If you work for a medium to large corporation, it’s very likely your company receives requests from customers, partners or other businesses for logos and other graphics to use to create links on their sites to yours.
Believe it or not, you have a gold mine opportunity with these requests. First, there many out there who spend a lot of time and effort requesting links to their web site. With this type of request coming in, you may not have to do that, or at least not as much as some others. Second, because these people want to make links to your site, they will likely be open to making those links the way you suggest.
A few years back, I did a survey of web sites which had links to ours. Some were good, but many were of the “click here” and “more information” variety. Although thse are good links, they could be better with a little change.
This survey game me the idea of creating a “Link to Us” kit to send to customers requesting logos and images. The kit is in the form of a burned CD with an easy-to-use collection of logos, product images, and other graphics which could be used on a web site. Because we need to protect our trademarks and other intellectual property, I include a PDF version of our corporate Identity Standards. This helps our partners use our images properly.
Also on the CD is a PDF with some guidelines on how to make good links along with suggested links to specific content on our web site. Some of that information is included in my previous post Basic HTML For SEO – Part 5, Links and Images. A short explaination about why it’s important to create good quality links is also included in this, more instructional, document.
From my observations of sites set up by or for those customers I’ve sent the “Link to Us” kit to, it appears to have had the desired effect. To be sure, some of those web sites were set up by people who know SEO and the importance of quality links, but many are created by those who are also trying to run a business and don’t have time to take to learn all the finer points of linking. This kit greatly assists those people in creating a better-quality web site. It’s a win-win for both of us.
Do you have any interesting ways to communicate with your customers how to create better links to your web site from their’s? Please feel free to share them in the comments.
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