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8 Tips for Successful Link Blitz Management
By John Gergye (c) 2004 

Lots of people loudly proclaim the importance of inbound links. 
In fact, depending on your niche, up to 80% of your rank in 
Google may depend on your ability to conduct an ongoing link 
blitz. Not to mention all the traffic well placed links can 
deliver up.

If this is so, then why aren't more pursuing links?  

Good question.  

Like most worthwhile things in life there's a dirty little 
secret no one talks about when it comes to links. That is, 
few detail the effort involved to manage an ongoing link blitz.   

And I should know. I just did such a blitz and got 29 confirmed 
links out of 75 attempts. 

Granted any initial burst of links added to virginal links pages 
is a snap to manage. Find potential candidates using the method 
of your choice, add their info to your links pages, solicit the 
link either by email or filling out a form on the potential 
partner's site, sit back and wait to be showered with links. 
What's the big deal?

Well, each new linking attempt adds to the management overhead. 

Fail to manage your link blitz properly and sooner or later 
you'll find you're failing to get any links at all.  

Fail to get links and all too soon you'll find your search 
engine rankings are headed south into oblivion rather than
upwards towards #1.  

The management process I use is simple. Still it takes effort or 
that dreaded four letter word - WORK. But it's a necessary evil 
if you want to stay on top of your linking campaign.   

So here are 8 helpful tips:  

:: Tip 1: Fill Her Up - Wisely

While you need to keep the pipeline of linking candidates full, 
it's a good idea to avoid:

. Zeus links pages, because many times they are chronically PR 
  deficient, often sporting a PR of zero. Suggesting banishment
  by Google?   

. Framed sites, since you can't really tell the PR of the framed 
  links page.

. Links pages with more than 100 links. But for sure links
  pages bigger than 101K in size since Google won't crawl 
  pages bigger than that.

:: Tip 2: Keep on Keeping on

For success in the long run it's best to establish a regular 
solicitation routine you can maintain. 

Unless I'm on an all out blitz, I shoot to get out 5 link 
requests a day four days a week per site. With a 30%+ response 
rate that gives me six or seven new links a week.

HINT: Getting five requests out takes 15 minutes or less 
assuming you've done the prep work of finding potential link 
partners, their contact and linking info and have gotten up the 
reciprocal links on your links pages.

Once you know your typical hit ratio this is something you can 
ultimately delegate to a virtual assistant.  

:: Tip 3: Like Santa Make a List

It's vital you maintain a master list of those approached. If 
you don't, after awhile you won't know who you have solicited 
to trade links and who you haven't. Which becomes a bigger 
problem the more link trading you attempt to do.  

HINT: I simply use a MS Word table. I drop the http://www from 
each URL. That way I can sort in alpha order and quickly see if 
I've contacted a given site or not. 

HINT:  Depending on how many links I'm pursuing, I create a file 
of linking activity either for the day or for the week per web 
site.

:: Tip 4: The Devils in the Details

Inside that file I like to list the specific page my link 
should appear on, along with the partner's contact info, plus 
the linking info I put up on my site. This makes it easier to 
verify a given link is up.

:: Tip 5:  Date Stamp It

I include an HTML comment with each link that tells me when I 
put it up. That way you know how long you've been link partners.

=== > Tip 6: Are You a Linkmate?

Keep track of who lets you know they've linked up.  

In some niches next to none will do so. In others most will let 
you know they have. Just depends. But you want to know so you 
don't go hunting theirs down in your final sweep before removing 
those who didn't trade.  

:: Tip 7: Times Up

Wait a reasonable amount of time. Then remove those that didn't 
reciprocate from your links pages. Pain in the neck? Yes. But 
vital, if you want to keep your links pages clean and avoid 
rewarding those who couldn't be bothered to link to you.

HINT: I've found if someone is going to link up they'll usually 
do it sooner rather than later. Especially if you have an 
attractive linking opportunity (higher PR...fewer links per 
page...quality content). For me 10 days is reasonable. 

:: Tip 8: Stash for Later

Don't pitch that list of those who failed to link up. Just
because they didn't do so today doesn't mean they won't in the 
future. As your site grows and the PR improves you'll want to 
re-approach them in 3-6 months. Having a list of past candidates 
handy makes doing so easy.  

Apply these 8 tips and you too may end up in the link traders 
Hall of Fame. Or, failing that, at least you'll have some 
to-die-for traffic not to mention lofty Google rankings.

================================================================
John Gergye shares more ideas like this in his just updated 
eBook "Traffic From Google in 35 Days".  Find out more here: 
http://www.traffic-test-tube.com/j/tfg35cl.shtml  Or test your 
search engine IQ by taking his seo quiz 
http://www.traffic-test-tube.com/search-engine-quiz.shtml
and get the free special report "Coming Out On Top".
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