Developing Good Linking Relationships

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[Blue Gravity]

I've been pretty curious as to how to properly build linking relationships with other sites in a client's industry. I've visited a bunch of other industry sites for a particular client, and the overall rate for the number of links to either trade or put a link to my client's site is rather slow. Any recomendations on how to quickly build better linking relationships with other sites?

PS - It's even tougher when the client has a PR of 0 or 1, no one ever wants to trade (not that I don't blame them) but there must be a better and quicker way.

I'm all eyes for ideas!

[tigger]

The first thing I do is submit the site to Dmoz & paid listing with Yahoo this normally within 3mths gets a PR4/5 for the site, then you can start hitting other sites for exchanges

[mil2k]

It helps if you have a few of your own sites which can give one way links for the new site to initially pick up the PR. If you don't have any such assests than i agree with tigger and advice the paid route. :)

[paynt]

quickly build better linking relationships with other sites - Blue Gravity

I wish I knew. See the problem isn’t the building relationships part it’s the quickly part. I figure it takes up to three months to get a good link. Now we may differ considerably on what a ‘good link’ is, I’m always running into that. PR is not my primary focus. See my goal is to draw targeted traffic. Link building is a tool to achieve that aim. I’m running very few linking campaigns myself right now because a) the industry is confused, b) webmasters are confused, c) even Google appears confused at this point, at least to a and b. What that means is “quickly” has been set back even more.

Basically I think that people need to clean up their linking act if they intend to make linking any part of their promotional strategy. We’ve discussed it over the past months in great detail. I have seen some attempt at changes and improvements but until people begin to work the campaign from a plan - it’s a hit or miss deal.

I do have a few tips that might move the process along.

·Close your eye to PR.

·Think about your potential linking audience and expand your vision into peripheral industries and markets.

·Work from a plan. Linking can either bring up or knock you down. The plan gives you control.

·Whether you have to tear your existing system down, rework it completely, tweak a few changes or build from the ground up, make it clean. Don’t set up a sloppy system and stay in control of it.

·Realize it’s going to take time. Unfortunately not everyone is following the first tip so if you don’t have PR or your PR is in a less than favorable state every link you get will take several times the effort.

·Build content for a particular linking audience, make it friendly to your potential visitors (leading them quickly home).

·Open new linking markets. Pool products and information together that relate to a similar consumer market. It could be age, health, region, financial, education, or new to the web. Whatever your market is - think about what that market is also attracted to that fits within your theme. Close your eyes to PR and then open them to an expanded linking audience.

·Tease your new linking audience into linking to you. Write letters, buy link text advertising for short term to stimulate conversation and plant seeds then push for opportunities to share content.

·Close your eyes to PR though because while you are building the content and making the connections your PR will be low or non existent as could your potential partners.

I saw a post this weekend about more traffic coming from a focused link partnership than Google direct and those visits converting more than from the search engine. What is beautiful about Google is they credit legitimate link strategies that involve establishing relationships with other sites and in turn if you take the time to establish a focused plan those partnerships will return the focused pre-qualified traffic that converts. Excellent!

[davewray]

Although it is true that PR affects many webmasters as to whether they'll link to you or not, don't let that stop you! I have a brand new site, still with PR0 and have managed to get several links from popular, on-topic sites that send me targetted visitors. In fact, just yesterday I was added to the index page of a competitor's site which is indexed at #3 on Google for one of my most competative keyphrases! Just send friendly emails every so often...not too many, just once every couple of weeks. It only took me two emails to this particular webmaster. It's funny too, because all I was asking him was for a link on his links page and he put me on his main page! A nice surprise and so far 5 free visitors from him in just half a day. Get 20 partners like him and you'll be looking at hundreds of free visitors per day...targetted too if you're lucky! :) So, don't give up...and don't let their PR scare you away from asking for a link :)

Dave.

[davewray]

Hey Blue Gravity, another "news flash" to pick up your spirits. Just at 12pm est another PR6 site picked up my site and placed me on their main page...At the TOP of the "top partners" list. In the three hours that I have been listed with them, I have received 7 visitors. At that rate we're looking at close to 50 visitors/day from that site alone. I only emailed this site twice as well. Did I use a scripted out email? NO. It was my own personal email from me..not a script. Write webmasters from the heart. Don't tell them that their site is "pretty", or that you both will benefit from a link exchange. Just mention that you think that your site has a lot to offer their visitors and could they please take a look at it. I'm still PR0...thus giving hope to all of those PR0 sites who think they can't get links from sites that are tops in their industry. Go out there and try! :) And try again... ;)

Dave.

[Blue Gravity]

Hey thanks for the advice!

[taj79]

How do you proceed in link exchage.
Do you put link to the websites and then ask them to link to you?

[davewray]

Hi taj,

You certainly came to the right place to ask about linking strategies. I would encourage you to read the posts within this forum and you'll get a really good understanding of what other webmasters do when it comes to linking campaigns. There isn't just a cookie cutter method when it comes to linking, everyone has there own methods and strategies and reasoning. I personally have no set "script" that I send out to webmasters. I visit on-topic sites and if I believe that they have good, useful and relevant information I will email them and ask for a link. If it's a really good page then I'll offer to link back to them as well. Just be nice in your emails and not too forceful. Webmasters do not like seeing phrases like, "If you link to me, I'll link to you", or "I think you should link to me, you'll be glad you did". Just say hi and ask them to look at your site and see if they'd be interested in linking to you. It's time consuming, but well worth the effort :) Good luck!

Dave.