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Thursday, August 15, 2013

How You Can Build the Links that Really Matter

As businesses of all sizes utilize digital marketing, building links becomes increasingly important for growth purposes. Back in the day there was no such thing as building links - marketing was mostly geared towards cold calling, direct mail and print advertising. Today, though, links are imperative. So much so that links can hit businesses' bottom line and link acquisition can help build the businesses bottom line, bring in some serious conversions and profits, and maximum results.

The article below talks about ten different types of links that really matter and how you can get them:

Notable advantages of having been featured on other publications/blogs’ content are:
  • It can send qualified traffic, since the link is highly perceptible to readers.
  • Passes higher amount of link value and helps improve domain authority, which in turn can influence the site’s overall search rankings.
  • Brand impression, which also affect or help increase conversions, especially if your brand has been cited by trusted content publishers.
How to get them: 
  • Invest on developing evergreen content assets that are specifically tailored for researchers and customers. This type of content often performs well in search results, especially for competitive  terms, which allows the content to continuously attract more possible linkers to it.
  • Branding through providing exceptional products/services and exemplifying expertise through the brand’s content marketing efforts to build mind share.
  • Build relationships with your readers and with other content publishers in your online space. This can extremely help improve the sharing process of your content and in attracting more linkers to your site.
Courtesy of: InformlyLinks from Ranking WebpagesGetting links from pages that are already ranking on search results for both short and long tail queries matter a lot for so many reasons. But the first reason that really comes into mind is because, in a way, they are already considered as trusted sources by Google.
Why these linking pages matter?:
  • They are able to get constant traffic (through search), which means it will also continuously send traffic to the pages they are linking to.
  • The topical relevance of the content, based on the keywords they are ranking for, adds more value to the link. And thus may help in improving the linked pages’ search ranking.
  • Content relevance will also be a key factor in attracting potential leads to the link’s destination, which means the link can help drive conversions as well.
  • Scalable branding, given that you’re getting continuous brand impressions from the new visitors that the page is constantly generating.
How to get them:Join popular discussions in your online space (popular blog posts, forum threads, discussions on Q&A sites like Quora and/or online communities like News Hacker, Reddit and Inbound.org).
Popular discussions are more apt to be more visible on search results (especially for long-tails), since they contain most of the signals that search engines look for when ranking pages.
Adding value to these discussions and making sure that your contribution will standout will help you entice more of their incoming visitors to check out your site.commentsSeed content on high authority UGC and document sharing sites (like Slideshare, Youtube, Pinterest, etc…). These sites have strong search share, which means your content hosted on these sites have better chances of ranking for your targeted industry terms.
You’ll be able to absorb continual traffic and build brand awareness, as your content on these sites get search-driven traffic.
Guest blog on authority sites in your field. Use some of your targeted keywords when contributing content on other publications in your industry, to get long-term value from your guest posts.
Get links from resources and/links pages that are already ranking for industry terms using the broken link building technique.brokenlinksampleBasically, there are 2 ways to get links from pages that have good search rankings:
  • Add value to already existing pages with high potentials of ranking better (or sustaining its rankings) on search results.
  • Create pages on other authoritative domains with links to your site that will gain its own search rankings.
Links from Authentic ReviewsLinks from positive online reviews are definitely one of the most sought after marketing opportunities by any business that offers products/services.
Why does it matter?
  • Online reviews can send new customers.
  • Authentic reviews from users/consumers help strengthen a business’ brand. It can also help maintain the site’s reputation on its branded search results.
  • They can help improve the site’s overall search rankings, based on the sentiments and volume of positive feedbacks that the site/brand is receiving from other websites/blogs.
reviewsHow to get them:
  • Blogger outreach on a personal level – to actually get experiential reviews. Dan Cristo wrote an excellent post on how to get more reviews of your products 2 years ago, and you might want to check that one out.
  • Create an affiliate program or a referral commission system to attract more bloggers in reviewing your product or services. Offer this as a value proposition when reaching out to bloggers (give higher commission rates to authority bloggers in your industry).
  • Provide great products and services, or be exceptionally great with customer service (think Zappos). This can extremely help you get voluntary online reviews of your products/services. You can also offer freebies (promo codes, discounts, etc…) to customers who own blogs or have strong following on social networks. That might also increase the chances of getting links from them.
Links from Strong Social Brand PagesIntegrating content strategy with social media is a very effective approach in link building. Many people discover great content through social sharing, and that’s why it’s very vital to have strong social brand pages on social platforms where your target audience is.
Why does it matter?
  • Brand pages on social platforms – like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest and many more –allow you to generate traffic every time you promote both new and old content from your site.
  • It’s an efficient channel where you can build relationships with your audience/followers, which can also result to more link opportunities, social shares and traffic.

  • Sends out massive brand signals to both users and search engines – through the amount of followers, activity and interactions.
  • Search engines use these external brand pages as signals to determine authority, which may also add weight to your site’s search rankings.
brand pagesHow to build a strong following base for your social brand pages:
  • Let content drive your social media campaigns, by pushing out useful content on a regular basis and promoting them on social networks.
  • Interact with the people who are sharing your content to get them to follow you.
  • Share other influencers’ works to engage as well as to attract them in seeing your own works. Sharing useful stuff created by other brands/blogs is also a great way to nurture your followers.
  • Make your social sharing buttons very visible on your site’s content to enhance their sharing rate.
  • Promote your social media profiles on your site to encourage your visitors/readers to follow you. You can also cross promote your brand pages using the social networks where you already have built a strong following base.
You can read the rest of the article here
Aside from the tips mentioned in the article above, there are plenty of affordable marketing companies that will work within your budget to create a solid SEO and social media campaign. The great thing about utilizing companies is that they will manage the campaigns in their entirety, so you just sit back and focus on what matters most--growing your business.

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