Five Search Queries to Find Sponsorship Link Opportunities
Posted on August 8th, 2008by Everett Sizemore in Guest Posts, Link Development
The following is a Guest Post from Everett Sizemore.
The ethics of paid links aside (we all know how Michael Gray feels about that already) the best paid links don’t usually come from a network or broker, and aren’t generally thought of as ‘paid links’ in the first place - though they are. In fact, they don’t even come from someone who knows what a nofollow tag is, or why selling links is against Google’s guidelines. And regardless of the fact that they are paid, Google doesn’t seem to mind them so long as they are on-topic and coming from a reputable website. As the title suggests, this “link buy” comes in the form of sponsoring an event or website. The trick is to find sponsorship opportunities that are in your corner of the web (read: on-topic).
Here are five search queries to help you find such links:
Yahoo (links lead to real examples)
linkdomain:yourcompetitorsdomain.com sponsor
linkdomain:yourcompetitorsdomain.com sponsors
Google (links lead to real examples)
keyword inurl:sponsors
keyword inurl:sponsor
keyword intitle:sponsors
As always with link building, be on the look out for redirects, nofollow tags, etcetera… But you’d be surprised at how few PR7 and PR8 web pages out there list links to sponsors using normal hrefs.
I’m sure by now you get the point. Try switching “sponsor” with “advertise” and see if the site has advertising that doesn’t use redirects, tracking links or nofollow tags. You might be thinking that it is easy for Google to see if the word “sponsor” or “advertise” is in the URL, Title or even somewhere on the page - and you would be correct. However, I have not found this to have a negative effect on the quality of that link so long as it is on-topic and the link involves two reputable sites. I’ve studied competitor’s incoming links enough to know that some of them are competitive in the SERPS for certain keywords largely because of a few well-placed sponsorship logo-links with good Alt text pointing to the right page.
But why stop there? As many of you probably know already, the physical location of a website plays a role in your local rankings just as a topical site plays a role in your rankings for those topics in the traditional SERPS. If, for instance, I had a Denver home construction business, I would want to get links from Denver websites, and from construction websites - preferably both. How might some of these queries look?
First, let’s find some sponsorship opportunities on websites here in Denver, Colorado with some decent page rank and SEO-friendly links by using Google Maps (Denver, Colorado sponsors). You may notice that those results are less than stellar. That’s because Google assumes we’re looking for a ’sponsor’ businesses in their Google Local database. BUT, if you select “Show Search Options” and then “Show Mapped Web Pages“ and re-apply the search, you’ll see a number of opportunities, including this one: http://www.builtgreen.org/directory/sponsors.aspx . That’s a nice PR-4 page. I wonder how much one would have to donate in order to become a sponsor?
eCommerce Sites
If you have a product to sell, the best way to pay for links without actually “paying” for them is to send out samples. I’ll let you use your imagination here on finding the appropriate sites, but you might want to start by finding out who has reviewed your competitor’s products. And don’t just focus on small blogs. I’ve managed to get reviews in major national magazines and newspapers, as well as some of those annoying websites that you see ‘about‘ every topic in the search results. Even reporters and bloggers for major magazines like free stuff. The trick is to make contact first and not ask for the link. Nine times out of ten they’ll link to you anyway, so don’t push your luck by making it obvious what you’re after.
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August 8th, 2008 at 9:22 am
Great post, the show mapped web pages tip is gold. Thanks!
PS - your twitter link is screwed up.
August 8th, 2008 at 10:17 am
“And regardless of the fact that they are paid, Google doesn’t seem to mind them so long as they are on-topic and coming from a reputable website.”
You really can’t make a blanket statement like this. It really comes down to how much of a risk you’re willing to take. If you buy a link that clearly looks like a bought link, and a “frienemey” reports you, whether or not your site takes a dive in the SERPs depends on the mood of the Google employee doing the manual review.
August 8th, 2008 at 10:55 am
“Even reporters and bloggers for major magazines like free stuff. The trick is to make contact first and not ask for the link.”
Indeed. Wolf Howl just covered an example of Coke doing this: http://www.wolf-howl.com/google/hey-google-going-drop/
August 8th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Tom - Thanks for the tip. Twitter link should be working now.
Will - You make a good point. Sometimes it’s difficult to write about an SEO topic without making either A: blanket statements or B: 100 qualifying statements. My hope is that people will use their own common sense and not A: Sponsor off-topic sites/events/causes, B: Make sponsorship links a big part of their inbound link profile. Yes, words like “sponsor” and “advertisement” are huge red flags, but if your company is just being a responsible member of its industry by supporting worthy causes…
Does anyone really think the link on this page is going to be seen as spam: http://www.aidslifecycle.org/sponsors/ ?
Or, like the home improvement example I gave, what about a link to your client’ local Chicago construction company website from:
http://www.dupagehabitat.org/sponsors.htm
It’s geographically and topically on target. At worst, if this is a large chunk of your link profile (which it shouldn’t be) it would get ignored algorithmically or manually. But I doubt seriously that you’ll get “in trouble” for it as long as you are using common sense and moderation.
August 8th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Loved this post… thanks Everett… and thanks to Michael for guesting you.
Valerie
August 8th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
another couple i like to use are inurl:resource(s).*, inurl:reference(s).*, etc. where * can be html, htm, asp, aspx, etc. etc. etc.
you can get pretty creative with it too by doing some other inurl searches in conjunction
August 9th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
“Does anyone really think the link on this page is going to be seen as spam: http://www.aidslifecycle.org/sponsors/ ?”
Tom, I agree with you that you will probably be safe if you buy links in moderation on relevant pages with sponsorship opportunities, but there’s always that sliver of a chance that you won’t be. If I reported that page through webmaster tools (and I won’t because I’m not a douche) you just don’t know what will happen. It comes down to what the individual reviewing the page (if they even review it) wants to do. I’ve seen a subpage of a charitable website had it PR knocked to 0 for selling links that pass PR, so anything could happen to a buyer as well. Google does what it wants when it wants, and its penalties are erratic. People doing minor things get slapped, and egregious offenders in the same niche go on their merry way. We see this all the time, and it’s not always tied to who spends the most on Adwords a month either.
And Google says things like, “well, even though that person is buying links and not being penalized, the links they bought aren’t helping them rank well. They’re being ignored by the algorithm.” And that begs the question of why Google even bothers giving people minux XX penalties if they can just ignore links on command. The logic collapses in on itself.
I like your post, and the Google maps idea gives me a lot of ideas.
August 15th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Well, you are right – Google Does not care if the related sites show paid links to you!
Here is the sample. The job boards show links to the recruiters web sites. Recruiters pay to advertise on the job boards. Check the inbound links (on Google) for the recruiters web sites? Job boards fill the first pages.
Google does not care as long as it gets a cut of your business somehow. Anyone’s business!!!
Ivan | http://www.JobsBlog.ie