When I get to the part of my SEO strategy that calls for adding links to high quality sites to an owners pages I almost always get, “I don’t want to link to a competitor.”

I also almost always throw up a little in my mouth.

First, not everyone in your market is a direct competitor. If you sell Mercedes and someone you want to link to sells Kias, sure you both sell cars, but are you seriously worried about some guy getting swayed from the new S-Class to the new Amanti.

Why do people think that their visitors forget how to use the Internet outside of their site? Potential customers and clients are going to visit your competition regardless. If you want to know how to make them choose your site for their transaction you need create the best content in your market, and read Rebecca’s post on landing page design over at SEOmoz.

Once you can get yourself, your boss, or client over the ridiculous fear of losing a customer via quality outbound links it becomes time to figure out how to choose these links, why to use them, and how to utilize them on the site.

Continue reading →