The bad:

Bad Link Building Example

I mean, it seems nice right? Using somewhat decent English (I have no room to talk by the way – bad english, spelling all around my posts) etc. Well, if you take a look at the red arrows you will see what is wrong with this request.

1. Wrong Industry (close) but not close enough to “Furniture” to be relevant.
2. Letting them know how it will help their search engine rankings no longer helps you, but in my opinion, hurts you.  There are more tactful ways of letting people know (that don’t know) about how link building helps rankings etc.
3. Telling me you are real person and not a request bot – it had the opposite effect on me – made me think they sent this to 50 million other people, and don’t really understand my industry (again, going back to the fact they got it wrong in the first place).

I may even have considered this one if they didn’t get the industry so wrong, but its just not personal and to the point (Don’t waste my time).  They are trying to hard IMO.

The Good:

Good Link Building Example

I want to point out the reasons why this one is great.  It is simple, to the point and got the link (which I will show you the response in just a minute).

1. Show them how it will benefit their business (not that it will help improve their rankings) Show how it will help their customers and the people visiting THEIR site AND WHERE it will benefit their site. (supply URL)
2. Make it easy for them to link – show them exactly where they can link to you.
3. Be real, be yourself – Ok, we might be marketers AND Sales Managers, but let them know in this case who they are dealing with.

You can tell from this second example that a real human wrote it.  It does not come across as spammed to 50 million other peeps.  It seems as if it was written for THAT specific site (which it was – pay attention here – good link building alert).  No mix up in industries here!

And guess what?

Link Building Response

Most important thing here?  Look at the arrow – added the link.  That is your goal right?  To get the link.  This shows how easy it is, if it is done right.  The point here is simple, pay attention to what you are doing, be personal and show exactly how it will benefit their users.  You follow the examples I have spelled out for you here, you will probably start having a lot more success with link building.  Good luck!

I’ve contacted some of the sites that have linked to my competitors and requested that they link to me, but have never heard back.  What do I do?

And I couldn’t help myself but to email Mat a reply.

It was a little edgy, but he thought it was  funny informative whatever enough that he asked me to turn it into a post and be a random contributor.

Here. Goes. Nothing.

Some people are made to be hunters.

Some are made to be hunted.

Whether you are a hunter or a someone who is usually hunted — deep down inside, you know what your natural tendency is… and don’t even try lying to yourself about it.

So first you have to be completely honest with yourself and admit whether you are a hunt-er or a hunt-ed.

Once you know if your natural bias is to be a hunt-er or a hunt-ed, then you will know if you are a good link builder or not.

If you don’t naturally gravitate toward being a hunt-er, the truth is that you will probably suck as a link builder.

Why?

Because you most likely don’t have thick enough skin. Being a link builder takes a number of things, but high on the list is having unusually thick skin and being able to be completely comfortable with being told to get lost – or sometimes, GET LOST LOSER and then the occasional GET LOST LOSER BEFORE I CALL THE POLICE GOOGLE.

Let’s say a competitor of yours is getting great links from someone at a site and your mission is to get that person to give you a little linky-linky instead of your competitor.

What do you do?

Sure, each situation is 100% unique, but the first thing you need to do is find out if the person you are trying to get to give you a link is a hunt-er or a hunt-ed.

If The Person Is A Hunt-er

If the person who is handing out link love is a hunt-er, tread very, very lightly.

The truth is that most people who hand out link love in the world today aren’t hunt-ers — they are hunt-ed’s because they are more frequently the stable, pleasant content manager type who has been hired to manage a set of properties and not as often the balls-to-the-wall-whacko type that most hunt-ers are.

But if the person you want link love from is a true hunt-er (you can usually figure this out fairly quickly if your emotional IQ is above average) then you need to try an UNDERHAND approach.

Start by asking a question that has nothing to do with links and one that you know they will know the answer to. Toss them a softball when asking the question – one that is just hard enough that they will be able to feel smart, but not so difficult that it makes them feel dumb.

Then leave a comment somewhere on their site where they can see it.

Then leave another comment the next day, and then another for about a week or two.

Then stalk them on Twitter.

Then start talking with their FRIENDS on Twitter and get their friends to be your friends.

