Expert Link Building Can be Fun!
Posted Monday, January 22nd, 2007. Filed under Link Building.
I've been reading a lot of recent articles about link bait that describe link building/link requests as mind-numbingly tedious and soul-destroying compared to link bait. I take offense to that — I, for one, enjoy building backlinks, and my team of Ninjas enjoys the art of getting great links too.
Is Google too complicated for link building? Not if you know what's needed — it just takes time and thought. Is link building too hard? It's hard, and it takes time, but it doesn't have to be hard if you have someone dedicated to it full time, going slow and steady without looking for short cuts.
Last week one of my ninjas set a weekly record for the most backlinks: 39 in a week. If a ninja gets 10 links for one site in a week, I'd be impressed. Humans make deals, not machines — it takes real time to find sites, compose emails without templates, and go back and forth.
Who wants to build links? I do. It's an art, a combination of SEO knowledge, analysis, and the art of the deal. We have 4 Ninja rooms here, each with 4 link ninjas and one designer, competing against each other for a trophy. It's not link begging, it's creating win/win deals with other webmasters.
I'm not putting down link bait — it's a great SEO method with huge potential. But it's not a replacement for getting the specific links you've asked for, and that pursuit can be a fun, effective challenge too.
January 22nd, 2007 at 7:19 pm
Ha! I actually enjoy it too.
I think rather than that making me cool, it actually makes us both a little sad.
I dunno though, I get a feeling of satisfaction to see my sites jump a little on the phrases I am aiming at (and I am currently on a high for a number 2 ranking in google for my targetted keyword phrase!)
January 22nd, 2007 at 7:26 pm
Sounds like you need more Link Ninjas….. HaaEEEYAAAAAAAAH! More Link Ninjas=More links. I could be a super stealthy, clever yet friendly LINK Fu master, with a little guidance. I send out messages and emails all day anyway, just for fun. Don’t toss that resume, its a link in and of itself…..to me.
January 22nd, 2007 at 7:56 pm
[...] Hey Jim, you’re taking me out of context, although, in fairness, I could have made myself a little clearer [...]
January 23rd, 2007 at 12:44 am
Jim… I am with you my man… I love the skilled art of one-way link building and getting those super high quality “stealth” links are a blast
January 23rd, 2007 at 1:43 am
Jim,
Great post. I agree, link building is tedious work but usually well worth the effort. Nothing beats a targeted link from a high quality site. Very smart of you to make it a competition for your ninjas to motivate them. Just like salespeople, contests and rewards make people try much harder than they normally would. While it takes more than a “trained monkey” to do link building the right way, it’s not that difficult once people understand how to find quality links (the whole “rocket science” thing is overblown). The other part of the link building equation is convincing the other party to link to your sites. Sometimes I find that a simple phone call (instead of an email) can work wonders.
I say let those who choose to try and link bait, bait away. For me, I prefer to fin
January 23rd, 2007 at 6:22 am
I don’t see what all the debate is all about.
It’s like debating whether it’s better to be a company that builds great products that gets lots of people talking organically or being a company that markets products very very well (web, pr, print, trade shows, etc). Both… duh!
Am I missing why people are passionate about this discussion on “Link Ninjas” versus “Link Baiting”?
~ Mel
January 23rd, 2007 at 9:08 am
I love your writing style and my experience is that targeted links with appropriate anchor text works. So I’m still doing it for my local business and one client–and doing some link baiting for quantity…and I’m doing other stuff (running a business) so it is time consuming.
Currently I’m trading business services for one way anchor text links within text….so my site can continue to dominate a broad range of phrases that combine a variety of geo terms and relevant business terms. That is a lot of work.
But if we continue to dominate critical serps the competition struggles getting seen and or has to spend more on ppc. Hah.
Its a combination of challenge, research, time, and relationship building.
But it works…it works…and BTW….it works.
Dave
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:45 am
Well said Jim!
I agree, there’s just something about scoring great links that offers the challenge/reward which makes it fun.
I do think doing fundamental link building is not for everyone though. If someone doesn’t have the interest, patience or the skills, link building can seem tedious and boring.
I say that’s great news because it means there’s less competition for link requests.
