How To Get Incoming Links

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In response to my officer to answer questions about blogging, Pam (of Pamibe) asked how to get incoming links to her new blog, Beannachd.

It’s a question plenty of bloggers, both new and experienced, have. The internet is based on links and so much depends on them: PageRank, readership, influence and, yes, opportunities to make money blogging.

So here are five fast tips to getting more incoming links to your blog starting today.

1. Ask the right people for links. Whether you’re launching a new blog or you’ve written an entry that you’re particularly proud of, the easiest way to get a link is to ask for them in an email to fellow bloggers with whom you’re on friendly terms. By “friendly”, I don’t mean bloggers you’ve left one or two comments for. I mean those with whom you’ve exchanged email previously, and particularly those whom you’ve blogrolled yourself. Many bloggers welcome such emails because it saves them from having to look around for link-worthy material.

2. Ask in the right way. When asking for links in an email, make it easy for people to give you what you’re asking for. Copy and paste your entire entry in the email and include the link. Since experienced bloggers often make a point of sending trackbacks, provide email recipients with the trackback URI, too. Also, a summary of the entry above the full text wouldn’t hurt.

3. Promote your blog and your entries. Sign up with Blog Catalog and MyBlogLog, then add friends and join neighborhoods/groups there. As with anything on the internet, if you scratch other peoples’ backs they’ll scratch yours, so eventually you’ll have fans, friends or readers who’ll be seeing your recent blog entries on their own dashboards. Those quite often lead to links. (You can also broadcast new entries with Blog Catalog.)

4. Link others regularly. Unfortunately, some inexperienced or small-traffic bloggers seem to think they’ll look more “professional” by not linking to blogs. Oh, they’ll have links to big websites or high-traffic, A-list bloggers, but they’ll ignore the bloggers who are really their peers. Big mistake, that. Make a point of linking another blogger at least once a day and you’ll see your incoming links start to climb. (Bonus: deep link them by linking a particular entry, not just their website. You’ll be helping them gain juice and will likely get similar juice in return.)

5. Write something worth linking. STOP. Wait. Don’t just gloss over this one because it is perhaps the most important of all these tips. I know, you’re probably thinking “Hey, I already write good content!” Let me just point out that if other people agreed they’d already be linking you.

Linkable content is something that’s of use to people in their own lives. Not descriptions of your awful day. Not a review for a company that everyone else has been paid to write about, too. Not even a blurb about some website you found which, chances are, someone else has already found, too.

Linkable content is something that enriches people: your well-written analysis of a news item (quoted and linked from your entry) with which someone can agree or disagree; a “how to” explanation about something you’re knowledgeable on (hint); a gathering of resources on a particular topic. Often referred to as linkbait in derogatory terms, that kind of content is nevertheless more useful (read: interesting) to wider audiences, which is precisely why other bloggers link to it. It’s not hard to linkbait, either.

BONUS TIP:

Be visible at other blogs. Pam has been a regular reader of mine at all of my blogs, and was one of the first people to comment when I started this one. People remember such things, which is why it always pays off to participate in other peoples’ comment sections. Always, always, always.

Just ask Pam. Or, better yet, visit her new blog and let her know you read about it here.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 1st, 2008 at 10:25 am and is filed under Building Traffic (Blogging 201). Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Tagged in: blogging | blogging advice | incoming links | linkbait

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