One of the problems of link building that I rarely see addressed in depth, is the issue of attracting the initial attention of the linker.
I am talking about someone we have no prior relationship with, someone who we need to reach out to.
But my points also apply to our closest link pals. Who are always good for a link or two.
You have crafted a piece of content, spent hours, days even weeks. Maybe thousands of pounds getting it just right?
How much time do you think you have to get the linker to pay attention to your content and consume it.? I put the question out on my twitter feed and the average of 2.7 seconds came back.
2.7 seconds to grab attention online seems about right.
What usually happens, is you are sitting in front of your computer and I’m probably like you have about 15 windows open. Twitter client, email, web stats digg and many other
Even talking about it now I fee I should cut back a little.
The point is, for those of us who work online, there is a huge demand on our attention as soon as we power up our computers
The linker is no different. Works at a computer, has tabbed browsing, multiple windows open.
Everyone seems to suffer from acute distraction disorder.
We have to find a way to burn through this haze of distraction to get out linker to pay attention. How do we solve this problem.
Simple
We smash a brick into his face.
A good headline will do this job. A good headline will stop you in your tracks. Engage you and draw you in, blanking out all those distractions to allow you to focus on the one task of “I must read more”.
My favourite headline was introduced to me by a top copywriter called Jon Carlton. The headline is, “Boy Eats Own Head”.
How can you not want to know more.
Headlines do not only exist at the top of the content. They are in the subject text of email,
they are in a twitter post, rss feed, digg headline etc
But the shocking truth is, Websites do not link to websites. I know what you’re thinking, what the hell is this guy talking about. Consider this, people point to the work of other people.
It is people we need to target and not the technical manifestation of a link. It is people for they are those that give the link.
Because of that understanding the way people work is crucial to successful link building.
We have to become students of the human condition, because websites do not link to other websites, people point to other peoples work
The battle for the link takes place in the mind of the linker. Not that the content is unimportant, it is merely a vehicle to allow us plant a suggestion in the mind of the linker.
That suggestion being, “drop a link to these guys”
The sub-conscious will decide if you get the link, thousands of factors will be lined up to tell the consciousness whether or not to link.
Getting people to link, means we have to be aware of and tap into their hopes, fears prejudices, desires, dreams, fears etc. Ultimately, we have to tap into their sub-conscious.
How do we do that?
We have to research the people who we want to get links from.
Fortunately, people are desperate to link to interesting and engaging information. They are hungry for it, all we have to do is show them a piece of content that persuades them to make a drop a link.