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One of the best ways to get free website traffic, as we all
know, is links from other sites which help improve your site's
link popularity. Nothing new there...however now that Google and
friends are cracking down on reciprocal link exchanges and
de-valuing links from non-relevent sites, it's become vitally
important to get 1-way INCOMING links from sites that are
related to your niche.
For example, a travel site would benefit from a incoming-link
from a holiday home rental company or an airline or car hire
place, but there would be NO benefit from getting an incoming
link from an online casino service or one of those ubiquitous
Viagra sales sites we all love to receive spam email from
(not!)... :)
Here's what I suggested to one of my client's (who runs a luxury
accommodation site) as a way for him to get quality incoming
one-way links:
Ideally, it's MUCH better to have a one-way link coming into
your site, rather than having to reciprocate the link and give
them one back. HOWEVER, this is getting VERY difficult to
achieve.
Essentially, you are asking a possible competitor to give you a
link to your website, when they would much rather the searcher
just found them instead. Recipricol links are also starting to
lose their value in terms of link popularity. A one-way link
from a RELATED site is better than 5-10 2-way links from most
sites. So, I believe that in order for you to get as many
incoming one-way links as possible, you need to give website
owners a REASON to be prepared to give you that link for free. I
believe the best way to achieve this is to go back to something
I suggested in an email recently: As a way to differentiate
yourself from all the other sites out there offering similar
content/services to yours, you need to value-add so that it is
compelling for site visitors to make their bookings through your
site in preference to anyone else's - even the actual
accommodation place site itself. As I suggested, one way is to
offer a package of discount vouchers for guests staying at each
place for all the local tourist attractions, and offer them as a
free giveaway to anyone making a booking through you. The more
discounts or specials you offer, the more attractive it will be
for someone wanting to make a booking thru you.
Perhaps on occasions, you might even persuade some companies to
offer free giveaways as an incentive to get tourists to visit
their premises (free wine samples or free food samples, etc.)
However, rather than call them up and just ask for discounts for
possible clients, why not approach them with a view to offering
to give them FREE advertising to your clients, in exchange for a
link from their website (designed the way we specify, and
preferrably placed in a vaguely decent spot on their site). So,
an example might make this clearer... Let's say you have an
accommodation spot in Sydney. You contact all the related
businesses in that region that offer something that may be of
value to a visitor to the area. Say, a winery, a restaurant, a
car hire place, a movie cinema, a chemist/pharmacy, etc. Explain
to them that you would like to offer them free advertising for
clients you refer to their business while they are holidaying in
Sydney, in exchange for a link on their website back to your
site. Tell them you will put their details in a PDF document and
anytime someone makes a booking for an accommodation spot in the
area, you will email them a free copy of the document (sort of
like a digital voucher system) and they can print it out and
bring it with them for use while in the area. In fact, if the
truth be known, you could probably even put a link to the PDF on
your site so ANYONE can download it. Make them have to fill in a
small form to get it (name & email address) and then add their
name to your (upcoming) :-) email newsletter. That way, even if
you don't make a sale so far as a booking goes, at least you
have a good incentive for people to give you their email address
in exchange for downloading the vouchers for the location they
are interested in. Sell it to them on the basis that it WILL
give them FREE advertising. They don't even have to offer any
specials (although if they do, that's obviously a bonus for you
and the client), and all you ask for in return is a one-way link
back to your website. I'm not sure what sort of success rate you
would have getting this, but I would be surprised if it was less
than 1 in 10, perhaps even 1 in 5 businesses being prepared to
say yes. And, you have a WHOLE country of accommodation hotspots
you can call over the next 6-12 months and put this proposition
to, with a view to getting ongoing increasing one-way links to
your site from relevant businesses. Oh, a small but important
point. Get them to provide the text &/or graphics content that
goes in your voucher. Saves you some time & money. I would
assume that many of these places already have some form of
brochures & advertising, etc - just get them to email you the
image in a usable format.
If you have to spend time designing the look and content of each
ad, it will chew up your time, so if they see the value of doing
this, just explain that you will NEED them to email you their
voucher entry (perhaps specify the size and format, etc), and
you just drop it into a word doc (for example) and turn that
into a pdf when you have filled it up. Also, you will no doubt
have some places being concerned that they are going to be in
your voucher "book" with their competitors, which may (in their
minds) devalue it for them, so offer them exclusivity if they
come up with a great special offer for your clients. Rather than
making them pay for exclusivity upfront, get them to pay for it
when someone redeems the voucher, which is good for you AND
them. I believe this will be the best way for you to secure
one-way links from related websites, without having to spend
large sums of money. Once your page rank increases (for both
your home page AND individual internal pages), you will find
your site showing up higher in the organic searches across the
board, which is the ultimate goal anyway.
There you have it. Any business (not just accommodation) can
take this idea, mould it to their specifics, and be generating
great incoming links from relevent sites in days.
As a last suggestion, if you want to speed up the process,
contact prospective link partners by direct mail. That way, you
can get in touch with 10-100 of them in a very short period of
time, and only deal with the ones who see the value in what you
are offering.
All the best with your link building campaign, and remember that
success on the internet takes time and dedication. You won't get
miracle results in 1 week, so be persistent.
About the author:
Charles Ryder is a Consultant at WCR Internet Marketing, a
specialist Australian Search Engine
Marketing company. Get a free site analysis here.
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