Raffle Links!
Today I was just messing around, checking out who checking whom out via the MyBlogLog on Syzlak’s SEM Blog when I stumbled upon this cat who may have found a brand-new (though probably short lived) way of getting backlinks. Is it genius? Perhaps, or perhaps it’s only genius to me because I haven’t seen it before and wish I’d thought of it.
Anyways, what if I told you that if you linked to my blog, I’d put a buck in the pot and enter you into a drawing for up to 500 bones. Would you link to my blog? Would you then go out and tell all your friends to link to my blog in the hopes of upping the ante to the $500?
That’s what the guys (or guy? Maybe gal? Hell, who knows. At any rate it’s these people who are putting on the contest) over at SiteFever.com are running a contest that is exactly what I proposed above. You go to the contest page, grab a bit of the link code they have there for you (there’s two versions – good thinking!), drop it in your blog and send them an email telling them what page or post you dropped the code in.
My guess is that after the drawing, the page with the contest details will go away. And hopefully, they’ve got a couple hundred links coming into their site. If I were them, I would have considered dropping that page extension into the robots.txt file they’ve set up just to keep the search engines from finding it. But then again that might’ve looked sketchy whereas making the page available to spiders shows they’re not trying to scam anything. To me, it’s kinda’ like snitching on yourself by leaving such an obvious trail that if they don’t follow it they’re stupid and it’s their own damn faults. Anywho, I digress.
So what kind of link would the search engines consider this to be? If you’re entered into a raffle for linking, is it considered a paid link? And you’re sure as hell guaranteed not to get a reciprocal link, so all the recent grumbling about Google considering reciprocal links as part of a link scheme are somewhat moot. However, while it’s not a reciprocal link, it is a link scheme. And I have a feeling that’s part of the reason this will be fairly short lived. That, and the fact if the contest is only over a short amount of time means there will be an influx of backlinks that would surely set off some sort of warning system. Add to it the value of blog links aren’t that powerful and all the incoming links will be from fairly random sources . . . well, you get the picture. Great idea, I just don’t know if it would help all that much in this context. Perhaps if you were an automotive performance parts website and you offered such a contest to other auto-minded sites and forums and you held that drawing in a year, you might have a positive impact. The links would be much more relevant, it would offer auto enthusiasts a reason to come to your site and by having it over the span of a year they might be added much more regularly.
Want the chance to see if you can win $500? Follow the link to the contest. If you have huevos, aren’t depending on the internet for a living and are interested in seeing if it would work, give it a whirl! Just be prepared for the consequences. 
So, Author, Time for a Website? SEO Advice for Writers.
Sometime last week a good looking gal with one helluva’ figure and a novel in the works asked me what she though would be a simple question. “If I’m about to finish my book and start looking for publisher. When should I build a website?”
Me, hoping to impress her with my wealth of knowledge on search marketing, starting talking about whether a site was necessary or if a blog would be better and the virtues of both and what to do to start getting an audience. On and on I went with recommendations and advice. Then I looked into her big blue eyes and saw that they had glazed over. Damn it. “How about I put my SEO advice for writers into a blog post you can link to?” A glimmer of life shone again.
So, when should a writer build a website or have one built for her? In my opinion, the sooner the better. As soon as you start writing and you think you have a shot at being published, you should have some sort of web presence. After all, with the internet as prevalent as it is now, there is at least a 90% chance someone is going to go to their favorite search engine and try and see what you’re about. And wouldn’t it be great if you had something to show them? If they “googled” you, don’t you want something other than your arrest record to show up for your name? Of course you do! But ranking for your name alone takes time. So, the sooner the better.
However, I don’t know that it’s necessary for every budding author to have a website. Seriously. Unless you dig coding or have some sort of experience messing with websites, you’re gonna’ end up paying someone to do it for you. Between the cost of having the site built and hosting it (which if you’re not careful, you could end up with some sort of wacky contract that doesn’t offer you the level of service you deserve), you’re looking at a few hundred dollars at minimum. If you have GoDaddy.com as the host, you’re spending at least $5 a month over a year. Figure at least$500 to have the site built, and that’s an extremely low ballpark. This is all for a site that may or may not help you net a publisher.
By now you’re probably thinking I’m talking in circles. “You just said you need a web presence yet you’re not recommending a website! What gives?” In my opinion, unless you have some sort of name recognition, have some sort of notoriety and have a few recognized books published, a website may be a waste of money. You should get a blog instead.
Blogs are beautiful things. First, they’re free. Some company is hosting it for free. The code and the user interface are free. All you need is an email address and some sort of idea for a name for your blog. Free is good. Free is awesome. Free is free.
Another beautiful thing about blogs is they are dumb simple to use. Seriously. If you can operate a mouse and have a day to day level of operational logic, you can set one up. They are set up to get you typing and posting right out the gate. You name your blog post, type something up and boom! You have your first page done. Want to add pictures? They have simple uploading procedures for you to follow and your book cover art can appear.
Speaking of pictures and appearance, most blog hosts have a myriad of themes to choose from and if you don’t see one that grabs your fancy you can either tweak the css (cascading style sheets) or hunt down a theme you like. Since you’re going to use this for marketing, you really should take the time to find a theme you like or have one developed. Just don’t do like I did with this blog. You’re actually trying to attract attention.
Hopefully, I’ve convinced you, first time writer, on the value of a blog. So now, which kind of blog should you use? There are a lot of different blog hosts out there and opinions of which you should use vary as well. In my opinion, go with WordPress. I’ve used Blogger before, and it was okay. But since their switchover it has become a little cumbersome. Or, I’m just not able to adapt, which is entirely possible. However, I still like WordPress better and some of my search engine optimization and marketing colleagues agree. Both offer an easy to set up and go format. Blogger seems more geared towards personal blogging, whereas WordPress seems more for those looking to other things with their blog. One thing I think WordPress has over Blogger is the fact WordPress automatically sets up an about page for you to tweek. Blogger may do that; I just haven’t seen it yet. And you can set up more than one page. And these static pages (pages which don’t change with every publishing of your blog) are the bones to a website.
Okay, now that I’ve went on and on about how you should set up a blog instead of a website, you may be thinking, “That’s all fine and good, but I really don’t want to set up a damn blog! I’m trying to write a novel – I don’t have time for blogging!” To that, I say fine, don’t set up a blog. But if you want to have any chance of starting to work on your name recognition and to market yourself and your book to a potential publisher, you’re going to have to build out content (read: create more words for search engines to be interested in your site). Instead of paying someone to put up a few pages for you, a free blog is going to be much more cost effective – and in some ways flexible. We’ll get to that next time.
