Little Known Link-Building Secret - Being Friendly
Posted on February 18, 2007 by
Adie 
Blogging, Internet Marketing 
27 Comments
With all the talk about the best ways to build backlinks, getting recognized by other bloggers, and “tips & tricks” for promoting your own blog, it’s easy to forget about one of the simplest and most effective ways of marketing yourself: being friendly.
A lot of bloggers and webmasters fall into the trap of statistics, viewing backlinks as nothing more than a number which increases their SERPs and potentially sends additional click traffic. What people seem to forget is that backlinks (more often than not) are coming from other people who saw your content and thought it was worth sharing with their own readers. Sure there are social media scrapers and bots that will account for some of your backlinks, but the majority of them are coming from other people in the industry. So how can you manipulate these other bloggers and webmasters in such a way that they’ll link back to your site? Maybe you could call another blogger in the industry lame. That will get them linking to you. Or maybe you could call someone a spammer. That’ll do it. You don’t even have to go the low road, you could take the high. You could praise and flatter another blogger so much that they give you a courtesy link. Hey, a backlink is a backlink, right?
But wait, have you ever tried just talking to them and being friendly?
Introduce Yourself & Your Blog
Most bloggers out there are a lot like you (despite their epic RSS numbers). Many of them don’t mind taking a minute or two out of their day to read an email from another blogger even if they’re just starting out. They might not always have the time to respond, but they usually don’t mind getting the mail. Just by putting your name and blog in front of other bloggers’ faces you’re exposing yourself and opening the doors for further networking later on.
You don’t have to convince these other bloggers that you’re the next Arrington, but let them know that you are aware of them and their blog, and you would like it if they stopped by yours whenever they get the chance. There’s no need for over-the-top flattery. Just a courteous introduction often does wonders. The worst they’re going to do is ignore you. People can’t really be mad about a friendly email between bloggers. Now if you turn this introduction email into a blatant, impersonal spam then you’re probably going to catch heat. Don’t do that.
Make Friends via MyBlogLog
MyBlogLog is a wonderful new social networking website made specifically for bloggers. Most bloggers who register for MyBlogLog do so because they actually want to network with others in the industry. Browse the communities, find other blogs that interest you, and add them to your list. You can also add and message contacts to get to know more people. Even just browsing around other users’ profiles will get you additional traffic.
Pay it Forward
Other people like being linked to just as much as you do. By showing that you respect other bloggers enough to link to their work you’re more likely to have the same courtesy shown to you. Keep the link chain alive by trying to link to other blogs as much as you can. Blogging is different from most conventional sites in that even in the most competitive markets blogs can grow alongside each other. Many blogs share the same readers, and it doesn’t affect their revenue. Help promote yourself and your colleagues by linking whenever you can.
People spend so much time trying to learn how to game the system, write the best linkbait, and come up with automated methods for promotion, that they tend to ignore the basic strategy of networking. Be friendly to your fellow bloggers and they’ll be friendly to you.
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Some great points, hope to see you stop by the blgo again :)
Great article! I very much agree that one of the better ways to promote a blog is through friendly affiliation. It’s great that in the blogosphere, one doess not need to try to be competitive to be succesful. In fact, those who refuse to links to others are often seen as unfriendly and selfish.
:-) Nice post Matt, this is so true too, I have fired off a few friendly emails to other bloggers since I started a few weeks ago and virtually everyone replies and everyone is friendly too!
Yea there’s a ton of spam traffic from MyBlogLog, but I’ve also made some friends from it too. You’re going to have to deal with spammers no matter how you promote :)
Nice piece of post, anyway! ;)
Very true. Being new to the blogging world, I was surprised at how friendly other bloggers really are.
Agreed. Being friendly will not only benefit you with link-building, but also with joint-ventures and collabrations of things you wouldn’t be able to do on your own.
Cheers,
Allen.H
Hey Matt. Awesome blog! I just found it two days ago and read every post. This one stuck out to me because of your mentioning of the “pay it forward” method. I have also been telling people that and tried starting a “Blog it Forward” on my blog where I blog about three blogs every so often and just ask that they do three blogs they like in return (doesn’t need to include my blog). I’m going to be doing your blog in my next one tomorrow.
Keep up the great writings.
Robb DeVore
Awesome Robb, I look forward to it! I definately have some good blogs to do a post about :)
Nice points. I agree that being good to fellow bloggers can be of great help
John Chow is a good example to portray here I like his blog much because he is prompt at replying to your contact me messages
[…] touched on this a little bit in my post: Little Known Link-building Secret - Being Friendly in which I talked about the simple method of networking with other bloggers in your content area […]
I’ve just been getting started and am impressed with networking that you can get out of MBL.
Smart post. Thanks for sharing.
[…] Interacting; commenting meaningfully; linking from your site, with no expectation. That is the winning formula. Just being plain friendly. […]
Great post.
It seems like sometimes people can forget that the links that they are trying to get are from other people with similar ideas. (most of the time!)
[…] Little Known Link Building Secret - Being Friendly […]
[…] Matt has certainly given me a lot of food for thought especially in my current mindset of ‘chasing the SEO game’. Alternately Matt argues the better and more long-term virtues of social media marketing and being an active member of the blogging community and even just being friendly with other bloggers. […]
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And being nice is just good karma. Who wants to be (or be around) a prick all the time…
Well people aren’t going to like you if you’re a psycho a$$hole no matter what. In anything you do you have to show some respect to other human beings; that’s just how the world works.
People are more than just numbers. Building long term personal relationships benefits everyone.
The changes at MyBlogLog have helped reduce the SPAM. I only get a couple comments a week that include links and I just delete those. There is still a problem with people using images not related to their content, but otherwise MyBlogLog is much better.
I agree that networking with others is a top priority. We can all learn and grow together.
Michael
[…] [SMO] Little Known Link-Building Secret - Being Friendly (netbusinessblog.com, 2 saves) […]
A very good read, thank you
[…] touched on this a little bit in my post: Little Known Link-building Secret - Being Friendly in which I talked about the simple method of networking with other bloggers in your content area […]