Link Building Tips - Happy Readers

[Phil Tanny]

Hi all, here's a few thoughts on link building. I hope you find them helpful somehow. Please expand on this start, and add your own ideas.

Quality Content: Let's not forget our most important link building asset, happy readers.

Obviously, the best link building technique is to have quality content that is worth linking to. Quality sites don't have to spend as much time link building, because their readers do most of the link building work for them.

Ask For The Link: Most of our readers aren't webmasters, and won't understand how important links are to us. We have to tell them.

A brief friendly request for a link at the end of our articles is a really easy link building technique that can pay big dividends (if we're sharing good content). Let's include our photo, make it fun, and get down on our knees and beg. :-)

Make It Easy: Ok, we've got great content and we've asked for the link. Now we need to make it easy for our readers to do what we want them to do, because let's face it, we're all lazy as hell. :-)

Let's make the link information as easy to access as possible. As example, we could put a one sentence summary of our article and the URL at the end of the article, along with the request for a link. All the happy reader has to do is a quick copy and paste, and they've got everything they need.

Say Thanks: One more step. Let's keep an eye on who's linking to us, and take the time to say thanks.

Relationships are important, and people like to be noticed and thanked. It only takes a second, and now the happy reader is even happier, which can only be good for us.

Summary: Happy readers can be our most powerful link building tool. Let's make them smile with good content, and help them do what we want them to do.

[franberries]

Beside you need to write something that stand out among other bloggers.. beside you can promote yourself via blogcommenting through popular blog that have a lot of traffic and reputation

[flashas]

thanks for tips

[Phoenyx]

Another small tip I found helpful is when you write the way that you speak. If you add a little of your own personality into your writing, it breathes life into the article / post and helps readers enjoy it a lot more.

[My1ststeps]

I understood that under the new google panda rules reciprocal link building devalued the links. They are looking for one-way, do follow links. Those types of links supposedly show that the website linking to you thought of you as an authority, as opposed to we are good friends linking to each other. Perhaps I misunderstood google's intent. You can research the topic on google's webmaster website. They have 100s of videos answering questions of topics like links.

However, if you are building links to get reciprocal traffic from another website, without regard for googles generic traffic and page rank, these are excellent tips to follow.

[Phil Tanny]

Hi again,

My suggestions really aren't about reciprocal linking. Though if an important person in our niche links to us, it might be wise to link back.

Mostly I was just trying to say that readers are an important link building that we should pay attention to. To the degree that we can get our readers building links to us, we don't have to do the job ourselves.

This is pretty obvious, but it doesn't seem to be covered as much in link building discussions as it would seem it should be, imho.

My post above is clearly not a definitive list of every strategy one can use to encourage readers to link to us. I'd welcome additional creative ideas if anybody wishes to share.

[Phoenyx]

Something I have noticed, well for me at least is when I listen to music, I write a lot easier. It helps me to think and to focus on what needs to be said. I also love writing, and talking to other people. This all helps me write. In the end you are giving people information. Information you want them to think of as valuable, and remember what you say.

Sometimes I think people write for the wrong reasons. If you focus on links, sales, page rank etc. IMHO its not why you should be writing, and that is where you lose a lot of creativity because you are trying to find where to add keywords and target this and target that.... Writing for the web is like writing for everything else, be it ebook, novel, short story.... You're writing for people. To show them your thoughts, ideas, to give them information that they might not have thought of before, and in that build a reputation for yourself and your company.

I have one simple set of questions I ask myself when I write:

• Can you tell what the post is about?.
• Have you set out the information out so that it all flows from one paragraph to another?.
• Is it fun to read?.
• What information can I take from it?.
• Did you remember to spell "and" properly?.

I don't ask myself how many links I could get with that, how important people would think my post was. I look at it impartially as any reader would. If I can understand it, and can realize that I am trying to say something important, and know what that is, then its a good article.

[jiglesias025]

S
I have one simple set of questions I ask myself when I write:

• Can you tell what the post is about?.
• Have you set out the information out so that it all flows from one paragraph to another?.
• Is it fun to read?.
• What information can I take from it?.
• Did you remember to spell "and" properly?.

I don't ask myself how many links I could get with that, how important people would think my post was. I look at it impartially as any reader would. If I can understand it, and can realize that I am trying to say something important, and know what that is, then its a good article.

You're definitely right. We are creating articles for people not for search engines. And the most important thing is that they understand the information we are giving them.

[franberries]

You're definitely right. We are creating articles for people not for search engines. And the most important thing is that they understand the information we are giving them.

the more valuable article you added in, the more it precious to SE and also readers... you put junk article mean you are gonna see yourself in sandboxed condition

[jack78]

Content is playing important role in link building.It shows that how valuable our site is.

[Phoenyx]

Content is playing important role in link building.It shows that how valuable our site is.

Not just that, but it shows readers how broad your knowledge base is. When you want to buy something online, you're not only going to listen to what your friends say about the product/service, but you're also going to want to see what the company reputation is first. Looking at what they write is a good way to see whether or not you would want to do business with them.

As an example, lets say I visit a site that sells a service. If they focus only on the price of the service, and very little else, I would not buy that service because I don't know what it would do for me. If I go to another site that promotes the same service, but they take the time to explain things to me like the process involved with their service, how it would benefit me, and even giving me a few examples would have me thinking really hard about whether or not I would want to buy that service from them. The more you have to say, and the more value you add to what you say, the more people will trust you and your product, the more people would buy your product from you.