“There should be no shoes or slippers lying around outside the main door of every house.
Remove them if you can.
Allow that space at the main door to be free and clear.
Now, allow me to tell you why.
The chi (energy) rides with the wind and will bring all the smells from those shoes and slippers into your house causing sickness.
The chi then travels about in your house looking for water to stay, but if there are no water fountains or fish tanks, then the chi will be dispersed by the wind.”
What’s on your mind right now?
Laughing?
Confused?
Ran off to hide your dirty shoes?
And that’s precisely how I feel about Google, SEO, and link building in particular.
“DON’T do any SEO, or we won’t rank you.”
“DO SEO, or we won’t rank you.”
“Just dance to the Google drum and we’ll let you know if you make it.”
To that I say:
1. Follow these instructions.
2. Stick your tongue out as far as you can.
3. And now…
(you have no idea how much time I just wasted putting the pictures above together; no wonder I don’t get anything done!)
If you dig this post and think this would be valuable to your followers, tweet the ish out of it for me, okay?
All you have to do is click the button below. Thanks!
Moving on.
Feng Shui Link Building
All jokes aside, one thing is for sure: Google wants to see us rise in our search engine rankings naturally, organically – feng shui style.
And I’d like to believe that that’s possible as well.
Just like Andrew Rondeau does in his post The End Of The Backlink – Long Live Backlinks!.
And let’s say that we do just that: churn out great content, hang out on social media sites, leave great blog comments – you know, the usual stuff.
…..
Are the links pouring in yet?
Has Google escorted your blog to the top of their search results yet?
Of course, these are meant to be rhetorical questions.
And pigs won’t be crying “Wee, wee, wee!” all the way back home any time soon.
Unless Geico has anything to do with it, of course:
You Rain, It Pours
So Google wants to see natural, organic, uncultivated, feng shui link building.
And that’s exactly what Google will get.
However, no rain start without the first drop.
No fire starts without a spark.
What I am getting to is this:
Ask (for links) and you shall receive (links).
How to Get Links from Traffic Generation Cafe
Important note: I don’t mean to imply in any way that if you do the things I mention below, I WILL link back to you.
I am simply giving you a road map to stand out and be noticed.
But more than anything else, your CONTENT will make the biggest difference in getting links from me or anyone else.
Many times I come to my readers’ blogs and struggle to find a single piece of content that would be good enough to be shared on my blog or Twitter or Facebook.
GREAT CONTENT + GIVE TO OTHERS = RECEIVE
********
I can’t control whether YOU link to me or not.
I do hope you will because of my unprecedented wit and stellar content.
But I CAN tell you what it takes for me to link to YOU.
1. Send Me Traffic
Every month I publish my income reports and in every income report I recognize the top five (sometimes ten) blogs that sent me the most traffic for that month.
If you think your blog is too small to do that, you underestimate yourself.
I’ve had some larger blogs send me a lot of traffic; true.
But more often than not, it’s the smaller (and just as bit as good) blogs that honor me by sharing their traffic.
Blogs like LetsBuildWebsites.com, LeavingWorkBehind.com, 2StartBlog.com, PointBlankSEO.com, Rojish.com, BlogBasics.com, just to name a few.
So feel free to share my posts with your readers, don’t be afraid to send them over here (I’ll go easy on them – promise), and I might end up sharing my traffic with you.
Side note: even though I temporarily stopped publishing my income reports, I still recognize the blogs that send me traffic in my weekly marketing skinnies.
2. Link to Me
Pingbacks are a way for WordPress to notify other bloggers when you link to them.
Every time I get a pingback, I visit that site to see who and why they are linking to me.
Many times I actually find some interesting new blogs, sprouting bloggers, and hot discussions.
Like I did yesterday, for instance, and ended up reading Yeremi Akpan’s Is Commenting for Traffic a Waste of Your Time? post.
Not only I ended up tweeting that post and leaving a comment with some additional resources (like my Blog Comment Traffic Research: Signed, Sealed, and Delivered, but now I am also linking to it from TGC.
