You hear all the misguided sheeple saying “content is king” until they are blue in the face. Posting blog post after blog post isn’t going to do much but you can leverage content to get very good links.. the kind of links that people charge $1k and more for.
The large websites that everyone drools over make their money from advertising. Most sell direct ad space and they also use third party networks. They are most all monetized on a CPM rate so they don’t give a fuck about your clicks. The advertiser won’t re-up if their click through rate sucks but guess what? These sites have a waiting list a mile long with advertisers begging to purchase space.. so their main interest is page views. What helps page views?
- Very good content
- Content that gets shared on social media
This is their hope – they want everyone that lands on their site to love what they read/see and click a social share button. Every time someone shares a post on Facebook or Tweets it out they are going to attract a bunch more.. then those users will share on social media and the piece of content spreads fast.. the viral effect.
Good content = more social sharing. More social sharing = more page views. More page views = more advertising revenue.
If you fire off a contact request to a huge website and tell them that you will write a “500 words epic “native” unique blog post” and all you want is one link to your site they will laugh at you and trash your email. They don’t want that shit! Their readers don’t want to read some outsourced piece of crap that is “500 words unique by some native writer”.. they will lose readers if they publish that crap.
But if you reach out to them and show them a kick ass piece of content that their readers are going to love and share on social media they will at least consider it and not shut the door in your face before they laugh at you..
You could write a great article that is amazing but guess what? There are thousands of other website owners that are doing that.. It makes it very hard. You have to write several articles and maybe only 1 out of 20 will even get considered. You probably don’t have time to write that many well researched pieces and you probably don’t have the skills to write an article that will pass the editors. It’s hard and if you hire a professional writer you can spend heaps of money without any guarantee of getting it published. The content wouldn’t go to use.. you could always put it on your website but you want links.
You need infographics in your life.
Look how many requests pop up from people wanting links from major authority sites. Then look at how many people claim to be able to get them.. I am willing to bet 97% of the people responding have no clue.. no connections.. nothing. But there is a huge demand for links. There is no software or no short cuts to getting major links. You have to have something valuable that the website wants. You need to offer them something that they won’t turn down.
But before I even get too far ahead you have to take a look at your website.. does it look professional? Will someone land on it and think it is a legit business or service? Or does it look like it was built in 1998? If your website doesn’t look the part then it doesn’t matter if you attract the big dawg sites. They aren’t going to link to a heap of shit.
Don’t believe me? Bring up the top 3 sites in your niche and read through their content and click on the first 10 outbound links you find in their content. Do any of them look like a 5 year old designed them? Do they all have REAL contact info like an address and a phone number? Yes they do. The editors at these mega sites can sniff out a fake site in seconds. You aren’t going to take a shit in a pie pan and tell them it’s a fresh baked apple pie. They know you are full of shit if you are full of shit it’s as simple as that!
This goes back to the interest in buying top links. You could have endless cash but if your site is a turd they aren’t going to link to it. Make sure you have a professional site you are proud of and that the big sites in your niche would link to without questioning it. That is the first step.. there isn’t any point in wasting money until your website looks the part.
–(fix your site.. make it link worthy)–
Now that your site looks the part…
How are infographics going to help your site get the best links in your niche?
Infographics look good and they are fun but let’s be real for a min.. the reason that everyone makes them is to get links. Links are the #1 part of SEO. Onsite optimization is important and there are a lot of other signals but links will always be the most important.
Links for the best sites in your niche are good for referral traffic and branding but no guru bullshit here.. WE WANT THESE LINKS FOR SEO! What if you are a business in the US that only ships in the US and only deals with US customers. Do you really care if you get 2,000 referral visits from people all over the world or do you care more about getting a kick ass link? Links > everything else. The SEO guru’s will try to dance around and highlight all the other benefits but they are the same ones that are participating in link groups and sell links to major companies lulz..
Infographics have been popular for a long time. They were very popular in 2010 and 2011 and you could just publish one on your site and everyone would be sharing them like crazy. Now it takes effort because everyone uses them. They are still very good link building tools you just have to be smart about the way you approach it.
You need to create a great infographic and then pitch the sites you want links from in a very laid back way.
4-step laid back infographic link bait method
This is something I have done for a lot of my personal projects. This isn’t a free method and it requires work.. but you aren’t going to get the best links in your niche without spending money and putting in some work. If you are looking for an easy or free way you might as well just close this article now and go order some fiverr gigs..
- Think of a great infographic and have it professionally designed
- Write down all the tops sites in your niche
- Send a laid back contact request
- Give them an offer they won’t pass up
The result = the kind of links that will super charge your SEO
#1) Think of a great infographic and have it professionally designed
You have to have an infographic with a topic and concept that websites will want to post on their site. If it is just rehashed crap that their readers have seen before they aren’t going to bite. The key is to come up with something that is unique and related to some sort of current event in your niche. If I wanted to get links for a SEO website I would create an infographic right after the next Penguin or Panda update and do a history of (inset update) – now that would be something that is timely and also something that SEO news sites would most likely want to post to their blog.
