Everyone is always on the quest for the holy grail of links and keep asking me the same question.
How can i get links to my site?
To save me giving the same answer to lots of people i will post a list i have been working on since early 2008.
Some ideas came from PaulH and we took a few from Aaron wall when we first started compiling it.
Funny thing is when we first started it Facebook was still needing an .edu address and Twitter was just a glimour in Biz Stones eye.
Some of these will be a little out of date, some will work a little and some will be effective.
To be honest some may not work at all or be almost impossible but this is an unending list of link opportunities.
There may be some duplicates in here and some in the wrong category but as this post evolves over the next 3 years i will expand it and all will become organised.
This is an ongoing list so if you have any that i missed please do add them in the comments and i will credit you with a link to your site*.
Another one for the list.
Contribute
*Add a comment to a site with a contribution for a list so the author can update his post and give you a credit and link back in return.
Ask for links
Get a link from the local chamber of commerce
Call webmasters on the phone and ask for links
Send a nice letter by snailmail post
Email webmasters and ask for links
Messenger webmasters asking for links.
Facebook people asking for links.
Post on facebook about stuff
Ask friends and family to link to you
Ask to be listed on governmental resources (you can ever create the content just for the link) *Thanks Egol
Find articles in your niche and ask them to link to you
Find sites in your niche linking to dead sites, ask them to link to you instead
Find sites in your niche linking to inferior sites, ask them to link to you instead
Find hubs/authority sites in your niche
Analyze competitors back links – Ask to be listed on there too
Back a cause and produce something useful for it, contact organizers and let them know
Link Networks
Create own private networks
Create authority hubs or mininets – sites that link to your own and competitor sites
Create multi tired networks, that feed links into your own sites
Build real value niche sites, cross link to other relevant sites in your network
Create a public link network
Let people trade links
Favor your own sites
Create linkwheels, link squares, link spiders, link octupi.
Directories
Submit to paid directories
Submit to free niche directories
Submit to the big free directories
Submit to free general directories – avoid directories with no editorial process.
Create your own directories
Link to your own sites
3 way link exchanges
4 way link exchanges
5 way link exchanges
6 way link exchanges
7 way link exchanges
8 way link exchanges
9 way link exchanges
10 way link exchanges
11 way link exchanges
Create niche directories, become the authority in that niche.
Create general directories – charge a minimal fee to cut out junk
Buy links
Use Bidup scripts (Could be in the directorys above but they cost so will go in there)
Pay for blog posts
Pay for reviews
Make donations – get listed on charity sites, open source projects
Send bloggers freebies
Offer bloggers cash
Offer bloggers sexual favours
Offer DMOZ editors something for a fast review
Find a corrupt Dmoz editor (most of them)
Offer forum moderators cash or freebies for a mention
Give away merchandise for links – USB, beer, t-shirts
Buy whole sites – monitor places sites are often sold like flippa or digitalpoint.
Buy a word in an existing article
Become a link broker so you can pick the best for yourself
Sponsor a student project
Give away stuff
Give away tools
Give away free content generators.
Give away Tshirts in return for a link. (http://specials.888.com/crazy21/)
Give away Tshirts to a blogger (http://www.shoemoney.com/free-shirt-friday/)
Give away Clothing
Give away geek stuff
Templates
Plugins
Code snippets
Stat counters
Logos
Contribute to open source projects
Branded merchandise
Offer discounts to people placing links on their site
Release an extension or plugin for browsers and other popular software
Build a website for a local charity, or university group that can attract quality links and Spend some time getting them links too
Distribute Content
RSS feeds
Atom Feeds
Give away articles
Submit an article to industry news site
Write for other sites for free
Write for other sites and get paid
Publish and distribute white papers
Publish and distribute pdf`s
Become a guest blogger
Become an editor
Get listed in Google News
Get listed in Yahoo news
Get listed in yahoo finance
Create press releases
Track who picks up our articles or press releases. Offer them exclusive news or content.
