Link building

How do you linkbait for poker or similar uber competitive terms?

In fact how do you go about getting success for mortgage linkbait or hotel linkbait. All apparently difficult topics to get links for, not because few people link to such subjects, but because so many want links for those niches.

It is important to know why it’s hard or why people think it’s hard. I’ve played around in these sectors a bit and the reality is, it’s not as hard as you think, In fact, it’s just has hard to get links to a non sexy niche such as marble flooring, although I have met some people who find the smooth, cold marble floor rather arousing. But I no longer have her number.

Consider this, how many poker websites do you think there are?
Narrow that down to websites that will link to other websites based on the content (rather than being paid)
Then look at the actually number who are worth getting a link from.
After that consider how many people are competing for links within the niche.

Self referential niche linking are not the only links that work.

Consider how much easier it is to get links outside of that burned niche?

Next question:

Why would a non poker website link to a poker website?

The answer is simple, “because they want to”.

If you answered, “because their prize winning Shitzu was being held hostage and would only be returned if a link was placed”, your partly right. The Shitzu provides the motivation and the reason they want to link. But ultimately it’s “because they want to”. The point being it’s the desire you want to create, it’s desire that is our focus.

The point being, you do not “get” the linker to link, but you create a desire in them to link. If you want to think you got them to link your wrong, they linked because they wanted to link. You gave them a reason to create the desire.

масиYou link because you want to, not because someone makes you.

Which leads to the next question:

How do you create the desire within a linker to link?

Lets stick with the poker theme. How do you get someone to link to a poker site?

You create the desire.

What is desirable?

To answer this we must be specific, we must focus on the the linker. I say “the linker” instead of linkers because my method involves picking a single target and developing a strategy for that one linker. You can go wide and gather info on the whole niche and that’s fine initially but to really get under the skin of the whole niche you need one person as a totem for the whole group. We can get into how you would do that in later blog posts.

Sure you do a wide niche study first, as it’s the only way to find that one target, as you want the target to have influence and authority.

Lets take a specific niche which we want to link to our poker website, soap making websites for example.
How do we get a soap making website to link to a poker website?
The answer is to identify what the particular individual web master desires to link to.

Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Maybe something along the lines of a bar of soap which looks like an Ace of Spades, or a poker chip. Doesn’t really matter what as long as it contains two components. One which sates the desire of the soap making web master to find and link to cool hand made soap content and another that retains the contextual integrity of the poker site.

Contextual integrity is important because you need to retain the linguistic semantics of the link.

Or in other words, follow the rules of how information and language interact and it will turn out fine.

We could delve a little further into semiotics and language but I kinda feel I’ve already lost you. But if you are interested, check out the Elements of Semiology, By Roland Barthes and Ways of Seeing by John Berger. They are the kind of books you only read if you have to, and I had to, but in my opinion if you are a link builder or an SEO these are the kind of books that will give you the edge.

May your links be many and aged.