a4uexpo is over!

Last session I attended was about linkbuilding beyond linkbait. Bas van den Beld from the Netherland based SearchCowboys had the honor of the last section of the last panel and closed out the a4uexpo in Amsterdam with an exclamation mark.

His presentation was about what to do and not to do when trying to get links from the media and/or prominent bloggers.

I try to summarize what he presented:

„bribe me“ – but not with money (be creative!) (and don’t do it sloppy …)

Offer test or free (preview) versions

be personal (and again: creative)
i.e. find out the name of the person you are writing to, don’t do it anonymously, read the website and don’t expect to get topic irrelevant links (best: don’t even try then).
be also sincere (don’t act as if you’d know the addressee for years and be best buddies with him.)

Tell your story with passion – if you’re not passionate about your site/product/service how do you expect „me“ to be excited about it and link to it?

But be objective about yourself, don’t overhype yourself and/or your news… It’s still the media-representative/blogger who decides if he thinks it’s interesting enought to write about it and link to it.

Also it’s not the worst idea to link to them – if your site is topic relevant you shouldn’t have a problem to link out to them, otherwise why should you expect a backlink anyway.

Obey the general rules of pressreleases when sending one out:
Who, Where, When, What, Why… but also include a link for further reading/information and pictures (bloggers and media love pictures – especially if they don’t have to (re)search them themselves.

Don’t give up, if you don’t get a reaction immediately, remail, but be nice and polite.

If you contact the person in question via social networks, don’t just add them without a personal note. Tell them why you contact them and have a good reason to do so…

And do your SEO, you might be found by the media or bloggers, and if your story is interesting enough… 🙂

This concludes my reports about the a4uexpo sessions and panels…