It’s no secret that when it comes to SEO, the name of the game is link building.  Yes, there are many on-page optimization strategies that you could, and most certainly should, implement, but it’s a fair bet that the majority of your efforts and time doing SEO will be in building the incoming links to your website.

Now, there are many, many methods that you can use in your link building efforts (article writing, social bookmarking, paid links, etc.) but today’s tip focuses on one: requesting links (one-way or reciprocal) through your own efforts.  And how most webmasters do this?  By sending out a generic mass email to all the sites they’d like to get a link from.  If you’ve ever done this, please read on to see why you should stop.

Generic Emails are Usually Ignored

We’ve probably all received them: a blanket email that first,  compliments you on your “excellent” website, and second, quickly requests a link on your page.  Being that most of these emails are from websites that are either unrelated to my site or are of a “undesireable” nature, I’ve grown accustomed to glancing at the email and quickly deleting it — not giving it a second thought.

A Different Approach to Link Building

In a very real way, link building isn’t much different than traditional business development and networking.  When promoting and building a business you go out into the market and begin building relationships and connections with those whom you could have a mutually beneficial relationship.  You network with potential customers, potential lenders, potential vendors, and yes, potential partners.

Imagine if, for example, rather than engaging in meaningful and effective communication with these business connections, I simply sent out a mass recorded phone message.  Or perhaps sent out a generic flyer or letter.  Sure, I’ve gotten my name out there, but I haven’t built any kind of relationship that would encourage them to give anything back to me (whether it’s buying my product, partnering with my company, etc.).

The same principle applies to requesting links from other webmasters.  Yes, the effort of real two-way communication requires more time, but it’s time that will actually help you reach your goals.

Give First, Then Ask

In some Asian cultures, before a business deal is made, there has to be a great deal of trust, understanding, and knowledge between the two businessman; a business deal that would take 10 minutes in the US can take 3 months in Asia. And it’s not uncommon for the basis of the business deal to be focused much more heavily on how much they like you rather than on what makes financial sense.

If I were to start each conversation with a potential partner with a focus on what I wanted, and even immediately asked for favors, I can assure you that our partnership would end with the end of that conversation.  The same principle applies to your “partners” who you would like to promote your website by putting on a link on their site.

Rather than immediately asking for the link, offer something that adds value to them.  Now I don’t mean that you literally give them something, but add value in some way through your communication.  Maybe you know of a great article that goes along with one that they’ve written — let them know about it.  Maybe you know of a tool that solves a problem that they’ve talk about — provide them the source.  Whatever it is, do it genuinely and sincerely.  Add value to what they’re doing, introduce yourself (and your site) to them and don’t ask for anything in return.

Hopefully your communication will continue to add value to each other.  Your communication/service/product/whatever will impress them.  And the time will come that it’s only natural that they would promote your site or product on their website.  This will likely result in a link, but if not, you can now more easily request one.  But a link’s not all that you get.  Rather than a boring link, you’ll also often get a genuine recommendation from them. This will not only provide you the link juice, but traffic from interested visitors from the referral.  Not to mention the good publicity that your brand/website could certainly use.

Link Building = Business Development

So from now on, when you think link building, think business development.

Now, I understand that you can’t use this technique for every link that you’d like to get (because of the time inolved).  I also understand that your link to email ratio will likely decrease.  So here’s my suggestion: identify the top websites/blogs that you’d like to get some good publicity and links on, and focus your “business development” efforts on them.

To all those little rinky-dink blogs that you just want a link from, go ahead and send your blanket email.  But I’m positive that if we can take a more sincere approach to our website promotion efforts, and add value to those we work with, the benefits will far outweigh the costs.

If you were to ask someone who’s been heavily involved with search engine optimization about “the key” to SEO, you’d likely hear that, among many items, one of the key players in the SEO game is link building.  They might also mention that SEO is certainly not a “quick fix” for a website’s traffic issues, but rather a ongoing process that’s really never “done.”  Those who do SEO for a living or those that optimize their own sites can attest that much of this “ongoing process” is spending time on building links.

It’s interesting, however, that while so much time and effort is put into link building, very few take the little extra time to track any of those links that they’ve worked so hard to get.  They email for link exchanges, submiit to countless directories, or use paid link services, and then never think of the link again once they’ve gotten it.

But whether you track your backlinks using software, a spreadsheet, or some other way, you’ll quickly find that there are some great benefits to tracking your link data.  Often while link building you may have questions such as “how many links do I already have for this keyword?” or “how often have I been getting links from this source?”  By noting some simply data about each link that you acquire you will be able to build a resource to which you can quickly turn to answer these simple, yet very important questions.  The following are just three of the benefits that you’ll find by tracking your backlinks.

Verify That Your Links Are Still Live

It probably happens a lot more than you think.  You finally get someone in your niche to exchange a link with your website.  You post a link and they post a link.  Everything’s gravy.  But little do you know that a month after you’ve exchanged the link, the other website takes your link off and puts someone else’s in its place.  But unless you’ve written down the url where the link resides, you’ll likely never find out.

When you first verify that they’ve posted the link, you can simply copy the url into a spreadsheet that you’ve created to track such things.  You might include the date, anchor text, contact info, etc.  Now, with the low value that only one links brings, you may ask yourself if tracking each link (and verifying that it’s still live) is even worth it.  It’s debatable, but I would suggest only tracking some if the more valuable links if you’re going to do it manually.  Of course, BacklinkReporter will automatically track all of this for you, but it’s up to you.

Variability of Anchor Text

One thing that I rely upon heavily in my link building efforts is my list of anchor text (keywords) that I’ve received links for.  By each keyword I have a number of links that I’ve received for that keyword.  That way, I can quickly see a rundown of what I have received and hence, know which links are should be focusing on next.  Again, a simple spreadsheet accomplishes this, or you can use an automated tool to do it for you.

The PR of Linking Pages

While the true value of the PR of pages that are linking to your website is debatable, all things equal, I’d rather have a higher PR page link to me than a lower one.  Tracking the PR of your links can add another dimension to how you go about your link building efforts.  If you go about it blindly, it’s possible that you end up giving your keywords uneven emphasis in the links that you get for them.

While not essential, I’ve always found it very useful to track the PR of the linking pages with the keyword so I know what kind of links to go after for my next keywords.

Tracking your backlinks, whether you do it manually with a spreadsheet or using BacklinkReporter, can pay big dividends down the road in your SEO and link building efforts.  It doesn’t take much time, but can provide you with quick answers to questions that you’re sure to ask the next time you’re asking for specific anchor text in a link.