertainment value and must be interesting to read. They should also be free of spelling and grammatical errors. Be sure to include at least one keyword-rich link back to your website in the article body or in the by-line or author information area.

Once you’ve written a few articles, you need to seek out other websites that are interested in publishing your articles. Finding interested websites can sometimes be the most time-consuming part of content syndication.

You should start by setting up an account with a popular article directory or two. An article directory is a great place to publish your article because they get a lot of attention from the search engines and from other website owners who may want to re-publish your article. Many article directories also rank well for popular keyword phrases, which may mean great exposure for your content.

You can also search for bloggers or other websites that write about the same topics that you have. Some of these may be willing to post one or more of your articles as a guest writer. The advantage for the blogger or website owner is that they get to add great content. The advantage to you is that you get a link back to your website.

The key to article syndication is to create really good content which makes it easy to get others to re-publish. Spend a little time on the effective link building tactic and the results will make it worthwhile.

Tags: link building

Link Exchanges Don’t Work, Make Them Work For You

Posted on Feb 19, 2008 by Rick to SEO

I usually enjoy the SEOptimize blog a great deal, but I was sifting through my RSS reader today and noticed a post from Patrick Altoft that I couldn’t agree with less, ‘Link Exchange in 2008′.

I am not sure if I disagree with the blog as much as I disagree with what was left out of the blog.

I agree that exchanging links with similar sites is a great way to kick off the link building process for a new site, but I think if you do so in the traditional reciprocal fashion your labor will be fruitless.

The issue goes beyond the buzz word, link juice.

The real issue here has to do with what used to be called supplemental results. Links coming from these pages are worthless, even if they only have a few outbound links, because they are not likely to get continually indexed. Your link is worthless on a supplemental page, and that is the true problem with exchanging links. In fact, link exchanging is the reason the supplemental index was created.

Perhaps you believe that the supplemental index went mainstream, perhaps you believe it never did. Either way one thing is clear, if the page isn’t getting hit by the spiders your link is worth less than nothing.

It is a loss, due to your time and effort.

So, onto the possitve.

How do you go about making sure your exchanged link is worth something?

• Find a page on the site you are getting the link from that has been cached recently (use SEO for Firefox) and ask for the link placement within the content of that page.

• Create a custom piece of content, with your link embedded, for the site to attach directly to a page that has quality link equity and few outbound links. Make sure the page with the link equity has also been cached recently and is not a part of the supplemental index.

• Guest blog.

These are only a few ideas, and obviously each will need to be reciprocated for the exchange to be complete.

This takes me on to my initiative for 2008, social link building.

No, this has nothing to do with social media, but it has everything to do with human interaction.

For 2008, I plan on creating human to human connection with as many people in my perspective markets as possible. Publishers, bloggers, marketers, and property owners of all kinds. By creating these connections, I feel I will be able to guide my links to quality locations on sites and not have to deal with my coveted content and link lying on a page with the URL www.yoursite.com/links.php; which is nothing more than a kick me sign on the back of a web site.

By creating these connections, keeping links embedded in content, and creating other quality inbound links in a well balanced portfolio, link exchanging can be a good tool. However, going about it blindly could be a waste of hours upon hours of link building labor.

And I don’t know about you, but I’m already working 25 hours a day.

Tags: link building

Getting Linked

Posted on Feb 11, 2008 by Jonathan to SEO

A guaranteed method to boosting your visibility on the web is by link building. When I say link building, I’m talking about quality link building. Anyone can chuck a handful of links at sites like del.icio.us or Yahoo Answers or Wikipedia, but those are typically sources of constant updating and offer only temporary traffic. To stand against time, you’ll need to invest time, and as the saying goes, “Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight.”

The Basics

In ‘There’s No Such Thing as a Worthless Link’, Debra Mastaler lists off a short set of guidelines by which she follows to build rank-influenced links:

- Place links on indexed pages.
- Look for web sites with strong established inbound link patterns.
- Use multiple variations of anchor text and point to optimized pages.
- Hyperlink whole sentences using associated text and keyword anchors when you can.
- Use online advertising venues with offline counterparts for keyword association and branding.

Not too much of a hassle, right? Well, you can’t go around peddling a link unless you have content to sell. It’s a topic that brilliantly segues into the key to offering an appealing link—good content. If that’s a sparse and malnourished side to your site, then the only sources that are going to want to link you are the ones you won’t benefit from.

Do Your Research

Where you need to be directing your link-building campaign toward are Authority sites; those that rank well for a set of keywords, are influential and high-profile, and your competitor’s websites. Make contacts with those “Authorities”; do your research and find out who is linking them and make even more contacts. It will feel a little like the first day at a new school, but if you’re serious about it, you’ll do it and it will prove beneficial in the whole scheme of things.

How to Get Linked

It is safe to assume that many high-profile sites receive a slew of link requests, so to stand out you should have an incentive prepared; something along the lines of a discount for a product, an offer to reciprocate links, or even blog you’ve written about the contact, prior to your request. It’s all about attention, and webmasters love nothing more than seeing their names hyperlinked.

Summary

Link building, procuring links that will actually mean something and drive attention to your site, is a process. There is no getting around it. It requires a proportionate combination of content and the available resources to invest into researching your competition and making that first contact.

Tags: link building

Quick Way to Make Extensive Link Partner Lists

Posted on Oct 30, 2007 by Rick to SEO

Getting people to link to your site is the most important thing you can do in terms of SEO. Creating quality content, and a site people will want to visit are the first steps to getting those links, but sometimes you may also need to ask the webmasters for them.

The difficulty here is who? and how?

There are several techniques to asking for links. You could trade content for links, reciprocate links, or engage in three way linking, but for our purposes we will just say that we are going to straight up beg for them.

After you have figured out how you will look to attain these links the process begins of choosing who you will ask, and how you will get in touch with them. Simply skimming the search engine results pages for your key terms is one way to go, but the process will be exhausting. If you figure on average you will only get about 5% of the people you contact to link to you you would need 1,000’s of names to make this process affective.

In comes Arelis. This software and IBP are among a search marketers best friends. Among there invaluable uses is grabbing website, and website information, including contact info, through keyword searches. Arelis also allows you to find the information of sites already linking to you and linking to your competitors. Once you have found the sites using Arelis you can export whatever information you choose to keep via excel sheets. This makes quick work of creating mass email lists.

By using Arelis you can create email lists with thousands of possible link contacts. By using creative linking ideas you can turn these lists into linking gold. The power is in the numbers.

For those that don’t have Arelis a demo version, with limited features, is available at http://www.axandra.com/

Tags: link building