Why would people to link to me voluntarily?

I have absolutely no desire to buy links or actively ask other webmasters to link to me... nor do I have the time or money... OK, I'm unemployed, so I have the time, but neither the money nor the patience.

I'm talking about linkable content. What makes content linkable? Why would people link to me without my asking them to do so? Why would people want to tell their friends about me without getting paid to do so?

How can I make it easier for others to link to me & with the keywords I want them to use, without my instruction? How can I make it easier users of my site to tell their friends about me?

Aside from money, what services or incentives can I (automatically) offer users to link to me or have them tell their friends about me?

How do I gear my content or services towards individuals capable of linking to me or talking about me effectively? Not everyone can link to me. Not everyone has an audience upon which to discuss ... me.

Because, quite honestly, off-page SEO is very boring.

 

Unique quality content is linkable.

You are probably right that no one has a reason to link to your site and that is why money is so important.

 

Well you could use anchor text links. They work pretty good for me. Do you use regular links within your site that are anchor links?

 

Argg.

I'm looking for a pseudo-scientific response... what is the magic formula?

Actually, I'm trying to help you guys out. If you can answer some of those questions in the original post, line by line, and implement whatever you come up with, you'd make a really good SEO.

 

Soooooo, you're lazy eh? Then you have to find something else to do. Building quality content is not easy but if you have no idea at all how to do it, then go find a blog. Any blog with a "most read" article list and pick one of two of them and send an email off to that webmaster asking how the heck did this article get so big? Then also add a little note that you enjoyed it and can see that it's well read or whatever.

Think of it this way, lets say there is a company called Goof Balls. Just established in the middle of Alaska. How do they get the word out that they exist?

They could just sit there and hope that someone famous or popular buys from there store by chance and tells them about this amazing store in the middle of Alaska. That could happen, however it's not likely to happen.
But say they sold Alaskan ice water, and 50cents a dollar for a liter (amazingly cheap). Then that man came in and bought an bottle and started telling people about their amazing ice water. Suddenly people have an interest in it and come to their store. They expand and hopefully continue to grow strong.

Without links you are a store in the middle of Alaska. You could hope that one day someone manages to get to your site by chance (through long tails) but even if they do, why would they spread the word. It's your job to set yourself apart somehow or advertise the hell out of your competitors. Find a product or niche and expand. Start telling people about your website, blog commenting, private emails. Yeah it sucks but otherwise you'll turn 80 and still not have made a dime for the most part.

Without effort you wont achieve anything. You don't have to sacrifice much but you do have to sacrifice something, money, time, work etc. It's a tough life online, you give up a lot but if you keep at it eventually you hit gold.

Gl mate,

 

Write something REALLY useful and a lot of people will link to you. Make a good product and release it for free, you can get linked by many authority sites.

 

Use a keyword rich domain. Also add a "link to us" page where you have the code ready for them to cut and paste, with your chosen anchor text of course. Same with image links, but use the appropriate alt text of your choice.

Provide funny, free, or authoritative content and others will link to you. Link baiting also helps.

Been there done that with a site that sold products. What I did for the client was develop a list of all similar competitor products which were recalled because they were safety hazards. Some solid natural links came from this along with improved trust of his brand/products.

Which is why Google tends to place boring sites further down the SERPS.

 

QUALITY makes content linkable.

The best way to get free traffic is to start a backend blog to your website, and make one high quality 200to500 word post per day(or as much as you can, so you are always be producing more content). If you don't know what to write about, write how to guides and tips related to your niche. To monetize your content, put ads around it to your product or affiliate products. You will get search engine traffic from the posts you make, people will link to them if they are quality and have good information, and you will be able to syndicate them across digg/twitter/facebook etc for more traffic.

 

Try to submit your site to linkmarket.com so others from this platform know that you can linkable.

If others are instrested in your site, they will send you emails.

 

I'm all for publishing great content. Authorship can actually be enjoyable. Heck, even website design & coding has it's perks. But constantly pushing people to link to me gets old really quickly, and personally, I don't consider off-page SEO to be a valid or even an honest endeavor. It's just a tedious manipulation of search engine algorithms.

But, since back linking is part of the algorithm as a measure of popularity, I'd like that to happen by discovery first, acceptance & linking second, rather than by force-feeding.

 

If you create quality content, people will link you. The more "natural" the linking, the better you do on search engines.

My advice? Put your head down and get to to work. Post good stuff, and success will come soon enough.

 

The way it works is you either invest time, or you invest money, since you don't want to invest anything chances are you won't get anything back. Great blogs and websites with great content don't need much link building, you just need to build your links initially so that a few people find your blog or website to link to it and the rest is history.

I'm sure blogs like Techcrunch, Engadget and so on don't do much link building, it's done for them, but if nobody had heard of them in the beginning then they wouldn't be where they are today.

 

do some guerrilla marketing. or just some crazy content. start a site on something that you enjoy and put alot of effort into it. your unemployed so that should give you more incentive to work harder and have more time to work harder.

 

It's all about putting interesting content. If people find your site interesting, they will link your site naturally. It's also a good idea to make a site or blog that allows users to reprint your articles to their own blogs.

 

To see what sort of content gets blinked to 'organically' - have a look at the sort of thing that gets on the front page of digg, reddit etc - I know it's a slightly different thing, and not free from manipulation, but the idea behind it is the same - that's the sort of 'linkbaitable' content that gets on blogs and forums. Likewise links that get retweeted on Twitter.

 

Off-Page optimization is some times boring but if you need success there is no alternate than hardwork.

For getting keyword rich anchor text my ways are (most are listed by others)

1. Keyword rich URL
2. Ask friends to write unique content for me and give a link back to their site
3. Participating social networking sites
4. Spend a little bit for ghost writers
5. Participating yahoo answers

 

The magic formula is to know what you are talking about, and write content that others consider interesting, and/or helpful.

You also need to be seen where the traffic that you want to attract is. Forums, Social Sites, Press Releases, Etc.

You don't have any control over the anchor text when other people link to you, nor if they link to you...it comes from steady development of traffic and eventually other bloggers, forum members, trade and industry publications may link to your articles.

It won't happen overnight unless you have some kind of professional pedigree or resume in the niche. It comes from building credibility, quality posts, and frequent updates while you build your traffic.

In other words, it takes time and dedication.

You are looking for an easy answer, or a certain formula that will work systematically for everyone the same way and there isn't one. What works for me, won't work for you and the knowledge I bring to my niche that helped me build credibility, you don't have in yours, or else you would know exactly how and where to market your blog.

Plain and simple, people link to you because you are knowledgeable, have a personable, yet professional writing style...have some passion for the subject matter...have a well designed blog or website...provide relevant information frequently...and can add something to the subject other than regurgitated content that can be found anywhere.

If you don't know what you are talking about, no one will link to you.

 

Thanks for the tips. If I were trying to compete in a niche market as an authority blog monetizer, all of your responses would be 100% helpful.

As far as ecommerce goes, off-page SEO is pretty lame. You're better off with DFO, PPC, affiliate marketing, sales portals & classifieds. Linking may or may not naturally follow.

 

Off page SEO is not lame. It;s boring, and time consuming, but it is a necessary evil, unless you plan to go straight PPC.

I have sites that have no SEO at all, just PPC, or other traffic methods, but unless you plan on doing all PPC, SEO is the only way you are going to build traffic.

 

Its all about one way non-reciprocal linkuilding - and it aint easy unless you do something different....