Organically Encouraging People to Link to You

[Gerry]

We want it to be easy for a third-party webmaster to link to our site/page. Here are just a few ideas for how to invite or facilitate their linking to us:

Use headings that are informative and concise, not "clever".

(This would apply less in those kinds of publication where the heading appears to the user before they choose to consume the article.)

This is just good policy while writing for the web, and it'll make it easier for other webmasters to recognize that your info summarizes exactly what they're looking for.

For instance, while researching for this post, I was looking for a mini tutorial on "same-page" links and the "id" attribute, so I could point to it in the third part of this post (below). But I gave up after a few minutes - damned if I could find a page that said what I wanted! The point is, if I had found a webpage whose headings clearly stated exactly the subject I was looking for, chances are that site would have a shiny new backlink from this page as of right now.

Use as large a heading style as the page's aesthetics will tolerate.

Many users scroll rapidly down a page, looking for headings as signposts about what kind of information is available. H4's and even H3's are easily overlooked. (NOTE: It is recommended to use a hierarchical, upside-down pyramid style. It can be confusing or even ugly to have several h1's on a page, and an H3 above an H2 only makes sense if the H3 is a sub-category of a bigger heading style above it.)

Use ID's (or "a names") in your sub-headings, so people can easily link to parts of your pages.

It's a regular occurrence for me to want to link to a PART of somebody else's page, especially if the page is long and the relevant part of it is stuck in the middle somewhere. In that case, I will check the source code to see if there's a page anchor or id that marks the spot I want to link to. If there is one, I can link to that exact part of the page.
If there isn't one, I often link to someone else.
If you're confused about this part, you'll need to read about "page anchors" (I recommend using id="" 's instead of <a name's.) I tried to find a good web resource for learning about this, but I haven't found a good current one yet.

[OHMwebmaster]

Interesting third point - how beneficial do you think that would be, compared to the time it would take?

What I mean is, how many webmasters are looking for those anchor id's? I know I haven't ever thought of doing that; usually I'm content to just link to the article.

But I can see how it would be helpful to the readers, certainly.

[webmaster]

Here you go Gerry, I think this is what you were looking for: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/links.html#h-12.1.1 aptly it uses the id to link directly to the section describing the behavior you reference.

[ericbramlett]

Great post Gerry!

[RESteve]

What a coincidence! I was writing about this in the coding section recently.

http://www.realestatewebmasters.com/thread16282.html

[Gerry]

What I mean is, how many webmasters are looking for those anchor id's?

Actually, I do it all the time!

I get frustrated when someone puts a lot of different "sections" on a single page without putting id's on their headings. It's impossible to link to one of the parts.

It's so much better to be able to do this in your writing:

Here's an example of that crazy building type.

Than this:

Here's an example of that crazy building type (scroll down to the heading "Why Cob Homes are So Groovy").

[avonreal]

problem these days is, most webmasters will see you as a rival, if they link to you they put the nofollow tag.

[ScottFicek]

Question....

I put more "cute" titles to get people to read such as: "Are you leaving money on the table" or "Who do you call when your investment property is on fire?". Would you say these are "clever" by your above definition? They seemed more interesting than "Setting your rents appropriately" or "Taking care of your investment properties when you are on vacation"

Thoughts?

[Morristown]

Question....

I put more "cute" titles to get people to read such as: "Are you leaving money on the table" or "Who do you call when your investment property is on fire?". Would you say these are "clever" by your above definition? They seemed more interesting than "Setting your rents appropriately" or "Taking care of your investment properties when you are on vacation"

Thoughts?

I try to do that as well, though I have to admit that I many not be creative enough on this point. I invite anyone to look at my blog and though title ideas at me, as sometimes it is the thing I think about the longest and am still not happy with when done.

Jim

[svrpaul]

Question....

I put more "cute" titles to get people to read such as: "Are you leaving money on the table" or "Who do you call when your investment property is on fire?". Would you say these are "clever" by your above definition? They seemed more interesting than "Setting your rents appropriately" or "Taking care of your investment properties when you are on vacation"

Thoughts?

Titles, like headlines, require interesting attention grabbing lines so people will actually read the content that follows.

Your "cute" titles are going to get more attention then the standard generic titles any day of the week.