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MoonViper Business Services
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email: eric@moonviper.com
I am fanatical about testing and specifically about testing my marketing and one of the tests I am currently running is on getting people from a few key, related industries, to exchange links with me.
This is basically what I am doing. I put out marketing to find people that would like to work with my clients that are not directly competing with me. An example would be a tiny ad on my homepage that says “Add Your Business, Service or Product To My Local Resource Directory”. Then, I explain that my clients would benefit from having a great list of local providers and I’d be willing to list them there if they also linked to my website from their website. It is a pretty typical link exchange request.
I was talking to a business associate of mine that was looking for ways to network and get more referral business from a certain industry. I told him about what I was doing and how he could, with some very small modifications, set up a similar program to build a referral network. They key, and what many business owners miss, is that you do need to actively market this exchange just as if you were marketing a product for sale. Fail to market it and you’ll fail to make a sale (in this case the sale is exchanging links).
In fact, I look at so similarly to how I look at making a sale, I actually track conversion rates on a squeeze page to get more information about exchanging links (and even blog about that, but that’s a topic for another day). You can, and I believe should, actively be doing something very similar in your business and to promote link building on your business website.
You know you need inbound links to your site to succeed in SEO. What you may not know is, you don’t need to spend a dime to get them. In fact, I would advise you not to purchase links.
The recent Google shakeup is all about paid links. Stop paying for links now! Google is now “punishing” websites for having paid links, because they feel it’s cheating the algorithm. You might be upset by this, but they are doing it to improve the quality of their results. Here is how you can take advantage of it.
Google is moving towards algorithms that favor sites that are “naturally” linked to. What is “natural” linking? These are links that a webmaster puts up because he or she wanted to, not because they were paid to. They saw something they liked, and put a link to it. This means all those shady SEOs who were buying links up by the hundreds can’t cheat good sites out of the rankings anymore. So how you do get natural links?
Focus on Your Subject
There is a saying in marketing, if you market to everyone, you are marketing to no one. Maintain your focus, and keep your content within your niche. Don’t try to spread yourself too thin.
I personally have been guilty of this sin in the past. At one time JeremyMorgan.com had SEO articles, PHP scripts, Ford Mustang News and photoshop tutorials, and pictures of my family and locations back home. Needless to say I didn’t really dominate any of those niches. Focus your efforts, and try to stay on topic.
Give Them Something to Link to
Once you find your focus, provide content that others in your niche want to link to. It’s really that simple. Think to yourself, “are people going to want to link to this?”. As much as I think my speculations and opinions on industry trends are great, the reality is most people link to articles I write that actually tell you how to do something. If you really want to build links, give them something helpful or really interesting to link to.
Even pages that you cannot easily monetize. The more links you get, the better.
Join the Community
In 2008, they have a community for almost anything. Get involved in those communities, sign up for forums and comment on posts. Become an authority. Just by being helpful to others and bringing information to a community, people will link to your site out of respect, knowing that their audience will appreciate the link. Be honest, helpful, and maintain your integrity on the boards. Instead of making fun of that newbie, help them out.
Look for Places with High Quality Links
Don’t be afraid to ask to exchange links with others who might benefit from your service. Links from sites like your local library or community-centric pages go a long ways. Even your employer may put up a link (be careful not to mess that one up!).
Get Deep Links
Deep links are very important. Try to get links pointing towards inner pages of your site rather than the front page. With enough of these types of links, you can dominate some of the serps related to that topic, as well as build your overall quality.
Write Articles
Chances are, you’re reading this article on somewhere other than JeremyMorgan.com or Webfoot Central. That’s because I submit articles all over the internet. Not only do you help build backlinks, but you contribute to your community, and make a name for yourself. Don’t write spammy articles, or try to advertise too hard. Make something useful that others will want as content on their own site.
Issue Press Releases
I can’t really comment on this one too much, because I’ve never done it, but for some sites it’s a very useful tool for getting inbound links, and good publicity. Make sure you have something going on that’s worth talking about!
Blog, Blog, Blog
Every site needs a blog. Even if your site is primarily about selling widgets, have a widget news related blog. Individual articles will get people linking to them, and will keep your site fresh and add content, which google and other search engines love.
If You Must, Sponsor Some Links.
There are a few sponsored links worth getting. Yahoo Search Inclusion is one example. If you are in a highly competitive industry, such as adult, SEO, mortgage, finance, or gambling you will need to purchase links to get an edge. There are a lot of people competing for your terms.
Conclusion
Use common sense. The best way to get ahead is by being honest, and providing a decent service. Stop trying gimmicks or tricks to cheat your way into good rankings. The best long term SEO plan involves taking the high road and doing things honestly. Check out the SEO book to see what I learned about ethical SEO. Now I don’t have any problems getting people to my website. You can too, all it takes is a little effort!
