Are you a Nerd?

Finding out if you’re a nerd is more than just a simple test; it’s a lesson in using viral marketing and social networks to improve in-bound links to your website and build strong Page Rank (PR). I took the test and received my official results today. Not as nerdy as my brother, but nerdier than 59% of all people…

I was more interested in taking the test so I could proudly display the badge on my website than finding out how nerdy I was. And this is a great example of how you can generate some one-way inbound links to your site. NerdTests.com has a Google Page Rank of 6/10. That’s pretty good, seeing as I rarely see a Page Rank higher than 7 unless the website is a major player. So this could be a strategy you might want to employ to improve your PR…

How does it work? Well, following this example, you create (or have a web designer create) some kind of online test or quiz. At the end of the test or quiz, you offer the results, along with a box of code that can easily be copied and pasted into a blog post like this one. In this case, the code is:

<a href=”http://www.nerdtests.com/nq_ref.html”>
<img src=”http://www.nerdtests.com/images/badge/dfe39791e486fc55.gif” alt=”I am nerdier than 59% of all people. Are you a nerd? Click here to find out!” align=”left” hspace=”20″ /></a>

So the code pulls a badge image off their site, allowing me to proudly display my results, and generating a very nice link from my site to theirs. And I’m anxious to do it. What a great marketing strategy for them.

Of course, this strategy works well for them because nerds are generally going to be the ones that know how to implement the code that the NerdTests.com site provides them with. They’re also probably the highest percentage of people doing the blogging on the Internet. It’s perfect for the nerd community, and something viral like this little badge could really generate a lot of traffic to their site, and give them some link love to improve their PR, and thus their search engine ranking.

In addition, every person that goes to the site that in turn links back to the site creates a snow ball effect. Just imagine as more people see the website, more people take the test, and more people link to the website; in turn generating more and more people continuing the cycle. Once it reaches a critical mass, that site is going to have a steady stream of traffic to their site, simple from the shear numbers of people who have participated (as I have) in their simple test.

I can think of some interesting ways to duplicate this for a couple clients I’m working with. Can you think of a way to implement this type of link building campaign to increase the Page Rank and drive some traffic to your website? I’d love to hear about it.