In today’s SEO world, everyone knows how important getting “quality” inbound links is. However, many people simply do not know how to go about asking for links. I’ll be the first to tell you, building links is HARD!
I recently had a comment left on my blog by a user (who will go un-named) asking for a link exchange. Now I’m not shy about linking out to somebody if they go about asking the right way, but this user’s request left me a little turned off:
“hi,
Very nice to visit your blog and found very interesting. I also have an site (un-named domain), I Want that You will give me a link on your blog and I will do the same for you.
Thank you
- (Un-Named User)”
Here are some short guidelines for asking for links:
1. Contribute Some Original Thoughts
First of all, take the opening comment “Very nice to visit your blog and found very interesting.” First off, this isn’t proper English which leads me to believe that they put no thought into it and probably didn’t double-check it.
In addition, the comment seems like more of a default comment rather than someone who is genuinely interested in getting to know me and my blog. It is a safe bet that this person is either using link-building software or is copying and pasting this into every blog that he can find.
Either way it is clear that the user in question has no interest in contributing.
2. Don’t Be Pushy
I was done with this person as soon as they said, “I Want that You will give me a link on your blog.” Again, we have the grammar issues, but my biggest issue is that this person seems to be really pushy.
Like I said previously, I don’t mind giving links, but if a user is going to contribute nothing of their own and make no attempt to get to know me or my blog, then DON’T ASSUME I WILL WANT TO LINK TO YOU!
This pushy approach is no way to go about it! What’s even better is when I took a look at the person’s website, they weren’t even giving links to people on their homepage!?! They had a links page, which I’m sure they’ve used the “nofollow” attribute on so that the link juice will flow only one way.
3. Earn It!
This is probably the best way to get a link. Nobody wants to link to somebody who doesn’t contribute something back. Most webmasters are smart enough to be able to decipher when a user is genuinely interested and when they are just trying to be selfish and get links.
My advice is: A.) to subscribe to the blog where you want the link, B.) leave comments and interact with the site owner, and only after you do this C.) should you send a personal e-mail to the site-owner to make an “offer” to exchange links. DO NOT DEMAND A LINK!
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a nice guy. But this be a lesson to all of the dead-weight link builders trying to get me to link to them. Although my site may not be up there at the top of the blogosphere, I take what I write very seriously and I give and respect a little bit of courtesy.
If anyone has had a similar experience, leave a comment…
Sorry for the rant! Hope everyone is having a great Monday!
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