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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.
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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
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