It happened again.
Someone sent me a reciprocal link exchange request for a site in an obvious “under construction” state. It was a web site definitely NOT ready for links.
I’m at a bit of a loss as to why this happens so much.
Are those who are new to building an online business so bombarded by the “it’s critical to build links” message that they are losing sight of valuable perspective? I’m not being facetious here. It’s an honest question.
I’m not arguing that link building is not important, far from it (I wrote a fairly lengthy post on that topic just recently). But link building is a useless, time wasting venture if you undertake it before you are ready to do so. You simply won’t get the quality links you need to make an impact with the Search Engines. Quality, authoritative sites are not going to link to an unfinished resource. Quality directories won’t list you in their databases. Yes, I’m sure you can some links – from mediocre blogs, directories, web sites and what not. But here’s the thing…
The ROI (Return On Investment) for the amount of time it takes you to acquire these links is minuscule. Until you build your site into the sort of resource it needs to be in order to be considered an authority in your niche or subject, your time is better served accomplishing this task. And really, what good is it to drive visitor traffic to an incomplete web site? If nothing else, it damages your credibility when visitors can’t find what they need.
So create the complete resource first. Look for links only when you’re ready.
And when is that?
The answer to that question is completely dependent on your business, theme, or niche. To use the same example from my Link Building Fundamentals post, I’ve only recently started to build links to Real-Customer-Comments.com, a site I started back in 2007.
Since this site is basically a Web 2.0 visitor feedback site, it made sense to wait until there were enough visitor comments to make it worthwhile to promote as a destination. What kind of value does a visitor get by visiting a feedback site that doesn’t have any feedback? Now, with almost 200 featured products and 2,000 visitor comments, it makes sense to build links.
What about this web site, No-BS-Marketing?
Well, it will probably be a year or so before this site contains enough material to be considered an authoritative resource. Of course, this site is an indulgence of my Internet Marketing passion, and not a full time job. If I devoted more time to it, I could probably cut that time in half. In the meantime, I’ve made sure to have the basics covered.
For example, since this site is based on the WordPress platform, I’ve had my developers install a couple of crucial plugins….
1) The Google Analytics plugin: This tool allows me to use the amazing Google Analytics software (if you’re using regular HTML, you can simply cut and paste a chunk of code into your pages). Incidentally, this also ensures Google knows all about No-BS-Marketing.com.
2) The Google XML Sitemaps plugin: I can submit the xml-formatted sitemap generated by this software directly to Google by making use of some of the options they offer in their Webmaster Tools. This plugin also submits updates to MSN, ASK, and Yahoo!, which pretty much covers all the bases.
Now, all I plan to do is sit back and work on the content until here’s enough meat here to make it worthwhile to actively work on building some in-pointing links. Remember too, the more your site becomes a credible, authoritative resource, the more likely you are to have webmasters link to it unbidden, simply to enhance the experience of their own visitors.
So please… take a link building chill pill. If your site is “under construction,” you should not be wasting time looking for links. You should be focused on building content. Period.
Leave a comment