The one thing you need to succeed in link building

Posted by Ken McGaffin on 26 Sep, 2012
View comments Link Building
The one thing you need to succeed in link building from Wordtracker, the leading keyword research tool

Edit this course has expired please check out our academy for more information on link building.

What is that one thing that will bring you link building success? Ken McGaffin explains ...

Man reaching finishing line

Let’s kill the suspense right away. The one thing you need to succeed in link building, or anything else for that matter, is to set yourself specific goals.

That’s because the funny thing about us all is that once we set ourselves a goal, we have a natural, stubborn tendency to stick at the job and get it done.

Whatever you want to achieve, the important thing is to set your goal and write it down.

And once you reach your goal, set another one and write that down too.

The important thing is writing it down - because when you write it down it becomes much more real.

And as you progress, you can look back and be pleased with what you’ve done: or if you’re struggling, you can see that you’re not really that far away and motivate yourself to try just a little bit harder.

The power of setting goals really came home to me many years ago when I decided to run a marathon back in Ireland.

I got up early one frosty November morning and went for my first ever run. After about half a mile I had to stop - the cold pain in my chest was excruciating and my aching limbs just refused to go any further.

But I stuck at it, and went out the next morning and ran a little further. Within a week I’d done my first mile run and six months later I completed the first ever Belfast marathon in a respectable time of 3 hours and 46 minutes.

How did I do it? Well, I had a secret weapon.

His name was Hugh Campbell, a friend who was a fully qualified athletics coach.

After watching my nascent efforts, Hugh sat down with me and worked out a series of goals: we mapped out in detail exactly how many miles I had to run each day and how much I had to increase my total distance every week.

After that, I followed the plan to the letter and met briefly with Hugh once a week to discuss my progress. The process really worked and I can remember my absolute delight when I passed milestones for my first 10-mile run, 15-mile run, and then 20-mile runs.

And when the day for the marathon came, Hugh and I had worked out a very clear goal - I aimed to complete the marathon in exactly 3 hours and 45 minutes. In the end, I was one minute over that goal - we hadn’t figured in a delay in starting because of the thousands of people taking part :-)

This whole exercise taught me that you can achieve fantastic things in life - if you set yourself goals.

Earlier I said that the funny thing about people is that if we set ourselves a goal, we have an natural, stubborn tendency to stick at the job and get it done.

The stubbornness that this exercise encourages will come in very handy in link building.

Despite the obvious need for link building, and the realization among site owners that they really must have quality links, many fall by the wayside.

They don’t have a specific goal and they don’t have a plan in place to make sure they reach that goal. They don’t know exactly what they have to do; they fail to do the work required and they get discouraged when their requests are turned down or more likely, rejected without even a reply.

They fail to see that every rejection or every time they are ignored is another step along the way to ultimate success.

They fail to see that you learn from failure - indeed failure is an essential step along the way.

My favorite definition of an expert is “someone who has made more mistakes than anyone else”. Think about that - it means that there’s nothing wrong with making mistakes - what’s wrong is not learning from your mistakes and doing it better next time around. If you want to acquire any kind of skill, don’t be scared of making mistakes.

In my marathon running, I had a secret weapon in my coach, Hugh Campbell. And I’m convinced that having Hugh work on my goals, and my plans for achieving them, was the difference between success and failure.

In our ‘Get Links’ program, we want to be your ‘secret weapon’ in becoming a link building ninja. The course is structured to help you in the best way possible - by doing. And yes, you will make some mistakes: that’s inevitable, but we’ll show you how to overcome them, and how to build solid link building skills.

The 7-week course has three elements:

  • 3 interactive webinars that will explore your situation and your needs in some detail.
  • 20 on-demand videos, available as they are published together with worksheets and resources.
  • Unlimited support to answer your link building questions and give you advice.

All resources will be available to you for a full 12 months.

And as well as all that, we’ll include a one year’s subscription to Wordtracker’s newly revamped Link Builder tool. You will have everything you need to be an outstanding link builder.

If you really want to learn about link building it would be a dreadful mistake to miss it!

Get Links! 

Edit this course has expired please check out our academy for more information on link building.

We’re looking forward to helping you set you goals and and attract some fantastic authority links to your site. If you haven’t signed up our Get Links! video training course yet, you need to do so before 1st October to benefit from our early bird rate.

 

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