Like it or not, you’ll face the issue of selling ads one day. How to sell ads you ask? You got me. That’s exactly what I’ll dwell on in this post. 🙂 It may be your own decision or your boss’s but that’s beside the point in this context. I stumbled upon this problem or challenge for that matter the other day and I’d like to share the methods that I used. I do understand that writing a post on how to sell links may be a bad idea if Google starts thinking that I’m selling links but I hope that Google is not that clever yet. 🙂 So, fingers crossed and let’s move on.
As we know, people not only want to know how to make a website, but you’ll willy-nilly ask yourself that question down the road, “How am I supposed to generate revenue with my site?” So, that’s why people turn to selling links on their sites, even if it’s not exactly safe because Google started to severely penalize sites for that.
I would not recommend using any link selling networks because Google learns to track them down really quickly. So, it’s way better to work on a case-by-case basis, which means contacting the person (blog admin) that you want to sell a link to DIRECTLY.
I’m not claiming that the methods that I’m going to cover here are the best or only ones, but rest assured it never hurts to know a few tricks that you can get out of your sleeve one day. Plus I’ve personally used them and they do work. And I did not learn it overnight. It took me quite a while to double-check if they are effective.
Watch Your Step
This method is a simple one and it does not require too much time or rocket science. Just take a look at the sites of your competitors or just the ones where you already obtained links on and see who buys links from them. How do you know know if they buy? Well, let’s think. If you buy a link, you usually make sure that it has your keyword, right? So, you got it. That’s the key! Just look at the blogrolls of those sites and search specifically for exact match anchor text links. Let’s just take a look at an example. Say, you have a blogroll on some site that has links with the following anchor texts:
- DesignX.com
- seo services
- KoolDesign.com
As you can see, DesignX.com and KoolDesign.com are just domain names, and seo services really looks like a bought link. So, with that in mind, you need to click on the link (seo services) and contact the owner of the site you landed on. The logic is simple. Since he bought a text link from one site, chances are, he’ll buy from you as well.
After the Penguin update, SEO guys started buying diversified anchor text links for their sites as well. It means that, for instance, in our case both the DesignX.com and KoolDesign.com can be purcahsed links as well, but it’s quite difficult to figure that out. And I’m sure that Google is having a problem with that too. At least as of now. So, for simplicity’s sake I referred to the seo services link as being the only bought one. The reality is sometimes more complicated than theory. 🙂
Bought or not?
First off, let me remind you that there’s no surefire way to tell if a text link is natural or bought but there are a few factors that should influence your decision about it. Having been in SEO for over 3 years now, I’ve come up with the following links of signs. So, the link is most likely purchased (not natural) if:
- it is not a domain name. In other words, if you see a link that goes like WebDesy.com, it’s not the one I paid for 😉
- it is something that you would type in Google searching for the product the site offers. So, “Photoshop tutorials” is definitely the anchor text that Psd.tutsplus.com can use for their purchased links (if they have any);
- it is not “click here”, “read more”. Such anchor texts are hardly ever used in bought text links.
BuySellAds as Middleman
Most likely you’ve heard about the banner ads platform. It allows you to sell or buy banner ads, which makes perfect sense. The name says that all in this case.
To get an idea what BSA is check this kick-ass video. It won’t actually give you much info but it’s totally fun to watch.
Now, there’s a pretty creative way of using the platform for finding potential text link buyers. The idea is in a way similar to the one that I outlined in the previous method but not quite the same.
So, you need a site that can buy a link from you, right? With that in mind, you can just go to http://buysellads.com/buy/ and click on the first site that you can see there. Sure thing, you need to look through the sites that have your target audience. In other words, select the category that is similar to your blog’s topics. You can choose your category on the left hand side. Once you are on the site, find a section with ads (a blogroll of some kind). Such sections are usually called Friends, Links, Partners or something along those lines. Now (just as in the previous method discussed) look for the text links that have exact match anchor texts. When you spot such a link, go ahead and click on it. And now you can just contact the admin of that site where you got redirected, just tell him that you’ve noticed that he buys links on such-and-such site and you’d like to offer your own site for his links.
Make sure to mention that your site is better in terms of SEO (or content marketing as some tend to call SEO nowadays). It goes without saying that you need to focus on that if it’s actually the case. If it’s not, you can either just “forget” about it or bring his attention to the fact that Google really appreciates link diversity in our day and age. And so getting one more link from reputable Seo Resources (again if your site is one) is always a good thing and an obvious positive sign for the almighty Google.
