One of the most important factors in SEO, especially in things such as Google PR, is the amount of link backs you are able to acquire. In previous posts on this blog you can read about how to gain link backs by using Blogs and Forums as well as Social Networking websites. I’m going to focus on generating traffic by offering something of use to your visitors.
There are many things free floating around the internet, and that perhaps, is one of the biggest understatements I’ll make this year. Let me rephrase that. Everywhere you look there are freebies. Everywhere. Hit counts, mortgage calculators, My Space downloads (templates, themes, mp3 players, polls, etc), free flash games… you get the idea. There is a common theme to every single one of these things, link backs. Most if not all of these things, regardless of who made it, will contain a link back of some sort with either a keyword for the maker, or a tempting phrase like, “Get yours here!”.
By creating widgets, tools, templates, flash games, whatever – you are open the way for massive amounts of traffic and more importantly link backs. Lets take a look at an example. Cheap Hosting Solutions, one of the websites I’d had the privilege of building, required a ‘gimmick’ or way to generate massive amounts of link backs. I was commissioned to create three tools for this site. The first was a Google PR checker. It’s a little image that you can place anywhere that will display the Google PR for the site you specify.
The second was an Alexa Rank checker. Along the same lines, its an image you can place anywhere that will check your Alexa Ranking.
The third was a simple Hit Counter. This allows the user to select one of about 150 different styles and display a very clean hit counter on their website.
You’ll notice all of these neatly link back to the home page along with heavily worded key words in the alt / title tags. Everyone who downloads and uses one of these will be generating a link back for you. So the key is exposure. Sites who make My Space layouts or widgets for places like My Space are right on target. While I’m not personally a huge fan myself, they have hit a niche that will bring them streams of traffic. If you are able to make a tool or a widget, or templates, or anything that people will want to use you can generate massive amounts of traffic an link backs.