3 Seldom Used Ways to Get Quality Links to Your Blog

Every site owner is looking for more links. Links boost search engine rankings, while sending direct, quality traffic.

When discussing link building you normally see only two tactics really discussed; linkbait and pitching/link-begging. There are other, potentially more effective ways though that bloggers seldom use.

Creative Commons

The first example of using fresh and free content to get links is through Creative Commons licensing. By setting a CC license on your content you can tell other people that your content is available to use under certain circumstances and with certain restrictions. So one example might be that you can use my content for free provided you do not change it and that you link back to where you got it from.

As the unethical people will copy your content any way, and Google is getting much better at recognizing the originator of a piece of content, the risks are low, and you do in fact get a steady trickle of links from this.

By using the CC WordPress plugin you can essentially make your CC license “official” and it can also appear in CC content searches.

Read more about Creative Commons for Bloggers here on this very blog.

Article Marketing

Article, or Ezine marketing is an older form of link building where you write articles and then submit them to special sites called Ezine Directories. The most famous is EzineArticles.com

People who need a steady stream of new content for their own newsletters, blogs or web sites then come along and are allowed to copy these articles providing they keep in place your author “resource box”.

This can provide both direct traffic and generate links for you. The direct traffic comes mainly from people finding your content on the directory site through less competitive search phrases due to these directories growing a good amount of search engine visibility. When web masters utilize your content on their sites, or their email newsletters appear in a web archive, that shows up as a fresh link to your site.

Guest Posting

Guest posting is a type of article marketing where you write for free for someone else in return for a link back to your own site. These are more personally negotiated, and take a bit more effort, but have the benefit of you being able to target which blogs you want to write for to get the best results, and can often have a link both from your author attribution and, if on topic and not forced, within the content.

You need to start the relationship first with the blog owner. Comment with intelligent responses, and befriend the blog owner in social media, that way you will be familiar and they will have an idea of the kind of ideas you are capable of. Then get in touch with some potential headline ideas for discussion. Do not send a fully written piece until you have at least briefly discussed what the blog needs and audience.

Summary

Getting links for your blog is not just about emailing site owners with pitches or link bait, so think creatively how you can get more links while helping other people share your content.

Is it Content Theft or Free Distribution?

How do you feel when you see your content on an someone else’s site? Anger? Pleased?

A few people have asked my opinion about the service that is basically built around taking bloggers content and republishing it for their users to read and comment on.

Tony says Shyftr Crosses The Line

Anyway, its not the conversations being hosted somewhere else that bothers me, its that there are a new crop of services which would not otherwise exist without republishing someone else’s content without the original author’s explicit permission. Well, lots of people’s content. And you can dress it up and all kinds of clothing and all kinds of nifty wrappers, but ultimately that’s what this is about.

Scoble takes the opposite view

This is a trend that the best bloggers should embrace. Me? I follow wherever the conversation takes me. As someone else wrote: steal my content please.

Shyftr seem to have seen the feedback and modified their service somewhat

we have decided to revise the format around our discussions. We will only display the title, author, and date of an item where discussions occur outside of the reader.

The thing is, they will not be the last. We do need to get our terms right though:

How you react to the various types of content reuse depends on your approach to blogging and why you are blogging.

If you make money from page views (CPM ads or network bonuses) or if you make money from ad clicks (adsense, PPC), then you are going to be mightily upset that someone is republishing your work, regardless of intentions.

On the other hand, say you write about photography, gadgets or cigar reviews, you could benefit from the links (providing they are left in unmodified), through search engine boost or directly through product affiliate links.

For myself, much like Scoble, I don’t earn from traffic. I don’t really mind people sharing my stuff, providing my content is reproduced as-is because my blogging is not about traffic but about sharing the content and establishing my “brand”. The more people read my stuff and value it the better for me.

Which leads me to use Creative Commons attribution license on my content. I want it to spread, but I don’t want people mucking around with it or using it to pimp adsense clicks so I use Noncommercial-No Derivative.

How do you feel about your content being re-used?

Creative Commons For Bloggers

In our last post on Creative Commons I explained the general ideas behind licensing your content and some of the advantages this gives you. Today I will look at Creative Commons for bloggers in particular.

Since the last article I have added a Creative Commons license to my own blog. An “Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported” licsense, in fact. I did this easily using a WordPress plugin made especially for the job called WpLicense. While the most recent version refused to work for me, I had more joy with an older release. As well as painlessly adding the appropriate button and meta data to your blog, it also makes the license selection process easy.

Why would a blogger, someone who makes a living at least in part from selling content, use a Creative Commons license?

