Start up a template site. I started up a free template site www.joomlatemplatestyle.com This is a joomla template site, and is very well know in joomla i recieve about 600 unique hits a day. With about 25 new registered and 3000 members by now it is an ok site to bad it is banned by google adsense. (anyone know of any other pay per click advertising co i could use?) Anyways the trick is , I release say about 15 free templates which ppl sign up to download, so imagine, 150 downloads a day, I put say 3 links on the bottom left of the template, this is then installed on 150 sites per day, so my link count boost dramtically. But some people remove the links, so i get about a 25 percent chance of keeping the link on their template. Works well and I have got alot of links back to my sites for this.
Interesting, you say the rate at which people keep the link back to you is 25% have you monitored this closely?
Many potential issues... 1. Potential for site wides 2. Identical link text 3. GREAT potential for unrelated (non-relevant) links Sooooooooo I dunno... would be a method I'd use...
Site wides won't hurt you. I can prove that, too. Look at sites like PHPbb that almost all of their links are sitewides. Identical link text is easily fixed - change the text every few days on your downloads. ;-) Again, unrelated links won't hurt you.
If it can be percieved as a linking 'scheme' you should consider it. http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/2006-pubcon-in-vegas-thursday-site-reviews/ an interesting read.... Let me try again 1. Site wides are likely devalued 2. That high a ratio of Common link text CAN be a flag 3. Non relevant cannot help you, and could some day be more problematic ( U can't take them back) 4. Combinations of diffing factors MAY be read to create a spammy/contrived link proflie Read some of that Blog post... food for thought at very least :0)
It has worked well for me, for the keywords I have anchord the link too, I have come up on the first page results on google for that keyword. It has worked great.
Though I agree that generally sitewides are devalued (on a link by link basis, compared to single links) - I think webdesign related subjects (like templates) are probably one area in which 'non-related links' don't exist. Every website has a designer and it is perfectly legitimate for them to link (on every page even) to their designer - whatever their own subject. Similarly: a portfolio-page generally does help the clients to which it links, because these are perfectly relevant links, though unrelated.
Many SEO firms rank just on links from there clients sites. To say that non-relevant link cannot help you is clearly false. I can point you to several web design/seo firms that rank for industry keywords that have mainly non-relevant links. Take a look at the link from this website http://search.msn.co.uk/results.aspx?q=link:www.steves-templates.com/&geovar=70&FORM=REDIR They are using this and are doing well out of it.
Oh.. ranking on MSN...silly me.. I thought we were talking about actual SEs... ha ha ha ha.... I have NEVER and I repeat NEVER had a client ask to get 'high rankings on MSN/Live" -- Have you? I was merely talking G really... sorry about that... Even MSN and YaH have recently (since August) started cracking down on Spam ( and Link Profiles) so I doubt it will get any better. Anyways, it is develued... no penalty or anything. Anyone that really believes non-related links are going to be a bonus... go ahead. It is simply another case of IMHO
I was not talking about MSN. I was just using MSN because they do a much better job of listing links. Take at look at that sites back links and see how many irrelevant links it has from the free templates. In my opinion a good proportion of the sites ranking is result of these links. I could give plenty of examples of web design/seo sites that rank for industry keywords that have mostly links from there clients sites. I know I am up against them! Obviously relevant links are best but you can not ignore the fact that quality links from different subject can pass a fair amount of link juice. IMHO And no I have never had a client ask for MSN ranking and probably never will!