Link-building is like a popularity contest, the more inbound links you have from other websites, the higher your page will rank, and the more conversions you’ll see
To get your special reports, white papers and freemiums listed on page one in Google, one of the biggest influencers is inbound links. Next to keyword optimization, there’s nothing more important. The more websites that link to your Rapid Conversion Landing Page (aka Name-Squeeze Page), the more validity Google will give your page.
Here are 9 ways to drive website traffic to your freemiums:
Link to your RCLP, not your home page: When leaving comments on external blogs, writing press releases and otherwise finding ways to build links to your RCLPs, don’t sign your name with a link to your home page. The place you want to direct traffic to is your RCLP where a user can download a report, pattern or other freemium and opt-in to your email list. So when leaving comments externally, make sure your name links to a Rapid Conversion Landing Page that collects an email address and increases conversions.
Distribute press releases every time: Whenever you release a new freemium, there should be a press release attached to every one. This will get your freemium picked up by news blogs and other external linkers that are interested in your content.
Reach out to individual bloggers: First, build up a repertoire with bloggers by leaving useful comments or interacting with them on social networks like Twitter, Facebook and the like. Once you’ve built up this repertoire, you can send an informal email to them letting them know about your upcoming freemiums. Many self-employed bloggers are too busy and overloaded with press releases; a more informal approach works better.
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Include links to your RCLPs in your bio: Anywhere you have a bio listed, whether it’s on your site or on a site where you syndicate content, there should be a link to your freemium RCLP that lists you as the author. You can also position the freemium as a way for readers to learn more about what you do.
Drive traffic from print products: Any related content in your print products should include a link back to your RCLPs. In fact, you should have a freemium for every print product you offer. No matter whether your product is a magazine, book, or newsletter, you should have at least one relevant freemium for every product you have or every topic you write about. This way, when you write an article on a topic, you have something free to give away if your readers “visit this URL”. Offering irrelevant freemiums will not maximize traffic and inbound links.
Create a unique URL: This won’t drive traffic directly, but it will certainly help promotion on your end. Creating a unique URL for your page makes it easy to link anywhere on the web or in print. A long URL is hard to remember and will lessen conversion rate when going from print to the web. A short and specific URL makes it easy for a user to remember when they have Internet access.
Use only one URL: If your RCLP lies on several URLs, say one that begins with your domain name and ends with .html, or you have purchased several unique URLs, it’s better to stick with one. Using more than one divides your traffic and also takes away from your search engine ranking. By using separate URLs, you are driving inbound links to separate locations (according to search engines), and link-building only works if you’re funneling traffic to one URL.
Leverage social networks: We’re going to make this part simple by pointing you to an article we wrote about being a social networking evangelist, back in April. It shows you multiple places to set up shop and create links to your site from multiple domains, including Digg, MySpace, LinkedIn, Technorati and more.
Keep track of your success: There’s nothing more rewarding than seeing your efforts succeed. To measure webpage count and inbound links, we use Yahoo! Site Explorer, a free service that provides the number of inbound links to any page on your website. We recommend you look at the number of web pages reported from all subdomains and links reported ‘except from this domain’ to ‘entire site’, which will show you the number of external inbound links coming from other publishers’ websites.
