With this new year already speeding by (why must this always be the case?) and the peoples of the world seeming to be in a paradoxical state of both despair and hope (depending on the time of day you tune into a 24 hour news channel) it’s time to visit the world of linking and see if the winds of change have been kicking up dust. We have talked before about linking being all about an exchange of value and an essential part of the online affiliate currency, and that partnership is integral to success. However, as many people will have experienced first hand, the realities of linking aren’t as clear cut and as simple as we would perhaps like them to be.

Any form of sales exercise is a numbers game and linking is no different: you still have to “sell” the partner as to the merits of a link relationship. The degree of competition between online players and indeed the activities of off-shore link building firms means that the numbers continue to change — and not favourably. In the last 3 years it has become almost twice as hard to attract a given number of link partners. In some sectors this now renders traditional link building all but impossible. Whilst travel and many of the major retail sectors remain highly “do-able” from a linking perspective, those with electronics, finance, cash back, vouchers, mobile phone, broadband and gambling related sites will find link building incredibly hard going. The reassurance here, however, is that everyone else in the sector is finding it tough too!!

In tougher sectors, there are two primary reasons for the challenges. Firstly, the sheer degree of competition and “link fatigue” caused by so many similar competing sites approaching largely the same set of potential link partners. Secondly, in many of these sectors, there are a diminishing number of potential link partners: more and more webmasters have either become affiliates or are demanding money with menaces in order to establish a link relationship. As we have said many times before NEVER EVER PAY FOR A LINK. Not only is this expressly against Google Terms of Service (TOS) but through personal search industry contacts we know for a fact that paid links are reported and are penalised. All of this is resulting in fewer and fewer genuine link potential partners within these sectors.

Assuming that you operate in a remotely “do-able” sector, you still face the challenge of actually getting your message in front of someone who will actually act upon it. The numbers game means that some form of cold emailing will in almost all cases be required — after all you are after real link partners, not some kind of co-operative network that the search engines can spot a mile off so forget the databases and co-operation sites. No-one likes cold emails and even if you manage to 1) get a working email address, 2) get through ever stronger anti-spam defences and 3) get the mail read, there is still a very high percentage chance that it will still be simply binned along with the adverts for dodgy pills and phoney foreign lottery wins.

So we are now down to a small percentage of those sites with whom you have attempted to make contact. You have made the effort to structure and personalise your emails as best you can and have a number of potentially positive responses as a result. Each of these will now need managing to fruition. As we have seen in other posts here at Lammo, you will then need to arrange a fair exchange of value – there are a number of ways in which to do this. Since payment isn’t and never should be an option, other forms of exchange of value are needed – often hard for new sites and market entrants. And link partners are becoming ever more demanding . .” I won’t link with you until you’re Page Rank 5″ . . .”I want 30 pieces of content for one link . . ”

So now that you have a handle as to the major challenges in finding link partners in the first place, it’s essential to think about what makes a good link partner. Here we come again to the problem of identifying the difference between a link partner who will be complimentary to your own website, and a competitor’s site that the search engines will simply regard as an “artificial” link and will in all likelihood ignore. However, trying to explain this to potential partner is quite a challenge: one person’s complimentary partner is another person’s off-theme link request!

Yet relevance is one of the keys to winning the numbers game in linking. It is well worth investing the time in looking at your competitors and their link equity and in thoroughly considering the question “what types of sites would be useful for our visitors but wouldn’t collide head on with our products or services?”

The easiest way to show the difference between complimentary versus competitive camps is to give a couple of hypothetical examples. If you’ve got a site that is about hats, don’t be afraid of looking for partners who also have sites about hats. Provided that you cover different areas of the market, for example if you deal in woolly hats and the partner in Trilbies and boutique varieties, then they will make a complimentary partner. Equally, partners selling other fashion items will be useful for your visitors and for the search engines, being within a “fashion” or “apparel” classification.

When you understand this area properly you will be able to properly communicate it to potential partners and your conversion rates should improve as a result.

A significant element of SEO strategy still focuses on linking. Despite changing times and toughening response levels, the quality and relevance of your inbound links is paramount. These days it is rather less so about the quantity, reflecting the ever increasing difficulty of attracting link partners. To paraphrase Mark Twain, it is also fair to say that the death of reciprocal linking has been greatly exaggerated. Provided that reciprocal links are on-theme, they remain a valuable part of a site’s link equity and contribute to the all important natural link structure the search engines want to see.

If all of this sounds rather like hard work, it is! Thankfully there are firms who can shoulder the burden for you, using best practice techniques combining some automation and economy of scale with expert team members to deliver effective linking solutions.

Perhaps in an ideal world, all links would be attracted by the sheer brilliance of your site.

Until then. . . .

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