Toying with 3 ideas to build links

[joshinaround]

Hello,

I had a few ideas that I'm looking for feedback on. I'm trying to come up with some ideas for link building.

1. I always see that there are tons of coupon websites out there. Hell, I never buy anything online without looking there first. So for those with an ecommerce site, how about offering a coupon as a way to build links? Anybody try this? Results? Is there software that submits your offers in bulk?

2. Years ago I was looking into affiliate marketing. I came across a program where affiliates gave direct links (non-coded) back to your website, hence building your one-way links. I just cannot remember what company that was?! Any ideas? Anybody have any experience with this?

3. Redistributing professionally written articles. Years ago I had a bunch of articles written for me, I sent them out via Isnare and today, I can barely find them. I understand we want to try to avoid dup content, but isn't a link still a link?

Appreciate your insight!

 

[Autumn]

1. I always see that there are tons of coupon websites out there. Hell, I never buy anything online without looking there first. So for those with an ecommerce site, how about offering a coupon as a way to build links?

Submitting your coupons to coupon sites is quite a common way to get links if you've got a merchant site. There are a few threads about this on the board already if you do a search.

2. Years ago I was looking into affiliate marketing. I came across a program where affiliates gave direct links (non-coded) back to your website, hence building your one-way links. I just cannot remember what company that was?! Any ideas? Anybody have any experience with this?

There are a number of link exchange systems in existence, just search google for "link trading" etc. However the quality of the sites that people list in these kinds of systems tend to be very poor. Also, a lot of them base exchanges on PR, and toolbar PR is easily faked. Public link exchange networks generally get shit canned by google once they get too big - there are numerous examples of this happening in the past. Buyer beware; you are probably better off doing private link exchanges in the long run.

3. Redistributing professionally written articles. Years ago I had a bunch of articles written for me, I sent them out via Isnare and today, I can barely find them. I understand we want to try to avoid dup content, but isn't a link still a link?

There are basically three ways of syndicating your content like this: a) article marketing (submitting your own articles with your link to article directories); b) guest posts / paid posts (offering a guest post to other people's blogs, either for money, as a trade, or as free content for them); c) issuing press releases to all the press release sites. Yes, a link is still a link.

 

[joshinaround]

I appreciate your feedback.

Regarding my first idea, do you know of software that does this? I cannot find any.

Regarding my 2nd idea, I'm not really talking about a link exchange. Im talking about affiliate marketing....where someone would earn a % of a sale for a lead they gave me. Companies like CJ and Shareasale do this, however, the links your affiliates use back to you are coded and don't count as a link to boost your SERP's. But there is a affiliate marketing company or two that allows direct links (giving you a real one-way link) back to your site, and I think the sales are tracked by cookies or something else. my problem is I cannot find this company any more and I don't even know if their system even works for helping my SERPs.

Regarding my 3rd, so you think send out previously used, but hardly found material is still useful?

 

[Autumn]

But there is a affiliate marketing company or two that allows direct links (giving you a real one-way link) back to your site, and I think the sales are tracked by cookies or something else. my problem is I cannot find this company any more and I don't even know if their system even works for helping my SERPs.

I see what you mean. Tracking affiliate sales using cookies only is fraught with problems and no serious affiliate will agree to do that. You need server side tracking based on sessions at a minimum, with cookies just as a backup. You would be better off just straight up buying links (either straight hard links or actual ad spots that will give you a hard link) rather than trying to convince people to promote you without a backend or tracking code. Buying links is an excellent (probably the best) way of getting one way hard links with your desired anchor text, but it's underutilized because it requires substantial investment.

Regarding my 3rd, so you think send out previously used, but hardly found material is still useful?

Yes, it still has value. A link is a link, and a link from a page that's basically dupe content is still better than no link at all. Spin the content or pay someone to rewrite it several times if you feel it is an issue. It should only be one part of your link building efforts, though.