Get More of Those Elusive "Passive Backlinks" for Better Pagerank and More Targeted Traffic.

A passive backlink is simply a non-reciprocal link to your website that you didn't ask for, didn't pay for and didn't link-swap for.

Most often you won't even know about them until you check your logs and see traffic coming from them, but there are two massive advantages to having them:

1. Search engines love passive backlinks. Why? Because they can trust them. They show that a webmaster found your website useful enough to link to it without any ulterior motives, other than providing some service to his own visitors.

2. Web-surfers are much more likely to follow a backlink to your website simply because they appear in the content and not on a 'Links' page. The most common use of these types of links is in some form of editorial, a discussion on a blog, or in a review of some kind.

That kind of exposure is Golden today, and it will be priceless tomorrow, because one-way links are steadily growing in importance for pagerank.

You can buy passive one-way links, but if you are unwilling to pay for (and keep track of) something like that, there are ways to get them almost automatically - IF your website is link-worthy.

But what makes a website link-worthy?

The most linked-to websites are the most useful websites. They provide authoritative, quality content on a specific subject, and the writer is often considered an authority on that subject.

Most websites simply do not have the kind of relevant content that would make them a useful resource. A resource that other webmasters are willing, even eager, to link to.

Here's the 'secret':
Useful content gets linked, products don't.

Let's say you have an online store that caters to dog owners. You sell dog toys, grooming supplies, medications and training videos... unless you are running an affiliate program, what reason would the average webmaster have to link to your website? You may get a few links from online guides or directories, but that's about it.

If you want to get other webmasters to give you passive backlinks, you really only have one option -- you must transform your website into a resource that is link-worthy.

The best way to do that is to publish a lot of content that is relevant to your topic. For a website selling dog supplies you could have training & health articles, breed information, a directory of breeders & kennels and so on.

Add a good internal search function and you have a useful resource that is a hundred times more link-worthy than just a storefront for dog supplies.

In many ways, the internet is just a gigantic library, with each 'section' on it's own shelf. With enough useful, relevant content you can dominate your shelf.

But where does all that content come from?

Add relevant content with articles.

If you choose to add an archive of articles, you can write your own, hire a ghost writer or reprint articles from other authors. There are pros and cons to each approach.

Writing your own articles can identify you as an expert in your field and creates unique content. Using ghost writers can do much the same, and reprinting other's articles can add a lot of relevant content in a very short time.

On the down-side, writing your own articles takes time and skills you may not feel that you possess. (I believe that most anyone can write about their favorite topic, and if your website has nothing to do with your favorite topic, you really should re-consider your choices.)

Ghost writers want to be paid, and reprinting someone else's articles does not offer much in the way of unique content.

Add content with a directory of resources.

Creating a useful directory of relevant resources can take a lot of time. It should contain unique content, so you really cannot automate it. On the other hand, it gives you the opportunity to add editorial content that others may find useful.

Some of the most-visited websites are little more than editorialized directories with only a small fraction of paying content... Expedia.com and PriceGrabber.com both started out as human-edited directories with nothing but a bunch of reviewed links.

Your directory can take the general form of a 'Links' directory -- but you add a paragraph or a page of your own reviews or comments to each link. If you put each one on it's own page and let your visitors add their own comments it will grow without your input.

...and that brings us to:

Letting your visitors add relevant content.

Another very popular way to generate useful content is to simply let your visitors do it via an online community of some sort. Do that with forums, or allow your visitors to post comments to your reviews.

It may require some special scripting, but your web host may already have that option available.

The benefit is that your users can add a ton of content to your website even while you sleep. Two great examples of that approach are babiesonline.com and iVillage.com, they have huge communities of users. Although I should point out that they have been at it for years.

One more thing that will work for some websites:
Add Something Fun & Interactive.

This may be more appropriate under the heading of: 'Make your website more sticky', but I thought I'd bring it up for those who are running a general entertainment website.

A review of such content providers is beyond the scope of this article, but I would like to put in a good word for the trivia, brain teasers & IQ tests available from Puzz.com, like all such free services they do add third-party advertising in their content, but unlike most, it is relatively unobtrusive.

Two other ways to get non-reciprocal links:

Write articles for others to reprint.

When you are writing articles specifically for reprinting, you can stray into any topic you wish, and each one that gets published on another website is at least one passive backlink for you.

The most important thing, though, is to require that any reprinting be linked to your website with the resource info at the end and/or links in the body of the article.

Note: If you make your articles available for reprinting and put them on your own website, edit them enough so that your content is different from the reprints on the other websites.

Get others to use the edited copy simply by making it easier to do that than it is to copy your page. Provide HTML formatted, copy/paste ready copies in a textbox or on an autoresponder. In your pagecode, remove all spacing and/or embed encrypted advertising links in your HTML to make it more work to copy.

Use your reciprocal-link program to get one-way links.

This is kind of a dirty trick, but if you have an active link-trade system going, you can use it to increase your one-way inbound links simply by requiring others to link to you before you even consider returning the favor... and there is no reason to link to everyone who asks for it.

It's important to remember that you are not required to link to anybody, no matter how your link-trade program is set up. You won't get much traffic from this trick, but the search engines will find some of those links and you'll get a little pagerank out of it.

All the above will work for the vast majority of websites... the main thing to remember is that no matter what your theme is, the more information you offer the better.

Virtually anybody can add useful, relevant content, increase their value, and add a sense of community -- and all of it will help sell your product or service.

Once you have improved the quality and increased the quantity of your website content, other webmasters will be more willing and, yes, even eager to link to it.

You'll get more traffic, profits will go up, and that will make all the effort worthwhile.

To Your Success!
Tim

    Related Resources:

Reprintable Article Directories:
articlecity.com
articlesfactory.com
absolutewrite.com
thephantomwriters.com

Article about writing articles for reprint: "Using your articles as a basis for viral marketing"

Write for Publicity Helpful article giving tips for getting published.

Writing Tips & Tutorials Several helpful articles from Knowledge Hound.

Ghost Writing Resources:
adverbage.com
ghostwords.com

By Tim Brown © 2006. About the author: Tim is the webmaster at http://BLT-Web.com, where webmasters can find free tools, advice, tips and other useful resources designed to help them build a successful website.

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