Loading...Link building can be tiring and time consuming. If you are anything other than a large brand with the capital, time and existing web presence to create a behemoth of inbound links, you have little option but to perform these difficult and time intensive tasks for yourself. So how do you go about strategising effectively for your time and limited budget?
1: Look at Your Link Branding
If you use your home page as the focus for most of the inbound links you generate, then make sure that home page accurately describes your brand. Keep it lively, and intriguing. The more visitors who get excited by your home page, when they get there, the more solid actions your link building campaign will finally result in.
Try using your brand name as the anchor text for the links that you generate in your off home page content. Guest blogs, interviews and comments can all benefit from branded links by making people search for your brand by name, and naturally mention you by brand name in their own social stream engagements.
2: Pump Up Your Keywords
Powerful keywords make a big impression. A powerful keyword is designed to draw massive traffic from a very specific pool of potential visitors – something extremely bespoke, referring to a very niche area of your market The more niche the better – and the more targeted the content on the landing page you are optimist for this powerful keyword, the more effective the end result will be. Make sure the landing page is well designed, intriguing again and has a clear call to action and your power keyword will have done its job well.
Incoming links will attach naturally to a powerful page if it is created with link baiting content at its core. Surround the keyword you have optimised for with content that creates a strong impression and is obviously useful to your target audience.
3: Start Using the Right Tools
StumbleUpon is one of the web’s most fruitful tools for small companies trying to hold their own against the giants. This is because most content on the web is a basic rewrite of existing content. Google the title of this blog post and you will see exactly what I mean. Unless you are a huge company with an established presence in the blogosphere, even the guest blog market is drying up for successful link baiting because too many blogs are about pretty much the same thing.
StumbleUpon will help you to find little written about topics in your area, and scrape the content accordingly. Or you could go crazy and actually write a few blogs yourself for real, ones that really encompass something that you have long thought interesting about your industry. You are in an ideal position to become an authority on your market sector, after all – in fact you already should be!
4: Become a Source of News
This means you have to follow news sites and keep up to date with what is happening in your industry. And that means time set aside to stay on top of things – but it is time well spent and time that will repay you in spades. Because not many small businesses do have the time or the discipline to make the time to become news authorities, there is a viable gap in the link baiting market here for you. Choose your news items carefully and use your expertise to make them your own.
As ever you are trying to create content that the user finds useful and wants to read – so much so that he or she will link to it, and repeatedly come back to check for updates. Meaning: update frequently or drop the ball.
Smaller brands have to strategise their web presence at every step of the way – or risk losing out to the big bullies. Keep on top of your game plan and watch for holes you can slip through.