$0.41 Backlinks To Build A High Authority Site? And Internet Marketing Innovation July 24, 2007
Posted by Andrew Wee in : Internet Marketing , trackbackSuper Affiliate Kieron Donoghue has an innovative strategy to get one of his sites ranked within the top results on Google for the highly competitive term “Bingo” and affiliate marketers can take a lesson or two or three from Keiron’s case study.
In “Easy method of gaining quality backlinks and building a database of users” Keiron has bypassed the traditional strategy of asking webmasters for backlinks or a link exchange, in favor of a premium giveaway.
The pens costing 20 pence (or about $0.41) each are a viral and guerilla method to gain a backlink.
He’s also engaged in using press releases to distribute his message/content and some viral marketing on forums has occured.
As the marketing is done partially offline (through the delivery of the pens), you’ll get the link love from a backlink, compared to a 2-way link.
At this point, some readers might be thinking “why didn’t I think of that?”
A key reason is many Internet Marketers are overly focused on:
- Technology: Trying to signup for some automated bookmarking/viral software that’s just been released.
- Following the advice of a guru who’s had a successful campaign (Note: once something has been done successfully once, it’s difficult to repeat it verbatim with the same level of success. Those familiar with Economics will know it as the law of diminishing utility).
Likewise, “value creation” is a buzzword in corporate circles, but to get more out of it requires people to do more than sit in a circle on Friday afternoons, chomping on doughnuts, sipping cappucinos, talking about improving work processes, but never doing anything about it.
I used to conduct entrepreneurship training focused on business building skills in the Singapore schools. It was particularly frustrating to sit in on meetings where it’d take 2 weeks to figure out who’d be a project manager and who’d form the team.
Then they’d be offer to conduct “research” for a couple of weeks and finally decided that there were too many obstacles, so they needed to find some other project (or niche in Internet Marketing speak).
They’d then bang into some other challenges in the midst of their “research” and give that up too.
Which kind of reminds me of what many new Internet Marketers do.
They start out with AdSense publishing, then maybe make a switch to eBay auctions. Then they decide it doesn’t work, and before you know it, they’d made a full circle of adsense publishing, affiliate marketing, product creation, online auctions, PPC arbitrage, CPA marketing, and somehow come to the conclusion that “nothing works”.
Is it due to the “Honeymoon effect“?
Maybe.
And it feels like old ground is being covered, like in “Why 90% of Internet Marketers Fail” and “Facing the Internet Marketing Failure”
Lest you think it’s some isolated example, take a look at Amit Mehta’s “One Thing I Learned at the Affiliate Summit”
So the takeaway from all of this?
Buy pens and get backlinks?
Not exactly.
Think a little deeper, go beyond the “honeymoon effect” and you’ll start to see a little Internet Marketing fireworks.
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Hi Andrew,
Great Post! It’s so true. Many internet marketers, especially newbies love to leapfrog from one way of making money to another.
Truly creative ideas, like the bingo pen offer, start to bubble up when you’re totally focused on one method of marketing (whether it’s CPA offers, list building, adsense sites, etc) and become an expert at it. Only then do you REALLY start to think outside of the box.
Hey Amit,
You have no idea how often I’m banging my head against the wall when I’m doing consulting sometimes…
Like you said, establishing domain knowledge is key, before you start doing guerilla style marketing like Keiron has done.
Well the ONE benefit of leapfrogging is that you might be qualified to write a “200 Ways To Make Money On the Internet” book.
The problem with that is such books typically go for $0.99 on eBay.
I’m definitely planning to stay on the “Experts” side of the business divide.