Domain Rehabilitation: getting better inbounds

If your domain has issues, one of the problems you may need to address is your inbound links. You need lots of them, but they need to be from reputable sources. Paid text links or spammy directory links will only get you so far, and then they start biting you in the ass. Over the years, many of the people who linked to me have left the game, so Google only finds a few of my current links in worth mentioning. What you need are genuine, organic links from human beings who read something you wrote and linked to it on purpose, preferably with commentary.

But that doesn’t mean you’re at the mercy of the blogosphere, and all you can do is sit around waiting for your prince to come.

Start with link-worthy content

The only sure way I’ve found to build new links in is to write stuff that’s worth linking to. Every other method I know of is about bots and algos rather than readers, and Google’s gotten very good at detecting the difference. I.E., what reader ever visited a directory on purpose? We used to submit our sites at them like crazy, and it worked for a while, and then the directories got devalued for being huge piles of basically dupe content, so our links in from them were worthless (which is a big part of my problem). Then folks bought SEO-friendly links in blog posts and on sidebars (I never did that myself – just sold ‘em), and that worked until Google got good at detecting it.

Unless your site actually has content worth linking to, you’re never going to get the sort of links that help you dominate the search engines. Well, maybe with some black hat method I don’t know, but if you want to play it safe and build a domain that’s not likely to suddenly get banned somewhere down the road, you have to have good content.

Helping people find your link-worthy content

The good news is: once you write stuff worth linking to, the search engines will link to it. That gets it in front of a few searchers who might actually give you quality inbounds with no effort beyond your content creation.

But you can do more. You can hunt for websites that are likely attracting the kind of visitors you want, then email the webmaster and ask for a link or link exchange. A link exchange like this has to make sense to work. Be sure to pick sites that are really compatible with yours, then maybe link to one of their interesting articles, then email them about your article. This tactic works better for some personalities than others, because there’s a degree of schmoozing to it.

I prefer to join forums or communities where people care about my topic, and then I participate helpfully in the discussion. I answer questions if I can, offer support when someone’s frustrated, or even just try to be funny or connect with someone. Do that, and people will follow your signature link, become readers, and hopefully link to you. It takes some time and effort, but it works better than anything I’ve found.

1. My new method of site promotion
2. Domain Rehabilitation: recovering pagerank
3. Domain Rehabilitation project
4. Hi, would you link to my site?
5. Domain Rehabilitation: Monetization

Categories: Domaining, Links, Traffic   |   Tags:  |  1 Comment »