Adding value to content through promotional links

Last year I wrote about the three types of links that you can embed in your content. There are navigational links, body links, and promotional liniks. I defined them this way:

Navigational Links may be found in any zone but are most often placed in anchor margins and mastheads. Navigational links connect your pages to either their siblings or the most important pages on your site. In a large site, a navigational link typically points to the root URL, a directory/folder index page, an “incidental” page (like “About Us” or “Contact Us”), or a sibling page (a page located in the same directory or otherwise directly connected to the page through a chain of links).

Body Links may be placed in any zone but are most often found in the body zones or the non-navigational margin zones. A sidebar article on a page, usually located opposite the navigation links, may include a body link. A body link may point to content either elsewehere on the site or on another site.

An internal body link points to non-sibling, non-incidental, and non-index pages. In other words, an internal body link points to deep content on the same site located outside of the linking page’s directory. Clearly, not every Web site can include internal body links.

Promotional links may be placed in any zone and may point to content either on the site or off the site. Promotional links may point to the same content as navigational links or body links. A promotional link is distinguished from a body link by its context. Most promotional links are associated with graphical ads (banners), affiliate ads, etc. A paid link may or may not be a promotional link (that is, functionality determines whether the paid link is promotional, not the fact that it is paid for).

A promotional link may be freely given. A promotional link may be given in exchange for a reciprocal link. In my opinion, most spam links tend to be promotional links. For example, all links included in blog comments are probably promotional links, even though they may only point to an on-site profile page.

Promotional links are the most highly valued links in the SEO industry because they are easier to obtain from other Web sites. Body links differ from promotional links in that the body links are part of the page content, whereas the promotional links are superfluous. If you remove a link from a page and the page seems like it has a hole in it, the link is probably a body link. If the page’s informational value is not diminished by the loss of the link, it’s probably a promotional link.

Since people in the SEO industry are primarily concerned with obtaining links from other Web sites that already exist, they are by default seeking promotional links. That is, you cannot say that a link is a body link if the text in which the link is embedded was working just fine for visitors for several months or years.

There is often a brief window of opportunity after content is first published when visitors may contact the publisher and seek clarification of some point in the content. Often, the clarification is provided by the addition of a body link. Body links don’t have to be embedded in the copy from first publication, but they usually make it into the copy within a very brief timeframe.

Just because a link doesn’t complete the message in the page’s primary copy doesn’t mean it doesn’t add value. Promotional links add value in many different ways, so don’t make the mistake of assuming that link quality should be determined by whether the content’s message suffers from the absence of the link.

One good example of promotional links that add value would be a “See also” section providing links to similar articles, either on-site or off-site. Another example of promotional links that add value would be related products links. Say you have a book reviews Web site and you’re running contextual advertisements on the pages. Those ads can provide value to your visitors if they help people find places to buy the books you’re reviewing.

Promotional links only work if there is a logical relaionship between the linking source and the destination. Irrelevant promotional links don’t really provide any value to the casual visitor. Your biography of President George Washington is not a good place to drop a link to your brother’s tire company.

However, if you can think of an interesting way to create a connection between George Washington and tires, then linking to the tire company from a side bar on your George Washington biography page makes more sense. People will unerstand that the side bar provides a segue to a different topic.

This kind of transitional copy is also called bridge copy, and I’ve discussed bridge pages before and the concept is very much the same with simple bridge copy. You use the side bar content to build relevance between your linking source and destination.

Of course, it’s also possible to create bridge copy for body links. A serious Web directory that provides only vetted listings may include descriptive text around its links. The links are an intrinsic part of the body copy, which would be empty and useless without them. The body copy, however, may tie together multiple topics that normally would not be brought together.

Think of an article such as “Ten Web Sites That Could Change Your Life!”. If you write such an article and direct people to 10 Web sites that share little to nothing between them, you’re creating value for your visitors through your body copy, explaining how each site can change their lives. And you’re in turn creating bridge copy between your page and those ten sites.

Promotional links can actually be embedded in a very similar way. If you write an article about “10 Web Sites That Create Value”, you could add several promotional links in a side bar to sites that illustrate how the value obtained from the 10 primary sites was monetized. The main body article may be complemented and enhanced by the side bar copy but it doesn’t need the side bar in order to deliver a complete, coherent message.

It helps to practice distributing random promotional links across your own sites before you start placing promotional links on other people’s sites. Most of the links you drop are promotional and of those most probably don’t enhance the other sites very much. Many SEOs just want to get anchor text, maybe some PageRank, and move one.

Poorly dropped links are lost opportunities. If you can add a link to a discussion or article that really does provide unique, useful, and relevant insight to an already interesting discussion, you should make it clear to people that the destination really does bring something unique and useful to the topic.

If you want to place promotional copy on other people’s sites, then your body links are really promotional links. Why? Because you’re asking other sites that already exist and get along just fine withoiut your copy to host your content. The fact that you create body links for your content doesn’t make them any less promotional.

Once in a blue moon I have accepted promotional content from other people because it added value to my own sites. I have no problem with promoting other people’s sites as long as my own sites (and my visitors) benefit from the promotional content. The standard “we found your site and have placed a link to it” crap requests get no farther with us than any trash that comes rolling through the door.

But when someone comes along and says, “You know, I was involved in that industry you wrote about for five years and I worked for Web site blah-blah-blah,” my ears perk up. Someone has just provided me with information other than the fact that he has a Web site that he wants me to link to.

If you can shape the message to be informative and provide value to the site author that is not already found (or equalled) in his copy, you may be justified in mentioning your relevant, unique, highly useful resource. If you’re just pitching the value of swapping links for PageRank, I’ll pass.

Promotional linking works best when it creates or enhances value.

Promotional links are the easiest to obtain when you show the person whose site you want links from that they will benefit directly from providing the link (that does not include rewarding them with links from your own sites).

Promotional links should be constructed so as to capitalize a friendly audience’s mindshare. That is, as long as the promotional copy is relevant to the body copy, there’s a good chance that you’ll obtain a conversion from anyone who clicks through to your site (assuming your site is ready to service convertable traffic).

Promotional links need to set expectations, they need to deliver upon expectations, and they need to make sense to the people who see them.

A page with no advertising can be a lot of fun to read, but if it gets you all worked up to buy something then it’s frustrating. Some people use promotional copy to transform the reader’s state of mind from searching for information to making a purchase. That is where the art of promotional copywriting requires a deft, professional approach.

There is room in search engine optimization for good promotional link placement, but it takes something more than a simple, “Hi! I like your site. Let’s exchange links!” to get the most bang from your promotional linking.