Search Engine Marketing Blog

10 ways to cheat at link building. Quick, easy tips to get you and your new site going.

1. Directories - quick, easy, fast submissions. Usually free, sometimes a small fee. Links are usually set up in a timely fashion. Find suitable directories at the Open Directory.

2. Buy a Yahoo directory link.

3. Ask people you know - personal friends, family members, your kid’s school, your golf club, people you met on holiday - anyone you know who owns, or knows someone who owns, a site.

4. Arrange with your business partners to do a Partners page - you normally refer them to customers so why not refer them on your site and get them to refer you by linking to you.

5. Ask satisfied business customers for an endorsement. You add their testimonial on your site with a link to theirs and they add you as a preferred supplier on their site with a link to yours.

6. Don’t have a news page, have a blog instead. Just for having a blog you qualify for links a normal site can’t get - there’s a whole Dmoz section devoted to weblogs not to mention all the blog specific directories. Use the blog for posting news, press releases, product recalls, job openings, sponsorships, and so on. If you post something that’s actually interesting to someone you’ll get links without having to ask. Blogging software is like a free, easy to install content management system that can be administered by just about anyone who can type and you don’t have to give them access to the rest of your site.

7. Put up a “Link to Me” sign on your site with code for a professional looking button that people can simply cut and paste into their own site’s code.

8. Offer a “Listed On” or award button link for any site that qualifies. Believe it or not sites are still willing to stick an award or “Listed On” button link on their site.

9. Every time you do a press release make sure it carries your website address and is distributed to the online press release services.

10. Let other sites use your content providing they link back to your site. White papers, studies, surveys, research, product recall notices, tips, articles, jokes, anything that you post on your site that other sites may wish to use. Stick a politely worded permission note on the bottom of the content page letting other site owners know they are welcome to use the material - all you ask is that they credit the content to you using a direct link.

Ok, so there is no completely lazy way of getting links. Didn’t your Daddy ever tell you that anything worth doing is worth doing well?

Be number 1 on Google for a term the author is looking to write about.

I’m not kidding. Everyone, despite knowing better, uses Google as a reference tool. The number of authoritative websites that reference our sites without us ever having asked is amazing. The only reason they do so is because they do a search on Google for a topic they are writing about and there’s our little site minding its own business.

Obviously, having a professional and “correct” design seals the deal. Even if you’re number 1 for “ancient Egyptian artifacts” you’re not going to be referenced unless your site looks the part.

So the formula for gaining authoritative links without ever asking is:

Great content on a very specific subject X the right design

I have to stress here that the design is very, very important. It doesn’t have to be swish, flash, swirling or otherwise gorgeous - it does however have to be exactly what the searcher would expect a site on that topic to look like. But that’s a whole different post.

Have the right design, get to the top and get referenced!

You think you are selling serviced office space to the branch manager but in fact it is the secretary doing the bargain hunting online. You are sure that it is the man of the house viewing the ad for the four door hatch back you’re trying to offload but in reality it’s the real influencer of the household – the 12 year old who has become adept at convincing his mother of why they desperately need or shouldn’t be seen within 20 miles of well, whatever his friends do or don’t currently think is cool. You assume you’re promoting the latest mens’ fashion fragrance to you guessed it, men – think again. It’s the girlfriends. And not their own girlfriends but their girlfriends’ girlfriends.

So how do you deal with the fact that you are in reality not marketing to the decision maker you thought you were targeting but instead a host of unseen and oft-times unconventional gatekeepers.

What does a 12 year old know about buying the family car? He knows how to search online. He knows what’s cool, how to do online bargain hunting, how to find reviews, what the footballers drive and what the wanna be footballers wanna drive. In short, he is the techno wizard of the home and therefore he is the designated “researcher”. His parents will obviously do their own research but it will be influenced by the information he has already obtained effortlessly and possibly in un-exhaustible measures via the treasure trove (for a 12 year old wanting to be seen driven to school in a fantastically sweet ride) that is the world wide web.

So how do you deal with this? Do you redevelop your TV ad? Spend millions on a new campaign aimed at spotty pre-teens. No, your gatekeeper problem is online. Online is easy. It’s all about keywords – content is king. Speak to your audience, however many audiences that may be. Talk their language, write content just for them, use terminology they understand, find appealing and most importantly of all are SEARCHING FOR.

Because if they don’t find you in a search you don’t exist. Simple as that. There is no magic wand, no special marketing formula, no mumbo jumbo. There’s just keywords and copy aimed at the right audience, several right audiences. And it all comes down to being found. By the right people, at the right time.

The 12 year old kid doesn’t buy the car, he just tells his parents what he’s found out online about such and such a car. The secretary doesn’t sign the lease, she just reports on the available options. But you have to be there, in their face, at the top of the results, for whatever search the gatekeeper, not the end buyer, does.

So your task – think like your audience. Not your purchasing audience - your research audience. And remember, there might be a few. Don’t be stingy with the content.

For more on this subject see Kevin Lee’s post - Designated Searchers May Thwart Personalization. It’s a thought provoking read.

Fine, I used to be one. That was before I realised how much money the G god makes out of having something to index. And giving them something to index is my job. So in reality I’m helping them make money and yet according to the puritanical white hats I’m supposed to be totally blinkered and never, ever, ever, ever try to game the system? Are you serious?

Google and every other commercial search engine is just that - commercial. They sell ads, they make money, good for them. I have no problem with that whatsoever. It’s what capitalism is all about.

But to then turn around and act as the keepers of all things true and good - it just gets me sometimes.

G says Don’t Buy Links - well, why not? They sell links don’t they? What is a PPC ad if not a link? It’s a link, people click it, G gets money, the advertiser hopefully gets a new customer, everyone’s happy. So why should they tell us not to do ad sales on our own sites in any way, shape or form that we see fit? It’s my site! I can do what I bl**dy well like.

G says Don’t Create Content for Search Engines, Write for People - Ok, now, I happen to agree with this one but only because I happen to know it’s one and the same thing - at the least the way I do it. You could argue (just cause I’m in a mood) that creating content for search engines is good for people and therefore you should only create content for search engines! So there!

The Self-Labelled White Hats say Don’t Do Anything at all ever just for the sake of search engines. Again, against my better judgement this is a rule I generally follow not because search engines are something hollowed and sacred but because designing sites in a user friendly manner with well structured navigation and keyword rich content is both second nature and good business.

BUT - and that’s a very, very big BUT - if search engines weren’t part of the equation do you honestly for a minute think that people would have been so ready to forsake Flash or other difficult to index technologies in favour of boring, old fashioned, easily spiderable code? Do you think so much time, effort and attention would be spent on ensuring that sites are W3 compliant and that meta tagging was all correct and accounted for? Give me a break.

The irony is that most tanned-to-black hat search engine marketers who know me would consider me a straight up white hat SEO puritan (I don’t do anything on Google’s no no list). The difference is that I no longer worship at the G god’s feet or think it’s a all knowing, all seeing, all loving deity. It’s a commercial organisation for Pete’s sake! They’re not hippies or even yuppies. They’re not trying to make the world a better place or save starving children or start a new religion. They make money, they horn in on anything that’s gaining prominence, they are out to rule the world (well, that might be taking it a bit far but this is a rant in case you haven’t noticed). And as long as they continue to give my sites prominent placement I’m happy to go along with it. But don’t tell me to be puritanical and not have impure thoughts or it’ll displease Google. It’s not my god and I really don’t care!