Link building, link bait, online PR, tagging, bookmarking, etc are all tools available for link builders. It’s a smorgasboard we can all pick from according to the situation.
January 23rd, 2007 at 12:46 pm
One of the things I enjoy most at the conferences like SES or Pubcon is hearing all the people sigh when it comes to talk of link building. To me it means a market opportunity — if they hate it, we’ll do it for them.
I started to wonder why 90% of the people there hated link building, but I gravitated towards it. Then it struck me — most SEOs have IT or Web Dev roots. They like to build and tweak websites or code. I have no desire to build sites.
However, I am a marketer. I love the “sale”. Especially when it requires cleverness and intelligence. I have run a few sales organizations that had rooms and contests just like you described. Now we have a few “link pros” and the same excitement is there.
Never saw a room full of developers high-five over a perfect sitemap… probably why they dislike link building… it’s too much like “sales”.
January 23rd, 2007 at 3:54 pm
[...] Jim Boykin had a great post I saw today on expert link building. I wanted to chime in and profess my love for link building. Honestly Link building is my first love in seo and like Jim I get sometimes lonley when I am spending most of my time running 97th Floor and not finding links. [...]
January 23rd, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Everybody is kung-fu fighting…
January 23rd, 2007 at 7:05 pm
Yikes. 10 links per week? This really scares me. I hate getting backlinks. I am not creative enough to be able to figure out how to do it. I like the build it and they will come route.
January 24th, 2007 at 6:56 am
I think Link Building could be seen as a little tedious if going for the quanity rather than quality approach, which really is a little niave link building strategy.
For some sites link bait is never going to be as approapriate or effective as a small number of well researched links from top high quality authority websites.
January 24th, 2007 at 10:27 am
You are right Jim. Getting links should be fun work. If you look at it as being very hard and tedious, you’ll never excel at it. And a good SEO should excel at getting great links, even if he dosen’t quite get 10 a week. Just a couple a week should be enough, if they are high quality links!
January 24th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
Building links is more fun then anything else in SEO, all other is just boring
January 25th, 2007 at 12:20 am
I find it boring and tedious also. However, I do consider it a “must do” for better rankings. I actually schedule my link research and link building so that I will do it.
Tuesday afternoon/night I spent 6 hours researching and sending request for a couple of my sites that need some link love. Out of about 22 request, I received 2 backlinks from PR 7 sites.
What’s your average conversion rate? (link request sent versus links obtained?)
Don
January 25th, 2007 at 8:07 pm
You know, Jim, I’m with you, though still wondering if such activities bring some benefit…
January 26th, 2007 at 5:14 am
I completely flit between the two!
Being quite time-poor the baiting obviously has its appeal as I’m writing for the blog all of the time anyway. But I have to say, blogging in an industry that doesn’t have a very large or techie background means that there are fewer bloggers and site owners out there who would link back to the bait. I know, I know - you have to be more creative and cross over industries, but it isn’t always that easy.
However, I can, with concerted effort keep picking up relevant links one-by-one and then still see progress (albeit a bit slower).
I guess in an ideal world you do both don’t you? But for me, there just isnt the time…!
Ross
February 18th, 2007 at 9:53 pm
Hey Jim. How do you get links? I know you contact website owners but what do you say? Do you do 3 way links?
February 18th, 2007 at 11:01 pm
we don’t do 3 ways, we don’t do trades…we either pay them money or get them for free.
February 19th, 2007 at 12:09 am
If its not giving away any SEO secrets, how do you get them for free?
February 19th, 2007 at 8:27 am
no secret, no trick….
“Hi Bob,
On http://www.yoursite.com/this-page.htm
could you add
http://www.clientsite.com/relevant-page.htm
to the resources you list on your page?
Thanks,
Jim”
February 19th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Yes, i do!
March 8th, 2007 at 6:47 am
Actually link building might be done not by yourself , it take lot of time , I think it’s better to give some money to good company and wait for results
April 13th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
We are just now starting to develop our links. There are so many opinions out there. So far all I have figured out is if it seems too easy, it probably does not work. Keep up the articles, some of us need the help.
June 1st, 2007 at 8:53 am
I agree with you on this and most other posts. If I needed a job, I would apply with you.
