Eric Ward’s Link Building Philosophy

Posted on August 21st, 2006 by Bart Gibby.
Categories: SEO.

I have been giving a great deal of thought lately to why I seem to be having lower amounts of “luck” or if you will success with my current SEO strategies. I think mainly my strategies consist of good and positive added value, however after reading a bit more on Eric Ward’s website www.EricWard.com I find myself questioning whether or not my tactics are sound. What I mean is that though I may be adding value to website users by commenting on blogs and in forums am I really portraying myself as a member of the community or do I look like I am temporarily there just for the links.

I am honest when I post, my profile is about myself and I am upfront with the information that add to my profile. When it asks for my profession I add that information and I say who I am employed by. Maybe I am giving too much information away… maybe I need only answer the minimum and not the maximum.

When working for clients Eric doesn’t even post on blogs or in forums. He only works for content rich websites and I think he finds ways of using that content on the link sites in such a way as to benefit link partner and their website users and still not give so much away to them that it hurts his client. I do not know what exactly he does, but things like teaser articles and regular site content for the link partner come to mind. I mean spending 10 hours writing great copy for a really awesome link partner will most likely be more beneficial than posting on 100 different low quality and low traffic blogs and forums.

I may just use this strategy after I have completed list of potential link partner sites, I have over 500 sites in the LDS discourse community and now I am qualifying them. My software has been really buggy so I am having a hard time finalizing it.

Go to Eric’s site and give me your opinion on his Link Building Philosophy. I would be eager to hear what you have to say.

4 comments.

Sammyboy

Comment on August 21st, 2006.

I do not agree…

You talk about somany good things then you bring the mormons into it.

That TOTTALLY discredits you.

IMHO -Sammy

BartGibby

Comment on August 22nd, 2006.

SammyBoy,

What are you talking about? What does the subject of Mormons have to do with Eric Ward’s Link Building Philosophy?

Plus I am not sure what you disagree with any way? Are you saying that don’t I post on blogs, in forums… maybe that Eric Ward “only” works for content rich website perhaps…?

I admit I was going a little out on a limb there by saying “only”. But I hardly think that has anything to do with “Mormons”, unless you would like ot connect the subjects for me?

I wish you the best Sammy, Cheers.

-Bart

Dave Bascom

Comment on August 22nd, 2006.

I don’t think Eric Ward does anything better or more cutting edge than anyone else. I believe his edge is that he has been doing this so long and has so many connections and knows where to submit sites, so it makes it a bit easier. For example, over the years he has built a repuation with a lot of journalists and editors as a guy who won’t feed them a crappy link, so when he emails them a new site, they take notice and it gets mentioned and linked. Eric Ward has been in the game longer than probably anyone else, and has gotten to a point where he can afford to pick and choose which clients he takes on. He only takes on the “sure things”–that is, sites that have a lot of content and a quality product or service, so it makes his job easy. It’s kind of like the real estate agent who everyone knows, it’s not hard to sell houses if the buyers and sellers both come to you, but when you’re just starting out, you have to work to earn that trust. What Eric does is more the publicity-type of link building and only works with the big guys… that’s why he doesn’t have to post to forums or write articles or any of the other stuff that normal SEOs do. I’m sure he works hard, but it’s more of working smarter than harder, and yet he’s able to charge top dollar (http://www.ericward.com/netpost2.html) for his services.

As far as his actual philosophy…I think it’s mostly sound. He’s wrong about reciprocal links being completely useless, but overall, I like his approach to link building as a customized process of securing relevant links. Also, due to the type of clients he works with, he appears to be unaware of the real facts that most of us have to face as we beg, buy, or do whatever we can to get links for our clients’ sites.

Dave Bascom

Comment on August 22nd, 2006.

One other thing, I think SEO success comes from a balanced link building effort. You can’t put all your link eggs in one basket. I read a great post on thi issue just today from Todd Malicoat (stuntdubl)

http://www.stuntdubl.com/2006/08/21/link-types/

Leave a comment

Comments can contain some xhtml. Names and emails are required (emails aren't displayed), url's are optional.