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200 emailed link requests and counting…

Posted by Michael Martinez on March 28, 2008 in Link Theory

One of the most stupid ideas ever embraced by the SEO community was the suggestion that you should send unsolicited emails to Webmasters asking for links (either by exchange or simply one-way). Of course, as the practice of managed reciprocation fell into disrepute people began offering “three-way” links (where your site, A, links to their site, B, and they arrange to get you links from Spam Site C). That is actually NOT a three-way arrangement, by the way, unless site A links to site C.

Be that as it may, people have been happily sending out hundreds, sometimes thousands of emails for every new Web site for the past several years. Some so-called SEO firms actually specialize in this spammy practice (and it is essentially as spammy and undesirable as sending out hundreds or thousands of “Click here on my V I A G A RA site” messages). These link solicitors don’t necessarily resort to compromising third-party computers and forging email headers to get their icky spam messages through our filters, but their activities are unethical.

Why are they unethical? Because they are not promoting Web sites, they are soliciting links. I’ve raised this point before and — regrettably — people have taken my criticisms to heart and designed new variations on old spam methods in order to “improve” their services. No one has stopped to consider that they really don’t need all these links from other Web sites.

I bring this up once again because I found yet another discussion in a popular SEO forum today where someone complained that he had sent out 200 unsolicited bulk email requests for links and only received 5 replies. That sucks even for typical spam click-through rates (classic email spammers supposedly get a 4-6% click-through). When several people in the forum asked the guy why he was even doing this, he replied, “Well, I did it because I had read in SEO forums that this is what you should do….”

What a horrible position in which to find oneself: You’ve gone to SEO forums looking for ideas rather than advice and you’ve executed a plan that has failed miserably to deliver the results you expect and then you go to an SEO forum and ask for feedback only to be told that you did a dumb thing.

Why is it that people don’t read the numerous discussions in these very same forums where experienced SEOs tell people not to do these dumb things? Or is it that the voice of the experienced SEO professional doesn’t sound authoritative enough? Naive people, having no knowledge or experience with the SEO community, just latch on to the first idea they see promoted in a forum and hope for the best.

I can’t recall when I last asked a Web site for a link. Maybe it was back in like 2001 or something. There is just no point to throwing your heart out there into the world of email spam because it will be swallowed up and chewed and mauled and then spat out like total garbage.

There are two ways to get links that always worked and probably will continue to work for a very long time to come:

1. Tell people about your site in such a compelling way that they get excited and link to it
2. Tell people about some other site in such a compelling way that they get all excited and link to YOUR site

I prefer method two as it’s more productive, more efficient, and generally tends to draw in better links. But that’s just me. You do whatever you want.

It’s method one where most people trip up, however. They don’t understand how to go about telling other people about their sites. Here’s a few tips:

• DO write about your Web site in a passionate, non marketing-spiel way on a blog or forum that invites self-disclosure
• Do NOT drop links in blog comments or forum discussions
• DO leverage your blog to discuss your site as often as possible without making it sound like a sales pitch
• Do NOT interrupt other people’s online discussions to tell them how your company offers the solutions they have been looking for
• DO ping the blog search services with your blog
• DO look for a FEW niche directories that SEOs won’t abuse — directories with redirecting links are better for you than directories with “SEO-friendly” or “search engine friendly” links
• Do NOT send your press releases to people whose sites you’d like links from
• DO write up a list of 15-20 sites that you honestly, legitimately feel would want to link to your site — disregard all classic SEO notions about “authority”, “quality”, and “relevance”
• Do NOT send emails to those 15-20 sites asking for links, link swaps, 3-ways, etc.
• DO find ways to use your site to help THOSE sites achieve some visibility
• Do NOT expect or count on or hope for immediate results and returns
• DO stop looking for links after 2 weeks.

These are link building tips, not an SEO master plan for conquering the SERPs. You need to understand that constant link building is just plain stupid. Either your mediocre Web site is worth a few links or it’s not. There is a 99.9999% probability that your site is NOT worthy of many links, and I don’t care how many years you’ve been organizing your army of DIGGers to help you fake bait.

If you plan on acquiring only a few links, you’ll leverage them better than if you plan on constantly accumulating as many links as you can possibly entice, buy, or solicit. Link solicitation is cheap, ineffective, and a waste of time. I wouldn’t pay anyone to solicit links for me. I sure won’t accept any offers from other people to solicit links for them.

You can build or create your own links. You can earn your own links. You don’t need to beg, trade, steal, or buy links.

If you want links in volume you’re trying to fast track a site into search engine success. There is a heavy price to pay for that kind of action. Somewhere down the road it comes back to bite you in the butt. Unless you’re generating millions of dollars in revenue with your site, you can’t afford the luxury of being greedy and stupid.

The more precious your links are to you the more effort you will put into making them special and precious to other people.

It takes as much time to write a new Web page as it does to write an email. With that new Web page you’re guaranteed at least one friendly link to yourself. If you leverage that page to provide someone else with a link (where you don’t go running to tell them about it), you increase the chances of attracting other links more naturally.

That’s not link baiting. That’s link building. You create your own links, you build your own links. That keeps you out of trouble.