While I was still under employment with the dotbombs that forms a huge part of my career today, I was told that it was MY RESPONSIBILITY to understand and remember all the characteristics of ALL the search engines there were in cyberspace. I remember feeling like someone was holding a machete to my neck. Horrid, simply horrid.

But a punch was delivered and I rolled with it. During that time, some search engine marketing experts contended that placing links in all sorts of websites, including link farms, was an essential part to the game plan. Without which, you would NEVER get good rankings in ANY of the search engines.

So, there I was, two months after delivering my child, worrying about the sniffles my baby has developed and wondering if the search engines have changed their algorithm while I was worrying about my child’s sniffles. So, in I went to place all those links, one by achingly bothersome one, in all those websites. This was before people came up with programs that automated the process, so….yeah.

The search engines got smart and changed over the decade that I’ve been doing this so, merely exchanging links with people you don’t know or placing links to your website no longer work like magic - everyone’s using the same magical formula and something’s got to give.

During that time, I have a simple ‘I was surfing around and bumped into your website. I love it and would like to exchange links with you’ email template that I applied the cut-and-paste technique to. Today, THAT doesn’t work anymore either. I didn’t understand back then….but now, I do. Do you want to know how many of such emails that I get every single day? And do I bother to look at them? No, siree….I am better off writing articles like this to establish my position in my industry, thank you very much. Most of the emails come from webmasters who haven’t as much as glimpsed at your website (except for the contact page or wherever they found your email or contact form), anyway. Trust me, I KNOW this because I DID it.

Come to think of it, I DO reply some of the emails if they appear 50% genuine. But I tell them ‘You link me FIRST, then I link you’…and they never reply. See?

The secret is in making every single link that you post out there count for something….and this is just the way Google wants it…well, most of the other search engines see it that way as well….value of the link should be high….not just a random exchange of links. So, even if you post a comment (with link-back) in other forums, message boards, blogs, social networking site, etc….make it intelligent and put a value to it.

I know it’s bizarre but there’s no formula for finding the right authoritative websites and blogs that you can be ‘active’ in. But what you can do is to listen to what others have to say, read a lot and also listen to your heart (and head). The websites should NOT be your competitors but indirectly linked to your company’s products or services. For example, spa products and facial companies, air-conditioning systems and home/lifestyle or handbags and leather suppliers, etc

While asking (read: begging) for a link to your website used to be a breeze (an email away) back then, it’s much more complicated and very time consuming today. You have to spend a lot of time going through the website and send them an email that is COMPLETELY relevant to them….you may even need to spend some time helping, advising or communicating your feedback to the website owner in order to establish contact with them. Hey, this is the way it is now but once you have the link back to your website, congratulations! You have, not a link, but you have a VALUABLE link! And in the SEM world, that’s like becoming a Knight or conferred the title ‘Sir’.

For your information, people actually spend time counting sheep in the wee hours of the morning in their bed trying to work that one out.

Marsha Maung is a Malaysian-based freelance copywriter with two kids. She spends her time ferrying her kids around, watering her plants, writing web content, SEO stuff, ghostwriting books and also indulges in the occasional Facebook-ing. Visit her blog for more dirty details on the life and times of a mother, writer, designer, housekeeper, coffee-maker, poop-wiper, chef…and just about everything else under the sun.

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