Ian McAnerin of McAnerin Networks offers these tips to finding good links:
Search Google: If it’s in Google chances are it’s a page worth getting a link from. I don’t totally agree with this but it’s liveblogging so wtf.
Search For Sites That Allow You To Submit Links: Search Google with terms related to your business like “dominatrix”+”add url” or “submit site”. This kind of search can bring up all of the dominatrix directories out there for those of you who don’t already know the list by heart Gib.
Other Places To Find Links: DMOZ.org, Local Associations, Charitable Work, Contests, Related Sites, Reciprocal Link (stay on topic and in a good neighborhood – do not link to spammy sites), Classified Ads (Craigslist, Kajiji, etc.).
How To Ask For A Link: Research a site and the person you are contacting. Avoid talking about the SEO benefit. Explain why your site is good for their visitors. Look for sites that link frequently within your subject area. Stay on topic. Personalize your communication. (Interesting he doesn’t mention calling them v. email them. Calling is much better imho. Actually he did about ten minutes later).
NonTraditional Links: Send reviews & comments to the site with your name and website in hopes they will post the testimonial, press releases, contests, tools & utilities, entertainment.
Evaluating Links:
– Page Rank: pages with high pagerank visible in the Google toolbar may be scamming you
– Search Position
– # of other Links on the Page
– Context & Relevance
– Anchor Text
– Redirects: Sites can redirect a link to you and prevent it from passing on PageRank.
– Cache
Watch out for NoFollow tags on links and frames.
5 Response Comments
Hey Andrew – can you get another picture taken? The one you have looks like that nut job on Lost
😉
No one is supposed to know I’ve been moonlighting…
Another good way to get local links is to leave comments on local blogs. Make sure you include your website in your profile. I’m not a local business, but I’m getting myself another link to my personal website right here…
Something else you might want to consider when evaluating a link:
Check the number of backlinks the page has you are seeking the link on
and..
Check to see if the page is not blocked via a robots.txt
Cheers
Aidan,
The robots.txt tip is very useful. No use getting a link on a page that is either blocked from Google’s index or about to be expunged.