Asking for links - how long to wait?

[Makaveli2007]

Would you guys agree that it's a better use of your time to not send out 100 link requests (even if they're personalized) to 100 different sites, but rather use the same amount of time to ask for 33 links and send each of the people 3 e-mails (or 2..or 4..you get the idea!) and sort of engage in a little conversation about your topic/an issue before asking to get a link?

Maybe it even pays to really network and focus on 10 of the most powerful sites within your field (if you have a chance to get through to them) and only ask for a link 10 times?

So what Im basically wondering is, if it pays off to establish a relationship before going "Hey can I get a link?".

My assumption would be that this depends on the field you're in....?

thanks!

[Yoshimi]

I think it depends if you can contact them over something that makes that conversation a valuable use of time for those people. If you can't, then far better to just ask for the link, rather than waste someone's time and then ask, which will more than likely result in a resounding no. but if you can add value through the conversation, have it and increase the likely hood of getting the link

[Makaveli2007]

Yeah, I definitely meant a meaningful conversation...for example being a college student trying to give them input on their sites (which are mostly done by college professors and geared towards students), etc..

Or in another niche ask them interesting questions (that they actually find interesting not just yourself), that show you care about the topic, etc.

Any other experiences with this?

[wheel]

Personally, they get a one off link request from me. I try and make that one link request encompass the small, temporary relationship.

The only time I've worked on relationship first is from highly influential bloggers in my niche - who are all killer aware of any sort of link request or promotion. Doing a whole bunch of other things first helped get links. It's actually also helped on other things - I may be starting a new portal project and I may ask some of the bloggers to participate, thus helping them.

If I had to pin it down, I'd say for most links, no relationship. For some but not all of the top quality links, then a relationship is a good thing.

Personally I don't give out links. I don't think I've ever even once given a link based on a request. However, of a few dozen folks I've met at past pubcon that I've become friends with, I've occassionally offered them links from some of my sites, no strings attached.

[pageoneresults]

Asking for links - how long to wait?

Don't hold your breath too long.

Ever try using Social Media and asking for links? Establish a profile, garner a following and you have all the resources you need for getting links.

Stop using email requests, they don't work anymore. If they do, you are probably sending out a large number of them and playing the numbers game which typically doesn't foster quality.

Just as an example? I managed to get 5+ high quality links just from being active recently. I didn't have to send out any email link exchange requests. I posted a Tweet with a link and it went viral from there. The links came naturally after that.

Get out of the 90s! Join us on the other side. :)

[Makaveli2007]

Now, I'm surprised. One year ago I heard "link requests are dead, they don't work anymore". A few weeks later a friend of mine who knows little to nothing about SEO ranked his wife's business at the top of his (local) niche and I asked him, how did you do it? His reply was something along the lines "sent out a bunch of link requests!". Apparently, he didn't know link requests were dead, so maybe it's like the whole "if I close my eyes and I cant see them, maybe they cant see me either"-thing? ;-)))

Okay, just kidding, I think it depends a lot on the niche. The guy who said they were dead has mostly websites in tech-niches, whereas that site of my friend is a site where mostly non-web savy people have websites.

I think in the niche, Im about to start a site I stand a good chances of making them work.

But anyway, I see your point....nothing I'd like to do more than get links without having to send out any type of link requests, but I hear from many people that they still work quite well "if done right"?

I dont have a problem with making short-term sacrifices to improve my long-term results, though. Makes me think I should look into using social media/twitter and asking for links that way more :-)

@Wheel: do link requests for you still work? It seems like you're still doing that kind of thing rather successfully (I remember other posts from you in the past)?

thanks guys!

[Makaveli2007]

Okay pageoneresults.....you got me REALLY curious, now ;-).

Do you think investing one's time into building a following on twitter (or other social media) and then leveraging that following to get links is something every webmaster would be better off doing?

Or is it not necessarily something that works for all sites/webmasters..?

EDIT: oh and of course, I'd appreciate any input :-). Sorry if that sounded a bit too demanding or anything...

[edited by: Makaveli2007 at 8:04 pm (utc) on Mar. 6, 2009]

[pageoneresults]

Do you think investing one's time into building a following on twitter (or other social media) and then leveraging that following to get links is something every webmaster would be better off doing?

From what I'm experiencing personally? I'd highly recommend it. I've been on Twitter now since 2008-07-25. I did the first 90 days in experimental mode, I played a slightly different role. Then I nixed the entire account and started over again. I've been in this oddball testing phase lately and just doing stuff that most people wouldn't. In the process you pick up on subtle things that occur naturally due to your digging and such.

