How (and why) to get people to link to your Web site
From: Hans Klein
Cyberwave Staff Writer
Dear Subscriber,
They’re the lifeblood of free traffic. Without them, you might as well be considered non-existent to the world.
Search engines can’t find you (and don’t care about you), new customers have no way of reaching you, and you’re missing out on a fortune in potential traffic as a result.
What are we talking about?
You guessed it… incoming links from other websites. And with regard to no-cost traffic (the best kind), they are the single most important part of any successful online business…
And are essential to attracting new customers’ day-after-day!
You see, one of the biggest mistakes website owners make is to ignore search engines when promoting their online business. It’s a costly error.
You see, while securing profitable endorsements or joint-ventures for your products will equal big pay-days, and though paid advertising is crucial… it is the search engine tactics performed by either you or affiliates that can easily sustain your business for the long run, simply by bringing in an endless stream of new customers.
Another way to think of search engines are like yellow pages. If you have a local business and you aren’t placing your ad in the phone book, you’re missing out on one of the single biggest sources of new customers available.
Search engines are a lot like yellow pages in that you get interested visitors who are looking for your product or service right now! Think about it, you don’t browse through the plumbing section of the yellow pages unless you have a clogged drain or leaky pipe, and you are ready to spend money immediately.
The only thing holding most folks back from fully using search engines is that understanding how to get top rankings often seems too technical and complicated.
Well, if you fit in this category, then you may be surprised to learn that while meta tage, keyword density, and other things make a difference as to where your listing comes up, the most important thing to focus on is getting…
Fresh incoming links!
Yep, that’s right. Over 95% of getting a top ranking is simply getting links to your website with the right link text (usually called anchor text).
For example, to get ranked for the search term, “The Online Marketing Letter” you’d want incoming links to say, The Online Marketing Letter).
No technical search engine tactics necessary – just links!
Why are links so important to search engines? Simple, when search engines see somebody took the time to link to you, they believe that “This site just might be worthwhile to look at and list in our search engine.”
Remember, the goal of every search engine is to provide the most relevant results. And the more links you have, then the more serious the search engines will take your website. Those links are evidence you’re already benefiting another website’s visitors.
This means another way to think about incoming links are as “Votes.”
Each time somebody links to you, they are
“voting” for you with the search engines!
The more votes you have, the higher your search engine rankings are going to be. Additionally, when a site that is already popular links to you, then their vote counts more.
So, a link from the popular bookseller Amazon.com (which has thousands of incoming links) is going to be worth a lot more than BobsThoughtsOnTrignometry.com (with zero incoming links).
It is also common thinking that you should go-after links from related industries to yours. So, a bookseller would want a link from Amazon.com, as opposed to an unrelated link from a web hosting service.
And, what’s even more…
Links play an additional role in the search game. They are also what allow the search engines to find and collect each of your website’s pages using their search engine “spiders” (computers that scour web pages link by link).
These “spiders” crawl the web from one link to the next sucking up (and ranking) web pages that meet its standards.
Attracting these spiders to your website is a vital part of free search engine traffic. It’s the difference between taking months for your pages to get into the search engines or, if you do it right, less than 24 hours (it’s even possible to get your site indexed in several hours).
Google’s search engine spider is the hardest one to attract and has the highest standards. Then, there’s the Yahoo spider, followed by the MSN spider.
Direct traffic benefits…
So far, we’ve talked a lot about why you want links for search engine rankings, but don’t forget the direct traffic benefits from incoming links.
As you start to accumulate them, you will find some sources are better at providing targeted traffic than others.
With that said, there’s still one major unanswered question left about links. How do you know how many you should get to your site? Well, before we can go any further, you must understand…
The Vital Component of Google’s Page Rank
Google page rank is information that identifies how much Google likes each your pages (and it generally holds true for MSN.com and Yahoo.com as well).
It ranges from a site being not ranked… at zero… and all the way up to a ten. With Google itself having a 10 and a relatively unknown site having 0. A site is not ranked if it is brand new or has been banned for using a search engine tactic Google does not like.
You can find Page Rank for a specific page by downloading the Google toolbar at: http://toolbar.google.com. The page rank is displayed in the toolbar and looks like this: 
Once you’ve downloaded the toolbar, you will want to look at your main competitors sites for the keywords you want to be ranked for.
For example, if your product is within the Public Speaking market, you might do a search on Google for the term “Fear of Public Speaking.” Then, you would go through the first few listings to see what their page rank is.
Then, to get their spot in Google’s listings for “Fear of Public Speaking,” you should aim to beat their page rank with inbound links. Unless the term is heavily searched, you should try to get on the first page of search results (top 10).
Once you’ve uncovered your competitors page rank, you can then copy many of their incoming links by doing the following search in Google:
link:http://www.competitorswebsite.com/
This will reveal all of the incoming links to your competitor’s site that Google has found. Once you know how many links you need to get, all you have to do is…
Secure incoming links
Whenever you launch a new site, in most cases your goal should be to get as many high-quality incoming links as possible to get as much free traffic as possible.
Also, keep in mind that search engines view each page by itself, with its own page rank. The only way it ties into the main site is that you transfer page rank by linking your pages from one to another.
To get as many incoming links as possible, you will need to employ a wide range of link gathering methods.
1) First, there are reciprocal links: These are one of the easiest, but most time consuming type of incoming link to gain.