Once their friends are your friends, you can then triangle your new friend into your friend who is now the hunt-ed but they just don’t know it yet.

Then be understated as you try to find out how they get paid, how they feel about their job and what their boundaries are of what they will and won’t do.

Then after all that – and probably another 3 or 4 things I won’t tell you here… THEN AND ONLY THEN DO YOU ASK THEM FOR A LINK.

If The Person Is A Hunt-ed

If the person who is handing out link love is a hunt-ed — then it is just like picking out your spouse.

Since you are the hunt-er, you just go about it like you are going to make the hunt-ed fall in love with you.

The weird thing about this whole process is it is virtually identical to #1 except that you can take a more OVERHAND approach — meaning you can be more aggressive.

You might even be able to try the usual lines like “don’t worry, no one will know about it and of course I will still respect you in the morning…”

After you spend somewhere between 30 seconds and a month getting them all ready for the big consummation of your relationship… THEN AND ONLY THEN DO YOU ASK THEM FOR A LINK.

Whether the person you are trying to get a link from is a hunt-er or a hunt-ed, if you keep in mind the idea that getting a link is a lot like trying to get laid, it makes it much, much funner easier.

Are you looking for: a one-link-stand? Someone who can be your emergency linky-call? A long term link-ationship? A link-buddy? A non-committal-linkout? Someone who has never been linked before? Someone you don’t have to worry about getting mad about your link as long as you leave money on the dresser on your way out?

No matter what kind of link-love you are looking for, if you follow these simple tips, you can soon be well on your way to being the Ron Jeremy of linkbuilding.

Question Asked:

I’ve contacted some of the sites that have linked to my competitors and requested that they link to me, but have never heard back.  What do I do?

My first answer to this is actually in the form of a question – How many link request did you even send out? Typically if sending out a hundred or so requests, be prepared to only hear back from 1 or 2 people (and in turn only find a few good links out of every few hundred or so out of those). So, if you are not having any luck and have only sent out 10 or 20 emails then you have only begun to scratch the surface with link building.

I would also ask what the exact technique of finding your competitors links you were using, because there are many techniques of finding good links via the competition. If you are just going to YSE and exploring the URL of your #1 competitor and going down the list of results, and emailing all of then, I am not surprised by your results. I would use a lot of those results as guides only. If you find a review site, don’t email them and ask them for a link (with a review you already have written), talk to your customers and see if they would be willing to go to the site and submit a review for you. Don’t tell them what to say, just ask them if they would be willing to go to “review site a” and leave a few comments about what they purchased from you.

Here’s an idea that works!

Letting people know where they can find you online (via your website) is a must too. How will people know they can leave a review on Yelp or Google Maps, if you don’t have a link on your site somewhere that says “Learn more about us on Yelp”, or “Find more pictures on Google Maps”? So again, use the above suggested methods to see (research) what the competition is doing, but use this technique to actually get the link. You are not breaking any terms of service because you are not giving people compensation for their reviews.

Are you being yourself?

If you are sending the same mass email out to everybody you find, then I understand why you are not having much success. You need to find ways to connect with the site owner where you want a link. What can you do for them? Do you have a site where giving them a link might be appropriate? Can you suggest any changes that might help their business? Could you offer to continue giving them content which would help enrich the visitors of their site? Sure, this process can take a lot longer, but the results (links) you get with it are going to do much much better for you in the long run and pass the most juice!

I think back to once when I found a college professors students “curriculum” page, where they had included resources to other websites for the kids. I had an article that I thought would be a perfect fit. I emailed this teacher and explained who I was, and that I thought I had something that might work well on this page. I also told her I would be willing to do an interview, or talk to these kids via Skype etc. (answer their questions) She ate it up, and I helped out her kids, and now have many valuable .edu links because of it. I would have never got this professor if the email had started out “Dear Webmaster”.

I also think that many “new to link building” individuals are afraid of being told “no”, or they think the person they are trying to get the link from knows what they are up to (or that they are trying to be a sneaky SEO). I am amazed at how many trusted sites, passing amazing link juice are ran by people who don’t have a clue what they are sitting on. If you find ways to connect with these people on a human level, they will link to you, and you will have success!

