264 101 Ways To Promote Your Web Site

Strategies for Finding Appropriate Link Sites
Ideally, you should be linked from every high-traffic site that is of interest
to your target market. Develop a strategy to find all of these sites
and arrange links.
Start with the popular search engines. Most people use search engines
and directories to find subjects of interest on the Internet. Most of
the people searching never go beyond the first 20 to 30 results that the
search engine returns. Thus, these top 20 to 30 sites get a lot of traffic.
Search relevant keywords in all the popular search engines and directories,
and investigate these top sites for link possibilities. Some of these
sites will be competitors and might not want to reciprocate links. The
best opportunity for links is with noncompeting sites that have the same
target market. I suggest you take your most important keywords, do a
keyword search in the 20 most popular search engines and directories,
and review the top 30 sites in each for potential link sites.
Another strategy to find useful link sites is to see where the leaders
in your industry and your competitors are linked. I use the term “competitors”
very loosely. It would include your direct competitors, your
industry leaders, companies selling noncompeting products to your target
market, companies selling similar types of products or services to
your target market, and companies that compete with you for search
engine ranking. See what your competition is doing. Determine where
they are linked from, and decide whether these are sites that you should
also be linked from. Learn what they are doing well, and also learn
from their mistakes. You should be linked everywhere your competition
is appropriately linked, and then some.
Explore These URLs
There are many tools on the Internet to help you identify a Web site’s
links. These tools can be used to see which sites are linking to your Web
site. But they can also be used to see what sites are linking to your
competition. This is a great way to research where your site could be
linked from but isn’t—yet! Let me walk you through a step-by-step process
to increase the number of links to your Web site.
When determining which sites you should be linked from, you first
have to develop a lengthy list of competitors. A competitor can be any
business or site that offers the same products or services as you do or
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Developing a Dynamite Link Strategy 265
anyone targeting the same demographic group. Because the Internet creates
a level playing field for all businesses, you are also competing against
large and small companies from around the globe. Someone using a
search engine to find information on services that your company can
provide might see results from companies from all across the world in
the top ten results.
Once you have developed your extensive list of competitors and
have gathered their URLs, you must then find out what sites they are
linked from. Tools have been developed to assist you in finding who is
linking to your site. In most cases you enter your URL, and then these
tools provide a list of sites linking to it. However, by entering the URL
for a competitor’s site you can just as easily determine which sites are
linking to your competition and industry leaders.
The more organized you are for this exercise, the better. I suggest
that you:
1. Gather an extensive list of competitors and their URLs.
2. Choose the tool(s) from the next section that you are going to
use for this exercise.
3. Enter the first competitor URL to find the sites linking to it.
4. Copy and paste the results into a Word, Notepad, or other file
that you can access later.
5. Enter the next competitor URL to find the sites linking to it.
6. Copy and paste the results into the same Word, Notepad, or
other file, adding to your list of potential link sites.
7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 until you have found all the sites linking to
your competition. When this is done, you have your potential
link sites list.
8. Now develop a link request (see the next section for details) and
keep it open on your desktop so that you can copy and paste it
into an e-mail when you find a site you’d like to have a link from.
9. Next, visit every one of the potential link sites to determine
whether the site is appropriate for you to be linked from. If so,
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266 101 Ways To Promote Your Web Site
send your link request. If the site is not appropriate for whatever
reason, delete it from your list. Also delete duplicates. When
you get to the bottom of your list, it has changed from a potential
links list to a request links list.
10. Follow through and follow up. Follow through and provide an
appropriate link to those who agree to a reciprocal link. Follow
up to make sure that they provide the link to your site as promised,
that the link works, and that it is pointing to the correct
page on your site.
11. Submit the Internet address of the page that has provided the
link to the popular search engines so that they know it’s there.
This will help boost your link popularity scores.
Tools to Identify Your Competitors’ Links
The following tools can be used to obtain a list of locations on the
Internet that are linked to your competitors’ Web sites:
AltaVista
http://www.altavista.com
To find out where your competitors are linked using AltaVista, simply
enter the competitor’s URL in the search area like this: link:
yourcompetitorsdomain.com. This returns all pages in AltaVista with a
link to your competitor’s Web site.
