I like coming up with novel approaches to link building. One way to brainstorm an approach is to reverse a common method. I created a couple of approaches to link building, several are passive and two others are a little more active but have very little to do with email outreach. I wrote about these tips back around 2013, but I’ve polished them up and updated them for today.
Passive Link Building
Someone asked that I put together some tips for those who are too lazy to do link building. So here it goes!
Guilt Trip Copyright Infringers
Check who’s stealing your content. Be hard on scrapers. But if it’s an otherwise legit site, you might want to hold off asking them to take down your content. Check if they’re linking to a competitor or similar sites, like from a links page.
You can ask them nicely to take down the content and after they email you back to confirm the link is down, email them back to thank them. But then say something like, “I see you are linking to Site-X.com. If my content was good enough to show on your site, then I would be grateful and much obliged if you considered it good enough to list from your links page.”
I heard a keynote speaker at an SEO conference once encouraging people to come down hard on people who steal your content. I strongly disagree with that approach. Some people who steal your content sometimes are under the impression that if it’s on the Internet then it’s free and they can use it on their own site. Some think it’s free to use as long as they link back to your site.
If they are linking to your site, tell them that you prefer they don’t infringe on your copyright but that you would be happy to write them a different article they can use as long as they link back to your site. You can be nice to people and still get a link.
Reverse Guest Posting
Instead of publishing articles on someone else’s site, solicit people to publish on your site. Many people tweet, promote, and link from their sites to sites that they are interviewed on. An interesting thing about doing this is that interviewing people who have a certain amount of celebrity helps to bring more people to your site, especially if people are searching for that person.
Relationship Building
Authors of books are great for this kind of outreach. People are interested in what authors and experts say. Sometimes you can find the most popular authors and influencers at industry conferences. I’ve met some really famous and influential people at conferences and got their email address and scored interviews by just going up and talking to these people.
This is called relationship building. SEOs and digital marketers are so overly focused on sending out emails and doing everything online that they forget that people actually get together in person at industry events, meetups, and other kinds of social events.
Giveaways
This is an oldie and I get it that many SEOs have talked about this. But this is something that I used successfully from way back around 2005. I did an annual giveway to my readers and website members.
The way I did it was to contact some manufacturers of products that are popular with my readers and ask for a discount if I buy in bulk and tell them I’ll be promoting their products to my subscribers, readers, and members. I’ve been responsible for making several companies popular by bringing attention to their products, elevating them from a regional business to a nationwide business.
Leverage Niche Audience For Links
The way to do this is to identify an underserved subtopic of your niche, then create a useful section that addresses a need for that niche. The idea is to create a compelling reason to link to the site.
Here is an example of how to do this for a travel destination site.
Research gluten free, dairy free, nut-free, raw food dining destinations. Then make a point to visit, interview, and build a resource for those.
Conduct interviews with lodging and restaurant owners that offer gluten free options. You’ll be surprised by how many restaurants and lodgings might decide on their own to link to your site or maybe just hint at it.
Summary
Outreach to sites about a niche topic, not just to businesses but also to organizations and associations related to that niche that have links and resources pages. Just tell them about the site, quickly explain what it offers and ask for a link. This method is flexible and can be adapted to a wide range of niche topics. And if they have an email or publish articles, suggest contributing to those but don’t ask for a link, just ask for a mention.
Don’t underestimate the power of building positive awareness of your site. Focus on creating positive feelings for your site (goodwill) and generating positive word of mouth, otherwise known as external signals of quality. The rankings will generally follow.
Featured Image by Shutterstock/pathdoc