Publish ebooks laden with links and encourage people to distribute for free
Exchange Links
Join link exchange networks
Contact webmasters directly
Start a link exchange network
Start a webring
Join a webring
Forums
Maling lists (the ones that you can reply to everyone)
Links in signatures
Links in profile
Links in posts
Post yourself
Pay people to post often
Ask people you know
Entice established members
Swap signature links with others
Buy signatures or rent them
Reviews
Leave testimonials on other sites
Review and recommend local businesses and ask for a link back
Review products services and ask for link back
Food reviews and ask for a link from the restauruant website
Provide graphic. Eg. Voted best website 2011
Get your own site and products reviewed by others
Blogs
Become an expert
Become a Guru
Become an Authority
Become an Asshole
Trade BlogRoll Links
Give interviews on your industry
Interview well known bloggers
Leave real comments on other blogs
Leave feedback without spamming or trying to sell.
Point out helpful errors
Make suggestions
Flatter someone on their success
Compliment someone on a great post (suckup)
Link to people likely to link back
Trackbacks
No real categorys yet.
Hire a link building expert
Start a flame war
Start a discussion
Be a troll and get people wound up
Be an unpleasant person thats so unpleasant you just cant be ignored.
Become an official partner
Become an official distributor
Self host an affiliate program
Build a list that others will link to
Get paid to build a website and get a link back (designers do this daily)
Submit great designed sites to web and css galleries
Perform surveys and studies
Publicize survey results – Publish several articles from same survey, controversial or unusual results
Become and editor of DMOZ and other sites
Make media contacts, provide stories for links
Provide quotes people can use
Find sites doing website of the day, recommend your site
Find top site lists and submit get listed
Get financial sites listed in Google finance
Cartoons – include link code
Cartoons just for hotlinking
Sponsor events – small meetings, put money behind the bar – Others will blog and thank you
Set up a Squidoo page
Setup Hubpages
Reply on Yahoo Answers
Provide web hosting for a link
Provide web software for a link
Join an organizations and associations and get listed a member
Become an expert. Contact editors and writers, and let them know you are available as a source
Try and a link on each article, or each time you are quoted
Try to get your own bio page
Drive affiliate links to your own sites
Make it a requirement to link to your site in all contracts with:
resellers
partners
subcontractors
vendors or anyone you deal with.
Photographs
Of yourself with celebs
Of something stupid
Of a Cheque
Of an affiliate income statement
Of a lifestyle photo With well known people in your industry
Be the first to post pictures of an event or product
Social
Create diggable stories often and submit to social sites
Study what works for each social sites
Give your story a push from friends
Entice top members
Create bogus accounts and push your own stuff
Twitter and all the rest
Link bait
David and goliath
Taboo, sex
Outrageous
Unusual
Tell a secret
Break some news
Humor
Lie and make a number like 1021 when in reality its about 200+ but also say guaranteed in the title.
Be Evil
Hijack domains at the registrar level
Find unhosted domains in specific hosting and add them to yours.
Refer spam
Comment spam anything that allows comments, not just blogs
Hack sites and insert hidden links in the html
Become a host and cloak links within customer pages
XSS injection
SQL injection
Find exploits in well known scripts
Find demo accounts, default passwords, or unpassworded accounts to a CMS
Bait and switch
Eg. frame/proxy a quality site, get links in the ‘white hat way’, then switch to own money making machine that no one wants to link to
Buy domain similar to competitors to frame to bait and switch links.
Lie – eg. Make out it was you who placed a backlink to a site and request they link to a 3rd site of yours
Redirect domain to high PR site, when PageRank changes start a link exchange frenzy before it disappears
Give away scripts with backdoors or hidden links
Give away templates with hidden links
Join a link exchange program, and cloak the links on your site from search engines
Block your links pages with robots.txt
Capture abandoned free hosting
Capture wordpress and bloger blogs that have been deleted.
Have plenty of resources for people to link to you with. (reminds me to dig out all the banners and stuff for this site)
Have a link to us page.
Tell me. What have i missed no matter how old or how stupid or even how evil it is?
