7 Ways to Get Quality Links

Links aren’t easy to get. Let me rephrase that, quality links aren’t easy to get. With RSS that’s even more true because your special sauce (i.e., the content of your site), can often get picked up by spammers and scammers and repurposed as their own. So, without further ado, I present 7 Ways to Get Quality Links in 2007:

1. Do, say, or write something really brilliant.
Need we look much further than the attention captured with Apple’s iPhone announcement? While the blogosphere went link crazy, my friends who typically call me a geek were all chatting it up hours after the announcement was made. The iPhone was even a leading story for major news outlets…everyone and their mom now wants an iPhone.

2. Do, say, or write something really stupid (or controversial).
It’s funny how the extremes work. Honestly, there are too many examples to choose from on this one. And I don’t really advocate it anyway. But if you are interested, you can check out Bert Decker’s Top Ten (Best and) Worst Communicators of 2006 to refresh your memory on some good examples.

3. Inspire people with Ideas of Change.
Read Seth Godin or Guy Kawasaki, who seem to churn-out thought provoking ideas…often several times a day.

4. Make people laugh.
Everyone loves a good laugh. Think about the vast majority of e-mails and links that your family and friends have forwarded to you recently. The likelihood is that they were something that made you laugh or at least smile. A good example would include the Evolution of Dance or the old Numa Numa video (still a classic in my mind).

5. Give people a way to quiz or measure themselves.
Let’s face it, we all have a bit of ego and pride – we like to know about ourselves. The Superhero (and Supervillain) quizzes recntly made their way around (in case you are wondering, I’m Spiderman and Dr. Doom). Technorati has done well with a number of tools that show bloggers who’s linking to them, including their Link Count Widget. I also previously wrote about how I found out I was a B-list blogger.

6. Solve a problem no one else has (or share your approach to difficult yet standard problems).
This particular point is accomplished more easily in the technology world because geeks are always looking for a quicker way to do things (e.g., a WordPress plugin that makes your breakfast). But this one does work outside of nerdom, especially if you share things that help make people’s days more productive (e.g., your approach to fighting your e-mail inbox, managing your day, etc.). Steve Rubel is kind enough to often share productivity tips and Lifehacker is all about that (although both have a technology slanted focus).

7. Give some of your best ideas away…for free.
Here’s one that I’ve struggled with – but in the Market of Free Ideas (i.e., the Internet), only the best ones surface to the top. The tip is to keep a couple of those good ones tucked away once you get your recognition…then capitalize ;-).