Excite and Other Search Engines
Just enter your competitors’ URLs and see what comes up. (Be sure to
include http://.) If anything, the search query will include all indexed
Web sites that contain the URL searched.
Google
http://www.google.com
Enter your competitor’s URL in the search box like this: link:
yourcompetitorsURL. The results will contain all Web sites linking to
your competitor’s Web site.
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Developing a Dynamite Link Strategy 267
HotBot
http://www.hotbot.com
Enter your competitor’s URL in the search box and change the default
from “all the words” to “links to this URL.” When you type in the
URL, remember to include http://. The results will contain all Web sites
linking to your competitor’s Web site.
Link Popularity
http://www.linkpopularity.com
Simply type in your competitor’s URL and it will give you a list of all the
sites linking to that particular site (see Figure 16.2).
Link Popularity Check
http://www.linkpopularitycheck.com
Use this tool to compare your Web site to up to three other competitors’
sites using their link popularity check. In addition to a comparison graph
of the number of links each site has, it also gives details on where those
links are coming from.
Figure 16.2. LinkPopularity.com offers a free link popularity check service.
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268 101 Ways To Promote Your Web Site
WebCrawler
http://www.webcrawler.com/WebCrawler/Links.html
Enter your competitor’s URL into the search query box to find out how
many links are provided to that page. WebCrawler provides the names
of all the referring sites.
Other Potential Link Strategies
Another strategy for finding potential link sites is to visit the many
different search engines and do a search on keywords you feel people
would search on if they were looking for your site. The top results get
a lot of visits from your target market so they are always good potential
link sites.
The following is a step-by-step strategy to get linked from these sites.
1. Make a list of your most important keywords for your Web site
using your master keyword list and meta-tags (see Chapter 6).
2. Develop a list of the top 30 search engines (check SearchEngine
Watch.com).
3. Go to each of the 30 search engines and input your most important
keyword as identified in step 1.
4. Copy and paste the results into a Word, Notepad, or other file
that you can access later.
5. Enter the next keyword and copy and paste the results into the
same Word, Notepad, or other file, adding to your list of potential
link sites.
6. Repeat step 5 until you have used all the keywords in your list.
When this is done, you will have 900 potential sites for each
keyword. You now have your potential link sites list.
7. Now develop a link request (see the next section for details)
and keep it open on your desktop so that you can copy and
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Developing a Dynamite Link Strategy 269
paste it into an e-mail when you find a site you’d like to have a
link from.
8. Next, visit every one of the potential link sites to determine
whether the site is appropriate for you to be linked from. If so,
send your link request. If the site is not appropriate for whatever
reason, delete it from your list. Also delete duplicates. When
you get to the bottom of your list, it has changed from a potential
links list to a request links list.
9. Follow through and follow up. Follow through and provide an
appropriate link to those who agree to a reciprocal link. Follow
up to make sure that they provide the link to your site as promised,
that the link works, and that it is pointing to the correct
page on your site.
10. Submit the Internet address of the page that has provided the
link to the popular search engines so that they know it’s there.
This will help boost your link popularity scores.
Winning Approval for Potential Links
Now that you have a list of Web sites you would like to be linked from,
the next step is to determine from whom to request the link. Usually
this can be found on the site. Titles such as Webmaster@ or any variation
on that theme are usually a safe bet. If the site does not have an
obvious contact, try feedback@. You can either send the request there
or ask for the e-mail address of the right person.
If you cannot find an e-mail address on a Web site you can visit a
domain registration service such as Network Solutions (www.
networksolutions.com) to find out contact information for that domain
name. Click on the “WHOIS Lookup” link and submit the URL to do a
search. The results will include the contacts, both technical and administrative,
for that Web site. The technical contact most likely is the person
you are looking for, because that is who most likely looks after the
Web site. The administrative contact is usually responsible for the re-
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270 101 Ways To Promote Your Web Site
newal of the domain name, and the billing contact is usually the bill
payer for the domain name.
Generally, a short note with the appropriate information in the subject
line is most suitable. Your note should be courteous, briefly describe
your site’s content, and provide the rationale for why you think
reciprocating links would result in a win-win situation. It doesn’t hurt
to compliment some aspect of the site that you think is particularly
engaging.
