When Link Building, Think Lincoln Logs
 by Mattya56
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06-24-2007
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Let's Get Building
Link building was one of the first strategies employed in the early days of SEM. These days there are so many hundreds and thousands of strategies that you can employ to reach your goals of SEM success that this one can be overlooked. Which begs the question - WHY? Well, my friends because like cleaning the dishes, mowing the lawn or doing your laundry its hard work that no one likes doing. But guess what? You have to do it, so stop complaining and get linking.
There are two important things to remember when link building - quantity and quality. This is where the whole Lincoln Logs analogy comes in. Remember Lincoln Logs? If you don't you can take a trip down memory lane here:
http://www.lincolnlogstoys.com/customer/home.php?cat=338
Lincoln Logs are like building blocks. You can use them to create rustic looking log cabins reminiscent of the ones that Abraham Lincoln (you know President 16, freed slaves, Civil War) used to live in. Now, if you were like me, your log cabin usually stunk. You used a few logs and put together a housing structure as fast and crappily as possible. Then you probably knew someone that actually put some time into their log cabin, they used a lot of well placed logs to make a sweet looking cabin. You no longer want to be that young version of yourself who rapidly through something together only to play tornado and knock it down with one swipe, you want to be that artsy dude who took his time and made an awesome cabin that lasted forever.
A Brief History of Links
OK let's travel back in time to the fledging days of Google when their algorithm was known as Backrub. Sergey Brin and Larry Page wanted to know who was linking to their Web sites. Long story short they realized they could organize the entire web based on who was linking to whom. Knowing that certain sites were more important than others, i.e. someone's random personal page when compared to IBM, they realized they could create a hierarchal ranking system based on the quantity and quality of links to certain and specific sites. Venture capital money came in, Google went live and a couple billion dollars later these two will go down as some of the smartest people ever.
Quality Links, Lots of Them
So now that you know the basis for the Google Algorithm, you know exactly what you have to do - get great links and lots of them. Easier said than done. This is going to be hard work. The best way to get links is by doing a little ground work before you set off on your quest for more. Start by creating original and well-written content on your site. People will naturally want to link to your site if it has a bunch of educational articles that they don't have the time to write themselves. Unfortunately, this probably won't get you a lot of great quality links. Submit your site for entry into DMOZ, the Open Directory Project. This is hard, and we've already discussed this process in our Directory Section, so we won't do it again here. Read the article for pointers on gaining entry. Now go get on the horn. Call webmasters of sites that have a lot of traffic and are related to your own site. See if you can get a link on their site, but be forewarned you are going to need to be a good salesman. Tell them all the reasons why they should link to you. Find a page on their site where a link to yours makes good sense. If you are of value to them, they will link to you.
