Pinnacle Meadows, Vermont, USA
I get asked for backlinks regularly.
Individuals pitch me on a consistent basis.
Entire social media groups become bartering grounds for trading backlinks.
Imagine a Souq in the Middle East. I visited a few during my time in Oman and Qatar.
Barking offerings, bickering over pricing then finally finding an agreed on meeting point works effectively in these markets.
But is it the way to gain quality backlinks?
Do successful bloggers – aka the only bloggers who offer high quality backlinks – sell out or grant favors like some benevolent blogging genie?
No they do not.
If successful bloggers gave quality backlinks to anyone who:
- asked
- paid
for the links, you bet your sweet bippee the quality links would quickly morph into low quality links because a blog is:
- the blog content
- what the blog content links to
Look at the post you read now.
Imagine if I linked to 1 – or 5 – low quality blogs because the bloggers paid me money or I felt guilty and caved into offering the blogging mendicants a favor. Would you deem this post to be low quality or high quality? Perhaps the content *here* seems to be quality but the backlinks would be low quality. I would develop the rep of someone who links to low quality blogs. Gradually, readers would perceive Blogging From Paradise Dot Com to be a low quality blog pointing to low quality blogs.
Why Is This Strategy Nonsense?
Why does it make no sense to ask for backlinks?
Asking for backlinks wastes your time because you have no idea if the blogger trusts your blog.
The moment anyone pitches me I instantly know that these individuals do not draw passive, organic backlinks; this makes me question their credibility, if I even bother to read their message (I usually do not).
Why waste time when you can have the sure thing? Why pitch strangers when your content can draw high quality backlinks around the clock?
The sure thing is publishing detailed, targeted content on your blog and offsite which passively draws quality backlinks to it. Creating this type of content takes learning how to do it, patient practice and a deep sense of trust in yourself and your content.
It is a lot of work but helping people thoroughly feels good. Feeling good inspires you to see the work as a wise investment not a losing, crippling sacrifice.
Now let’s look at the downside of asking for backlinks or pitching bloggers your backlinks.
The Downside
Simply put; reaching out to strangers makes no sense. Asking un-targeted bloggers to place your link or to trade links makes no sense.
This is like engaging in the process of: “Ready. Fire. Aim.”
Bloggers who blindly pitch bloggers fire before aiming. This scattershot approach lacks logic. Ineffectiveness is the starting point. Eventually it leads to burning through emails, social media accounts and any potential prospering relationships.
Imagine a door to door salesman pitching their wares to anyone who breathes. Does breathing qualify someone as being hungry to purchase a vacuum cleaner? Door to door types find thousands of doors slammed in their mug to the tune of generating one random sale. None gets the wasted time back. Trading most of your time for one sale is pure nonsense.
Stop trying to get backlinks by emailing strangers.
Cease wasting thousands of hours.
Create content that does the work for you. Publish long form content onsite and practical offsite content to draw quality backlinks passively.
Create assets that work for you around the clock. Building your blog and offsite content into backlink generating assets takes ample time and work. But no other option is genuinely effective. Either you trade time and work for backlinks or create content assets which free you from time and work by passively generating quality backlinks.
Think Like an Entrepreneur
Think like an entrepreneur who builds assets that work for them not an employee who trades their time for any backlink acquired, wasting huge chunks of your day reaching out to people who do not need or want what you have to offer.
Create something that builds backlinks for you while you sleep, circle the globe, or, yes, while you work, too.
Make freedom the goal.
Most people think like employees who trade time for money because everyone sees the process unfold around them. I watched my dad go to work for over 30 years. He flew out of the door first thing in the morning and cruised back home at dinner time. Every kid around me pretty much watched their parents do the same thing. Work for an employer. Get a weekly paycheck. It’s what you do with life.
Guidance counsel types generally steer young adults to follow a career path. The world thinks that getting a job to cover the basics is life. Entrepreneurs are risk takers not freedom seekers. Some get lucky to succeed but most are unlucky in failure. This is how the world thinks if you are brave enough to take off the blinders and really look.
Changing your mind to think like an entrepreneur who builds assets feels uncomfortable. But easing into fear gently produces a seamless mental transition. Loving freedom with temporary discomfort more than depression with comfort marks a critical shift in this process.
Thirst for liberation more than comfort. Developing this hunger is not always easy but is always possible and preferred by your true identity. Think that one through; you will find it to be true.
Get into the asset-creating, entrepreneurial mindset.
Do the work on things which gradually do the work for you.
No one makes this mental shift overnight.
Be gentle with yourself as you baby step this journey.
I had to do it. I am still doing it. We all need to do it in a world dominated by the employee model.
Conclusion
Asking for backlinks wastes time and work compared to creating content.
Content does not ask for backlinks from strangers.
Content attracts quality backlinks from successful bloggers who deem your knowledge to be credible.
Content drives backlinks while you sleep, travel or enjoy dinner.
Doesn’t that sound like the better way?