I went to Twitter and posed this question to my followers and asked for my link building NINJA friends to chime in.

Here is what they said:

Follow Melanie Nathan on Twitter

First Link Building Ninja Up: Melanie Nathan – (Melanie Nathan specializes in creating custom inbound link building campaigns for her clients at CanadianSEO).

Assuming the question revolves around a person emailing all the sites their competitor is linked from and getting no response, here is what I’ve learned from my experiences:

First of all, what kind of links requests were they (reciprocal, editorial, paid etc)? How many emails did they send out? Were they all at once or scattered over a period of time? Did they all have the same subject and email body content? Did they not get ANY response from ANY of the sites?

It could be that they’re too busy to respond and your email got buried; maybe the person who handles it is on vacation or sick etc etc etc. I believe though, that the two main reasons you don’t get a response to a link request are either a) your email was flagged as spam or b) they didn’t like the pitch.

Of course, you can’t really know definitively, but there are a few common sense things you can be doing in order to combat the above:

• Don’t include any hyperlinks within your email. Not even your own site url or the url of the page you want a link from (that comes after initial contact).
• Email them from a professional domain based or non-spammy email address (i.e. not linktome@hotmail.com).
• Word your email carefully. In the real world, you wouldn’t walk up to a total stranger and immediately ask them for something. Emailing a link prospect should be looked upon the same way.
• Make each link request email unique instead of generic. Show your personality!

Too me, the first email should be about opening up the lines of communication and making them feel safe enough to even respond to you. Not bombarding them with how awesome your site is and what you want them to do for you (Note: I’m not saying this person did so).

In any case, a follow up email is definitely a good idea. I generally forward a copy of my initial email (assuming it was well worded) and include a note, something like:

“Hi again, I didn’t get an answer to my initial email. Just wanted to make sure you’d received it. Looking forward to your response. Cheers, ”

If they don’t respond after that, then they’re probably not interested so I wouldn’t advise emailing them a third time or you’d really be spamming them lol.

My last piece of advice is to only email a couple of sites at a time. This way you can test out a few differently worded emails and techniques, seeing what works and what doesn’t, before you waste every good prospect on one bad pitch.

I’d like to get a look at the actual email they’re sending out/technique they’re using. I’d probably have some more tips for them.

Follow Debra on Twitter

Next Up, Link Building Ninja #2: Debra Mastaler – (Link Building Services – Link Building Training by Debra Mastaler of Alliance-Link)

I think you have a number of options:

1.  Write back and ask again, preface the email with a “don’t want to be a pest but would really appreciate it” type comment
2.  Write back and apologize saying you forgot to mention the compensation/incentive offer/giveaway you have to send in exchange for the link
3.  Go find their blog and start commenting. When you feel confident they’ve noticed you there, write again, point out your participation on the blog and ask for the link.
4.  Sign up for their newsletter. When you write back be sure to flatter the newsletter and then ask for the link.
5. Combine answer 2 and 3 and ask for the link
6.  Backlink the competitor site and get links on all the sites linking to her/him.
7.  Forget about it and move on. The time spent thinking and rewriting could be put to use elsewhere.

Follow Arnie Kuenn on Twitter

Now Up, Link Building Ninja #3: Arnie Kuenn – (Arnie Kuenn & his team focus on link building & higher rankings at Vertical Measures)

My initial reaction was to say “find another job”. Not because this link builder is unsuccessful, but because they actually asked this question. Clearly this is their fourth day on the job and they have no one training or coaching them.

Let’s break this down.

“I’ve contacted some of the sites that linked to my competitors…” SOME of the sites? That sounds to me like something less than 10 sites and if you have already given up and are puzzled as to why this isn’t working, you might polish up your resume.

“…and requested that they link to me,”. Hmmm. REQUESTED that they link to you? Do you give them an excellent reason to? Did you make a fair offer to them? Or did you just request a link because they were linking to your competitor?

“…but have never heard back.” If you are already disappointed in the fact that no one got back to you, you have many discouraging days ahead of you. Again, you might want to rethink your career choice. This is a numbers game. Even if you have a great offer, you are trying to sell someone on the idea of giving you a link. Expect the vast majority to ignore you.

