Stealth Link Building - Part 2

First of all apologies for the lack of updates recently. I’ve just moved house & I’ve been without net access (we all know how long & arduous it is transferring utilities from one house to another). I’ve got some good posts in the works though so don’t go anywhere

Stealth Link Building - Part 2

In my previous post on Stealth Link Building I talked about why building links “under the radar” is good. I also talked about some ways to find relavant sites to get in contact with (Another great tool for this is Comment hut), or simply use the SEO For Firefox tool to analyse the backlinks of your main competitiors (In Yahoo). After all, if they’re linking to them, they’re more likely to link to you….right?

Now that you’ve hand picked around 50-100 sites that you’re effectively going to target, you need to formulate some ideas to get a link on their site exactly where you want it. This is somewhat easier than it sounds, here’s a few methods:

The Recommendation Method

This is the stealthiest method of the lot. Here, we’re trying to appear to be a 3rd Party recommending your own website to an unsuspecting webmaster. Julian over at Dfinitive used this technique well to help a recent client get to #1 in Google for a particular set of keywords.

Here’s a sample of the email sent to the “targets”:

Hi XXXX,

I hope you are well.

I stumbled upon your site today and would like to say that I found the link section very helpful.

I do have a suggestion for your link section. Aerobed probably make the best inflatable beds around. I brought one recently and can’t believe how good they are. Airbeds are so much better than used to be, plus it inflates in about 2 mins, with no blowing.

The site is www.xxxx.com.au check it out.

Thank you for your time,

Your Name.

I’d recommend using this email as a brief template for your own, however make sure to make the website sound as appealing as possible.

Naturally you also don’t want to be sending the email from an address that is linked to the domain or using an username that is linked to the name of the domain either. I recommend using a Gmail Email address to send these queries, this makes it look more natural.

It’s possible to get a decent strikerate with this technique, after all it’s a pure numbers game so don’t hold back.

The Quiet Exchange Method

This particular method is a little more tactful. Use it when you think the webmaster will need a little more “persuasion” to link to you.

We all know that unless you have something good to offer, chances are if the webmaster is in any way savvy they’ll not even bother looking through your email properly. This is why you have to be able to offer them something in exchange for your link.

The best way to initiate this is to go for the 3 way link. I.e. You link to me & I’ll link to you from one of my 3rd Party Websites. Problem with this is that the 3rd Party Website is always going to be of lower quality to your main site. In many of my niches I keep a number of quality 3rd party linking sites (or directories) that have strong authority in the search engines. Older domains are usually perfect for this so check out my previous article on Aged Domains. Being able to offer a free directory listing for a link usually works best in these instances.

I’ve seen a LOT of popular dating websites use this method very effectively. It won’t work on me though, why? Check out an example of what one of the Third Party Domain links pages look like:

I’d rather not have my link on a page like this. I always check for two things:

Is the page Indexed?

How many Backlinks does the page have? (Including Ratio of Outgoing Links to Incoming)

If you’re not happy with your link being on a page like the above then CHOOSE the page you’d like before you initiate the request. Make sure to say you feel like this is the “most relevant page.” Whilst you really mean, this is the page with the most backlinks. Muhahaha.

Pay Your Way

Can’t get the link on the page you WANT? Usually a little monetary persuasion goes along way. Offer a price for the link (make sure it’s permanent) & you’re much more likely to get what you want. After all, you could spend $70/month for a link on somewhere like Textlinkads or perhaps with a little digging yourself could net 7 HIGHLY RELEVANT permanent links for $10 each.

Things to avoid:

The key is stealth, try to avoid getting links in sections labelled:

1. Sponsored Links
2. Partners
3. Advertising
4. Paid Advertising
5. Sponsors
6. Links

If you’re paying for the link specify where you want it. In the content as a “normal link” is by far the most effective & undetectable method.

Stay tuned for Part 3