Long List of "Bargaining Chips" for Link Aquisition

[philipjterry]

Be fascinated to see what comes up here, and if any lateral ideas pop up. Every time I make a cup of tea - I am going to bake it in my habit to come up with some ideas for this...

The objective here is to be able to negotiate a one way link on the phone *without* them asking for a link back.

For example

I give you a referral if you give me a link....
I give you exclusivity in an area for the referrals if you give me a link...
I place your number and company name on my directory if you give me a link...

Keep them flowing..............

[martinibuster]

"Your site is broken and here is how to fix it."

[bekyed]

I will write an article for you on the subject of your choice if you give me a link.

[BenFox]

I'm running a competition for people in your niche - would you mind advertising it?

[philipjterry]

Hi Martin, please could you elaborate on that?

From the top down I find the personalized approach - appealing to their interest is working extraordinarily well. For example if the site is focused on selling a service - I will open by talking about referring customers who have problems finding your type of service... Or if its content driven site - I will give them seo tips, watch the results generated from my advice - then come back to them with leverage to ask for the link....

[brianmorgan]

Sites that offer products can send away free product to mavens in their niche for reviews that include anchor text links.

[BenFox]

Your site's been short listed for an award. Here's an official badge from us.

We're running an extremely generous limited time only offer on our site - your visitors might appreciate it.

We're running an insightful and interesting poll - we'll share the data with you if you can send us some traffic.

[martinibuster]

please could you elaborate on that?

Broken link, hacked pages, out of date CMS installation (because that's a trojan magnet), etc. Anything that can be broken about a site and can be located via a search query + your keyword is an opportunity to contact the site publisher, be their hero and ask for a link back (or any other link as appropriate for that situation).

[Hoople]

Broken link

Write a replacement page if you don't have one.

Do your research - check the original site to see if the page is there under a new URL. Make the replacement page as good or better than what had been linked to.

[CainIV]

I have aggregated all of the experts in this industry who have to say <this> about the industry. Can you mention this to your community?

[philipjterry]

any ideas how i can use 'the law of attraction' on a dull, dreary, horrible product...?

[koan]

any ideas how i can use 'the law of attraction' on a dull, dreary, horrible product...?

Yeah try to attract another product ;)

[Planet13]

Yeah try to attract another product ;)

+1

Seriously though, there is a whole area of marketing that is related to making people realize they had problems they didn't know they had. Drug manufacturers excel at this, creating all sorts of medical names for syndromes that people had been living fine with. ADHD, anyone? Borderline Personality Disorder, GERD, chronic halitosis.

But there are other products as well. Keystone told us that if we don't drink their beer, we might suffer from Bitter Beer Face, for example.

So if you can't attract them to the benefits of the product, then you need to alert them to the dangers of NOT getting your product.

[BenFox]

any ideas how i can use 'the law of attraction' on a dull, dreary, horrible product...?

If it's a big ticket item then try becoming the definitive source of information for that product.

If it's something really, really, really dull (like 3ft lengths of copper pipe or industrial packages of paperclips) then maybe think outside the box and generate ideas based on the specific needs of the type of people that buy that product.

So in the paperclips example you could provide data on average paperclip consumption along with a tool that estimates how long their order will last them based on office size and quality of paperclips.

Alternatively (also on the paperclips example) you could commission custom images which are shareable in some way - paperclip reconstructions of famous scenes from history, paperclip bicycle races, etc etc.

Failing that you could try and use merchandising to garner links. Maybe offer a limited time only promotion on your paperclips that is so good people will want to share it (ok so I'm clasping at straws now but you can see what I'm getting at). You'd probably need to do some active promotion along with the merchandising to tell people that you're selling paperclips so cheap.

3 ideas off the top of my head - feel free to use although I'm not going to vouch for how well they'd perform.

[Crush]

Here's one! Hey can I buy a link on your website, I see A,B,C is already on there in those premium positions and they are kicking my ass in the SERPS.

I do not want a crappy link on one page, I want a nice sitewide. Will 50$ a month do?

[Planet13]

Maybe offer a limited time only promotion on your paperclips that is so good people will want to share it (ok so I'm clasping at straws now but you can see what I'm getting at).

How about a "For every paper clip you buy, we will donate a paperclip to a child in Africa" campaing ;)

Seriously, if you are able to set up a cause, then you can get some free promotion - and links. Can you donate any thing to fundraiser events so that you can get a link?

I do not want a crappy link on one page, I want a nice sitewide. Will 50$ a month do?

Well, yes, you can buy links. But another thing you can do is help out with free SEO advice / services for sites that are related to yours in exchange for a link. It would have the benefit of as that site ranks better and gets more links (due to the free SEO help you gave them), that site will pass more page rank through the link back to your site.

[CainIV]

Here's one! Hey can I buy a link on your website, I see A,B,C is already on there in those premium positions and they are kicking my ass in the SERPS.

Was this before or after the 5 page drop for 9 months for all major keywords? :)

[Planet13]

Was this before or after the 5 page drop for 9 months for all major keywords? :)

Hey, it could have been coincidence! Maybe google was just "broken" during that time, and after 9 months, it came to its senses?!?!?! ;)

In all seriousness, a nine month penalty does seem like google is NOT satisfied with simply "devaluing" purchased links, as some have postulated on this board in the past.

And if that is the case, then I would imagine that google bowling is alive and well.

[CainIV]

And if that is the case, then I would imagine that google bowling is alive and well.

Excellent job, class dismissed! :)