Cultivate a Garden of Incoming Links

In the SEO post, I mentioned that you should be building relationships to get incoming links to increase your rankings and traffic.  As a site owner where people are consistently asking for links, I think this is a perfect time to discuss how to build those relationships the right way.

Getting those incoming links requires building a relationship with various site owners and bloggers. How you build your relationships is a personal matter.  However, it requires more than an generic email that starts with "Dear Site Owner" and ends with "Dude, link me".

Personally, my biggest complaint is people who put their blog in the Landscapedia directory (http://www.landscapedia.info/directory.php?categoryID=95) and disappear. They don't reciprocate. They don't write a positive review. They don't even participate in the community. They simply sign up, add their listing, then poof, they're gone. It's link vampirism. I hate them.

Good

A good way to build those relationships is to offer a link in return. Website owners and bloggers love to have links to their site as much as you do. Let's face it, it's the least you can do and still be a decent human being. You'd be surprised at how just a little effort on your part can start to build a productive relationship that can turn out to benefit you in unforeseen ways later.

Better

Now, if you really want to start building those positive relationships with website owners and bloggers, write a positive review of their website (with active, clickable links) and send the link to them asking for a link back. On my site, I will do better than give a blogger a link on the links page. I'll also mention them in the monthly newsletter. So they effectively get 2 links (directory and content).

Also, participate in their communities. With RSS and Google Reader, you have no excuses at all for not following other people. Oh, and do all the stuff under Good as well.

Best

Website owners struggle for content. The absolute best way to get them to build a strong relationship with you is link to them, write a review, participate in their site AND offer to write an article for them. Yep, that's a crapload of work. We aren't talking about a quick exchange here. This is about building a strong relationship with other sites to boost yours. Those relationships will open the door for more opportunities down the road that a simple link exchange won't. Relationships I swore would be huge weren't and those little ones turned out to be the winners. You never know which ones will pay off.

Never!

You can read copious amounts of information on link building strategies. Some of them good. Some of them, as a site owner, will piss me off faster than you can imagine. First off, don't spam forums. If you have a legitimate comment, then feel free to add your site as your signature (if it's ok with the forum guidelines). Do not, under any circumstances, leave a post that says "Yo, read about this forum topic in my blog." I delete those.

Also, never, ever, and I repeat, ever, comment on other people's content with your link without talking to the content owner's permission first. I did it once because the article was about someone wanting a garden app for iPhone and I had one. I felt creepy about doing it, but the blog owner had no way for me to contact her first. (Incidentally, you should always have a way for people to contact you.) Otherwise I ask. Some say yes. Some say no. Respect it and move on, even if you do feel frustrated.

Don't Give Up

I know how frustrating it is to promote your work to hear "No" repeatedly. Trust me, I know. Anything I tell you is pointless when you are feeling down. Remind yourself that it's a marathon, not a sprint. Now remind me please.

Great Places to Start

Blotanical (http://www.blotanical.com) is the best place to get started. If you aren't on there already, stop reading, head straight there and get signed up.

DMOZ (http://www.dmoz.org) is a directory service used by lots of search engines and other listing site. It takes forever + 2 days to get listed in it, so patience is a virtue. Because humans review every submission, it's given a lot of weight on the web.

Landscapedia (http://www.landscapedia.info) which we've already covered.