Why Fan Sites Are The Nuts For Link Juice
Outside of the work you employ a web promotion company to do, you should always be looking to further your SEO campaign where possible, and that means link building at every opportunity. Thing is, as much as people hype up link building as a multi faced, broad activity, once you have blogged, posted in forums, article directories, local business directions and retweeted/Facebooked all these links, what else is there? Fan sites…
Posting on fan forums…
Fan sites are ideal hot spots for leaving links that won’t be torn down by over zealous moderators, why? Because fans love finding new places that house info about their given interest, that is, as long as the links posted look genuine. For example, if you own an online store that sells home improvement products then target DIY Fan sites with gentle posts like “I am using the Bosch ZX45 Sander and it really does the job, this is the one I mean (url)”. Or, if you run a music store that stocks rare records, start connecting with specific artist fan sites and dropping links to your rare discs.
Incentives and affiliations…
Fan sites often have very high PageRank, reason being that bird’s of a feather flock together and as long as your niche isn’t obscure beyond belief you will enjoy a steady flow of traffic from fan site links. If you want to achieve more than just a link in the forum on a fan site, why not offer the fan site some sort of affiliation incentive by way of a competition giveaway for its members or a discount scheme. This will earn you a prominent thread, banner or advert.
Making friends…
Approach fan sites with caution though, they aren’t usually commercial entities and a few corporate buzz-words won’t get you in with the crowd or rubbing shoulders with the owner. These are the train spotters of their industry and generally they want to remain independent, unbiased and highly ranked without selling out. They know they have power and influence and won’t take kindly to spamming or a hard sell approach.
Don’t wait for your web promotion company to build up your popularity and link juice to overflowing proportions, get connecting with those who actually live and breath the very products/interest you sell.
