Thread: Mini Article Link Exchanges

Please take the time to read through this post

One of the inherent "flaws" in Google's algorithm is that it has been possible for webmasters to link bomb their way to decent SERP's. In order to combat this, we believe that over the next 12-18 months that Google not only will be placing increased imprtance on the relevance of links, but will be de-valuing traditional links pages. Proof? I have none. But it is a logical progession to combat link spam.

To increase the relevance of our own links pages as well as the outbound links from our sites we are implementing a "Mini-Article Link Exchange" with other real estate agent web sites.

We are asking for 2-3 paragraph mini-articles of no more than 125 words to be placed on our individual State agent pages. You may place up to three links within the article, with each pointing to a different page on your site. Your article will be placed on the appropriate State page, and will have a lead in to the article from an H2 or H3 tag. Mini articles will be placed ahead of all "standard" link exchanges. You can see an example of a mini-article at http://www.felicelamarca.com/resources/link-sample.htm.

We are going to place a limit of 2-3 mini-articles on each state page. If we receive more than 2 or 3 requests for a particular State, we will create a second page for that State as well as properly sort each of those two pages. For example, lets say we had 3 mini-articles from Las Vegas and one from Reno. We would create a second Nevada page and use the anchor text "Nevada - Las Vegas" from our main resources page. Any "standard" Las Vegas links would also be transferred to this page.

We have two sites that I would like to employ this method:

www.hiltonheadarealuxuryhomes.com is a PR5 site, and the resources pages are PR2. This site has dominated Yahoo and MSN, and just dropped to the 2nd page in Google (hence my need for more links!).

www.felicelamarca.com is a new client of ours. The main page is a PR3, but all of the other pages are new file names and will not gain PR until the next update. Google has found and indexed most but not all of the pages.

If you are interested in participating, please send me a PM with your mini-article and I will add it to the sites, then send you a PM with the URL's and our information.

In order for this to work for your site and our sites, your site must have its agent directory categorized by State. This promotes the relevance of the links and articles. Sites utilizing framed directory pages and robots, meta, or rel exclusions will not be considered. If you begin using this method throughout your site, we strongly encourage you to your multiple State pages (i.e. 2 Nevada pages) both available from your main resources page instead of making the second State page only available from the first State page. That buries the links too deep and defeats the purpose.

There's a bit more to our theories on ceveloping this type of link exchange, but space is limited here and it's all rather boring anyway. You can PM if you have thoughts or questions. I will also provide my telephone number in a return PM if you wish to discuss this strategy by phone.

Great I will send you another paragraph with more information. My site has been drastically falling downto the buttom.

Interesting concept, I was at a seminar today that talked about paragraph advertising, I assume this runs along the same line.

My god
As I learn more about optimization, my self estem slips away as did my site this past week.
For some of you, this is first hand nature, but for me this is like learning chinnese after haven spoken arabic.
It all seems understandable with link exchange and posting and blogs, but the truth is that there are hungry people out there and climbing up the ladder to the top of RealEstate terms in a generic optimization is not an easy task.
Any ways I guess there is NO turning back now, this has become my other job.
I'm becoming a real estate optimizationist!
Later

Originally Posted by dspotleson

Interesting concept, I was at a seminar today that talked about paragraph advertising, I assume this runs along the same line.

What seminar was that?

If you really think about what search engines want (relative content) and where they need to go (combat link spam) mini-article exchanges are the next wave in link building. Not only that - but a mini articles is an opportunity to generate leads.

You see a lot of people posting in forums that search engines are big on relevant content. Mini articles enhance relative content for both the page that they reside on and the page that is receiving the link.

The funny thing is that it's like pulling teeth trying to get agents to participate in this new strategy. Is it too much work to spend 10 minutes writing an article? Or is it so outside of their comfort zone or traditional link strategies that they are afraid to pull the trigger? I just don't know.

Originally Posted by HHI Golf Guy

What seminar was that?

The funny thing is that it's like pulling teeth trying to get agents to participate in this new strategy. Is it too much work to spend 10 minutes writing an article? Or is it so outside of their comfort zone or traditional link strategies that they are afraid to pull the trigger? I just don't know.

Our office had Jim Casey in today giving a lecture on Marketing and Technology. It was very interesting.

Writing can be a scary thing for people. I'm comfortable with it only because has taken many classes in children's writing since that is my passion and I have lots of rejections from publishers and still hoping to one day publish.

So my next step is going to have to be trying out the mini articles for real estate.

Thanks for info