Can Link Development be Fun?

[rogerd]

Another recent thread bemoans the "time consuming and tedious" nature of link development. Those of us who spend time on linkage efforts would certainly agree. But I have had pleasant link development efforts, too. One project I worked on a couple of years ago involved reviewing and contacting hundreds and hundreds of small business sites in all parts of the US and beyond.

I saw a lot of bad web design, of course, but many of these self-designed sites really let the personality of the owner come through. The responses to e-mails were often friendly and provided information beyond essential link details. The business owners were sometimes delighted that someone took an interest in their site, and showed their appreciation.

We ended up developing a couple of business relationships for the site, gained some targeted publicity that may have helped in other ways, and met some interesting people.

The rise of Google made link hunting more intense and I don't see as many chatty replies these days. But I'm curious - is link development pure drudgery for you, or, like me, have you had some fun along the way?

[Gary_Golden]

Linking to other sites is a great way to bring extra business to your site, personally I do not seek out link partners except in forums like this. Depending on the type of site that you have I believe when do a link exchange that you do stick with similar site.

Of course with sites like classified ads, forums, web-site design and a few others I think it is important to have an expanded link page as a variety in people from all facet of the internet are apt to visit these sites.

Personally I have a classified ad site and a travel site and I know from where the people are going which is the whole gambit, thus my link page for the classified ad site is more expanded than the travel site.

Additionally for those webmaster that have multiple sites, I would suggest that when link trading on one site have the link partner link to one of your other sites.

Any comments one way or the other?

[nuevojefe]

I've begun my campaign ( i need to hurry before I get cross linking penalty). -don't ask....

But one thing i've found that works wonders, is requesting exchanges from the industry leaders that are abroad. This works great if you sell or have something to do with a localized product of which sales or business isn't affected at all by that company.

[creative craig]

In my previous job the boss wrote an email and attached a picture of himself at the bottom of it and he sent out around 15 - 20 a day over a three week period to relevant sites, we had back around 10 a day asking to swap links. I think the personal touch goes a little further.

It also helped that I went through all the emails he sent out and added a few details about our site and also abit about their site so they could see that we had actualy been to visit it personally.

He also had an email asking if he wanted to meet up for a drink later on in the week ;)

Craig

[edited by: creative_craig at 10:28 am (utc) on Feb. 18, 2004]

[peter andreas]

We take the policy 'if you build it they will come' and don't worry about spending time emailing people any more. It just makes life so much easier and productive than having all the hassle of searching out likely canditates and sending countless emails to people you know only 0.00001% of may respond. I'm not saying this is the right thing to do but it seems to be working for us-at the moment.

[neverhood]

I was collecting business links for one business directory. Beside Internet, I was finding links on business cards, promotional material and advertinsments. For about 6 months I was found and get into around 50.000 quality links. It was funny but sometimes very tedious.

[rogerd]

Interesting story, Craig. I suppose for some of us including a picture might actually depress the response rate. ;) It's a good idea - anything that makes the contact more personal and less mechanistic will almost certainly help. I'm sure having a name and face works better than a text mail from an anonymous "Linkmeister" or similar.

Good story... did the boss's date work out? When I started this topic, the romantic potential of link development wasn't really what I had in mind... but who knows? A decade or two down the road, we'll be hearing stories like, "I first met Bill when he sent me a link request. I almost deleted it, but there was something about it that made me reply... now we've been together for eighteen years..." :)

[creative craig]

No, he is a happily married man :) But it adds padding to his phone number book if he is in ever need of a date.

[Drace]

Rogerd

My staff does not seem to understand what a particular website would be looking for in a link from us, and how to use that information to frame the request properly in order to get an appropriate link back from them. Also, my staff (sales people) don't care what site they are exchanging links from, so I am having to train them to know which sites are worth linking from/to and which aren't, which feels like more trouble than its worth.

I've motivated them with pay, Not enough? I like the idea of lunch at a restaurant, I'll try that to make it more of a competition. Right now it is not a priority.

I like "Percentages" Idea of giving away content in exchange for links, I can do that. Someday the search engines will find a way to guage original content. Its best to be prepared.

Do you have specific "Link to this Page" Source code I could use? I'm pretty much a frontpage guy, I don't understand most scripting if it doesn't have to do with Search engines.

Thanks, Drace

[Drace]

Regarding pictures in solicitations for link exchange:

At this point I would not add a picture to an email requesting a link. With the current virus environment I delete without looking any unsolicited emails I receive that have attachments. I assume most of you do too.