this week's topics include »
- The Holy Grail of Linking
- 5 Essential Tools to Help You Become a Better Net Writer
- Thought for the Day – Doubt and Fear
The Holy Grail of Linking
A great collection of inbound links (backlinks) is definitely one of the best ways to improve your site's seach engine ranking. It also helps boost something called PageRank, Google's measure of the importance of your links.
Why would another site be willing to link to yours?
Simple. Because you provide many pages of high-quality, useful information on a subject you know something about.
Relevent, useful content get links.
Cranking out good content shouldn't be difficult if you've chosen to build a site on a topic you are an expert, or something you're passionate about.
The better the information and the deeper it goes, the greater the chances are of attracting quality inbound links. A site containing hundreds of pages of free information on a given subject will be a natural link-attractor.
When you put together a truly outstanding site full of relevant, useful, high-quality content, something else happens…
…you get passive backlinks.
Passive backlinks are links that just happen. You don't ask for them, you don't pay for them, and you don't swap them.
Search engines love passive backlinks because they judge them to be a good indication of the quality of the content they link to.
Here's how you might get passive backlinks…
Say you have a site about beach weddings. You've written a lot of content on the subject and established yourself as an 'expert'. Sites that sell beach wedding favors all over the world, to hundreds of stores, boutiques, and wedding planners need to provide quality content to their customers. Rather than creating it themselves, they link to you in their "Resources" directory.
Bingo! You've got a passive backlink.
Another way to get inbound links is to ask for them. Value Exchange is an easy way to do this. It's a free service that does all of the work for you. All you need to do is register your site, and it puts you together with a small number of quality sites.
Stay away from link farms, FFAs, and paid linking services. They don't work. In fact, these services can decrease PageRank and cause your site to become invisible in the search engines.
For you do-it-yourself types, you can find sites to request links of through searches, blogs and forums. Just make sure you use legitimate channels when you contact the webmaster or site owner. Never sp*am!
The email you send to request a link should be friendly and and contain a single paragraph description of your site. You should also…
- Give it a meaningful subject line that includes the name of the person you're contacting.
- The salutation should address a specific person.
- Be sure the theme of the site is related to your site's theme.
- Include detailed linking instructions. A link to a page on your site that contains specific instructions is a nice touch, as well.
Taking these steps takes a little more effort, but you increase your chances of getting what you want this way.
Social bookmarking has become an effective way to get links. Free tools like Blink, Del.icio.us, Digg, Google and others help people share their favorite sites with thousands of other people.
Search engines take notice of these lists, too.
A lesser known but effective way to find links is niche and topical seach engines and directories. You won't get a rush of traffic, but they can deliver a steady trickle of highly tar*geted traffic.
5 Essential Tools to Help You Become a Better Net Writer
The words you choose are part of what determines where you end up in the search engines. They also determine if and for how long your visitors stick around once they find you.
Quality content is the lifeblood of any site, so you better make sure it's good.
But for a lot of you, writing for the web doesn't come easy.
To help you learn how to write headlines that grab attention and keep visitors reading, I put together this list of my choice of the 10 best copywriting tools.
- Make Your Content PRESell (MYCPS!). Actually, this isn't a book on copywriting. It's a unique collection of useful tips and techniques to help you write to communicate. Priced just under $10 bucks, this is a true bargain.
- The Netwriting Masters Course. An intensive, 5-day course shows you the process of PREselling and selling on the Internet. And best of all… it's fr*ee.
- Make Your Words Sell (MYWS!). This e-book classic shows you how to write content that grabs attention – and keeps it, and how to write persuasive copy that motivates readers to take action.
- Net Words - Creating High-Impact Online Copy. Each chapter in this book will give you some immediate recommendations that you can apply to your business online, for a very nominal investment of time and money. Available in e-book or paperback format.
- eLance. Prefer to hire someone else to write content for you? You'll find what you need at eLance.com.
Thought for the Day – Doubt and Fear
"Don't waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour's duties will be the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it."
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Until next time…
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