Let's Make a Deal
A lot
of the sites I have bookmarked, and visit again and again,
are sites that have lots of good links to other sites. And
just about the most popular sites of all are
search engines, which consist of - you guessed it! Links to
other sites. External links are definitely not a one-sided
bargain, so don't be bashful about asking for them. Of course,
some site owners will expect a reciprocal link,
which benefits both parties.
There are several different types of sites that might favor
you with a link. Top candidates are other companies that you
do business with, such as suppliers, customers, etc. In the
true spirit of "coopetition," some companies' Web sites
even feature links to their competitors. Any site with
material related to yours may be worth asking for a link.
For example, if you own a blues nightclub, you might solicit
links from blues magazines, radio stations, booking agents,
blues musicians, harmonica manufacturers, etc. etc. etc.
(actually, the idea of a nightclub owner going around asking
for Web site links gave me a good laugh, but it's just an
example).
Some pages, or whole sites, are simply lists of links,
usually known as a "links page." Actually, a "directory" is
nothing more than a larger and better-organized "links page."
There are quadrillions of links pages out there -
some are very useful, but most are pathetic pieces of crap.
You could easily spend the rest of your life seeking out all
the links pages that relate to your topic, so learn to be
selective.
A good links page (or directory) aims to cover one topic well.
They may try to be comprehensive, and include every site they
know of in a certain category, or they may be selective, and
list only what they consider the best sites. An
example of an excellent specialty directory is
The Blue Highway.
If you're into blues, you will find what you need here. The
thousands of links are organized into logical categories, and
the site owners keep it up to date.
A crummy links page is just a long list of unrelated links,
often in no particular order. It's no use to man or beast.
Some of these are what you might call a "bumping" page. That
is, the most recent link that was submitted always
appears at the top, and the existing links move down the page
as new ones are added. These are totally useless, the milieu
of MLM scams and porno sites.
Many sites include a links page, often called "Web Resources"
or some such. A
good example is the one at CIO magazine,
which has a fat list of IT-related
sites, including a good list of
online computer magazines. A links page like this can be a
valuable resource which draws traffic to the site. In fact,
if you can spare the time, setting up something like this of
your own can be a good long-term traffic builder.
More often, a links page that's part of a larger site is just
a place for the site owners to plug other sites belonging to
them or their buddies, or a place to stash unwanted links that
they were required to post as the price of getting a
reciprocal link for themselves. If you actively solicit links
from other sites, many of them will ask (or require) you to
respond in kind. You'll probably want to establish a links
page to put these links on, as you certainly don't want to
clutter up your home page. Whether you try to build this links
page into a useful resource, or just make it a dusty old back
room, is up to you. Some sites don't even have a link to their
links page anywhere on the site. Not very much in the
old-Web spirit of cooperation, but a lot of sites do it.
How do you tell how much traffic a site gets, and thus
whether it's worth your time trying to get a link from them?
Unfortunately, the quality of the site design will tell you
little, as there are many amateurish sites that get lots of
traffic, and even high-traffic sites run by major corporations
often feature glaring errors. If you can figure out how
recently the site has been updated, that's always a good
indicator. The type of ads on a site can also tell you what
league it plays in. Are the ads for well-known products, or
for MLM and porno? Or maybe there are no ads at all! You can
also check the HTML code that runs the ads. If you see the
names of big ad industry players like DoubleClick, SoftBank
or Real Media, that indicates that it's a pretty high-traffic
site. Of course, by the time you've actually found a site,
and found the owner's email address, it's probably easier
just to send them a link request and not worry about it.
Alas, this is one of the reasons there's so much
spam and
semi-spam out there - instead of doing a little research to
see if it's appropriate to contact a particular site owner,
it's quicker just to hit Send and move on. Sigh.
When requesting links from other sites, be polite, and not
pushy. I use a standard email message that looks like this:
Dear ____,
Would you like to add My Site to your list of Web
resources at
http://yoursite.com/links.html ?
My Site is a great resource, because blah blah blah.
By the way, I like your site!
Thanks,
Joe Blow
webmaster@WebDevelopersJournal.com
If you know the site owner's name, use it. And tell them what
page you are asking them to place a link on. This tells them
that you actually visited their page, and aren't just spamming
out link requests willy-nilly. And of course, a
compliment on their site never hurts, and the old reliable
business tools "please" and "thank you" go a long way. I
always just ask for a link, and leave it up to them to get
back to me and ask for a reciprocal link.
Content Deals
Many sites allow other sites to "republish" or "repurpose"
their content. This is not the same as establishing a link
to the content. Here, we're talking about a site taking your
content and coding it into their own pages. When a site
simply links to your content, you can't lose. When they
republish your content, the content adds to the value of
their site, and only a small percentage of their visitors
will click on the included link to your site. Nevertheless,
allowing others to use your content can be a good traffic
builder. Some writers send out articles to lots of sites,
offering the content free to any site that wants it, as long
as they include a link to the writer's site. Sometimes
exchanging content between related sites can be a good deal.
Your attitude toward exchanging content will differ depending
on whether your site is a "content" site
(advertising-supported) an e-commerce site (supported
by online sales) or a general business site. For sites that
sell advertising, maximizing the number of page impressions
is the name of the game, so they tend to be less enthusiastic
about allowing other sites to reproduce their content.
For other types of sites, content such as articles exists
only to attract visitors, who are encouraged to click on over
to the pages where business takes place. In that case, the
more places your content is reproduced, the better, as
long as it appears with a hot link to your site. Remember,
if the content has no link to your site, it does you no good
at all, so any time you let another site use your content,
check to be sure that there's a prominent (and properly
working) link to your site.
Always be very clear about whether, and under what
circumstances, your content may be repurposed. Of course, if
you don't explicitly agree that it may be repurposed, then
any such use would be copyright infringement. If you do
allow others to use your content, make it very clear that you
expect a prominent link back to your site. Naturally, this
sort of thing is hard to enforce. As the editor of a
commercial content site, I'm often approached by people
wanting to republish our stuff. I politely tell them that
they are welcome to reuse it, as long as they're willing to
pay, but I suspect that a few unscrupulous characters
just go ahead and do it anyway, without paying. Sigh.
