September 25, 2014
The Missing Link: Part Two
The second part of Midphase’s guide to upping your SEO through link-building…
Yesterday we started discussing the topic of increasing SEO through link building. This has been a grey area of SEO since Google started updating its algorithms back in 2012. Here’s a list of dos and some tips on definite do-nots…
- Create something interesting – if you excite or interest your audience your content and the links back to it will be shared – which means you’ll build links organically. Infographics are great for this – KISSmetrics produced 47 great infographics, which delivered more than 2.5 million visitors and 41,000 backlinks. More than their blog posts.
- Think about your industry segment and location – there are many business support websites out there that would probably link to you if you asked. So if you run a holiday cottage letting business get in touch with your local tourist office and make sure you are well represented.
- Are there online communities that your customers are likely to visit? – If there are, tap into them. For example, if you sell canoes seek out busy forums in those communities and reach out to the webmaster or owner and see what you could do. Get active in that community, but don’t be pushy or over focused on sales as they will almost always push you right back out of the door.
- Brand mentions – If your company is an established one you can get looking for brand mentions. If these mentions don’t link to you then you can contact them directly and ask.
- Sign up to HARO (help a reporter out) in your area of expertise – the content produced could well have a great link back to you as a contributor.
- Contests can work well for link building. Make the prize attractive enough and the competition mechanic focused on your niche and the user generated content will work well.
- Network with your audience – get out to trade shows, clubs, coffee mornings, conferences. But be ready – network, talk, have some memorable things ready to say. Show an interest and maybe blog about the day, reach out to the people you met and you will soon see they will do the same thing. This might not be a customer audience – it could be employees, trade suppliers and even trader competitors.
- Learn how to use Google search like a ninja to find your link opportunities. So, if you offer a dog-friendly hotel in the Lake District, try to think like your customers and make the same searches they do. You will see that the results have a lot of your competition in them, but they’ll also contain non commercial items. Google likes a search page to be mixed and you rarely see one that is all commercial. So then think of ways to get your site on these websites. Is it a youtube video? Make a better one and promote it. Is it a local directory? Get yourself a mention on it. Try out some hidden Google search tools like “inurl:links” which will only return pages with “links” in the URL. Add this to a search like this “Dog friendly hotels in the lake district inurl:links” and hey presto – pages full of sites that provide relevant links for your niche.
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September 25, 2014