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The (Brief) Blogger’s Guide to Getting Links

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Guest Writer: Lara Kulpa from Anubis Marketing

So if you’re a good little RSS follower, you might notice that there are tons of people who talk all the time about linking. Linking out, getting links, sharing links, spreading links… it can get overwhelming and sound like it’s a ton of work, when in reality, all you need to do is remember a few things all the time. You know your alphabet offhand, don’t you? Human beings are creatures of habit, and when we do things over and over again, the same way, it becomes second nature where we don’t have to think any more.

Basically, regardless of the way you try to get links, it’s really simple to keep the following in mind:

• Don’t be annoying. In other words, if you decide to send a comment or an email to another blogger tipping them off to your latest post, don’t fill the email with things like, “Please link to this? I’m really trying hard 2 get noticed and ur blog is SOOOO kewl and u have TONz of readers and u shud share this wit dem so that I can get TONNNNzez of readers 2. C’mon, U no u want 2 linkorz 2 mii! Itz relly good stuff I wrote, and evry1 will think ur cool for linkng to meee! PUHLEEEEZ!?!?!!!!!1?!!?” Okay, so that was a little extreme, but you get my drift. Yes, I’ve received link requests like this in the past, and they not only get the “big red X” but they likely get made fun of on my site.

  This also means that you can’t beg for links right on your site, unless you do it creatively, and only occassionally. Seems a trend of late is to offer a chance at some sort of “cool” gadget in return for writing a review or otherwise linking to a page or site. Again, it’s creative and unobtrusive.

• Write link-worthy content. Yep, this one still eludes many bloggers. No one’s really going to care enough about the photo you took of your cat eating your tuna sandwich to link to you. But let’s just say you happen upon a certain fast food chain and after taking a bite of your grilled chicken sandwich, you find it to be raw inside. Well then my dear, you’re practically guaranteed a few dozen links (or more) for this one! Provided of course that you take pictures of said raw chicken sandwich - WITH the bite removed and spit out upon your napkin - along with a detailed story of how it grossed you out.
• Submit yourself to directories, or find a marketing firm to handle it for you. I have a couple posts on this sort of thing, but the bottom line is pay for what you can afford and get what you don’t have to pay for - but ONLY if it’s relevant and related to your niche. There’s a few things you need to check for, like whether or not the link is a direct link or a cgi redirect (scripted cloaking of your link - gives you NO link juice at all), and making sure that there’s no “nofollow” tag.
• Explore other bloggers’ sites, and COMMENT! - I know for a fact that I have a minimum of 30 people subscribed to one of my sites via feedburner at this very moment. I also have many other RSS subscribers using some other method, and a handful of email subscribers to the same site. All said, there’s likely over 150 people getting my content every day for that one particular site, yet I get probably 2-3 comments a week, if that. I have sites that get less, and many that get more, but the bottom line is that there are a few niches out there where I KNOW I’m not the only one blogging on it (if I were, I’d be rich!) yet people aren’t sharing their sites with me. I’d love to see others who are interested in the same things I am! And I’d likely link to them too, if only I knew where they were.
• Offer your readers someTHING to link to. Be it a report you wrote, a cutting edge article, photos of an event, a referral link, free tools, anything! Just give them a reason - they’ll take you up on it.

So there you have it - a few things you need to think about when trying to get more links to your site. They’re everyday things - nothing major, but all little things that could add up to a mess of relevant incoming links to your site. The more links you get, the more the search engines take notice. The more that happens, the more readers you get. And it circles around over and over again until you become one heckuva popular blogger!

~ Lara Kulpa

(Joe should be returning to his regular posting schedule tomorrow. I know that all your warm wishes and prayers were awe-inspiring to him, and I’m positive that sometimes when you don’t know how much you need it, the best support can and does come from “strangers”.)

March 27th, 2007 at 05:30am | Posted by Joe | Guest Writer's Articles, Linking | 4 reader remarks | Print This Post