It’s simple really. My blog is an advert. Each article is like a free sample. I give away a free ebook (which will also be getting the CC license treatment using Cogniviews excellent Creative Commons PDF Converter!). This is all to get my ideas and advice, and with it my name, to spread. Creative Commons helps spread ideas. Giving stuff away is a great marketing tactic, as the sci-fi author Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing and Craphound fame will tell you.

Most people who download the book don’t end up buying it, but they wouldn’t have bought it in any event, so I haven’t lost any sales, I’ve just won an audience. A tiny minority of downloaders treat the free e-book as a substitute for the printed book–those are the lost sales. But a much larger minority treat the e-book as an enticement to buy the printed book. They’re gained sales. As long as gained sales outnumber lost sales, I’m ahead of the game.

In fact Seth Godin wrote a whole book about the tactic!

As Yoav said in a recent discussion of this topic …

The trick is to license different works with a different license. Use a very permissive license for the work you want to act as your marketing agent. And a very strict license (maybe even an all rights reserved) for the work you want to profit from.

You have to decide for each piece of work what is important to you, which rights are needed and which will hold you back.

For example I am still not sure if to allow derivative works. On the one hand it would allow people to spread my thoughts further, but on the other hand, especially the ebook, it only really works when read in its entirety. One thing I was decided on was the non-commercial use, if anyone is going to earn from my content I want it to be me, but does that stop businesses sharing my ebook with their clients?

So there are some things you will need to decide but I am sure, like me, you will find it useful for your own businesses to think about these things!

Giving away ideas leads to further opportunities

I have always seen blogging as a path to other things rather than an end in itself. Rather than jealously guarding our ideas we should help them spread and provide as much value to our audience as possible. Like me you will discover when you do that your audience rewards you over and over. As Cory says …

It’s good business for me, too. This “market research” of giving away e-books sells printed books. What’s more, having my books more widely read opens many other opportunities for me to earn a living from activities around my writing, such as the Fulbright Chair I got at USC this year, this high-paying article in Forbes, speaking engagements and other opportunities to teach, write and license my work for translation and adaptation. My fans’ tireless evangelism for my work doesn’t just sell books–it sells me.

Are you ready to Creative Commons license your work? What might hold you back? Let us know in the comments …

An Easy Introduction to Creative Commons

Creative Commons is something I now believe all bloggers should know about. While I heard about Creative Commons a while ago it was only after talking to Yoav the other day it struck me how ideal for web content creators, and bloggers in particular, their license idea really is.

What is a Creative Commons License?

Creative Commons license allow you to control how your work is shared and used while retaining the rights that are meaningful to you. They are controlled by a non-profit organisation who oversees the various licenses and promotes them. Using a Creative Commons license you can spread your work and ideas, and even have people create their own work using it as a base, while you still retain your ownership of it.

So it means giving up my copyright?

No, it just means you are allowing certain uses while stating certain things, for example “anyone can use this work however they like providing they credit me and it is not for commercial purposes”. It’s not giving up control, it is about being very specific in how much control you want.

Why is Creative Commons beneficial?

With Creative Commons you are explicitly informing people what rights you are allowing for the use of your work. There are a growing number of people who specifically seek out CC licensed work for use in their own projects, for example looking for a video or photograph to illustrate a point. You can even search for CC licensed material.

People will use your work then attribute you. Your ideas spread, your name gets known. Attribution means links and a growing reputation.

Ever heard of Chocolate Rain? You might not have if it wasn’t for the Creative Commons.

How do you use Creative Commons licenses?

Creative Commons LicenseTo license your work under Creative Commons you simply have to choose the license that is right for you and your work. If you want people to share your work non-commercially but not alter it, for example, then the “Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported” is probably right for you. It looks scarier than it is, just head over to the official site and take a quick read through then attach a “some rights reserved” button.

Summary

If you really want your ideas and name to spread, consider Creative Commons. You will remove obstacles and might even get more attention.

Do you use Creative Commons licenses or plan to in future? Let us know in the comments …

Chocolate Rain

When the walls of copyright are gone, the speed of sound equals the speed of light. Enjoy.

Why you should publish your PDF with a Creative Commons License

Over the past two weeks I talked to over a dozen people about publishing content and PDF’s with a Creative Commons License. One question came up again and again – What are the benefits of publishing my content with a creative commons license?

Here is my answer in … PDF form.

Creative Commons PDF Converter – Update

Since the release of the Creative Commons PDF Converter, 3 weeks ago, It’s been downloaded more than 700 times. We received about two dozens of emails containing ideas and suggestions (and a couple of bug reports). And the overall response has been exceptionally good (except for a couple of guys on Digg).

In the near months we intend to add the following:

I would like to thank the Creative Commons community, the readers of this blog and all the good people that have taken the time to test the CC PDF Converter. A Special thanks goes to Nathan Yergler and the creative commons staff who helped define and launch this tool.