Linking Strategies

Email this article Printer friendly page

The Psychology of Linking Eric Enge , Stone Temple Consulting - May 18, 2010

---

It's important to understand the psychology of linking -- that is, why people link -- so that you can put together an effective link building strategy.

Links as Genuine Citations

When the web first emerged, much of its usage involved major academic institutions. One academic article linked to another as a genuine citation. Articles that received the most citations were probably the ones that had the most value. At the core of this was the simple concept that the person providing the citation thought he was offering something of value to the users of his website. Early site owners actually cared about their visitors and didn't mind sending them to the other publisher's site.

Combine this notion of citations with the concept of determining what a page or a website is about -- establishing its relevance -- and you have the basis of the early Google algorithm. Things are much more complex now, but these basic concepts are still very important.

Stingy Linkers vs. Genuine Linkers

Somewhere along the way, the web became commercial. People started thinking that sending a visitor away was a bad thing. You lost a potential customer and you were sending some of your PageRank to another website instead of keeping it for yourself. People started "hoarding PageRank" and keeping their visitors to themselves. As the value of links became better known, some started selling links for money or swapping links with every website they could find. All of this complicated what Google had to do to find the real citations.

Since it is a bad idea to buy links or swap them with irrelevant websites, you need to seek out genuine citations -- real people that link to valuable sites. Millions of site owners still care enough about their visitors of offer them links to websites of value. The risk of losing a potential customer turns out to be relatively small, as a person is not likely to leave unless she isn't finding what she wants on your site. Google has evolved, as well, so the notion of "leaking PageRank" is no longer valid. In fact, it can look a bit spammy if you have a website that has no external links at all.

Seeking Potential Linkers

The essence of modern day link building is learning to seek out these potential linkers, with a focus on those that are relevant to your site. Why would someone link to your site? This is the critical question  in the psychology of linking. If you have a website that sells used cars, for example ...

• A site about antique cars might link to certain page on your site, if some interesting antique cars were listed there.
• A blogger who is looking for interesting data on the used car market -- and who does care about your antique car listings -- might be enticed to link to you if you provide him with rich data based on the usage of your site.

Different linkers have different motivations. The reasons for linking are as numerous as the number of relevant websites, even if there are tens of thousands of such sites.

For pursuing very high value links, it's worth assessing and understanding their potential interest on a case-by-case basis. For the broader mass of websites, you want to find a common need that would interest a large number of them. For example, you might offer a tool that a large number of these sites would love to offer their users. You might give them the tool in return for an attribution link.

What Linkers Look For

One general rule of thumb is that sites will not link to you to help you make money. Rather, here are some things that linkers are attracted to:

• Unique and valuable content not commonly found on the web.
• Content or tools of value that you allow them to place on their website.
• A website that is a good user experience. A poor website design will prevent you from getting a link every time.

If you keep thinking about this, you begin to understand the wisdom of designing your site from the ground up to appeal to linkers. This means coming up with a nice design and building non-commercial content of value. Of course, you may already have a website. So then, the question is, what can you do to make it more appealing to linkers? Studying the needs and desires of those potential linkers is the first step. In my next column, I'll provide more detailed instructions on just how to do that.

Eric Enge is president of Stone Temple Consulting, offering search engine optimization (SEO) services for seven years, for companies ranging from the Fortune 25 to new online start-ups. He is also a co-author of The Art of SEO (O'Reilly, 2010).