If I have learned nothing else about link building in the years that I’ve been focusing on it, I’ve learned this: There is no end to the creativity that can go into a link building strategy.
Without a doubt, link building can be explosive when it comes to the creative and brainstorming approach of the strategy portion. And yes, you need a strategy. You cannot, I repeat, you cannot have a successful link building campaign with measurable results without a strategy. Sure, you can get lucky. But your competition is probably cooking up a strategy that will top you in no time. It’s a fact of the online world.
So where do you start? In my experience, there are five basic approaches to crafting a link building strategy.
The Competition Approach
It makes sense to start with your competition. What are they doing? Who are they targeting? Are they even doing a link building campaign? How do you know? Tip: Look at their links. Are they in directories? Are their links full of keyword-rich anchor text? Where are their links coming from? Are they buying links. Using tools like SEO SpyGlass (one of my personal favorites) or other backlink analysis tools will give you a comprehensive sampling of your competition.
The Keyword Approach
What keywords do you want to rank for? Obviously, the main focus of link building is to improve your rankings for specific keywords, so this is another logical approach. Who is ranking for your top keyword? Who is linking to them? Who are they linking to? Take it a step further and use tools like Google Insights to see what variations of your primary keywords are on the rise. Go into popular forums in your industry and see what people are most interested in. Then, create some quality content around that topic and you can acquire links that way as well.
The Niche Approach
In every business, there is a niche that is basically waiting to be dominated in the Search Engine results pages (also called SERPs). List out as many niche areas of your business as well. How many do you serve? Do you have content on your site that tells your potential customers about it? Do you have content on your site that answers common questions in this niche areas of business? (Hint: If not, you should.) Submit your site to niche categories on directories, find the online resource hubs for that specific topic and ask for a link or explore different popular sites that people in your industry naturally gravitate to and see if there are opportunities to gain links that way.
The Regional Approach
Do you only serve certain areas of the country or world? You should list yourself in regional categories in directories online. If you have a physical address, you should have a Google Local Listing and you should be listed on other local-based sites that users are likely to access. Check and see if one is already listed and make sure that the information is listed correctly. This is vital as local is taking on a life of its own in the online space.
The Authority Approach
You know your business inside and out. You should be telling people about it. Invest some time creating content that is directly relevant to your primary audience and publish it on your own site or a blog. Beyond that, find the most popular resource sites in your industry and see if any of these sites have “guest writer” or “guest post” opportunities that you could potentially participate in. Be sure to include the links in your content if it’s appropriate and in your bio as well.
What do all of these approaches have in common? Content and time. You won’t get very far without either. And no one strategy is “the” answer for you. Most likely, it will be a combination of things that you work on.
