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Alternate Link Building Strategies: The Linkerati Effect

Alternate Link Building Strategies: The Linkerati Effect

Several bloggers have suggested writing about the linkerati as way to draw editorial backlinks. This post is a sort of lens to some great articles elsewhere, plus a bit of value-added on my end.

Rand at SEOmoz identified the linkerati, and says that every site is linkbait and linkerati worthy. But that’s provided that you can identify the people most likely to link to you and attract them to your site. Obviously, you want to profile them or give them recognition in some fashion, and more often than not, they’ll link to your article. You also want to put some thought into your content. (I’ll be repeating that mantra a great deal.)

A summary of tips:

  1. Forget the A- and B-bloggers.
    They get lots of link love as it is. Go after the other linkerati. Of course, ByLinking takes care of that indirectly, though Google may soon be devaluing links from theme templates, etc.
  2. Mind the Cs and Ds.
    There are many newer bloggers that just don’t get the attention they deserve. Profile them, their blogs, their niche. Interview using video Skype or just voice or text.
  3. Check the comments.
    Who is commenting on your site? Can you profile them? Don’t be shy. There’s nothing that says the interview has to be serious or even long. Pick 5 linkerati types in one niche and interview them about their blogging tips.
  4. Check the trackbacks.
    Profile those who link to you – makes it easy to choose the next post. Put some thought it into the content you use.
  5. Go wide.
    Instead of one big linkbait per week, try 5-6 solid smaller resource posts. Why? Well, you’re casting your net wider for editorial links. Maki’s DoshDosh and Daniel’s Daily Blog Tips are two of the best examples. There is so much linkworthy content there. I may link to 3-4 posts there, and so will another several dozen bloggers, because there’s just so much good content.

    For example, if you write one solid, linkable article per day, 5 d/wk, that’s about 250 per year. If they’re good, and you’ve developed enough of a profile, each post is probably worth 3 backlinks each or more – because you’re catering to other bloggers. That’s at least 750 backlinks per year, hopefully from different sites. And slow and steady links are often more valuable and persistent – at least to some SE algorithms. [Of course, if your blog is new and has low visibility, you may not gain 3+ backlinks per post, but going wide is still a good strategy.]

    If you go with the root domain trust model, you place this blog aimed at linkerati/ bloggers in a subdirectory of your main site. Not just another blog about blogging, but one with your personality and enough extra content value that you stand out and induce editorial links. (Of course don’t forget to deep-link your archives or try alternative link building strategies.)

The diagram below shows the Linkerati effect. Write something interesting about one member of the Linkerati, and if they link back to you, their readers may see that and link back to you as well. I’ve seen it happen first hand, though I stumbled across this concept. And after the primary and secondary back links are the tertiary links. Those are from readers of the secondary linkers.

Linkerati effect - inducing links diagram

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Alternate Link Building Strategies: The Linkerati Effect

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