I also enjoy spending time hunting links, and also feel these are the links with the best impact.
Some time ago, I found a page maintained by an American professor, whose topic was [something related to ships]. One such thing existed in my city; I paid a visit to the place, took photos , interviewed people and wrote an essay about the thing. I asked for a link to the professor; not only did he put the link, he also thanked me for the ‘excellent information’.
Next thing I did was to visit cities in my neighborhood (about which I also maintain websites), and created pages about that [something related to ships]. I obtained a few great links, and still contributed to the wealthiness of information about the topic on the web.
There have been other cases where I did something similar: first, look for a potential linker (a relevant page, where the author clearly is willing to link to relevant content); then, ask myself what I could make (write about what? in which depth?) to get a link from them; take the time to make whatever I think it takes. Only then do I ask for a link. It works wonders.
Regards,
June 1st, 2007 at 12:05 pm
[...] Expert Link Building Can be Fun! | Jim Boykin’s Internet Marketing Blog [...]
June 14th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
What also works very well for me is making a list of links where you can get free links. This way you can get many links to your site. The links to your site won’t be of high quality, but it does help your PR go higher. This makes trading links easier…
June 14th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
Alkmaar,
free links are often worth what you paid for them
Esp if it’s for the purpose of link trading for the sake of “links”.
and worth nothing if they’re on “links” pages.
https://www.jimboykin.com/what-a-links-page-should-not-look-like/
June 21st, 2007 at 11:30 pm
[...] Lastly a kudos to Jim Boykin for his article on link building and Recommended Webtools where I found the link to the Webmonkey tutorial. [...]
June 28th, 2007 at 8:45 am
i like your article it explains alot i think i learn quite alot today from this blog thanks
Alex wong
June 29th, 2007 at 7:30 am
Couple of pointers I have been working on recently when trying to accumulate links
1. Use of niche specifc directories.If you do a searh on keyword+directory you may turn up with 1 or 2 gems to submit to even if they cost $5 or $10
2. Line up 10 potential link partners and Phone up the really good PR ones. Expect at least 2 out of 10 to be willing to discuss a link
Recip links are ok when yo get above the pr2 level.
July 18th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
To get 40 links per week is not too hard, but get such quantity of quality links with high PR - is very hard as I think
August 1st, 2007 at 9:14 am
Writing anything is an art, that too writing something like Jim should require enormous skill. Great piece Jim, hats off to you.
I have been in this field last 2 years collected some great links for my clients. Initially I found the going was very tough to get desired links for the couple of sites. In fact I felt that I should not have taken this profession. Over a period of time I understood that any profession you take will not be a bed of roses.
What I have understood from the experience is that nothing is free in this world. When I request for a link from the relevant site, I try to find in which way I can be helpful to the site before asking for a link. Some of the links I got by extending some services to them.
Everything available at finger tips. If one has patience, one can find sea of information in the net that will help everyone to get their job done.
Ofcourse, there are experts out there, before them I am nothing. Just ranted something out of my experience.
September 3rd, 2007 at 5:25 am
The Link-Ninja strikes again. Another 4er - Haoiiiiiii!
September 19th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
LOL - this is my first time seeing a SPAM protection that I do not need to put my glasses to read some messed up characters, but can read normally and use brain to calculate. Well done. For us with aged glasses, calculating creates less eye strain!
Anyway, regarding the article itself. It is fun. And sooo rewarding. When you find out that your site have JUMPED again over the weekend…
September 26th, 2007 at 9:25 pm
I certainly have fun doing it. And I don’t think it is too complicated or an arduous task. I take my time and approach things in a very relaxed way not taking anything too seriously.
Regards Don.
October 25th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
I agree, there’s just something about scoring great links that offers the challenge/reward which makes it fun.
I do think doing fundamental link building is not for everyone though. If someone doesn’t have the interest, patience or the skills, link building can seem tedious and boring.
I say that’s great news because it means there’s less competition for link requests.
December 21st, 2007 at 3:12 am
I hate building links, so lets make a deal? I write some of your post’s and you build some of my links
March 16th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Linkbuilding is the most fun part of seo imho
keyword research is fun too… but producing content sucks hehehe