Ramblings on how to get organic links, inspired by Doovde’s post about getting links.
When I started out as an affiliate I had tremendous problems with getting people to link to my sites. I spent countless hours submitting my sites to “SEO friendly” directories and digging for “dofollow” blogs and forums where i could drop links.
I don’t want to say that it were a waste of time, but I honestly think that i could have spent my time much better. Here are a couple of tricks I have been using to build “organic links” i.e. get people I don’t know to link to my site, without asking them to do so.
1. Be different!
Nobody will link to a generic article about “how to get rakeback”. There are thousands of those out there, so why should anybody link to the one you wrote?
If you on the other hand wrote a 8.000 word article comparing rake and rakeback in different variants of poker, including original research and lots of pretty graphs, well, someone would probably find that very interesting (if you write it, please tell me so I can read it).
Unique articles like that may only appeal to a small fraction of readers, but you can’t always please anyone, and it is often better to tailor you content to a specific audience instead of trying to write something for everyone.
2. Write “how to” articles
If you write a really good “how to” article (or a series of articles) people will notice.
The definitive guide to WordPress SEO by Joost de Valk is an example of a great “how to” article that has gotten scores of links.
3. Create video walkthroughs
An “easy” way to get your articles to stand out as a unique resource is to create videos.
If I ran a site about WordPress blogs there are no way I would ever be able to compete with someone like Joost de Valk. Nobody are going to link to a guide I write about WordPress SEO when he is writing about it, but if I created videos showing how to do everything, my site would definitely be link worthy.
4. Answer questions on forums
A relatively easy way to get links from forums is to look what questions people are asking, and then write articles answering them on your site.
If I wanted to get links from a forum like 2+2 I would look at what kind topics people ask there, and then write really in depth articles with the answers. You may not get links from 2+2, but there are scores of other forums out there, and if your information is good enough, someone will link to it when writing an answer themselves.
5. Write “linkable” articles
In a nutshell I try to create website that are linkable. If there are a lot of easy accessible high quality content with little or no advertising.
If you create a valuable resource, people will link to it simply because they like it. And even if you have to do some linkbuilding, it will be much easier, since other webmasters won’t have to worry about whether or not their visitors will get tired of them linking to “bad websites”.
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‘Being different’ has to be one of the most important factors when it comes to generating natural links, it’s easier said than done in the poker niche but it’s certainly not impossible.
If you answer a question you’ve seen on a forum then there is no reason you can’t sign up, make a good response and then link to the aritcle you’ve written which expands more on the subject.