Ten Creative Link-Building Techniques

Got Links?

The recent Google updates have caused SEO to evolve into more of a collaborative inbound marketing effort. We all know the drill “Content is King”, however we mustn’t forget that link-building is still a critical part of improving a website’s search engine results. So you need a link-building strategy that combines both useful content and effectively reaching out for links

Links are essentially seen as votes by Google as they represent how popular the page is within the internet community. The more high-quality links or “votes” a website receives then the higher Google regards them in terms of trustworthiness and authority-as low-quality spammy sites rarely receive good quality links.

Yes great content means people will naturally link to you, but you should not give up on actively seeking and building high-quality links from trustworthy sites. There are the typical link-building activities such as article-writing, guest blogging, file-sharing sites, directories and social bookmarking. But how long will it be until Google catches onto all of these sites?  Alot of them have been devalued already.

So here are some more effective link-building tactics to help you improve your search engine results:

1. Create lists. People love lists. Tell them exactly what to do or not to do to help them with industry-specific issues. Hence this list 😉
2. Conduct original studies and surveys: If you experiment in your field of interest and can further develop current findings then publish it on your website blog and promote it.
3. Create something then give it away for free on your site; WordPress theme, plug-ins, software-anything that will make people’s lives easier-others will recommend it and you will gain links.
4. Ego-bait industry leaders by using their names in your blog posts. They will probably be tracking there name using Google Alerts and could attract their interest.
5. Create an infographic: we all prefer visual data so an infographic on useful or funny information could gain you a lot of links from authoritative sites.
6. Be controversial: Choose a topical issue and post a blog giving a controversial point-of-view. Although be wise with this approach-think more opinionative rather than insulting to protect your brand.
7. Interview others in your industry: try to interview an industry leader on your website blog. The interviewee will link it from their site displaying your site to their followers and building links.
8. Build internal links within your blog: this will encourage users to click on relevant blogs of interest which they may link back to.
9. Create blog posts on the latest news: Google likes fresh content and people will be searching and linking to ‘breaking news’ posts.
10. Speak at local universities or colleges and ask for a link from their site for the event. This will be worth the effort as .edu sites have a high authority and trustworthy rank factor.

Finally, promote your content throughout social channels. Google also places an emphasis on social signals as votes from internet users. The more social signals the higher your search engine ranking. These are just a few creative link-building tips, for an extensive look at link-building have a look at Paddy Moogan's top tips.