How to Get Inbound Links from Government and University Sites
By Deepak Dutta
The inbound link is the holy grail of Web traffic. Getting inbound links from government and university sites is a testament to the quality of your site.
You accumulate inbound links not only to increase traffic, but also to establish your site for providing high value to visitors. However, getting inbound links by link exchange or buying text links is not going to get you anywhere. You need to abandon those archaic ideas and jump forward with an inbound link strategy that provides high value authoritative links.
To obtain high value authoritative links, your site must provide high value to its visitors. Original authoritative articles and tools to solve everyday problems are a few ways to provide a lasting value to Web surfers. Before you embark on your link-building mission, create something valuable.
Links from the government sites have very high value. If your site enables citizenry to interact directly with the government, it is an excellent candidate for a link back from the government site.
Sites that provide community level services (for example, the location of Social Security Offices in the USA with interactive maps) will also have high potential for outbound links from government sites.
Other types of sites that do well are sites that provide information about service performance. For example, a nursing home comparison site; sites that cross inter-governmental boundaries; and sites that allow transactions with the government (e.g., filing taxes).
If your site is a good fit for outbound links from government sites, start with the usa.gov site. It is a central information hub for everything government. On the bottom of the page, you will see About Us and Contact Us links. Read their linking policy before you contact them.
You don’t have to confine yourself only to US government sites. Explore the possibilities of getting links from foreign government sites also. But keep in mind that your site should provide some value to the citizenry of those countries and people who want to interact with them.
For example, most government embassy sites don’t display their embassy addresses in interactive maps. If your site pulls their text addresses from their sites and then places those addresses on Google maps for interactivity, you can contact them to put a link back to your site. Explain that your site adds additional value to their visitors by providing a richer user experience.
College and university sites provide a good opportunity to develop some authoritative inbound links. The key here is to provide services geared towards students. You may also be able to get links if a faculty member is interested in your content.
Don’t start spamming university forums, guest books, etc. People may attack your site and bring it down, report you to your Web host or domain registrar. You will lose your credibility and reputation. Try to establish relationships by helping others. Let them know that you know your topics and are willing to share with them.
If your site provides some valuable services to students, approach the appropriate university authority for linking. For example, if you have a tool that compares student loans from different sources and suggests the good ones depending on a student’s financial situation, university loan offices will be willing to link to your site as a resource.
If you have a blog with original and regularly updated content that talks about the impact of technology on the society, you may approach a faculty in sociology to link to your site from his or her home page located on the university server.
Government and university sites provide good opportunities for developing inbound links if your website matches their requirements. The key is quality content and useful Web tools.
Dr. Deepak Dutta has provided free online marketing tools like free classifieds and free ads sites for more than a decade. He recently launched a social media link building tool.
Tags: inbound links