A great topic and concept can be wasted if your design sucks. There are people that call themselves infographic designers but they just create pure crap and then there are those that know how to really structure the design to highlight the important points.
The whole point of an infographic is to create content that is visual and not a long ass blog post. I see some infographics that have huge paragraphs of text. You have to make it all visual with very little text.
If you are having trouble thinking of a topic visit some of the big authority sites in your niche and look for their most popular posts. If a blog post has thousands of social shares there is a good chance that would be a good topic to convert into an infographic. Look for numbered list posts and turn it into an infographic.
There are some good designers in the BHW marketplace or you can visit your favorite freelancing site. Just ask for examples and really look for someone that has the skills to create something that will work for you. Don’t put all this effort in only to waste it because you went with a crappy designer. I spend anywhere between $100 and $300 for infographics.
When it is done post it on your website and make sure you have share code. Submit it to some of the huge infographic directories like visual.ly to get some more exposure and some decent link diversity. You want to make sure that the share code drops a link back to your website. This way you never have to ask for the link…it will just happen.
#2) Write down all the tops sites in your niche
You should already know what the best sites in your niche are. It shouldn’t take too long to put together a big list of the sites you will target for links. If your niche is very small and you can only think of a handful of sites use Google and start searching. Use tools like ahrefs and open site explorer to check their authority and link profile.
I like to use an excel spreadsheet to keep this all organized. Note the domain, the metrics of the domain and then contact info. If they have a contact form on the site I note the URL or if they list a contact email I will note that. If there is no contact info listed I will do a whois search and if that fails to turn up and info I will note their Twitter profile and Facebook page URL.
Don’t get too excited and jump to the next step until you have your full list of sites you want a link from. Spend some time to really put together a big list. If it takes you half a day to do this then so be it. You could also have your VA do this or pay a freelancer a few dollars but I like to hand pick any site when it comes to big authority links.
#3) Send a laid back contact request
Once you have your spreadsheet all finished you need to contact every website and give them the opportunity to check out your infographic. Do not just send a copy and paste job to every site. They get requests all day long and if your email seems to be a copy and paste job you will probably get deleted.
Make sure you talk about their site and mention a recent article of theirs that you liked reading. You want a little small talk in there to make it feel personal and not like a link thirsty SEO drooling over the possibility of a link.
You also don’t want to mention doing a guest post and you never want to even say link. They heard this crap all the time. You want your message to sound like you just finished doing an infographic and thought they might want to take a look at it.. If you are just asking them “Hey want to look at this infographic we did?” they are not going to feel like you are after something.
A large percent will say yes they want to see it and some will not reply. Don’t take it personally because this is a number game. This is why you want to really take your time in step #2 to really put together a huge list to go after.
Here is an example of what I write:
“Hey guys,
We just created an infographic titled “(your infographic title)” and I thought you might like to take a look at it. I was just reading “(a post title on their site related to your infographic)” on your site and it made me connect the two. Love the site…I visit daily! Anyway let me know if you want to look at it and I will send you the link.
Cheers
Tommy”
It is short and to the point but doesn’t reek of a copy and paste email.
If you couldn’t find a contact form or email address do your contact via a Facebook message and also a tweet. There is always a way to get in touch just get creative.
#4) Give them an offer they won’t pass up
You will get a lot of people replying to you saying that yes they would like to look at the infographic. You also won’t hear form some. Don’t get discouraged. You aren’t going to get a link from every site you go after.. FFS you won’t get a link from half the sites! I’m happy if I can just get 10% and it isn’t always easy to get that many but when you are dealing with high quality authority site links just a handful of them can be a huge deal.
Make sure you reply almost instantly to anyone that shows interest in your infographic. If you wait too long they might forget about your offer or lose interest.. I reply back along with a link to the infographic on my site. This is what my replies are like:
“Hi (name),
You can see the infographic here: (link)
You are more than welcome to post it on your website so your readers can enjoy it. There is share code on the page for your convenience. Also, we would be happy to write a intro post for it if that would help you. One of our writers actually just finished a project and he could write it this minute. Just let me know ASAP before I assign him any work.
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Tommy”
This reply puts pressure on them to take my offer right away. I am offering to write the intro text for the infographic…but they have to respond quickly while my writer is available and free because he just finished some work. If they are serious and want to use your infographic they are going to reply back right away happy to take your offer.
The ones that reply to this are serious.. You can almost guarantee you will get a link if you just give them a 150-200 word intro. If you can’t write or if you don’t have someone hire the best.. Pay $25 for 200 words.. why not? You are going to get a great link. DO NOT SEND THEM OUTSOURCED CRAP. You are so close at this point giving them “native” crap can possibly ruin it.
When they do post your infographic make sure to thank them and keep in touch. Monitor the infographic on their site.. if it gets a lot of shares and comments you can bet they will want to publish more of them so you now have an easy way in next time.
Have you used infographics to get authority links in your niche? Any other tips to add to this? Hope you enjoyed the read. Until next time..
