Technical issues flavored the beginning of this session at SMX Advanced in Seattle. However, "oopsies" notwithstanding, Blow Your Mind Linkbuilding Tactics was informative with plenty of advice for gaining the authoritative inbound links web sites need to rank well in the search engines.
The session was packed with link builders looking for new and cutting edge linking information. While we listened, Greg Boser, Roger Montti, Jay Young, Stephan Spencer and Todd Friesen did their best to share with the audience how to get the best links. Their tips included:
- Gain .edu links – The need for .edu inbound links is not a new idea, but we heard a couple new ways to gain these .edu links for your website. One of them was finding the heavy hitters in a certain industry and reaching out to those .edu sites linking to them. The idea here is that if this .edu site is linking to a competitor or an industry-relevant site, they are possibly open to linking to the other players in this market.
- Directories – Every link building campaign should start with directory submissions. And while there are many, many, many directories out there that are crap, there are quite a few that are still reputable and still send great link juice to the website. Most of those are paid directories, such as the Yahoo! directory or Best of the Web directory, but the links you get from them are fantastic.
- Research the high PageRank links – The value of PageRank as a way to qualify link sources is under speculation, but it can be a useful guide, which can mean a link means more coming from a PR9 page than a PR2 page. Spend time and find those relevant pages with high PR so what you have to do to get on those pages.
- Charities and Non-Profit sponsorships – Become a sponsor of a charity or organization that means something to you or your company and donate to them. The donation is tax deductible and you could get a permanent link to your site from the charity itself.
- Blogger Relations – Do you have a blog? Create relationships with other bloggers in your industry. Engage in their conversations on social networks, comment on a couple relevant blog posts, even READ their blog to find out their writing style. Then offer them something of interest to them and see if you can’t get a link out of it.
- Link Bait – If you’ve got a genius idea, implement it and earn those links. Create a tool, game, video, set of tips, etc. and promote it. Interested parties will see it and you can earn those links from those relevant sites. These earned links are invaluable.
Ongoing link building takes a lot of time and dedication, but the benefits can send both traffic and provide a competitive advantage for increased search engine rankings.
