Eric Ward, an online publicity pioneer in many ways, posted about the qualities of a perfect link builder recently at Search Engine Land. I liked much of what he had to say. One particularly insightful quality he observed deserves more exploration.

Intellectual curiosity. I don’t mean intelligence or a high IQ, I mean intellectual curiosity, which is totally separate from intelligence. I do agree that you can’t be an idiot and be a good link builder, although the spam my inbox seems to indicate plenty of people are trying to refute that assertion.

Besides making me laugh, it made me think. As online publicists or link builders, we consider who might link to us and then lay out a straight path to acquire the desired link. Often we take direction from a client about who they would like to see linking to them. We see who links to our competitor and copy that strategy. These are all OK places to start.

However, the better path is to never stop asking questions. Never be afraid to be wrong. It takes confidence to propose something out of the ordinary. All really great advances in any endeavor require original thinking. The history of any great nation is filled with people who were not afraid to ask “What is on the other side of that mountain?” More importantly, these people found a new path to get to the other side.

I find myself getting tangled briers of minutia; PageRank, nofollow, deep linking, reciprocate or not, etc. All of these things can lead to a list of criteria or formulas for what makes a “good link”. How better off would I be if I just kept asking more questions about the business or website I am trying to promote? Who are you trying to reach? Why? What motivates your clients? Why are you different than the competition? Why should a stranger trust you?

Be a publicity pioneer! Blaze your own trail by asking more questions.