Linkeratis: why & how to allure this new X-SEO generation?
November 29, 2007 – 12:01 am
Getting back to what I may now call my favorite topic – Link Baiting & Linkeratis, I would first like to refer to Abhishek’s blog where he explained the types of hooks to catch your favorite fish; I would like to take the discussion further to understand the evolution of this new X-SEO generation – the linkeratis and their increasing importance in SEO industry. If you walk to an average SEO, and ask him what it takes to optimize your site, the standard answer they will give you is (like they are revealing a NASA secret) – keyword in your title tag, botable link & content, anchor text in your links, and off course links from quality sites. If not esoteric, these are still the main stays of any SEO program. However, where they might miss out (and the chances are 99%) is – ‘luring the link savvy linkeratis’.
Even though ‘Linkerati’ is a well known terminology in the SEO industry now, but it’s really ironical how so many SEO’s still believe that they can get away without bribing them. You can also take it as paying toll tax (non-monetary off course) for using a flyover to your destination. It’s equally surprising to see even the most excellently built websites (way better then the one’s sitting at the top of the engines) struggling to acquire even a bit of search engine exposure. To understand why this happens to them, lets try to broadly segregate the internet traffic:
While majority sites do well to target the first two segments, but when it comes to targeting the 3rd one, they are either not aware or they just don’t care. But the price to pay here is heavy as the linkeratis have the power to make or break any website. You might get away from them with flawless SEO work in short run but you are bound to struggle in the long run. You will be surprised to know: if you count the number of links created every month the number of links created by linkeratis are at least 10 times more than the ones created by browsers & customers.
“…the sort of people who have been doing “new” SEO, or whatever you want to call it, that’s social media optimization, link bait, things that are interesting to people and attract word of mouth and buzz, those sorts of sites naturally attract visitors, attract repeat visitors, attract back links, attract lots of discussion, those sorts of sites are going to benefit as the world goes forward.” - Matt Cutts
For my fellow mates, who believe that baiting is almost impossible for their website as their industry is the most boring & non-interesting industry on the whole planet, let me give you some examples of how you can make some really exciting viral content even for a boring industry like yours:
- Packaging services – You may feature a blog in which you can demonstrate how you packed an egg to save it from an impact of 100 mph and submit it to Digg. And get ready for a mob of visitors who are so eager to know what happens to the egg after such an impact and how you saved it. Also the big guns of the packaging industry would love to link to it.
- Website supplying washing powder – Make a list of the toughest possible stains while telling every one, how worse they can get and your expert analysis to clean each one of them representing it with a cool diagram. Explain how ketchup stains are 10 times tougher than the ones by soya sauce portraying it like it is a rocket science with facts about washing clothes that none of us knows (but do follow KISS – Keep it simple stupid). You might want to include nicely taken pictures of kids and teenagers performing a litmus test of your product with different stains. I am quite sure that if you present all this material in an organized & interesting manner, Digg & boingboing would actually love it.
All that these linkeratis want is source(s) of unique, interesting & digestible content that tells the visitors something they don’t know.
All right ! For a while, lets assume that you have some how managed to post some content that is really interesting & viral-worthy, which every one in the industry just can’t wait to see, but is it enough to spread your link building campaign like wild fire? NO, It’s not. If your hot content is amidst ugly banner ads & poor navigations, you might still end up starving of link hunger as no one would like to digg a member of ‘usability hall of shame’. Back to the basics, It’s also about your website design, navigations, presentation and overall experience of the user.