SEO starts with building links. While there are numerous ways to build links, you would need to come with creative ways to build links so that you can outperform your competition. In this article we take a look at some of the less known ways to build links.
1. Develop a Tool
One of the easiest ways to create appealing content is by creating tool. In every niche, there are at least a few interesting concepts, problems, or queries that can be solved through a tool. As an example take a look at tools built by SEOMoz. There are certain guidelines you should keep in mind while building a good tool:
- Design a good interface
- Make the tool as accurate as possible
- Design badges or widgets that users can use to post output from the tool on their own website. This is an essential step to ensure that you get maximum bang for the buck
- Learn from a tool already successful in your niche
2. Quizzes
Matt Inman of TheOatmeal.com has perfected a recipe for designing quizzes for building links. Take a look at his quiz section. These are some of the most successful quizzes in the SEO world. Matt has previously worked with SEOMoz and understands the importance of interesting content to attract link pretty well. Here are some points to learn:
- Make it funny and interesting.
- Invoke emotion.
- Challenge people. Most people are fascinated by themselves.
- “What kind of (blank) are you?” are famous types of quizzes that are widely shared on internet.
- Keep it short
- Don’t forget badges that will help you earn links
3. Survey
People love showing off their expertise. This is the basis for this link building technique. Create an interesting survey that tries to answer some important questions related to your industry. If possible conduct a survey of experts. The surveys can attract two types of links – Links from those surveyed and link from those that link to survey results. Important points to keep in mind:
- Keep survey short. This is likely to increase your response rate.
- Split survey into actual survey and its results. Again this is likely to attract more links.
- Use plenty of graphs and other visual elements while presenting the results.
4. Broken Links
If you are competing with another website for ranking you can steal their links leading to missing content. To do this, follow these simple steps:
- Use your favourite link analysis tool and find out links that are pointing to missing pages on competitor’s website.
- Create content similar to one on your competitor’s missing pages. Use imagination and Google searches to do this.
- Contact the webmaster of the linking website and point out that the competitor’s page is missing.
- Ask them to instead link to you content and give a link to your content.
5. Missing Content on Authority Website
This is an extension of previous strategy. Here focus is on getting the link to your website directly from authority website. You need to analyze the authority website to understand which pages are returning 404 page not found error on competitor’s website. Create that content and ask the webmaster to link to you content.
6. Donating the NGO
Find out an NGO that has a website and accepts the donations. Now reach out to that NGO and offer to make a donation. Most NGOs will pro-actively post a link to your website. Otherwise just ask them to put a link and offer them help if they don’t know how to do it.
7. Ask Your Customers or Readers
This trick can be super powerful for an eCommerce company. When you ship a product to the customer, ask them to link to your website if the customer already has a blog. Most will be happy to share your link if they are satisfied with the service. Otherwise they will voice their concerns about quality of service.
Important point to remember in such cases is to include the exact snippet of the HTML in the email. This makes it easy for the customer to put it on the website.
Do you know any linkbuilding techniques that are effective but not yet popular? Share them below.