“What do I do?” If you haven’t already quit your job, you might want to evaluate your approach to potential link partners. Make sure you can clearly articulate why someone should want to link to you. Did you take the time to make a personal contact? Did you make a great offer? What is the compelling reason someone should want to link to you? Also, if you haven’t already, consider other methods to gain links. There are dozens of ways to do it, but they all require hard work and a bit of a salesperson’s mentality.

Follow Dan Patterson on Twitter

Final Ninja of the day #4 Dan Patterson – (Dan Patterson is account manager at SEO.com and has a keen eye for link building).

First of all, how does the subject of your email read? If it sounds like an obvious “I want a link from you” title, you can assume that most people are just deleting the email without even opening it. You really have to be able to offer something good and beneficial in return if someone is going to act on your request.

Second, how does the body of your email read? I’ve seen some emails that are so long I’m not going to read them, and neither will anyone else. But I’ve seen some that were only two sentences. Also, don’t just use a template for every site. Come up with something unique for each site so they don’t feel like they were just spammed.

The third thing is follow up. Chances are that one email isn’t going to do it. People are used to getting link request emails and just deleting them or ignoring them. But if you make a good request or offer, but then follow it up a time or two you may actually get a response.

Thanks guys & gals! This is some great advice, and answers the question perfectly. When you hit a link building roadblock, as the individual on my webinar did, I think you need to take a step back and first, evaluate what you are doing, take a closer look at the techniques you are using, then read over these suggestions offered here by our link building ninjas.  You do this, and I know you will start to see more successful results with link building.

I wrote a press release and even though no one came to the classes, people found him.

Here’s a bit from the conversation:

Client: We’ve developed a second class following the success of the first one so I want to announce it.

Me: Was the first class successful?

Client: YES!

Me: tell me about it…what made it so good?

Client: 70K worth of business

Me: and how did they find out about the class?

Client: They found out via OUR press release!

I was a bit surprised! My new press release book is out and it has the techniques I’ve used to help clients like this. I’m especially loving 247-pressrelease and as always PRWeb (depending on the level of service you want/need).

I quote Dream Systems Media’s own Mat Siltala on the book cover (he’s a famous speaker and social media ninja :

“When you finally understand the power of press, and what it does for branding, reputation, link building, traffic and conversions for your business, it will be all you think about. Gaining links to your site via a press release is one of the most powerful forms of link building today. SEO is all about content and links. The more trust and authority you have, the more links. How do you get more trust and authority when you are brand new? You create it yourself, by getting the word out about yourself (via press of course). But it’s not just for new web sites. I have been marketing online businesses for over a decade, and marketing with press is still one of the main strategies I still use after all these years!”

I’m now a Kindle addict and if you are too, you can also get the press release book on the Kindle. Stay tuned for a book contest.

The reason I wanted to do a post about it is because of an email I got from a client, who happens to be a really smart guy (a contract lawyer in fact) but still to new to Internet marketing to have a clue about the things to embrace and the things to toss out. He received the usual email that started off “I visited your site today, and really liked it” – and went on to flatter more - then the question came to me:

Mat
We got this early this morning and thought it was cool but do not want to make any mistakes. Should we link to people like this or is it to risky? I will look at his site today but don’t know if he is trying to help us or just promote himself or both. What do you think and how does this work?

The fact that he even mentioned it might be to risky (red flags flying around) makes me know that I have been teaching him well, but it also worries me that he’s so confused what to do. (hit delete key now)

A Voting System …

Voting compared to linking

I do not, and never have preached (or practiced) reciprocal linking, but that does not mean I don’t have some reciprocal links in certain cases. I try to help people understand linking as a voting system. If I vote for you and you vote for me, our vote cancel each other out (in general). This would be the rules I follow for the practice of – “general reciprocal linking” by gaining a ton of links that are not related to your site or content through reciprocal linking programs or email spamming.

For the most part the sites that are contacting you via email to reciprocal link, are sending the same email to thousands of other people that don’t have their permission either. Most of these links are not targeted either, and the sites they want to put you on don’t have any pages indexed in Google. It does not mean all opportunities are bad, but you just need to do some research and be careful.