Reciprocal linking is one of the accepted methods adopted by webmasters to build traffic, increase link popularity and improve page rank. It is a known fact that in recent times search engines have begun to place more importance to one-way inbound link and consider it to be superior to a reciprocal link. It is also known that search engines do appreciate reciprocal links if the links are from quality theme related websites.
Webmasters receive regular requests for reciprocal link exchange either by e-mail or through their websites where provision is made for the submission of requests for reciprocal link exchange. Why are most requests rejected to the utter disappointment and dismay of webmasters of new websites anxious to increase their link popularity and page rank?
Some of the major reasons for the refusal to reciprocate a link exchange request can be attributed to:
1. When a reciprocal link exchange request is received, the obvious thing the webmaster will do is to visit the website making a request and try to identify what this website is all about. If the request is from a website with an irrelevant theme, the chances are the request will be turned down. The reason is that search engines will not give him any credit for linking with an irrelevant site and he cannot expect any targeted traffic from such a website either.
2. Poor content of your website is another major reason for the rejection of your reciprocal link exchange request. Websites with good quality theme related content are seldom rejected. In fact webmasters appreciate reciprocal link exchange requests from non competitive theme related websites since these sites will provide their own visitors with useful website experience and also receive targeted traffic.
3. If your website is with a PR zero or with a low Page Rank and if you request a link exchange with a high PR site, unfortunately your request will most probably be turned down. The reason being that the high PR site will not benefit by linking with your site. One saving grace here is that if you have excellent theme related content and indicate that you are growing fast some websites will link to you hoping that you will achieve high PR rank soon.
4. Most webmasters want to know whether your link directory is easily accessible to your website visitors. Hiding it in a maze of other information will not help. Your link page should be only two clicks away from your home page. A webmaster with a good link directory set-up will not be interested in complying with your request if your link directory is not easily accessible.
5. Having several dozens of links in each page is another reason for the rejection of a link request. If you wish to succeed in your request then you should ensure that you categorize the link directory and have not more than twenty five links to a page.
It should now be obvious why most requests for reciprocal link exchange are turned down. Having good quality unique content is the best way to start your reciprocal link campaign and succeed in your efforts.
Certain businesses tend not to focus on website marketing to get new clients despite an overwhelming amount of evidence that shows consumers are seeking out these businesses on the web. Handyman are a great example of an industry that tends to discount the importance of using their website for finding new clients.
One of the best things that a Handyman can do to significantly improve their chances of being found from search engines and take advantage of the fact that very few other handyman services are web savvy in their markets is to build up links to their website. Building up links leading to their website will not only bring traffic directly to the site from the websites that are linking to them, but also will increase their popularity and give them a huge bump in the chance of them coming up in a search engine for someone searching for a handyman in their local area with a search engine.
As a real estate investor that runs hundreds of different real estate related websites, I get the opportunity to both help the investors visiting my websites and help the handyman that wants to increase their exposure and links on the web.
As a handyman looking to increase the websites linking to you, you should consider finding other real estate related websites like mine that are willing to either directly exchange links with you or link directly to you without a link back. To help you thinking of the right types of businesses, let me name a few that you will want to seek out: real estate agents and real estate brokerage websites, real estate property manager websites, real estate investor websites, lenders and mortgage broker websites.
Think about the people that have referred business to you in the past. Do you have a friend in the roofing business that does not do general handyman type work? Ask him if he will link to you on his website and you can link to him from yours.
Another strategy that handyman often overlook is placing tiny classified ads on websites like CraigsList. These are one-way links coming to your website and, although there is an on-going debate over the effectiveness of these types of links in building link popularity, you should, with the right ad, be able to generate direct traffic from them at a minimum.
In conclusion, handyman services should focus some time on finding local, related websites to link to them to increase their business with direct traffic from those websites and also to significantly improve their chances of coming up for search engine searches for a handyman in your area.
You got to understand that Search Engines have changed their algorithms years ago. Building links is still as important but it is more important to build relevant links than just having thousands of rubbish links to your website. Even Google has voiced its unhappiness in paid inbound links and has started on their campaign to penalize paid links. One important thing is that getting too many inbound links over a night or a week can also be penalized by Google.
Why waste your dollars ?
I know it sounds tempting. 10000 links at only $10… But the real thing is whether these 10000 links are helping your website to rank better in search results or Page Rank. I can tell you that the answer would be a definite NO. So invest that $10 on some other more useful things or you can even choose to donate to the Orphanage. Be meaningful.
Getting Quality links NOT Quantity.
Getting 10 Quality Links is far better than getting 10000 rubbish links. Search engines value quality website that contains rich and helpful information and having such websites link to you, will be telling the search engines that you also deserved to be a quality website too.
Paid Links : The Grey Line
News of Google going down on paid links have been published all over the Web. Is it time for Google to step in and take control of the situation where by webmaster buys paid links to get high Page Rank and SERPs ranking? I am really unsure how Google is going to penalize paid links, but i have already started seeing decrease in my paid inbound links in Google’s indexes. Time to build quality links…
