Eric Ward on the Hyperlink Hot Seat

Eric Ward is one of the most well-known names in linking. To learn more about his services, visit Net Post or URLwire.

1. I know you’ve done link building for a lot of high profile sites (such as Amazon.com). That aside, which of your past link building campaigns was the most fun for you?

A cable TV network had a web site with companion web content, and they ran an online contest, the "Three Stooges Year Supply of Pies" contest from American Movie Classics.  As a kid I loved the Stooges, but hadn’t really researched them online. I dug into it was amazed to find fan pages, discussion lists, forum boards, etc. that Stoggtes fans had created.  And when I contacted them they were quite excited.  What’s funny is that the links to the contest page I was able to obtain were 100% about people, not bots.  I never pursue links based on some hoped-for algorithmic ranking boost.

2. Do you think that there are aspects of link building that the average webmaster just doesn’t "get"?

Most webmasters understand links, especially since they likely receive 1,000 spam link request a day.   But what I see them missing is an understanding of the power of editorial based links to drive topically interested people.  They are consumed with SEO and links.

3. Link building can sometimes get to be a tedious task. Do you ever feel like you need a break from it?

Only when I’m working.  Serisously, there are some projects that do make my eyes bleed. But then I get a fun one and the response is such that I smile again.

4. Tell us a bit about your upcoming link building seminar.

Plan is to do an intensive day-long linking workshop in Charlotte. I’m teaming up with Debra Mastaler for this. She is one of the most cerebral link builders I’ve even known, and also a really fine person, and between the two of us hopefully we can put a few people in the seats and help them learn to link, without too much pain and suffering.

5. Maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself: "Mankind". Basically, it’s made up of two separate words – "mank" and "ind". What do you these words really mean?

That you’d better make sure to double check your anchor text.