How To Test …

If you want to be sure, or test if the link might do you any good, just take the URL to Google and first, see if the page is indexed (just type in the actual URL in Google – does anything come up?), and then find out what the cache date is (go to the Google search bar and type in cache:www.whateversitehere.com), and that should give you a pretty good idea if you want to pursue the link. If the site is legit, looks legit, is targeted, or close to your industry and has many pages indexed in Google with recent cached dates it might be worth getting.

The Problem …

Most of these businesses (marketers) who are emailing you for a reciprocal link, own sites that are not worthy of linking to, or getting a link from. In fact in some cases if they have linked to you, I would (and have) reply back and ask them to kindly remove the link (especially if it seems spammy). Just look at the site, and use your better judgment – its not rocket science!

Now if CNN offered me a link on their homepage, and all I had to do is link to them, I would do it in a heartbeat, but lets be honest – that will NEVER happen! Just think about quality people!

The point here is to be choosy about the reciprocal linking you do, and remember to try and get as many votes for your site as possible without having to vote for someone else. Also make sure that you are focusing on the quality of those links because its not who has the most links, but who has the most quality links.

In conclusion …

I do not think you should be greedy in linking out – that is different then reciprocal linking, in fact I recommend it in a site co-citation way, but that would include linking out to big players in the industry that are related to what you are doing in the post, article, press, web page etc. This will for sure help you in your efforts. Hopefully this gives those of you who are new to the game some tips or things to look for the next time you get email offers of reciprocal linking.

Nothing new here, but lately I have been noticing how footer, blogroll and general sitewide links are having much less effect on rankings as they once did (even on search engines like MSN and Yahoo).  I still think they provide value for pages being indexed and crawled (which is the first step to getting ranked) but as far as factoring into helping improve the ranking of a keyword – not so much anymore!  If they are useful sitewides that can help with internal linking and link to good content, then I still feel those can possibly help you improve your rankings, but that is more of an internal linking strategy.  That is all this new program is trying to provide.  If you think about it, it is a much improved link placement system, and does actually bring some value and place links in appropriate places and content that matches.

Aaron Wall points out that he feels this program would be beneficial for those in the 8 – 12 ranking positions to move up to a profitable spot, but would not be good for someone ranking in the 100s hoping to move up to the front page.   Aaron, who I have been reading for years and trust, and feel is one of the greatest SEOs is promoting it, and gives no major warnings.

I am going to give it a try, and maybe do a follow up post later on sharing some of the results.

WHY THE CONTROVERSY?

Well for one, in public Google frowns on buying links, and feels this new program may even violate FTC rules by Bloggers not disclosing compensation, even though Google has been turning its head for years when it is the profitable thing to do so, (as pointed out by Shoemoney)  Think about the Google Adsense program and the way it has been abused for a profit, and how Google has been making money off this paid link program for years.

MY TAKE ON ALL THIS:

I have always felt that any kind of link – paid, natural, worked for etc. needs to have value, and add value.  I would agree that there are many text link programs out there that are worthless, and add no value.  I do not feel this InLinks program is one of them.  As long as there is a ROI for paid links, people will keep buying them.  Other SEOs, or Internet Marketers may not come out right and say they buy links, but they do.  I do not see any SEO arguing that this program is bad, or goes against anything they already do.  Like with any links you build, if you have the control for the kind of places your links show up (which you do on this program) you can make the ultimate decision if the link you are getting is going to add value and help out. 

I don’t think it should be a Google decision, or a Yahoo or MSN decision whether or not buy links, it should be a business decision of “will this benefit my site, and add value?”  

Look at it this way:  

If you have a site you are wanting to promote that sells picnic baskets, and are looking for picnic basket related anchor text links, and a home and garden website blog has a post about different picnic tips, and they want to allow you to have a link from them (through this program), then what is the problem?  It is very related, and targeted and SHOULD help in traffic and rankings.  There should have to be no disclosure.  You don’t see me driving around in my Lexus with a big “I financed this car through (insert bank name here)” magnet on the side of my car disclosing it, do you?  There is no difference finding the links on your own and asking the owner for a link, and the link you would get through this program.  This program just makes it easier.

If you are wanting to learn more about this paid links program, and give them a try to see how they work for you, feel free to join InLinks here…and NO I didn’t get paid to post this …