Insert Inbound Links Into Educational Material Published at Web Guides
There are two kinds of Web Guides: traditional and user generated.
About.com
About.com is a good example of a Traditional Web Guide, because each of its 500 topic areas is managed by a paid expert who is responsible for the quality of the content. Those experts write their own articles, but many will also publish well-written, educational articles offered by the general public, especially when written by professors or executives of non-profit organizations. Most content experts at these Web Guides are contractually obligated to meet a minimum publishing quota. So, they'll be happy if you relieve their burden by writing a few of the articles for them.
As a "thank you" for your article, Web Guide rules will usually allow you to include a link to your website in your byline or brief biography. However, try for better, by inserting a couple of keyphrase-rich links to your website within the body of your article. If the content expert believes in your cause, he may allow those higher impact referral links.
Note: About.com is ranked by Quantcast as the 9th most popular website in the world. Its home page has a Google PageRank of 8 out of 10.
Wikipedia
Wikipedia.com is a good example of a User-Generated Web Guide. This online encyclopedia allows you to add educational content yourself, without a content expert acting as a gatekeeper. However, since Wikipedia is user generated, your content can be deleted by "self-appointed sheriffs" after you've added it.
Within a typical Wikipedia page, there are three sections where referral links may be tolerated:
- the notes section
- the references section
- the external links section
Links in the external links section are the most visible. However, they are regularly deleted by Wikipedia moderators who review new additions for spam.
In fact, there is an art to adding and sustaining links at user-generated web guides. I was not acquainted with these techniques when I first discovered Wikipedia, so I excitedly added links without much thought. Early results were promising: just a handful of links at Wikipedia started driving 100+ well-qualified leads per day to CharityGuide.org. So, I excitedly started adding more links. But alas, I inadvertently pushed their guidelines too far. As the saying goes, "Pigs get fat. Hogs get slaughtered." I was acting like a hog because I was adding links at Wikipedia without contributing original content to the encyclopedia entries, which is the purpose of that website. So, when an eagle-eyed Wikipedia moderator found one of my links that he considered spammy, he investigated and deleted virtually all of my other links as well, which dropped referrals from Wikipedia to CharityGuide.org to almost zero.
I learned some valuable lessons:
- The safest way to include a link at Wikipedia is to make a significant contribution of original content accompanied by your reference link.
- Never link to your website's homepage. Instead, link directly to the content you reference in the Wikipedia entry.
- If there is already a list of several links, add your link somewhere near the top, but not at the top.
- To protect yourself against having your organization's links removed all at once, ask multiple volunteers to post content and links at Wikipedia, each from a different account. That way, if a self-appointed sheriff removes all of the links contributed by one of your volunteers, that will only cut your traffic by a small proportion.
Note: I am not recommending that you violate Wikipedia's guidelines; only that you protect yourself from vigilantes with opposing points of view.
Squidoo
Squidoo's "lenses" are user-generated guides to niche subjects.
You can spread awareness for your cause by participating in Squidoo's program for non-profit organizations. So, ask employees and volunteers to create subject guides for your cause.
For example, you could create a lens that lists recycling ideas, or a lens that lists the studies on sex education that share your perspective.
Each lens should include links to your website.
Note: Your organization can generate a modest income from Squidoo lenses. Lens creators are paid a small royalty for the ads shown on the pages they create.
See below for an example of a lens created by Liberty Kids, a non-profit organization founded to help children with autism.
The WWW Virtual Library
The WWW Virtual Library (http://vlib.org) is similar to a User Generated Web Guide. However, its information sources are created by members who host the material on their own websites.
The WWW Virtual Library home page has a very high PageRank of 9, so if you have in-depth content at your website, apply to become part of their virtual library. Your rankings in search engines for that subject area will improve.
Best of all, when search engines and WWW Virtual Library refer internet surfers to your website, it will be your perspective that influences researchers who are in the process of forming opinions about your cause.
