Don’t you just love requests for links to your site! They come in regularly ranging from the totally inept, but perhaps new to the world of approaching siteowners for links first time site builders, to the totally inept agencies who frankly should know better than to send out this kind of nonsense.

Here’s the request:

I recently visited bingo blog and saw bingo forums and thought it was an excellent idea. We believe that good quality content should be networked on the web and I’d be interested in speaking to you about creating a link from it, to our website. I noticed that you have an out going link to jackpotjoy and I wondered if you would consider doing the same for our site http://www.meccabingo.com I believe, and I’m sure you’ll agree that our content would be of great interest to your visitors and would provide a great “next stop” for their web experience. If it would be helpful, we can save you the time and trouble and provide the link code for you. We would also be happy to offer a basic SEO report or SEO optimised page of content as a thank you for the link. If there is anything else I can do or you need to discuss further, please get back to me.

Ok, so why is this a pile of nonsense?

Well, firstly Bingo Blog is just a blog, there isn’t a forum. Yes it’s an excellent idea so at least that’s good and probably the only evidence that they’ve looked at the site in detail. So they want a link to their website… well, guess what? Yes we have a link already! In fact we have several affiliate links pointing to Mecca Bingo! In fact we’ve been promoting Mecca Bingo/Mecca Games for the best part of several years now!

The fact is that quite probably most of the other bingo sites out there already link to Mecca Bingo through their own affiliate links! So, these guys are just doing what any muppet could do in terms of asking for links (i.e no research, no personalised email, no grasp of affiliate marketing etc) - and Mecca are paying for it!

So here’s the point, instead of paying out good money on getting “one of the UK’s leading internet marketing agencies” to ask all your affiliates to link to you, why not just put a bit of time, effort and energy into your affiliate program!? Update the banners, get content and information to your affiliates about what’s happening at Mecca Games and Mecca Bingo, talk to your affiliates (and why not offer a reciprocal link) and provide a competitive offer so that we’ll put your links up higher than other merchants!

Oh, and ask for your money back from your SEO Link Request guys too.

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