Links - A Good Way To Get Links

My little Secret.

[EliteWeb]

Hello WebmasterWorld!
I figured out a cost effective way to get people to link to me without asking everyone to link to me. Im not sure how well this would work in your widget market but its working good for me. Heres my secret, I'm giving away a free widget to everyone who links to me. I submitted my little tidbit of news to people in my niche market suddenly my links are building sometimes a 100 in a day just from some news site or blog mentioning that if anyone links to their site they will get a free widget. Lucky enough my market is for the geek widgets so its easy to spread the word and the product is something every widget lover would want.

For some people this may not be effective, then again for others it may be the secret to their success. Just by me having my link on all these peoples sites my sales have also increased at high percentages... Links and more sales, isnt that what everyone always wants :D

[Chicago]

Really like your idea, Beck. Works even better when you add +your keyword phrase

Thank you. Great tip.

[Trodda]

Superb idea, EW. Can't believe I hadn't thought of this before. Can't wait to give it a try.

A couple of questions..........do you give away the widgets first, and then check the link? and also, do you carry this process out manually, or do you automate the "link checking" process?

Thanks
Trodda

[David_M]

Perhaps a valuable PDF ebook, or informational package would a good giveaway-

How did you get the word out to start with?

[EliteWeb]

Trodda, I send out the widgets after I check links and I check them by hand. I know there could be automated tasks but I take these things personally and like to see each link myself :D

I got the word out at first by posting that my site was giving away widgets to web people who link to my widget site, and they told everyone and everyone told everyone. of course only in the widget industry.

[Trodda]

Thanks EW. I agree, I think the manual check is best. As you mentioned before, you generally get fairly low trafficked pages adopting links (i.e PR2 and 3s). What sort of cost per widget-giveaway should you be looking at when starting out? (e.g. Look to give $1 worth of widget/s for each link or look to give away $20 worth of widget/s for each link). That said however, I expect it can be quite difficult to put a price on some widgets since they may come in the form of helpfull tools or e-books/guides. Also, do you put a ceiling on the number of links allowed per site/per page?

[jilla]

EliteW-

Can you say if you notified people about the offer by putting up something on your website? Or would sending emails be appropriate... I have some resell rights to a membership site that I think could be worth a link back but I'm not sure of best way to get the word out. Thanks.

[EliteWeb]

I give away a widget per site not per link, people put the links on various pages or built into their templates so its on all of them. My widgets cost me about 1.00 to make/produce.

I have two ways people are linking, first off by using my links just to have the link, the other is that they are posting on their sites that my widget site is giving away widgets for linking to it. So both ways the word gets spread, how I initally got people to link to it was I e-mailed or submitted news via their site letting them know I was giving away widgets if they linked to my site and if they wanted to tell their widget surfers that is cool too.