John Gergye
Lots of people loudly proclaim the importance of inbound links. In fact depending on your niche up to 80% of your rank in Google may depend on your ability to conduct an ongoing link blitz. Not to mention all the traffic well placed links can deliver up.
If this is so then why arent more pursuing links?
Good question.
Like most worthwhile things in life theres a dirty little secret no one talks about when it comes to links. That is few detail the effort involved to manage an ongoing link blitz.
And I should know. I just did such a blitz and got 29 confirmed links out of 75 attempts.
Granted any initial burst of links added to virginal links pages is a snap to manage. Find potential candidates using the method of your choice, add their info to your links pages, solicit the link either by email or filling out a form on the potential partners site, sit back and wait to be showered with links. Whats the big deal?
Well, each new linking attempt adds to the management overhead.
Fail to manage your link blitz properly and sooner or later youll find youre failing to get any links at all.
Fail to get links and all too soon youll find your search engine rankings are headed south into oblivion rather than upwards towards #1.
The management process I use is simple. Still it takes effort or that dreaded four letter word – WORK. But its a necessary evil if you want to stay on top of your linking campaign.
So here are 8 helpful tips.
=== > Tip 1: Fill Her Up – Wisely
While you need to keep the pipeline of linking candidates full its a good idea to avoid
Zeus links pages since many times they are chronically
PR deficient often sporting PR 0. Suggesting banishment
by Google?
Framed sites since you cant really tell the PR of the
framed links page.
Links pages with more than 100 links. But for sure links
pages bigger than 101K in size since Google wont crawl
pages bigger than that.
=== > Tip 2: Keep on Keeping on
For success in the long run its best to establish a regular solicitation routine you can maintain.
Unless Im on an all out blitz, I shoot to get out 5 link requests a day four days a week per site. With a 30%+ response rate that gives me six or seven new links a week.
HINT: Getting five requests out takes 15 minutes or less
assuming youve done the prep work of finding potential
link partners, their contact and linking info and have
gotten up the reciprocal links on your links pages.
Once you know your typical hit ratio this is something you can ultimately delegate to a virtual assistant.
=== > Tip 3: Like Santa Make a List
Its vital you maintain a master list of those approached. If you dont after awhile you wont know who you have solicited to trade links and who you havent. Which becomes a bigger problem the more link trading you attempt to do.
HINT: I simply use a MS Word table. I drop the http://www
from each URL. That way I can sort in alpha order and
quickly see if Ive contacted a given site or not.
HINT: Depending on how many links Im pursuing I create
a file of linking activity either for the day or for the week
per web site.
=== > Tip 4: The Devils in the Details
Inside that file I like to list the specific page my link should appear on. Along with the partner”s contact info. Plus the linking info I put up on my site. This makes it easier to verify a given link is up.
=== > Tip 5: Date Stamp It
I include an HTML comment with each link that tells me when I put it up. That way you know how long youve been link partners.
=== > Tip 6: Are You a Linkmate?
Keep track of who lets you know theyve linked up.
In some niches next to none will do so. In others most will let you know they have. Just depends. But you want to know so you dont go hunting theirs down in your final sweep before removing those who didnt trade.
=== > Tip 7: Times Up
Wait a reasonable amount of time. Then remove those that didnt reciprocate from your links pages. Pain in the neck? Yes. But vital if you want to keep your links pages clean and avoid rewarding those who couldnt be bothered to link to you.
HINT: Ive found if someone is going to link up theyll
usually do it sooner rather than later. Especially if you
have an attractive linking opportunity (higher PR
fewer
links per page
quality content) For me 10 days is
reasonable.
=== > Tip 8: Stash for Later
Dont pitch that list of those who failed to link up. Just because they didnt do so today doesnt mean they wont in the future. As your site grows and the PR improves youll want to re-approach them in 3-6 months. Having a list of past candidates handy makes doing so easy.
Apply these 8 tips and you too may end up in the link traders Hall of Fame. Or failing that at least youll have some to-die-for traffic not to mention lofty Google rankings.
