Sunday, July 03, 2005
Favorite free resources (part 3)
This week, let's look at linking.
Linking Matters
An interesting site that started out as an experiment to see how much incoming links affected traffic. The site offered (and still does) a report on creating an effective incoming link campaign and encouraged people to link to the site. They would then report on how traffic grew as their incoming links grew. Their experiment has been a success as they are now one of the most well-known sites on the web for their expertise in linking campaigns. I've linked to their site map to give you the best view of their excellent collection of articles (and, oh yes, the report that started their site).
131 (Legitimate) Link-Building Strategies
Another excellent linking resource is an article by Chris Sherman from 2002 on link-building strategies for Search Engine Watch. Yes, it's not totally up to date. I believe he mentions leaving links in address books as a viable strategy. It no longer is. But it's a great article for getting you thinking about ways to bring visitors into your site. And it gives some excellent advice about reciprocal link exchanges.
Value Exchange
Ordinarily, I avoid link exchange programs like the plague. I've found too many that turn out to be nothing but link farms that encourage indiscrimintate linking that does youmore harm than good. I've found Value Exchange to be a huge step above the other link exchange programs, though. It actually puts some teeth into its encouragements to link only to other sites that share the same topic, removing those that try to abuse the system to get links to minimal-content sites or to sites that consistently link indiscriminately. It's the one link exchange directory I don't hesitate to recommend.
And while you're there, pick up their excellent free ebook on successful linking strategies, "Make Your Links Work!"
Link Popularity Check
The folks at MarketLeap have made it possible for you to check how many backlinks Google, MSN and Yahoo report your site as having. Google, as you may know, reports only a small sample of the links to you that they know about. Checking MSN and Yahoo on Link Popularity Check gives you a fuller picture of how well you're linked. And, if you want, you can even compare your incoming links to three competitors' incoming links.
OptiSmarts
The people who brought you OptiTools got so tired of answering the same questions about linking over and over again that they started a blog to put them in. And a really nice part of it is that you don't have own their tools to learn from their long experience with linking. I notice there hasn't been too much new added for a while, but it has a lot of valuable tips and answers to frequently asked questions about linking in general. And I'm sure they'll add more info as new questions come up that they get asked a lot.
Jeff
This week, let's look at linking.
Linking Matters
An interesting site that started out as an experiment to see how much incoming links affected traffic. The site offered (and still does) a report on creating an effective incoming link campaign and encouraged people to link to the site. They would then report on how traffic grew as their incoming links grew. Their experiment has been a success as they are now one of the most well-known sites on the web for their expertise in linking campaigns. I've linked to their site map to give you the best view of their excellent collection of articles (and, oh yes, the report that started their site).
131 (Legitimate) Link-Building Strategies
Another excellent linking resource is an article by Chris Sherman from 2002 on link-building strategies for Search Engine Watch. Yes, it's not totally up to date. I believe he mentions leaving links in address books as a viable strategy. It no longer is. But it's a great article for getting you thinking about ways to bring visitors into your site. And it gives some excellent advice about reciprocal link exchanges.
Value Exchange
Ordinarily, I avoid link exchange programs like the plague. I've found too many that turn out to be nothing but link farms that encourage indiscrimintate linking that does youmore harm than good. I've found Value Exchange to be a huge step above the other link exchange programs, though. It actually puts some teeth into its encouragements to link only to other sites that share the same topic, removing those that try to abuse the system to get links to minimal-content sites or to sites that consistently link indiscriminately. It's the one link exchange directory I don't hesitate to recommend.
And while you're there, pick up their excellent free ebook on successful linking strategies, "Make Your Links Work!"
Link Popularity Check
The folks at MarketLeap have made it possible for you to check how many backlinks Google, MSN and Yahoo report your site as having. Google, as you may know, reports only a small sample of the links to you that they know about. Checking MSN and Yahoo on Link Popularity Check gives you a fuller picture of how well you're linked. And, if you want, you can even compare your incoming links to three competitors' incoming links.
OptiSmarts
The people who brought you OptiTools got so tired of answering the same questions about linking over and over again that they started a blog to put them in. And a really nice part of it is that you don't have own their tools to learn from their long experience with linking. I notice there hasn't been too much new added for a while, but it has a lot of valuable tips and answers to frequently asked questions about linking in general. And I'm sure they'll add more info as new questions come up that they get asked a lot.
Jeff
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