To do it, you create a reciprocal link directory. You’ve probably seen these before. On most websites, you will see a link that says, “Links” or “Resources.” Then, when you click on the link you will see listings of link partners (their reciprocal link directory).
The quickest way to find links is to use competitors’ directories and contact all of their link partners to exchange links with you.
Additionally, there are several types of software to help automate the process of finding link partners. These include “Arelis” at:
http://www.axandra-link-popularity-tool.com/index.htm
…and “Zeus” at:
http://www.cyber-robotics.com/
An additional strategy to find partners is to search for terms such as:
“Add a URL” + “Your Search Term,” “Add a link” + “Your Search Term,” + “Submit a Link” + “Your Search Term,”
…and…
“Recommended sites” + “Your Search Term,”
…or dozens of other similar variations. That way, you find other competitors link directories.
When looking for link partners, it’s easiest to look for those who already exchange links. It is often time consuming and requires follow-ups to convince someone who does not already know the importance of links to add your link.
Additionally, an important consideration when gathering reciprocal links is your anchor text (the text that describes the link on the Web page). For your link text, you want to include your search term where your competitors in Google have a page rank of at least a six.
2) Second, use articles: These can be the most successful tools you have to get a massive number of incoming links.
At the bottom of each article you have a resource box or an area where you describe the author. Websites, blogs, and newsletters will pick-up your articles giving you an influx of new links from your resource box.
Unlike other methods of getting incoming links, articles can also be a major source of incoming traffic likely to produce sales since they build credibility and pre-sell your product or service.
However, there are a couple of issues you need to be aware of:
- First, you need to have well-written and high-content articles. If you just throw something together, then nobody is going to want to pick up your article. Having success with an article is hit or miss. Sometimes your content will strike a nerve and you’ll have amazing results (with hundreds of people reprinting your articles) and other times people will barely take notice.
- Next, you need to promote them effectively. Build-up your own list of publishers and submit them to as many article directories as possible. Having your own list of customers who can spread your articles also helps.
3) Use press releases: Type-up a short press release with your link at least twice in the copy and make it newsworthy (not a sales pitch). Think about an interesting aspect of your product and talk about it. Stories are excellent here. Then, submit it to all of the online PR wires. Free ones include:
A successful press release can be picked up by hundreds of sites and flood your website with new links. Keep in mind your goal with your press release is to funnel visitors into your website and get incoming links. Publicity is important, but it is a secondary factor when you’re talking about online press releases.
4) Give people a reason to send links your way: A blog or online newsletter is an excellent place to do this. Give your thoughts, ideas, and opinions on a topic of great debate… and add something new. Create controversy. Become the leading source for information in your field.
The most obvious successful example marketers can look at is the Gary Halbert letter at:
http://www.TheGaryHalbertLetter.com
In each issue he gives a unique and new opinion for his audience. You may find his style gruff, even offensive, but it’s definitely not the same old re-hashed material you’ll find other places.
Another excellent example is the copywriter Bob Bly’s blog at:
http://www.bly.com/blog/
In nearly every entry he simply creates a little bit of controversy by giving a contrary opinion… meaning you don’t have to be creative or have a bold personality to do this. Anybody can have a contrary opinion on a popular subject. Just make sure you’re backing up what you’re saying with compelling reasons.
5) Submit to directories: These include hundreds of general directories for all topics such as:
http://www.dmoz.com
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/
You should also do searches for directories just for your market. If you’re a photographer or DJ, then you will find dozens of directories just for you.
Finding these directories is easy. Just do a search in any search engine for, “directories” + “your keyword” or similar variations.
Directories are especially valuable because they tend to do well in the search engines. This means you can get traffic for competitive search terms that you would have had a hard time of getting on your own.
6) Participate in discussion forums and message boards: Discussion forums are a good source of traffic and the links are good for getting search engine spiders to your site. Plus, they are spidered often so the results can be quick. To use them, you put your link in your signature (the part after your message and name).
You can find discussion forums for your market by doing a search on Google and at:
7) Help others out in all ways possible: This means giving other folks testimonials they can use on their websites (with a live link), offering and giving interviews, and participating in any other opportunities that arise where people would mention your website.
8) Send links from your other sites, including a blog: If you don’t have any other sites you can link from, then create a blog (set-up a free blogger account at: http://www.blogger.com).
From your blog, you can continually send links to your different pages to build page rank and get the search engine spiders to visit them.
9) Purchase incoming links: You can also purchase incoming links from high-ranking sites. This is a popular tactic and there are many sites that offer links for search engine optimizations purposes. You can easily find them with a site like:
http://www.textlinkbrokers.com/
For these, you should make sure that you are buying from a site that is likely to produce sales (has visitors who are interested in your type of product) to make sure you get your investment back.
10) Offer bonuses or free reports: Then, all the reader has to do to get them is to send a link your way! This is a quick and easy ways to get fresh incoming links using visitors you already have.
One of the most important tasks you can accomplish is to gain high-quality incoming links.
By going after them, you’ll consistently beat your competition in the rankings for key search terms… and gain a fresh flow of totally free profitable traffic.
So, just like the Yellow Pages in a phone book are an important source of new customers for local business, securing top rankings in the search engines are vital for your online business.
Best of all, it’s easy. It’s mostly all just gaining incoming links that have the search terms you want to get ranked for.
Sincerely,
Hans Klein
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