Absolutely go for it. If you build a large enough network of people, you won't need to rely on search that much. This whole week Social Media has been in the top referrers for my personal site and the quality traffic is there for what I'm doing. People use Twitter for different things. You can surely garner a whole load of links if you have content that is linkworthy. And, those links come quickly and in "surges". They may also be responsible for you getting a site mentioned on the morning news of CNBC.

Oh, and it doesn't matter if they are marked with nofollow. There are other "related benefits" to links even if they are nofollow. :)

[Makaveli2007]

It doesnt matter if they are marked with nofollow? I'd like to point you to a recent blogpost by A.Wall LOL but I remember reading your comments there ;-).

Anyway, to be honest I don't have any real idea on how to build a "large enough network of people" or a large following as you suggest. I've been looking into all kinds of ways to get traffic from sources other than search, though, so Im definitely open-minded when it comes to that.

I know SEOs have been gaming the crap out of "social media" sites such as digg, etc.. but that cant really be it as the traffic from there is said to suck and SEOs only did it for the links.

And as for twitter, I have never used it I only started to hear about it EVERYWHERE (like 4 mentions on my favorite blogs) within the last 2 weeks (I'm in Germany and it hasn't really hit the masses, here).

I'm going to read up about it to understand how it works, but I had thought it was one of those things that...you could only really leverage if you already had a following..like that German SEO whose blog I read..if you already have a large audience of repeat visitors, obviously not much of a problem to get them to follow your twitter messages (and maybe twitter it to other users?!).

But if youre starting a new site in a niche..from zero..how does one start to build a large enough network? I dont expect you to write a how-to-article now (though if you have a blog I wouldnt mind reading it ;)), but a hint or two would be cool :-)

thanks!

EDIT:

Sorry for my non-knowledge of how twitter works (I thought I had a rough idea). So does it basically work like this: You "twitter" something using a keyword on twitter..and everybody who types in that keyword in that moment of time (or briefly afterwards) will see what you twittered. And if they find it interesting you can build a following. Is that about it?

Say I'm creating a website on learning portuguese. How would I go about doing that? What keywords to go for (I assume there is no optimizing for keywords in title elements and the like, but if you dont mention a keyword that is typed in frequently nobody/few people will read it, right?)? Just guess/assume its similar like the searches youre optimizing your website for?

I just twitter-searched for portuguese and portuguese listening...but only see totally irrelevant tweets. I cant really imagine people interested in learning portuguese searching through twitter in order to find a relevant message between all the "I just ate portuguese xyz" lol.

Is it not a good idea for the field of learning portuguese (which btw is just a similar example :-)) to try to use twitter?

[edited by: Makaveli2007 at 10:18 pm (utc) on Mar. 6, 2009]

[nealrodriguez]

It doesnt matter if they are marked with nofollow?

right; the idea is not to get any spider-man rank from the the link that is posted on the social media platform. you will receive ranking from the links that people post once you are popular on that site; for instance on twitter if your post is retweeted - meaning that other people post it - then it gets more exposure and increases the chances that it gets linked to by another webmaster.

if you want to get to know us on social media - i'm right here. once you add to the community that you want to engage and reach out to people via email and im; then people will help you to promote your content. just try to get to know people working in the same vertical along with the rest of us little people.

Is it not a good idea for the field of learning portuguese (which btw is just a similar example :-)) to try to use twitter?

google social networks and your vertical and start the hunt for niche networks; you'll resonate a lot harder.

[Makaveli2007]

thanks for the ideas, Ive always been aware of the fact that on the web (and linking, and SEO) seeing the web as a social network and networking in your niche is big (though Ive been thinking mostly e-mail and forums - which has worked quite well for me).

I guess twitter will help me to do that even more actively once I get the hang of it...I read a few days ago why one should use twitter with one person saying the twitter list a friend of his followed basically read like a who is who of the industry, which finally made him understand why twitter was useful for business.

I'll try to follow your advice and google social networks + my niche...and try to find some niche networks (hope I understood this correct) and see where this takes me.

After a little bit of practice/experience, I might start posting in this thread right here again ;-)

[Lorel]

If I had too many people wanting to stir up a chat and then asking for a link it wouldn't take me long to get wise to that scheme. there are only so many hours in the day.