|
Free Website Content
Link Love vs Link Bait
Link Love vs. Link Bait
By S. Housley
Link Strategy
As a webmaster, it is important to develop a link strategy.
Unless you have a massive brand with a reputation and
following, it is unlikely that the masses will simply
saturate your site with deep links. What are deep links?
Simply put, deep links are direct links to various sub-pages
on a website (example: domain.com/subpage.htm)
Search engines value websites that have
numerous incoming links spread over a large number of
pages within a domain . In other words, a website that
has large number of incoming links to various pages
within the website will generally rank better than a
website that only has links to a single page.
Incoming links are critical to achieving
Internet popularity and search engine ranking. There
are two popular ways to achieve a massive amount of
incoming links, Link Bait and Link Love.
What is Link Love?
Link Love is all about quality. In order to achieve
Link Love you must establish authority and credibility.
Link Love is all about being a reputable source, often
recipients of link love are the first to post breaking
news that is vetted and accurate. Bloggers, webmasters
and publishers reward sources they genuinely enjoy with
link love.
Link Bait is often considered the evil
step sister of Link Love.
What is Link Bait?
Link Bait is a hook. It is unique or even controversial
content. Common sources of Link Bait include humorous
items, accusations, controversy, or even implications.
Link Bait is similar to 'shock and awe'; people cannot
help but link because they are so intrigued (for good
or bad). Link Bait often walks the line between acceptable
and unacceptable.
Both Link Bait and Link Love generally
result in numerous deep links, as bloggers tend to link
to directly to specific articles or issues that are
raised.
Not all of us are feeling the Link Love
and many are not gutsy enough to use link bait with
jaw dropping headlines, so what are some simple ways
to garner deep links?
Give Aways
Everyone loves 'free'. Determine what is of value to
your website visitors and figure out how you can provide
it free of charge. "Free", could be anything, an online
calculator, a glossary of industry terms, software,
information, statistics or web space. It is best that
the free item relate to the content on the website.
Be Different
Do not be afraid to step outside of your comfort zone.
Being different or unique attracts attention and links.
Step outside the box, be innovative and different with
your design, product, or service.
Contribute
Often non-profits will provide links to companies that
have assisted them. Contributions do not necessarily
need to be financial they can be in the form of free
services or products.
Befriend Industry Authorities
Get to know the bloggers and journalists in your space,
provide them quality content, previews of releases or
other industry information that would be of interest
to their readers. Nothing beats quality information.
Participate
Participate in industry forums and newsgroups. Post
constructive well formed posts and link back to your
websites sub-pages on your site as part of your signature.
Regardless of whether you use Link Love
or Link Bait, develop a plan to solicit deep links throughout
your website use these tips to improve the quality and
quantity of your incoming links.
About the Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com
software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds
and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for
NotePage http://www.notepage.net
a wireless text messaging software company.
**********************************************************
This article may be used freely in opt-in
publications and websites, provided that the resource
box is included and the links are active. A courtesy
copy of the issue or a link to any online posting would
be greatly appreciated send an email to sharon@notepage.net
.
Additional articles available for publication available
at http://www.small-business-software.net/free-website-content.htm
**********************************************************
|