It is a good idea to develop a generic “link request” letter that you
can have on hand when you are surfing. You should always keep this
letter open on your desktop when surfing the Internet so that you can
easily copy and paste the letter into an e-mail.
Here is an example of a link request e-mail:
Dear Web Site Owner,
I have just finished viewing your site and found it quite enjoyable.
I found the content to be very valuable, particularly [customize
here]. My site visitors would appreciate your content as I think
we appeal to the same demographic group. My site, http://www.
mysitename.com, focuses on [my site content] and would likely
be of value to your visitors. I’d like to suggest we trade links.
Sincerely,
John
A typical response might say that they would appreciate the link to
their site and offer to provide a reciprocal link. To facilitate this, you
should either have the HTML for the link ready to send or have it available
on your site, or both. Make sure you have your most important
keyword in the text around the link to your site to ensure you score as
high as possible in the link relevancy category.
Make sure to follow through and follow up. If you said that you
would provide a reciprocal link, do so within 24 hours. Follow up to
make sure that your site has been linked from theirs, the link works
properly, and it is linked to the right page on your site.
Then remember to send a thank you. Because they are doing you a
favor by adding your site to their Web page, you should strive to develop
a good relationship with them. This way they might be more generous
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Developing a Dynamite Link Strategy 271
with the link they give you. They might place it higher on the page, or
even offer you the opportunity of having a small graphic link on their
page, which would be dynamite for increasing traffic to your site. These
graphic links are explained in more detail later in the chapter.
Another way to get links is to ask for them on your site. In a prominent
location on your site, place a link that says something like, “Would
you like to provide a link to this site? Click here.” Link this message to
a separate page that holds several options for links. You can provide
viewers with several different sizes of banner ads they could place on
their Web site. You can also provide them with a thumbnail icon, the
HTML, and your tagline, which they could simply copy and paste into
the HTML code on their Web site. Again, remember to select appropriate
keywords to include in the text around the link to increase your link
relevancy score with the popular search engines.
Quite often, if you offer viewers these opportunities for links, you
have a better chance of receiving these enhanced link features. If you
make it easier for them to add the link, they will be more willing to
provide it. Figure 16.3 shows an example of a site that provides the
relevant coding and images for people who want to provide a link.
Figure 16.3. By providing the HTML text and icons on your site you can
make it very easy for visitors to add your link to their site.
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272 101 Ways To Promote Your Web Site
You might want to offer an incentive to people who provide you
with a link. It could be something that can be downloaded or a free
sample of your product in exchange for a link. This provides you with
another opportunity to market your site because you are giving something
away for free, and thus you can be listed on the many Internet
sites that identify sites for freebies. Another useful tactic is to include
viewers who provide a link to your site in a drawing for a prize.
You might run a contest such as “Provide a Link to Us and Win,”
where you include all those sites linking to you in a drawing once a
week or once a month, depending on the size of the prize.
Meta-indexes and Web rings are other sources for
links. For a complete discussion of meta-indexes and Web
rings, see Chapters 18 and 23, respectively.
You might need to prompt sites to provide promised
links. If you have made an arrangement for a link and
find that the link is not there, it is appropriate to send an e-mail reminder.
When sending the follow-up e-mail, include your icon, HTML,
URL, and any other helpful information.
Making Your Link the Place to Click
There are links and then there are links. Usually links are your company
name hyperlinked to your home page, and your company’s site link is
listed with a number of other companies’ links. Sometimes, if you are
lucky, there is a brief description attached to the link.
You should take a proactive approach with linking arrangements.
Explore every opportunity to have your link placed prominently and, if
possible, to have it differentiated from the other links on the page. Figure
16.4 demonstrates how having an image associated with your link
can make your link stand out among all of the other links.
Once you have an agreement with a site willing to provide a link,
you should ask if you could send them an icon and the HTML
for the link. The icon (GIF or JPG format) should be visually
pleasing and representative of your company. Within the
HTML, include a tag line or call to action that entices people
to click on the link. With the icon or logo, the tag line, and
your company’s name, your link will stand out. Again, remember
to include appropriate keywords to add to your link
relevancy score to improve your search engine ranking.