Link Building: It’s All In the Details
10 Aug
When it comes to link building (but with most other things as well) most people try to find shortcuts. They look for ‘secrets’, smart things that can get them to rank very quickly, preferably without any effort. Unfortunately, I have to say that there are no link building secrets, shortcuts or quick tricks. Well, except for one maybe; have an eye for details.
Just think about it…
- Do you start your email with ‘Dear Webmaster’ or with ‘Dear Lauren’?
- Is your content good or great?
- Do you use a spell checker?
- Do you mention the word ‘Pagerank’ in your emails or not?
- Are you an ‘SEO Link Builder’ or a ‘Product manager’ according to your email signature?
- Do you send out thank you notes?
- Do you use the word ‘guru’ in your Twitter bio?
- Have you thought your content’s title well through, or did you just write down the first thing that came to mind?
- Do you test or do you assume?
- Do you block your HTTP referrer or not?
- Are you going to send a press release on Tuesday morning or Friday afternoon?
- Do you buy your links from a broker or privately?
- Do you take no for an answer?
- Can you answer the most important link building question?
- Do you *really* understand what you’re promoting?
- Do you *really* know who you need to target?
- Did you hire the expensive designer, or the one that was $50 cheaper?
- Do you use the phone as well, or email only?
And that’s just a *very* small portion of all the details you have to think about. Nothing special, it’s all common sense. Get it all wrong, and you’ll find yourself spending your Saturday nights at the DigitalPoint forums, complaining that ‘link building is so hard and it’s not working anymore’. Get it all right, and you’ve got a chance of dominating your niche.
Great stuff!
lol@ Are you an ‘SEO Link Builder’ or a ‘Product manager’ according to your email signature?
People really use the title Linkbuilder when requesting links?
@Ivo: Oh yes, more than you would expect…
Agreed. I’m not above link begging, but I always try to inform them of why it’d be a mutually beneficial relationship. Specifically offering to host press releases or sponsored blog posts usually works well.
A comprehensive list and I’m sure i’m not alone in picking up a pointer or two. Every little extra bit of help is useful in the black art of link building. Thanks p
HA! great list. So many times people get it so wrong because theyre looking for a quick fix.
touché. you mentioned quite a lot very good points!
I like this one: “Are you going to send a press release on Tuesday morning or Friday afternoon?
I decided to search google on “what is the best day for a press release” but can’t find any consensus. Naturally, friday is worst as nobody can be bothered to read anything, monday is to busy….so yes, UI can see where tuesday is coming from.
Cool article.
I think I will retweet this to our pet industry followers as some of them do not know what the word “link” even means; and I’m not being rude.
Great list of focus points that many techies new to SEO seem to loose track of.
Often times building a relationship with the other webmaster is more important than good content. A give (to the the other webmaster) with no obligation of a return ahead of times helps pave the way to asking for the link. Little helpful things like report a broken link (even better if the site is gone and one of your sites is in that niche!)
Reality check – it’s not 1998 anymore. There are millions of new websites since then. Too many ‘SEO experts’ push content as the solution as their primary focus. Those new websites have good content too!
Good points. Still emailing to webmaster for getting back link is popular method of link building. Yes, these points should be taken care while preparing link building strategies to make successive link building activities. Very informative posting. Thx
Super list on link building,really useful to read thanks for sharing!