Alfonso The Coffin Makers Guide To Link Building

High in the Pyrenees lives a 55 year old coffin maker called Alfonso. He doubles as the village web designer and has done a very good job with the local olive growers website. Alfonso has become something of a hit since he managed to secure a high ranking for the olive grower’s on Google. “It’s not so different to making coffins”, says Alfonso.

As a web designer he has also taken the time to learn effective SEO, especially developing links.

“Links are vital, they are like the fat duck, when cooked, the juices flavor everything.”

I have to agree with Alfonso. Developing a successful backlink campaign is crucial for any success in search engine results pages. Getting natural links from authority websites within your niche is the goal for any link building campaign. The hot technique of the moment is linkbait, more of that later.

In a sense, coffin building is similar to link building. You need a large tool box filled with different tools to perform different tasks. Find the tool which fits your hand the best, and performs the task effectively. Remember, no one uses each tool equally well. For example, some have better luck with press releases, whilst others are able to leverage blog comments into links. You have to take an individual approach, if you are link building for different sites you will discover that no two link building campaigns are the same.

If you are new to the world of SEO and link building; try everything, test test test, then concentrate on what works for you.

A list tools to help your link building

• Directories
• Social media
• Link begging
• Offline links
• Creating content
• Article marketing
• Viral Content Creation
• Hire a link baiter
• Press Releases
• Forums

A list of not so obvious link building tools

• Answers.com
• Wikipedia
• Blog Comments (do follow)
• .edu blogs, forums
• Be a web designer for a day
• Do something wonderful for a website owner
• Target local charities
• Vertical Market associations
• Review a local product
• Review a website (unpaid)
• Business networking groups
• Conferences
• Hold a contest

A few words on some of the link building tools.

Offline Linking

Think about where you live, join your local chamber of commerce, your public library may also have a website. Ask any of the local services you use if they have a website and offer to give them a testimonial to place on their site in exchange for a link.

Social Media

Social Media has become very effective for driving huge amounts of hit and run traffic, especially websites such as Digg, Netscape and Reddit. The aim is to encourage a small proportion of that traffic to drop a link to your web page. To do this you must understand the psychology of the linker and what motivates them.

Directories

Getting listed in high quality directories is a great way to start your link building campaign and Google do recommend that you do this.

Directories have been around for as long as most people have been using the Internet.

Yahoo, BOTW, Aviva and V7N all offer great deals, when you are looking for directories to submit your site to try not to stay away from low quality neighborhoods, directories that are linking to low quality made for affiliate marketing and adsense sites have little if any link value and submitting these types of directories can actually do you more harm then good. Look for the directories that exercise good editorial integrity and only link to high quality websites.

Creative Content Creation

Hiring an experienced link baiter can help in creating viral content specifically designed to illicit links. A good piece of linkbait can attract hundreds of links. Some people have a knack at writing killer content which just drags people in. Do not make the mistake of thinking linkbait is simply about tricking people into link. It’s about seducing a link out of people.

If a link baiter charges $600 for content which gains 20 natural links the link baiter has easily paid for themself. Any extra is pure profit. The links accrued from a linkbait campaign are totally natural so they can seriously increase your search engine rankings.

The kind of content needed to get links is not good content, its amazing content. The kind of content that makes your competitors wish they wrote, as they link to you.

What can I gain from a search conference?

You may think knowledge and a chance to learn, but the most valuable thing you gain is links and contacts for future link building.

A conference pass to a search conference roughly costs $1200 + travel, hotel and beer. Total $2,500

You need 8.3 links from people for a year to make the conference pay for itself.

Do not look at a conference for what you can learn, but for who you can meet. The conferences are infested with people looking to make contacts, to trade links and information. Make yourself known, introduce yourself, don’t be intimidated by SEO Rock stars, what’s the worst that can happen? Don’t just target the Rock stars of SEO, make contacts with anyone you think will be worth it. Mingle, schmooze, work the room, press the flesh. Whatever you want to call it, but get your face known.

Have something to trade, websites of your own, an interesting post you made that they may have read, wouldn’t it be nice if you went up to Danny Sullivan and he said, “Oh you’re that guy who wrote that post, tell me, how did you get started in the business?”

It may be that a lot of people will tell you to take a hike. So what? Put them on your shit list and move on. But as long as you have something of value, something interesting to hold their attention, they will want to chat.

As an industry, it is one of the friendliest to newbie’s.

Understanding Link motivation

Its not websites who link to you, its people. People make the decision to cross that burning bridge. When people link it will be an emotional decision rather than a logical one.

People need a reason to link to you, offer something that will amuse, educate and enrich your readers. Make them angry, sad, mad, happy, whatever emotion is needed to trigger a link giving action.

The worst thing to happen is to be ignored.

Wikipedia

Although Wiki now uses no follow” on it’s external links, the data is picked up by other sites such as Answers.com. It also allows people to find your site who may give you a link. Make sure the content you link to on Wiki is relevant and useful, giving it more chance of not being changed or deleted.

Last word

Try new things constantly, new techniques replace the old. Never think you know it all. Marketing online is a fast paced, constantly evolving medium.

It’s the nature of the beast.

If this all sounds a bit much and you would like someone to take care of things for you, visit our link building services page.

Posted in Link Building News By David Eaves a UK search engine optimisation specialist.

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May 23rd, 2007 11 Comments

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