This is the final chapter on ideas for getting easy links. Let’s get into it right now! Here is what you can do to get more links:

Leave creative signatures with your inner links in the forums where you are active, if they are appropriate for showing up on your site, and also add the links to your personal profile page on the forums. If you make quality contributions to the forums, some of their users might follow these links and even “convert” for you.

Ask and answer questions on sites like Yahoo! Answers or Google Groups, and give some links to your site as a reference or otherwise. Get creative.

Encourage people to syndicate your RSS content; that might result in some additional “link love” for your webpages.

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I talked about link baiting ideas before and now I want to continue exploring this important topic. So, how else can you make links appear without too much hassle? Here are some more ideas to generate more links:

Interview big-time players in your field, real people with blogs. They’d love to link to your interview if it’s done well, and thus you will get quite some strong linkbacks.

Review products and services related to your niche. This method works as effectively as the one above.

If you sell products or services of your own, launch an affiliate program. Most of the links from your affiliates will not have any SEO value themselves—they’ll have unique affiliate IDs in the URLs or will use other identifications—but the added exposure will almost always lead to some regular links.

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This week I’m venturing beyond the marketing world and into the techie side of things. A few interesting things last week in the world of open source software caught my attention—at least because of the irony they both represent.

First, Apple’s App Store was subject to a suspicious, and slightly malicious, incident. An application called “I Am Rich,” which sold for $999 a pop, merely displayed the image of a ruby on one’s iPhone screen. Said to be a joke by its developer (uh huh!), the application was more of an ironic insult to the “open source-like” idea being promoted by Apple. After all, the open source movement has long been a community of progressive individuals dedicated to technology innovation, not profit like the kind Apple makes with its fat-margin iPhones.

Then there was the appeals court ruling in the case of Robert Jacobsen vs. Matthew Katzer/Kamind Associates, which further bolstered the idea of copyright infringement in open source. First, some background: Software developer Jacobsen created open source code used in software for controlling model trains. Kamind Associates downloaded parts of Jacobsen’s project, stripped out the copyright notice and other identifying information, and began redistributing the modified version without Jacobsen’s approval.

Jacobsen sued for violation of the terms of the license under which he created the open source code.
Last week a federal appeals court overruled the decision of a U.S. district court, which had ruled that the open source license was so broad that violations did not fall under the category of copyright infringement. The appeals court agreed with Jacobsen that Kamind did indeed infringe on copyright. Unsurprisingly, this is hailed as a victory for smaller developers in the open-source world.

But it seems to me like this also gives legal precedent to larger corporations like Apple or Google—because the ruling may help allow large corporations the exclusive right to control the open source process. If a developer somehow violates their terms, they can be held as a copyright infringer. Could this precedent give rise to censorship in the corporate-backed open source world?

What do you think?

Shaneli Ramratan, Marketing Manager, mobileStorm

Marketers who read this blog want to keep up on the latest developments in the industry. So maybe some of you already read Event Marketer magazine’s June issue–specifically, the feature on the winner of its Grand Ex Award, the Stoli Hotel. If so, you’ll be interested to know how the mobileStorm platform played a crucial role in the Stoli marketing campaign.

The vodka-maker’s marketers created a traveling top-line hotel–described as an “ultra-luxe” “pop-up experience”–that appeared for just a few weeks Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, New York, and San Francisco. Think of it like a traveling circus big top–and when you think about it, as magical as the supernatural camping tents described in the Harry Potter books! The Stoli Hotel, all of 20,000 square feet, showcased bedrooms, bars, spa services, and lounges like you’d see in a permanent building–and where guests drank cocktails made from the brand of vodka in question, of course.

Because of the short-term nature and the immediacy of the event, Stolichnaya marketers had to quickly generate buzz prior to each Stoli Hotel stop. It started advertising in the respective cities about one month before arrival. On the website stolihotelrsvp.com, there was a dedicated landing page for each city—on which interested consumers signed up to receive more detailed email messages about the hotel.

Stoli marketers then used mobileStorm RSVP Manager to create and maintain its database of people who wanted to visit the hotel. As you may know, RSVP Manager is the first comprehensive event management software that incorporates multiple forms of messaging into a single system. It lets clients collect responses and more information about event attendees via SMS, email, and/or a Web form. Because RSVP Manager gathers so much data, clients can also get comprehensive reports on the success of their campaigns. (Read more about mobileStorm RSVP Manager here.)

“Thousands and thousands” of Stoli Hotel guests came each night, said the Stolichnaya brand director at Pernod Ricard. More impressive is how effective the campaign was: After attending the hotel event, 86 percent of consumers said they were likely to drink Stoli; 76 percent bought the vodka in a bar or restaurant; 80 percent said the experience improved their thoughts about the brand; and 94 percent told their friends about the Stoli Hotel.

Grand Ex-worthy results indeed. Thanks, in part, to RSVP Manager.

Eydie Cubarrubia, Marketing Communications Manager, mobileStorm

“I’d rather you text me”