Day 7: Creating Linkworthy Content

Here are some tips on creating webpages that other website will want to link to—to save you from having to do loads of legwork requesting links.

Buying Links is Getting Expensive

The Google AdSense program (which pays publishers for placing contextual links on their websites) and automated spammy "can I buy a link on your site" emails have made virtually every important online publisher aware of the value of links.

In mid 2007 Google began editing toolbar PageRank scores and rankings for many sites that were selling links. It is getting harder and more expensive to buy your way to the top through link rentals.

At the same time, more and more people are writing online. Setting up a blog only takes a few minutes. There are hundreds or thousands of people talking about every topic imaginable, so if you create something remarkable and capture the attention of a few thought leaders who like it, you are going to get links. But how do you create content that people will like?

Passion = Market Knowledge = Links

There is a lot of garbage content created online every day. While junk can win the volume game, it is obvious when content is created that is lacking in passion.

One of the easiest (and most effective) ways to predict the future & predict what people like is to immerse yourself in your topic.

If you are passionate about a topic, know more about it than anyone else, and openly share information, then eventually people will notice and link to you. If you know what people are interested in, rather than asking them to link to what you have, create something that they would be interested in linking at.

Express your world view and your bias in a way that matches their world view. You may turn some people off with that approach, but some people will also gravitate toward it.

If being vanilla ensured success then the mainstream media wouldn't engage in so much outrageous spam content creation to try to compete.

Become a Platform

Each of us is the most relevant thing in our own lives. It sounds selfish but it is true. If you promote other people they will be more likely to promote you. Popular bloggers search to see what people are saying about them. If you want someone's attention linking at them from a blog post on your site is an easy way to get them to notice you. This article about Paris Hilton explains how the concept works in the real world.

Though she hired a publicist to get her on Page 6 She never really talked about herself. She talked about other people. She would mention the designers of her clothes, the club she was going to, who made the sweater for her dog, all without any guarantee of any return. She just threw out links.

It didn’t take long for designers and club owners to realize that Paris Hilton was a walking billboard. So they embraced her. She paid attention to them, so they paid attention to her.

The most valuable commodity today is attention.

The Web is a Social Network

Social interaction of any type leads to links.

• Speak at a conference? Someone will likely blog about it.
• Want to get thought leaders to promote your site? Create a community project or contest and ask them to participate. Or give out awards.
• Lack the budget needed to go to conferences? Moderate forums, comment on related blogs, and build social relationships online.
• Track hot news in your space and try to get out in front of important trends.
  • As an example, when Google did a big update that promoted some big brand websites we were one of the first websites to analyze it.
  • Our blog post about that topic earned over 1,000 inbound links and brought in thousands of dollars in subscriber revenues.

Be Credible

But for people to take you credibly you need to make sure your website adheres to good web credibility standards.

• Is your domain name memorable?
• Does your design complement your copy?
• Is your content interesting and conceptually unique?
• Does your site have an editorial component and voice, or is it a boring low-value thin product database?
• Is your about page memorable?
• Is your site easy to use and understand?
• Do you have a brand people care about?

You do not need to "have it all" to get started, but the more credible you look the faster you will gain momentum.

Build on Your Success

Work to improve your site every day. Over the course of the year fixing or creating one thing a day will lead to a large advantage. Building up a leading market position can take years, but once you get at the top those years are the barrier to entry which prevent others from being able to replicate what you built up.

Markets Are Conversations

The Cluetrain Manifesto stated that markets are conversations. Blogs are the leading medium upon which those conversations happen online. If you are a blogger, read the Blogger's Guide to SEO to get the most out of your blog.

Even if you are not a blogger, the Blogger's Guide to SEO can help you understand the mind set of bloggers and why blogs quickly became a foundational part of the web. If you know a lot about blogs then getting links is a piece of cake.

Cheers,
Aaron Wall

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