The 3 Best Link Building Books

There is not yet a defin­i­tive book on link build­ing. There is a nice ebook by Gar­rett French and Eric Ward is set to pub­lish one in the near future, which you can bet will be good.

This does not mean there aren’t books out there, how­ever, that will indi­rectly help with your under­stand­ing and encour­age you to become a bet­ter link builder.

Here are  three books that I’ve per­son­ally found use­ful that aren’t strictly about link build­ing. I’d wel­come any other sug­ges­tions peo­ple want to make 

Cold Call­ing for Chick­ens
by Bob Etherington

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If I could only rec­om­mend one book for link builders who are new to the indus­try it would be this one by sales expert Bob Etherington.

Although cold call­ing is tra­di­tion­ally per­ceived to be almost exclu­sively the domain of out-and-out sales roles, the prin­ci­ples are directly related and apply per­fectly to link building.visit http://www.eatsleepsearch.com/finding-link-building-opportunities-with-competitive-link-research/ to read more about link building opportunities.

What Ether­ing­ton stresses in this book is that it is not just about that moment you pick up the phone and dial a num­ber, but more about being able to effec­tively and reg­u­larly make cold con­tact with peo­ple is a lifestyle and atti­tude choice.

It is about being able to cre­ate effec­tive habits and under­stand­ing how peo­ple make buy­ing (or ‘link­ing’) decisions.

Sell­ing is not telling

Per­haps the key point the book stressed and the best take-away for link builders is that sell­ing is not telling. You can rarely per­suade peo­ple to buy from you; peo­ple per­suade themselves.

Just think about what under­stand­ing this can do for your link build­ing. Mak­ing that first cold con­tact is the first step to the estab­lished order of flow in which you need to influ­ence their thinking.

No one is say­ing you have to like cold call­ing. What you have to under­stand though, is that 85% of the busi­ness out there is won by the 5% of the sales peo­ple able to make cold calls.

I would wager that there are sim­i­lar per­cent­ages for the best links that are won.

Trust Agents
by Chris Bro­gan and Julien Smith

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I really was torn between includ­ing this or Seth Godin’s Per­mis­sion Mar­ket­ing. Both tackle the same idea, how­ever, Bro­gan and Smith’s book edged it onto this list because it is a bit more online centric.

Its cen­tral theme is about max­imis­ing human con­nec­tiv­ity and inter­ac­tion online. You need to be able to under­stand the inter­net as a tool and be able to think strate­gi­cally about build­ing your own pres­ence online.

Whilst a lot of the con­cepts intro­duced in the book will not nesses­sar­ily be ground break­ing to most online mar­keters who already ‘get it’, what it does do is per­fectly artic­u­late the econ­omy of build­ing trust online, which comes as a use­ful rein­force­ment even to peo­ple with vast experience.

This is an espe­cially good start­ing point for peo­ple com­pletely new to online mar­ket­ing and the book that, in an ideal world, all clients would read.

One thing that struck me from both this book and Godin’s Per­mis­sion Mar­ket­ing is that for a busi­ness to really thrive online, it requires a fun­da­men­tal shift in its culture.

If its tra­di­tional ways of oper­at­ing stay the same, throw­ing money at mar­ket­ing agen­cies becomes like try­ing to cram a square peg into a round hole.

Bounce: How Cham­pi­ons are Made
by Matthew Syed

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My last choice is moti­vated by the fact I think it’s impor­tant to under­stand that peo­ple aren’t born nat­u­rally good at link build­ing, mar­ket­ing, or any other dis­ci­pline for that matter.

They may have been exposed to sit­u­a­tions that have cul­ti­vated the basic skills needed to excel quickly in the pro­fes­sion, but it is not a god given talent.

That’s why I have included Matthew Syed’s Bounce on this list. Sim­i­lar to Mal­colm Gladwell’s Out­liers in its theme, it looks at why and how peo­ple excel in cer­tain sub­jects and sports.

Ulti­mately, it dis­pels the myth that peo­ple are born tal­ented and reit­er­ates how impor­tant pos­i­tive prac­tice is.

I guess this is impor­tant to grasp because even if your work isn’t at the place you want it to be today, you can have faith that through cul­ti­vat­ing the right habits, you can get it there tomorrow.

That’s it then. As I say, I would love to hear other people’s sug­ges­tions. Other notable men­tions that nearly made their way onto my list were:

Sell­ing to Win by Richard Denney

Influ­ence: The Psy­chol­ogy of Per­sua­sion by Robert Cialadi

The Inner Game of Golf by Tim­o­thy Gallwey

If you are look­ing for other SEO-related books to sink your teeth into, check out Paul Rogers’ rec­om­mended dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing and user expe­ri­ence books.