This may be an odd beginning to a link building article, but I’m a strong believer in context, so bear with me.I recently had a client shut down by the US Government. As this was the second time in as many years, both times leaving me hanging for payment (no, the Feds don’t settle up accounts), I’m getting pretty annoyed, but I’m also dragging out my SEO hat (a crusty old white one if you must know) and rebuilding an income - one without ties to unnamed investors that may have known people that were related to an unrelated business with unrelated pending legal issues, because somehow, somebody, knowing someone, involved in something else entirely is enough reason for the Feds to put me out of work again!

I’ve spent the last four years working as a consultant in the affiliate marketing industry, sort of a program architect/manager, but before that I was in SEO for a bunch of years. Of course four years in affiliate marketing is about 3 1/2 years past the shelf life of my SEO knowledge - stuff goes all obsolete on ya.

So lately I’ve been working on a lot of sites and studying up. This morning I was reading over at SEO Black Hat. Yes, I know I said mine’s white, but he’s a sharp marketer with knowledge to share and I’m too rooted in my ways to cross over to the dark side, so shush! Anyway, he linked to a couple of good link building articles, one of which is 101 Ways to Build Links in 2006 by Andy Hagans and Aaron Wall.

What I like best about articles like this is they get my brain working. I may not be able to hire a publicist (see aforementioned money issues), but I can damn well get creative, and nothing inspires creativity better than studying a subject with a specific goal in mind.

Am I ever going to get to the point…?

Yes.

One of the sites I’m working on is a

Las Vegas travel guide. It’s nothing new and exciting, but I am trying some new ideas (for this old dog anyway). First, I started off with some code we wrote in the past for adding a reciprocal link directory to our sites, but don’t hit that comment link yet!I’m well aware that reciprocal linking is pretty much useless aside from getting a new site crawled, but I still wanted the architecture and am still accepting reciprocal links. Some things I am doing different however, the things that take a very basic directory and turn it into a content site with real link building value are:

1. Real Content - Standard directory listings and link swaps follow the old title, description, URL model. Every link exchange request you get follows that model and every link page you look at follows that model. How hard is it for smart guy programmer types to spot pages that follow the single paragraph followed by “HREF - 1 or 2 sentences” x 20 model?

So while I’m using a basic directory to drive the site, the listings/content bits are much longer, even a couple paragraphs, with bullet points, etc, I’m mixing up where links are placed in the text, if at all (yes, I’m including a lot of content/listings without links) and including links with “www.domain.com” as the link text. I’m also just flat linking to a bunch of sites that will never, ever, ever link back to me.

Why on earth would I want to go through all that trouble, and wouldn’t this fall in the category of schemes to generate link pop? First, because it takes an ordinary directory of resources and turns each category into a content page, creating the basis of an authority site, one where people will want to submit. Second, no. Trying your damnedest to create real value in the outbound links on a site is sort of the opposite of trying your damnedest to get inbound links to your site.

2. Keyword Tag - No, not the keywords tag in the header, but the kid’s game - “tag, you’re a spammer!” It’s well known that 3000 links, all pointing to “www.domain.com/” with the link text of “best widgets online” isn’t a natural pattern of links. People naturally link all over a site, with all sorts of link text, so I’m replicating that with a couple twists.

First, if someone submits to “Places to Eat in Las Vegas” I’m offering a different suggested link every time, many to the home page, but some to categories more relevant to links from a Las Vegas restaurant site (i.e. my places to eat or bars and nightclubs pages). Natural linking patterns mix it up, so I’m doing the same.

Second, I’m mixing up the link text, including links with no keywords whatsoever and mixing up the code offered as well so my links are not “title - blah” formatted.

Third, I’m asking that my links be placed on a non-links page. What’s the point of going through all this trouble to turn my links pages into content pages only to be stuck on some crappy page with 30+ “title - blah” links?

And lastly, I am, every once in a great while, slipping in a link to a page, relevant to the category the visitor submitted to, on one of my other travel sites that I am not linking to.

See, that’s the whole point of the experiment. I’d like to get a few links to my other sites. That’s nothing new, but the problem with almost every offset (three way, triangle, etc) link exchange throughout the history of SEO is that the site they ask you to link to is absolutely brilliant, a labor of love, painstakingly marketed for years on end, while the site they offer a link from is a throwaway domain they’ve never bothered promoting that’s managed to go 5 years without garnering a single inbound link to itself.

If a sharp webmaster comes in, submits a site and the system asks them to link to a totally different site, I don’t want them to feel like I’m trading crap for gold. I want them to see value for value and feel good about the link.

Do I mind sharing my little brainstorms? Not really. I don’t see a down side to more webmasters thinking about smarter linking methods and offering value for value. Plus, who’s to say any of this will actually work? Remember, I’ve been out of SEO for years…