Insights into Initiating a Link Development Campaign Among Agents

suggestions on getting a companies' local agents to link to corporate site

[barnetap]

I am currently managing a pretty extensive organic campaign for a F500 moving company. Their national structure is based around locally-based agents who are the actual "boots on the ground" (that is, leads from the corporate site get passed along to the agents who do the actual moving).

With that said, I would like to leverage these agent websites in a nationwide link development campaign. What I'm thinking is requiring these agents to have a "About Corporate Company" page that would have relevant, keyword-rich content with keyword-rich text links to the major sections of the corporate site.

I do, however, have some concerns. First and foremost, if we develop a series of corporate information templates for the agents, what is the liklihood that this could be construed as link spamming? How could I gain their support for this type of program?

Is there another approach that I'm not thinking of? Any other issues that I should be concerned with?

Many thanks in advance for any insights/comments!

[DaveAtIFG]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld barnetap! :)

First and foremost, if we develop a series of corporate information templates for the agents, what is the liklihood that this could be construed as link spamming?

I think it is very likely.

How could I gain their support for this type of program?

That's a management issue, not a linking issue. ;)

Assuming your agent's sites are individually owned (unique whois data associated with all or most sites), I believe you can build a powerful link network with little risk if you avoid "cookie cutter" pages, i.e. templates.

Consider creating content for a page that contains contact info for, and links to ALL of your company's agents. Include significant corporate pages in the content. Ask (or insist) that the content be incorporated into each agent's site using their site's "look and feel."

Keep in mind that Google's webmaster guidelines suggest that outbound links from a page be limited to about 100 and build your content accordingly, perhaps building multiple "content sets" if necessary.

Remember, if what you include on a web site is obviously of use and benefit to your users, the SEs won't have a problem with it. That's frequently NOT the case if it is included primarily to enhance rankings and traffic.

[rogerd]

Barnetap, consider general linkage guidelines for which you could provide content options, linkage options, etc. As Dave suggests, avoid cookie-cutter templates or specifying exactly how things should be done. You'll get plenty of variation, and that will be helpful.

To build support, perhaps you could get the firm's marketing and/or sales departments to back you up. Perhaps they could run a promotion, like an extra sum of coop ad money for an approved link, or an entry in a drawing for a free product. They may have some other ideas that wouldn't be expensive but that could get these agents on board.