Want to dominate your competition in a way they will never forget?
You will soon learn one rule that applies in the real world, applies to the online world.
It is not always WHAT you know, but WHO you know. If you want to be highly successful, other than a handful of Adsense sites, then you need to build relationships. I put off launching this site into the mainstream until I had the chance to network some more. I made some friends and I got my name out there as someone who knew what he was talking about. You need friends in this business.
If you want to dominate a niche, consider grouping up and join together on beating your mutual competition into submission.
I’ve spent a lot of time recently researching the backlinks of several well known blogs, and I’ve noticed one overwhelming trend. MASSIVE amounts of blogroll links. Seriously. All the talk about link building methods, but many of the big boys are working together to keep each other on the top.
Instead of using my army to artificially promote my site, why don’t I make a friend and I throw them some links. Then they send me some from their sites.
Why not go in with another blogger and create a mutual project, that will result in thousands of backlinks.
Why not find a couple of like minded marketers you trust and do site wide blogroll exchanges?
Doubt This Works?
Just take a quick look around our economic market… think back to introduction to Economics.
Remember the word Oligopoly?
How many major car producers are there? How many movie theaters? How many major record companies?
Do you think there might be strategic planning going on behind the scenes when major competitors make moves in industries like this?
And now let’s look at an example many of my reader’s know. Look at Vic’s blog. Before he launched, he became friends with Court and Griz. Soon after his launch, BloggingZoom was launched. Court and Vic put their efforts together to create this site that has generated a MASSIVE number of pages (each which translate into an anchored link). Then the trio interlinks site wide, because they all three know that each other are GREAT marketers. As one grows, they all grow together. The result? Vic rockets up the SERPS for make money online in a matter of months…
I’m not discounting his link building skills or his ability to build links with branding and drama, but his relationships with Court and Griz generated massive additional authority to his site.
This industry is highly competitive. It is naive to think that you should go at it alone.
What’s the take away?
Here we all sit, 1,000’s of people trying to make money online. All of us with our army of sites. All trying to find links, while the next guy is also trying to get links. Just with the sites owned by those trying to make money, there are 1,000’s of potential link sources…
Just imagine if we weren’t all greedy and scared to share our sites with friends…
Sometimes success means joining forces to dominate a common competition.
Basically, get some friends, and group up on the little anti-social kid.
Online marketing is no different than the gym class social structure.
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{ 15 comments }
yo! i can feel ya..
recently teamed up with some dude, we’re working on our army now :)
ya better join us up on efnet.. http://www.efnet.org/
get mirc.com – choose efnet server and then join channel #seo..
peace :)
Will swing by. I haven’t used IRC since my gaming days when I use to play Counter Strike.
I couldn’t agree more Justin. It’s a trend that i have noticed too. Whenever any of those A listers launch anything, you can bet the others will be giving him all the publicity he needs and vice versa.
It’s comfortable to have our backs scratch and it’s only ecthical that we scratch back I think. So I say yes, let’s all gang up and bang our competitors to submission! LOL.
Great article.
Yeah, my list of people who I need to help out is growing.
I think many people lack strategic planning when they scratch each other’s back. There is an overall long term goal in methods.
And Google pulls all kinds of stunts, so I don’t feel unethical working together to all get ahead.
I know I pushed the post title a little =)
But I wanted to get some people’s attention
2 things…
1) + 1 for the creative title
and
2) + 1 for the econ reference
oh and + 2 for using “A Beautiful Mind”.
Now let’s all get laid =)
MJ
Thanks =)
The title might seem a little tacky to some, but that’s just my sense of humor =P
Yeah, I love economics
And Beautiful Mind was an awesome movie
Hi Justin!
Good thought provoking article. Inspired me to create something on similar lines – Grow Your Links Like an A-Lister; which, hopefully, complements your post without stealing your thunder.
Creativity score for Title = 10/10. ;-)
Thanks Rhys, will head over your way to check it out =)
Yeah 10 out of 10 for the post title from me too :)
Very good thought provoking article. I´ve been doing this sort of thing naturally (without even really thinking about it in fact), but when you take it one step further and consciously build a proper network this way, yes, makes a lot of sense.
(and Costa´s observations on the way A Listers work adds to that too)
Great post!
Yeah, I think the point where you move from casual back scratching to having a strategy, is where this takes off.
Brief example. One a project I’m working on, I have a friend throwing my a great link from his authority site. 90% of bloggers will automatically link back to return the favor. My friend and I know that my linking back will discount the weight of his authority link. So we’re holding off. I let him link to me, and I use his authority to help grow my site. Once I get some leverage of my own, and I don’t “need” his link, I will return the favor with a link back.
And I know there are a lot of people who throw me a link in hopes I will link back to them and send them traffic. I plan to, but not right away. I don’t want to instantly kill the SEO benefit of the one way link. I’ll use that juice to get a little more traffic and a few more links, then return the favor.
Yeah, friends like that are worth their weight in gold when you are trying to build.
Strangely enough, when I put my ‘other type of blogger’ hat on… I have developed a tight linking strategy on my newer and more productive blogs. Just haven’t gotten around to doing that in mainstream.
Up until now, in mainstream I’ve been throwing a link because it’s relevant to my post (and worth linking to). I never expect a link back.
Guess it’s time to start being more strategic :).
A rising tide lifts all ships, so the saying goes. Another example, although perhaps quick to disregard, is observing how all the big IM gurus cross promote. The ones on top raise up the ones on their way up. And the more of them there are promoting each other, the larger their sphere of influence.
I’m discovering that the SERPs work the same way, albeit in a mathematical fashion. It’s hard to replicate exactly what someone else does in purely human social networking. That’s why the internet is so fantastic.
Having at the very least a tight-knit group of associates one can trust is essential to long term success, online or off.
For best results, you should use long tail keyword phrases that have less competition as you will be able to easily get top rankings in the search engines. Alternatively, if you have already been targeting a specific keyword phrase you can use the 3 Way Links service to quickly add more and boost your existing rankings.
First of all LMFAO at the title. ha ha that’s completely golden. The main point I agree on is social networking is invaluable in succeeding online especially in a highly competitive niche.
Articles also play some part in internet marketing. As articles are read by visitors there are more chances for visitors coming to the sites. Articles should be relevant to the theme of the site
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