SEO With Widgets @ WordPress.org
Why don't you subscribe to my blog while you're here? I'm a freelance web developer and I blog about Ruby, Rails, and business online.
Go ahead and subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
As you’re probably already aware, back links are the life blood of SEO. Besides three way reciprocal linking, blog commenting, directories, social networking, guest book spamming, and so forth - there are other avenues to getting back links that you may not have considered.
WordPress.org provide a directory of Wordpress plugins that facilitates the publication of user created plugins. The great thing about this directory is that the links are not no-follow, and you can even control your anchor text. Beautiful!
For example, my Social Buttons plugin that allows you to easily embed social voting buttons in your blog posts is located at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/social-buttons.
Now, check out the page rank of the main directory!
That’s some nice link juice flowing our way!
OK, so let’s say some day WordPress no-follow the links.. what then? All is not lost! If your plugin is actually any good, people may actually use it, and then they may follow through to your web page. I was very suprised to learn that people are actually using my Social Buttons plugin, despite there being a zillion similar plugins already out there! Here’s my download stats for the plugin since the release:
and here’s my stats of people treking through from the directory to my site:
Sweet!
If you’re really savvy then you can also embed your URL in your widget. This will allow you to get a back link from everyone that installs your widget on their site! I don’t recommend you do this out of context though. Google bans have been given in similar circumstances.
The process to get your plugin added to the directory is pretty straight forward:
- Write a plugin
- Request to submit the plugin to the directory
- Upload the plugin
- Revel in Internet glory
Need an idea for a plugin? No worries. The plugin directory provides a list of popular tags and popular plugins.
Don’t know how to write a plugin? Don’t worry, I can write it for you! I’m a freelance web developer and would be happy to write your plugin and discuss your widget marketing options (WordPress, or otherwise). Get in touch with me through my contact form.
Did you like this article? You may like to consider subscribing to my blog. On occassions when the planets are aligned I can provide some good advice and opportunities.
