Link Building: Asking for links versus building links
-
I am currently delving into link building for SEO having started out from a social media marketing side. From that angle, it was always my belief building high quality links came from engaging targeted bloggers and sites in my market and related verticals for product reviews and/or providing expert advise and opinion for posts they are creating.
As I am learning more the "technical" side of SEO, I've read a lot of posters on here talk about asking from links from websites. While I get the concept from a strategic stand point, are links really asking for or is better to continue to pursue the long term investment of pitching to get coverage from well known bloggers and sites?
-
Great discussion. Here is what we do with some success.
We don't do link requests, we do content requests. Thinking what a web master wants, we can write and deliver content for them. A guest blog is an excellent example, but there are many other content suggestions you can make. A half page glowing testimonial about there services will often get published. A tips page related to what they do might be very helpful for them.
Think like the web master, be there friend, an the links and citation will follow.
-
Asking for links is usually a inefficient tactic because the incentives do not outweigh the costs. In Dale Carnegie's classic book, How to Win Friends and Influence People he suggests thinking in terms of what other people want, not what you want. If you provide a strong enough incentive, asking for links can work. For example, the ego hook can be highly effective. If you put bloggers on a list as one of the top bloggers in their industry or interview them, they have a strong incentive to link to you.
-
I like the way you are thinking... there are different approaches to linkbuilding.
I believe that different types of linkbuilding work differently for different types of websites, different types of people and different types of relationshiops.
One of the most important things to consider is the value of content on the site. If you have kickass content it can be easy to get links. Just share it via facebook, twitter, slashdot, reddit, stumble upon and the people who encounter it will pass it along to their friends/followers/ etc and some links will develop as a result. Invest in great content and your linkbuilding efforts will can be easy - but your content needs to be best-on-the-web superior stuff. Most people are unable or unwilling to produce this in quantity. This type of linkbuilding really scales because it takes no effort from you. Other people do it for you.
Once your content declines in value then you enter the "asking for links" and "building links" realms.... they are not "gifts" any more. Now you gotta work for almost every one of them, the links are not as juicy and the very best links are impossible to get. These types of links can be one-way if you have decent but not superior content. You just have to ask enough people and a few of them will link to you - as long as you have something respect able for them to link to - and you have to confine your asking to sites that are willing to link out.
Another category of links is "relationships" such as you are a member of a business group, a civic group, a tenant in a building and the landlord links to you, a donor to a library, a business in a specific town, a graduate from a school or department, or maybe your mom will link to you from her blog. These usually have nothing to do with your content and they will link to you as long as your site is not embarrassing.
Once your content and relationships decline in value to the point that nobody is really excited about you linkbuilding becomes a simple transaction...
There is a "fair trade" economy where I give you an article and you accept that content in exchange for allowing my links to remain in it.
There is a "favor economy" where you trade links, trade blog posts, etc. Nobody cares about your content they just want a link somewhere on your site.
Then comes the "purchase economy" where you pay people to link to your site.
I try to operate at the top of this list. I want to create assets on my site that people will link to because the transactions on the lower part of the list are very time consuming and expensive. The cost to scale is very high.
-
Reading all the information buzzing around on Google and social markers, I would think that fewer bog entries and tweets from better sources or related sources would be better in the long run. One thing Google seems to be doing at the moment is biasing keyword searches to social metrics, if you are logged in and your network is active on the topic. We have been able to move keywords rapidly up in rank by contributing to blogs and doing guest articles in our targeted market.
With the last couple of rollouts by google to reduce rank of low quality sites, relevance of content and links is becoming more important. Rand has a slideshow that illustrates how search engines have evolved.
-
It is worth more effort to go for the long term relationships with respected bloggers and sites. Asking for a backlink from a webmaster is practically dead. I mean it is a numbers game and the more people you straight up ask, the better chance that you will get a few here and there. However, by building up a relationship with a blogger or site you have something meaningful over time that will produce more fruitage. Sometimes by contacting a prominent blog ahead of a release of a good piece of content you can build anticipation and get them to take your piece on by generating more perceived value in their eye, and thus getting you a good link. Hope that helps!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Good Collaboration resources for link building
We have recently come across this site in our work on a website: https://collabosaurus.com We are wondering if there are any other collaborative tools or sites like this that may be effective for partnering or matching with people for link building purposes. If anyone is aware of anything similar, we'd love to hear about it. Thanks in advance!
Link Building | | Gavo1 -
Does nofollow link has any effect on link building
I recently read some article on noflollow link and the author says that nofollow link does have some effect on page rank. Can anyone explain the effect of nofollow link on website ranking?
Link Building | | petwho0 -
Reputable High Quality Link Building Company
Hi We are looking for a reputable high quality link building company. Can anyone recommend any and how much would we expect to pay? Thanks Andrew
Link Building | | Studio330 -
Keyword strong domains`and Good Link Building Techniques
Is it still a vital tactic if you can get a keyword strong domain in your seo strategy. I have been using an outsourced link building company and we have been soing social bookmarks and directory listings and forum posts. What i sthe best way to check if a link is good ? Look forward to any help, I am a new member
Link Building | | simon.paul0 -
What are the best SEO agencies for link building?
I am not looking for a full service SEO agency. I just want link building. Not paid links, not link networks, not blog comments, not bookmarks...real, legit, decent links. Does anyone have any experience working with an SEO agency that helped them develop their link profile positively and at a reasonable price? I'm willing to pay for the service, I just want to work with someone who won't buy links or send a bunch of spam our way. If anyone has worked with such an agency, please let me know so I can contact them for more info. Thanks!
Link Building | | DanDeceuster0 -
Primary link building for new clients, where do you go first?
When starting out with a new client, where do you look first to build links for that client? I have a lot of close friends who have small businesses with not a very huge budget for SEO and I'm trying to wrap my head around how to do a significant amount of quality link building without breaking the bank. Any suggestions? My list so far is: Friends / Family of the client.
Link Building | | adriandg
Free (good quality) directories - Yellow pages, etc.
Content creation / Article publishing
Paid directories (BBB, etc) What i am wondering though is if anyone out there has some suggestions as to how to do some quality link building for a small client with a limited budget (lets say, $500).0 -
Will building up the page rank of a page you have a inbound link bring any benefit?
Right then here we go You have a link in an article on a well known national newspaper site that points at your website. Is there any benefit of linking to the newspaper article in order to build up the PR of the article page and therefore passing over some link "juice"? Sub questions 1. Would it be more beneficial simply to gain links to your main website? 2. What are the chances of the article going into the archives and then at some stage being deleted? 3. If the article link points to a domain, which then forwards to a another domain will this pass on any "juice"? 4. If the article points to a domain that then 301's to another domain will this pass on any "juice"? 5. Does Google simply register the link and "juice" on the first pass or will it revisit and upgrade the "juice"? 6. What are the negatives? 7. What are the positives?
Link Building | | therealmarkhall0