SEO Link Building Strategies 101

Plan your link building strategy, and you will probably be a step ahead of your competition. Link building can be a time-consuming effort that takes time to show results. However, carefully building your links can attract your target customer to your site. Below, I’m sharing link building tips to help you get noticed by both search engines and people. 

 

Write Compelling Web Content

In a recent Women Grow Business chat about search engine optimization (SEO), someone asked me for my number one tip about SEO. 

One chat participant chimed in, and I agreed, that writing compelling and relevant content proves extremely important. An organization can work just as hard to get 100 or 1,000 backlinks, so make sure the people visiting your site get their problem solved.

Good websites solve problems. What is the problem your content can solve? Do your potential visitors need to organize their house or get health questions answered? People won’t stay on a website or convert if the content isn’t answering their questions.

Your well-written, keyword-targeted content can help people and move your website higher in Google rankings.

Use a Tool to Help

The BatchBlue tool allows me to track my communications with bloggers and website owners.

Instead of searching through my old emails, I can view all relevant communications inside the web-based BatchBlue software. This saves me hours of time when I want to track responses and what was said.

When a blog stops publishing or contact information changes, I have a place to track those changes so I don’t waste time using old information next time. In addition, I can outsource certain tasks to others, saving myself even more time.

Ask and You Shall Receive

In a past life, I was a business and life coach.

What I noticed most in conversation with my clients was that they did not ask others for what they wanted.

One client wanted to take a class and lived in resentment about “not having time.” When she did finally ask her husband to watch their son—the spouse immediately said yes—she was able to take a class.

Have you asked that powerful website owner you admire for a link back to your site yet? If they say no, then volunteer to write a post for them (and ask if you can include a link to your site in your blog). If they still say no, then ask other people.

What is the best way to ask? Ideally, you know a little about your market. You’ve done your research about whether the site owner prefers email, Twitter, or another communication method.

You could even—gasp!—use the telephone to request a link. If you call and ask politely, you will certainly stand out from the all the other website managers sending emails.

PR + SEO = SEOPR

During the Women Grow Business chat mentioned above, chat host Shonali Burke asked me how PR and SEO could work together.

In the old days, I optimized press releases. Ideally, these press releases would appear online and the links from the press release service’s website would increase a website’s search engine rankings.

Sometimes press releases were written expressly for the purpose of getting the links, which is not a good idea.

When writing your own release, think of your organization’s story. A pitch you write for your local business journal will be far different from a release you write for your regional newspaper. Don’t overlook local news sources or stop yourself from aiming high.

If a news organization picks up your story, you may receive a coveted link from a high-quality news site. Among search engines, these highly regarded websites help your site’s credibility.

Take it Offline

I learned this from following the #pubcon hashtag on Twitter. I am not sure whose idea this was. However, I think Lee Odden tweeted it during a presentation. Find 50 Tweeps (people on Twitter) who blog and live in your local area. Organize an event around your business and invite them all. These folks will often live tweet or blog about your event later. This, as you can imagine, is an excellent want to get legal links back to your website.


 Courtesy: deborah AGER