Another very important thing to keep in mind is target audience (target traffic). It’s crucial because a really pro site owner (or just an SEO but a pro as well) is dying to get not just traffic but specifically target traffic. Target traffic is the people who are potentially interested in what you have to offer on your site. For example, if you sell fonts on your site, you don’t really want housewives visiting your site, because they’re not likely to buy your product. Meanwhile you should be ready to kill for placing a link on a site that is a web design community because those folks are VERY likely to buy a font or two from you. I’m sure I made my point. And before I wrap up, I’d like to give you a sample of the email messages that I send to people when I want to sell a link to them:
Hello ,
It’s a quick question.
My name is Ken and I’m working for WebDesy.com to help them get the word
out to the community. I found your site to be very useful, with some great resources.
The point is that I saw the text link that you buy on . So, I clicked on it and I found your site () which is very useful, with some great resources.
It really seems that we have common audience and most of my visitors will definitely appreciate your site’s link on my site. In other words, you’ll be able to generate considerable traffic and customer base for your business.
Other than that, my site has great SEO values (PR, DA, and mozRank), which means more Google juice to your site. As you know, in this day and age, it’s a big thing.
So, I’m just wondering if you’d like to buy some text links or banner ads on our sites.
Here’s what I can offer you:
Please feel free to reply to me if you need anything at all (I’m definitely a real person and
not some automated system!)
Best regards,
Ken.
And a Few Comments
Just to make sure that you understand why exactly I use that sort of template for my email messages, I want to explain a thing or two.
- – you really need to find the name of the actual site owner (site admin) or at least the name of a real person that works on that site. You’ll boost the chances of your message to be read if you use a person’s name. You can find the person’s name in the site’s Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn accounts. Plus you can always check the “About us” page because it really makes sense for the admin to specify his or her name there. I can’t say that it happens not too often but you still need to keep that in mind. If you still can’t find the admin’s name, use a whois lookup tool. For instance, the one from domain tools. By the way, if you want to make things really fast, you can install the Whois for Google Chrome plugin. It allows you to just go to the site in question and click on the green W icon. That done, it’ll redirect you to a page with that site’s whois info, such as administrative contact. That’s exactly where you need to look at to find a site’s admin name;
- – it really makes sense to clarify which site exactly you’re talking about because the person (admin) can run a few blogs. If you don’t specify the name of the blog you’re talking to him about, it can become really confusing. Other than that, it’ll increase the amount of emails because you’ll have to send emails back and forth until you both understand what exactly you’re referring to;
- It’s a quick question – since we’re all busy people and we really value our time, we need to treat our potential partners the same way as we’d like to be treated. Make your message as short as possible but be sure that you said everything that you were going to. It’s important to mention that it’s a quick question in the very beginning of your message, because in Gmail (and that’s what most of us use), you can see the beginning of the message body when you just look through your email. And studies show that people tend to click more willingly on the messages that won’t take much of their time. And the statement I offer is a clear sign that it won’t take long;
- – you need to clearly state where you are ready to put up his link and what you charge for that. It’s a good idea to be as specific as possible because in that case the site admin will not have to investigate the issue and waste his time on that. You already did it for him. It may be the decisive factor that will turn him to a positive reply. So, don’t ignore that because it may backfire.
That’s just an example that you can build on. Feel free to copy and use the sample as you see fit. I’ll also won’t mind if you mention that you got it from me and say thank you buy placing a backlink if that’s OK with you. 😉
Plus I’ll be happy if you suggest some improvements for the email message boilerplate that I use.
In Conclusion
Selling a link is a crucial skill for an SEO, though it’s unethical (a bit or not really). The truth is it’s harder to practice what you preach because we don’t live in a better world and your boss is usually the last resort. And he usually decides what to do. At least, you need to get his approval.
The thing is that it holds true even more if you’re working at a small company because in that case you’ll most likely have to go that route. People still do it because selling links actually works. Sure thing, the Google guys are trying to fix that (make people buy their own links actually 😉 ) but that seems to be a hard-to-get thing.
Now, if you know about other ways and can explain how to sell a link or two in a better way, make sure to leave a comment about it because the methods I’ve just covered are the best ones in my skillset now. Do you know some cooler ways?
