5 Ways to Entice Your Parallel
Market to Trade Links
Tinu AbayomiPaul
Date: Thursday, 3:04 pm
Lots of people get confounded
when attempting to exchange
links, you’re not alone. The people who have the spot you
want are competitors. The people who don't aren't worth
exchanging links with. What to do?
It's not necessarily the
method you're using, it may be the
approach.
If you know anything about
SEO, you know you need relevant
links to your site, preferably more in than you have out.
And whether you actively pursue search engine listings or
not, you’ll find that many surfers travel the web through
the links they find, often without realizing it.
So how do you achieve this
without linking to the sites you
are competing with?
Think Parallel Markets.
When most people think
of this term, they are speaking from
an investment standpoint. In this discussion, I'm simply
referring to groups of products and services which cater to
people with similiar needs.
If your market is delivery
or carry-out pizza, your market
is fast food. But your parallel market might be frozen
pizzas, Italian food store chains, or cheese, maybe even
films.
Pizza delivery chains offer
free DVDs with a delivery order
because they figure that people who eat pizza at home watch
films while they eat - ordering in and watching a movie is
(sadly) the new third date.
To discover your parallel
market, think of things that your
customers have in common that brings them to your site,
then eliminate things that compete.
So now you know *who* to
ask to link to you. But *how* do
you get them to link back?
Especially as a new webmaster,
it helps if you think from
the opposing end of your desires.
Meaning that, before you
ask for something, think of what
you can give in return. What are the other person's
needs?
If you don’t know, you can probably find out by subscribing
to their newsletter or feed.
That way, when you write
to them, instead of sending the
standard cookie-cutter email, you can add personalized
information that lets them know that you have been to their
site repeatedly, list specific issues they have stated
before, and use this information to make it worth their
while.
Which email would you answer?
The one that is obviously a
copy, personalized only with your email address? Or the one
that states your name and shows that the other person has
actually been to your site before?
So take a look at your
site. Why should anyone link to you?
What will they get out of the deal? Is your site a great
resource? Do you have a higher Google PR? Do you do site
reviews? Or maybe you’ll just use whatever text they ask
for?
When you first start out,
with no links back to your site,
find other people in your parallel markets who need links
too. You're both in the same boat. Help each other.
Then as you see your traffic
rising, you can start going
after bigger and bigger fish. But again, make it worth
their while.
Here are some ways in which
you can make a link trade a
little more attractive.
Method One:
The Recommendation Exchange
When I know of a site that
sells inexpensive tools for new
marketers that are ready to advance to the next level, I
refer a lot of my more advanced crowd to them, and they
send me their beginners.
So in approaching them,
I might tell them that not only
have I already linked to them, but if they link back I’ll
also write about them in my blog and my newsletter. Costs
me nothing but an extra five minutes, and I’m more likely
to get a little bit more than the link trade.
Method Two:
The Bribe
This can also increase
your reputation as an expert in your
field.
Pick five people who are
a bit more knowledgeable than you.
Ask them if they’d like to be interviewed, for a
collection, and offer to distribute the resulting resource
for free to their audience, if they’ll link to your home
page, where the free ebook can be downloaded.
You've got their link,
they've got free publicity in a book
they can - and probably will - distribute for you.
Method Three:
Use That Feed
There are the sites that
want to carry a relevant,
frequently updated feed in order to get more search engine
visits. So, if you have a feed, you could send that
webmaster a link to your feed, and tell them how they can
use tools like CARP, RSS Equalizer or RSS Digest to display
your feed on their site.
If you update daily, and
you're willing to take the
bandwidth hit, you might find that they don't even mind a
one way link.
Method Four:
The Barter
Give them a free copy of
your book if they’d link to you.
Offer to link back to them if they’ll write a testimonial
about the book.
Method Five:
The Testimonial
This is a slight variation
on the recommendation, because
it sometimes ends up as more of a one-way trade.
If you sincerely enjoy
a service or product that you
bought, go back and pull up the sales page. If the links on
the page for the testimonials are live, offer your
testimonial.
Caution:
Only offer testimonials on products you really
used and benefitted from. It’s fine to put your name on
something controversial if you really believe in it, but if
you give a testimonial just for a link back to your site,
you’re messing with your good name.
You should also know that
they may not use your testimonial
on their site, unless it’s really good - so and try to be
as specific as possible about how their product helped you.
The point is, if you think
creatively, you can solve your
linking problem.
About the Author:
Tinu
carries on various internet marketing related
discussions in her blog at
http://FreeTrafficTip.com .
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