Inbound Links... They can be something of a mythical animal, and, much like Bigfoot, Nessy, Chupacabra, or whatever else you might want to call them, you can spend months chasing what look like the right link building strategies, only to find you’ve been chasing ghosts all along.
And yet, quality inbound links remain the biggest gun in the SEO arsenal.
So how do you get them?
How can you get other websites to link to yours without having to resort to begging other webmasters to please, please link to you, or having to spend a fortune buying links which may or may not be of any actual benefit to your site?
Below, we detail 2 excellent, and less common, Link Building Strategies
1. Write Articles Yes, I know what you’re thinking: “But everybody writes those. What’s so uncommon about that?”
While everybody might write articles, and post them every-which-where on the Internet, it’s what you do with your article after you’ve written it that actually makes the difference. And before I launch into the mechanics of this particular approach, I have to tell you that this strategy won’t work with any old article. You need to know what you’re talking about for this to work; you need to be an authority in your field.
Here’s what you do:
First, build an in-depth tips category for your website. For instance, if your site sells tomato seeds, make a section about new and unusual ways to grow them. Go into depth, and make it a great resource, full of hints and tips.
Once that’s done, write a teaser article (600 to 800 words should do it) about your Growing Tomatoes Section, telling people that you have the best, and some of the most unusual, ways to grow tomatoes, and that your website is loaded with helpful information. In your article, give readers a couple of decent tips, just to get them in the mood, and then provide a link back straight to your tomato resource.
When the piece is finished, resist the temptation to submit it to the first article directory you come across. Instead, find an established online gardening newsletter or ezine, and submit it to them instead. Publications like these are always looking for fresh content, and if your article meets the quality standards you should have no problem getting it published.
This approach has a couple of very distinct advantages over article directory-based link building strategies.
It gets your article out to pre-qualified audience, readers who already have an interest in gardening. And that means visitors, and potential customers...
Not only does it get you a single, high-quality inbound link from the newsletter’s archives, there’s also a great likelihood of its readers wanting to share your information via their own websites and blogs. And that means incoming links...
2. Debunk some Myths
People lap this up almost as much as celebrity gossip. And no matter which online market sector you happen to find yourself in, there are usually plenty of myths for you to tackle.
In fact, a local hairdresser is using exactly this approach to great effect in his Myth of the Week section, where he tackles such exciting topics as “More shampoo does not equal cleaner hair.” and “Hair does not clean itself after a while.”
Riveting subjects, I know, but the simple fact is that it does keep his clientele coming back to his website for fresh factoids. It also gets the ladies talking about him in places like Facebook, various local forums, and more than a couple of personal blogs. What’s more, over time he’s built a nice little information resource about the most common hair-care and hairdressing myths in circulation. So now what he’s doing is writing one article per month (articles again, you see?), and putting it in circulation solely via EzineArticles.com.
The result is that, although he’s still a small, local operator, his link building strategies have actually increased his online exposure, and thus his catchment area, as customers now seem to be willing to visit him from a little further afield simply due to his perceived expertise.
By the Sweat of your Brow...
You’ll notice that both these approaches require a little work, as well as time, which is exactly what many webmasters seem to be unwilling to put into their link building strategies. Then again, those same webmasters can’t normally boast about having any resources actually worth linking to, which is why they have to resort to comment spam, or some other nefariously irritating tactic in an effort to get others to link to them somehow.
But for you, the webmaster who actually takes the time to put together a worthwhile online resource about something, all the hard work is more than compensated for by the promotional, and search engine benefits you stand to reap in return for simply putting the required thought and effort into the task of promoting yourself online.
Maybe garnering incoming links is easier than catching Bigfoot after all...
