The Power Of Requesting Link Partners

The days of sending out hundreds if not thousands of generic link requests, all at once, and hoping for a few incoming links is gone. Why? There are several reasons why this practice is no longer a viable one. One reason is most people are going to think that you are spamming them, they may know that in the SEO world it isn’t going to get you or them any good benefit if your links don’t compliment each other, and now days if they are getting a decent amount of traffic to their site they probably charge for any links they place on their site.

In order to get quality inbound links, you need to get the right links. What do you need to take into consideration? Evaluate the audience and traffic depth of the site from which you would like a link. There are many resources that you can use to help determine the websites standalone strength, and those resources are: Quantcast, Compete, Alexa, and Ranking.com. Knowing their standalone strength will help you to determine their ability to drive visitors to your site. If they stand on their own as a valuable asset to your marketing campaign, then you should pursue them.

If the site is diluted with outgoing links, it will reduce the value of the incoming link, especially if the outgoing links are not related to the content of the site. Another thing to be aware of is whether or not the site is using “NoFollow” tags on their outgoing links. If they are, you might get some traffic but the link itself won’t hold any value with the search engines or your SEO efforts.

One of the many reasons generic link requests don’t attract many owners is that not only are most generic requests not closely related to their website content, but, usually the sender hasn’t taken the time to really view their website to see what they have to offer. If your site isn’t a valuable resource for their viewers, or if you are not providing top notch content and resources, there really would be no reason for them to want to link to your site. Keep in mind, the better quality of site, the harder it will be to get them to link to your site. An Authority site will get hundreds of link requests if not more every year, which makes it very important that your link request stands out from the rest.

Do some research…some digging and make sure that when you send your link request, that you are sending it to the person who is in charge of SEO and link building. Use your community resources, such as LinkedIn, FastPitch Networking, FaceBook, and other s to build relationships and once you have built a relationship with these individuals you can then begin the process of requesting links. When you have these resources at your fingertips, don’t be afraid to use them. Be sure that once you have decided to request links that you are ready to respond to their questions about why they would want to grant you a link. Make it clear that you are not selling them anything, but by granting the link you are adding value to not only your website, but theirs as well. Never discount the notion that deep connections and a personal touch still go a long way to business opportunities.

Link Building is a long term commitment, and should be treated that way. In order to have a successful link building campaign, you must have a good strategy, use other link building practices such as directory submissions, writing good content, participating in forums and other social networking sites. By incorporating these link building practices, you will not only build value to your website but will offer those you link to a better and more qualified stream of visitors, which is what you are looking for in return. If you are dedicated and persistent all the work you have done to personalize your requests and the time you have spent on your own site to make it an authority will pay off in the end. Adapt to the changes and you will continue to rank well. Your success rate will justify the time and effort required for a successful link campaign.