When most online marketers begin to think about generating incoming links to their site as part of their online marketing campaign, it is normally because someone else in the business has told them that it is a good idea. Rarely is it because they actually know anything about link building or how to get results from a link building strategy.
This is why so many online marketers fail terribly when it comes to link building. They know that they need to get links and they know that they can try posting comments on other websites with links back to their site, create winning content or make direct connections as guest bloggers for other websites in the industry.
However, they do not really consider how to develop a winning link building strategy. They merely consider how they can “get some links” as quickly as possible. This is the big mistake made by most online marketers.
If you want to get links, you need to formulate a winning link building strategy and the easiest way of doing that is by considering the following basic elements…
What?
What is the purpose behind your link building strategy? What are your company goals? Do you want to create links so that you can generate more traffic or are you looking to improve the branding / online reputation of your business? Unless you know why you want to generate links, you cannot even begin to decide where you would like to get your links from, for example.
Who?
Once you know what you want, you then need to decide who will be in charge of your link building project. Most marketers fail at link building because they think it can be done in their “spare time.” They try fitting it into other daily work routines and this places their strategy on an instant road to disappointment.
On the other side of the coin… who is your target audience? Do you want other professionals in your industry to start taking note of your website or do you want to generate more sales and interest more clients in your products or services? The two are very different and your link building strategy will be affected depending on which route you choose to follow.
How?
How will you reach your goals and how are you going to monitor your achievements? Do you plan on sending out winning content to other websites so that they post your writing in exchange for a link?
Do you think that a heavier emphasis on sharing your content via social media channels is the key to success? Whatever you decide, your link building strategy deserves the time and consideration needed in order to reach some sort of decision in this area.
Why?
Have you ever really considered why you want to pursue a link building strategy? Are you doing it because everyone else is doing it or are you doing it because it will truly benefit your company and help it to grow to even loftier heights?
Have you considered the benefits of link building for your users and clients? If you haven’t, you must. Internet users and business clients must be at the center of all your online marketing plans. If you haven’t considered what the benefits of link building are for these two groups, then you shouldn’t be pursuing a strategy of any kind in link building.
When?
Do you know when your next holiday will be? Do you know how long you need to leave the meat defrosting before you can begin to cook? Do you know at what time you need to leave your house in order to get to work on time? If you can plan all of these things, you can plan your link building strategy too.
Put a time limit on your efforts. Develop a sense of urgency when it comes to link building like you do with everything else. Otherwise, your link building efforts will get pushed aside and the results will be less than satisfactory.
Where?
On a final note, consider how your link building strategy fits in with the rest of your online marketing campaign. Where will your link building strategy lie in the overall scheme of your online advertising ideas? How does it support other online marketing strategies you have in place and which members of the online marketing team will be particularly involved in the developments of the link building strategy?
Lots to think about, so get going!
20 comments
Getting yourself out there is very important these days… People will do anything to just get the traffic to there page. Views and shares equal profits. It might not be the right crowd but that doesn’t mean anything to the tech staff.
True. But this also depends on the SEO company they hired. Majority of SEO companies definitely JUST create backlinks — nothing more.
Hi Tracey,
I actually agree with what Vincent said, there are many SEO companies that only aim to create backlinks, and that’s all there is to it.
A though-less link building strategy won’t help your SEO efforts. Link Building needs to have a mix of different relevant sites to maximize impact
If you have not quality back links for your site/blog then it means you are wasting your valuable time and back links are very important part of SEO strategy.
Link-building is good in business but you need to hire a good SEO.By using appropriate link-building techniques,you can have a successful online business.
Hi David,
Great post – I tend to agree, as you should take these points of interest (tips) and apply them when you link (internally and externally – as internal links also influences your overall linking structure and signals to the search engines). Overall the quality of the (inbound) links is one of the more important aspects of building links…
What majority of the companies do is they create loads of backlinks and nothing else to be quite honest!
Link building shouldn’t be done just for SEO purposes. The best places to build links are from sites that target audience members actually visit. Even better than a backlink is a backlink that generates traffic to your site and improves conversions.
Many years ago, submitting articles on article directory sites such as Ezine and Squidoo along with press release articles was enough to rank your site. These days though it is a lot tougher as many are seeking riches from online marketing and sadly only a few gets lucky. Those who do however happen to be very good with their link building strategy and have even made fortunes selling the strategies and techniques on how they do it.
Oh, I am one of those beginners who thought link building is just to build links and get traffic! No wonder I have no success at all!
Now, I am aware that there is so much to link building! There is so much thinking, research and hard work involved! Good tips, Tracey!
ZK, I liked this statement from you.”Link Building needs to have a mix of different relevant sites to maximize impact”.
If link building is all about gaining handy and the most quality links for the site then it needs to have a mixture of different relevant site (Different domains).
Link Building is very important part of SEO and most powerful way of increasing traffic and getting high PR. And its also very important to hire good SEO for link building.
In SEO the link building(Reciprocal) is the more powerful than the remaining methods and also it is the Heart of SEO.
Without link building the websites don’t get traffic…
I think so..
For back linking we have to choose high PR websites which really help you to increase page rank of your websites. Quality comments and the quality contents on website is one of the most important thing in SEO.Now a days search engine are very strict about contents.
This is perfect explanation how the good back linking strategy works.
thanks for sharing such a informative article.
Good link building techniques need to be strictly followed, without which you may get some negative effects.
What a good article on link building. Thanks for the tips and discussion, I certainly have learned a lot today!
Great post.Got lot of information thanks for sharing.I always take care of getting links to site that is why i use Tube Jeet http://teknikforce.com/tubejeet to find my competitors techniques.
One of the most important aspects of search engine optimisation is link building. The reason for this is because the more incoming links you have going to your website, the more trusted it is which scores points with search engines such as Google.
Webmasters adopt various link building strategies with the intention of increasing a Web page’s link popularity. Link Building is an active program that increases the number and quality of the incoming links that are pointing to your website in order to increase the site’s placement in the search engine rankings for specific keywords.