Good for Yeremi, good for me.
Rules of thumb when linking to others:
1. DON’T link to their home page – WordPress doesn’t send pingbacks when a link goes to the home page; only post pages.
2. DON’T rely on WP pingbacks to do the leg work for you: it doesn’t always send (timely) pingbacks.
For instance, I could get a pingback from someone who published their post 8 months ago.
Or not get a pingback from the original post, but get it from a scraper who scraped that original post.
3. ALWAYS send them an email to let them know you linked to them (but don’t ask for anything in return, of course).
This also happens to be a great way to build relationships and alliances – something that your business can’t survive without.
4. Link to both bigger and smaller blogs.
Mention the big blogs to gain credibility.
Mention the small blogs because they are most likely to be the ones to return the favor.
Either way, mention them because they are worth it and NOT for the sake of link building/baiting.
(the image comes from an interesting take on guest blogging from AJ Kohn)
5. DON’T expect anything in return.
Because most likely you won’t get anything anyway.
Link out with that in mind and, if and when the recipient returns the favor, it’ll be like frosting on a cake.
3. Comment on My Posts
Commenting DOES work!
Especially when you comment on CommentLuv enabled blogs, since you are given an extra shot to draw someone’s attention in the CL link.
Especially if you know how to write killer blog post headlines.
Examples:
1. That Andrew Rondeau’s post The End Of The Backlink – Long Live Backlinks I mentioned towards the beginning – I got to read it after Andrew left it as his CommentLuv link in his recent comment at TGC.
2. Last week, I wrote a whole post based on a CommentLuv link that lead me to this hilarious video.
And I visit blogs with catchy CommentLuv titles on a daily basis.
Rules of thumb when using CommentLuv:
1. Write better titles!
I know I already mentioned that, but it is that important.
2. Make sure your CL links are relevant to the host blog.
I am not very likely to click over to a sports memorabilia site from a blog that talks about traffic generation.
3. Obvious, but often disregarded: Leave a great comment.
Speaking of CommentLuv Premium, it’s celebrating its first anniversary and Andy Bailey is slashing the price down, so it’ll be good to buy it then.
You do need to know when it goes on sale and buy it quickly though; it’s a dimesale and the price will go up after every 5 sales.
Get on the early bird list to pay less for your CommentLuv Premium
4. Get on My Email List
No, this is not a cheap shot at building my list quicker.
Being on my list is a two-way street.
It’s not about me talking AT you through my emails.
You, too, have direct access to me.
Use this chance to let me know who you are, what you/your business is all about, and don’t be afraid to show me what you’ve got.
I am much more likely to visit your site => read something interesting => mention you in one of my posts, if I know who you are.
There were countless times when a subscriber would tell me their story, or ask an interesting question, or simply say something in an email that inspires me to write a post about it.
So yes, joining great email lists is not the same as cluttering your inbox.
It’s a chance to connect, learn, and build relationships.
Use it.
Join Traffic Generation Cafe subscribers’ community now.
5. Leave Me a Product Testimony
I recently started using Hesham Zebida’s (founder of FamousBloggers.net) awesome Author Hreview plugin to help my review posts stand out both on my blog and search engines.
One thing that the premium version of the plugin does is allows my readers to send me a testimony for any product I am reviewing on my site.
Take for instance my review of SEMRush or CommentLuv Premium.
You get your picture with a link back to your site in my review post, my readers get yet another take on the product in question – win-win.
Remember: you DO need to have used the product before sending me your testimony and just because you do, it doesn’t mean that I’ll use it in the review.
Just look for the testimonial forms in my review posts.
I haven’t added them to all my past reviews yet, but I am working on it.
Marketing Takeaway
How’s that for natural link building?
Trust me, I’d rather link to my readers’ awesome posts as additional resources from my blog over any blog I found using Google search on the topic.
So stick around, get to know other people in Traffic Generation Cafe community, let me hear your awesome input, and the rest will come.
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