I'm not sure anymore -- which is easier; link building for new websites or for the established ones? At the same time, I'm also not sure which can sometimes be harder...
There are plenty of link building opportunities for a new website to explore, and sometimes it falls under the right choice for your startup.
Which road to take and how to tackle the link building part to go from nobody to somebody in the internet industry?
Budget and Planning
The first thing you need to consider are your options. In this world one thing is black, another white, and the more assets you have the easier it is to achieve your goals.
We're not talking about buying links, but there are many reasons why having a budget can help with your link building, especially when you are starting out. We are talking about outsourcing content creation, design, promotions, premium directory listings and even some top website advertising and PPC.
You need to plan ahead how you want to tackle link building for your new website; are you going for quality right of the bat, aggressive link expansion, passive link building or a well blended mixture of all these things. We can also list these three into the following categories:
- Obvious Link Opportunities
- Networking and Social Media
- Linkable Assets
It's easy to guess that a well planned combination is the perfect choice, but again, not all of you will have the budget or work hours to tackle the full package.
Think of Linkable Assets from the Start
We are going to start with the last on the list: linkable assets. The easiest way to score some quality links in the long run, and we are all about the long run in the internet marketing business, is to provide not just high quality, but amazing quality content people are interested in and will recommend to their friends - and link to it.
Take into consideration the needs of the audience and how to appeal to them. Then create the content, software, tools, products, or amazing services which in turn will get natural high quality links.
Some may argue that this isn't link building: everything is link building, from your idea to domain name, from design to content. Anything can become a linkbait.
15 Easy Link Opportunities
There is no such thing as easy link opportunities when you go after the good stuff. What can be called real easy are bookmarks and comments, forum posts and article directories, but in the long run we won't see much effect from them, especially not in a competitive niche.
What we mean by easy or obvious link opportunities are the opportunities that should come to mind when you ask yourself a simple but obvious question: Who would give me a link?
A short list of link opportunities you can go for:
- Design Company
- Hosting Company
- Friends and Family
- People from work with online assets
- Memberships
- Associations
- Office complex
- Partners
- Clients
- Customers
- Testimonials
- Media coverage
- Press releases and product launches
- Events
- Charity
These are just some of the obvious link opportunities you can tackle in your early link building.
Reach out on social media
This should be a standard practice for any website, new or old; branding and communicating with the audience though social media and blogs as well as news sites that move your niche.
Not all customers and prospects come via search.
By connecting on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter with the regular Joe as well as some authority users in your market, you can reach a whole new audience. You can expand your sales and you can leverage your social standings to build more natural links.
Plan a long term strategy (plus some easy wins)
Even though we aim for some links that will place our website on the map we first need to think long(er) term before we even consider short term. Where do you see yourself in a year, in 5 years, what is your goal?
This is very important in order to narrow down your path; if you know what you want it is easier to get it. Think wide, then narrow it down; walk that path with everything starting from content creation to link building.
And for some easy wins in your start you can use the following methods for link building:
Guest posting
Nothing better to build some quality in-content links, reach new audience and establish yourself as authority in your market than guest posting.
If you are not sure where to start you can just type in: keyword "guest post" or keyword "write for us" and go through results. Or if that is complicated, you can visit My Blog Guest or similar communities and find easy guest post opportunities.
Branding and Quality Profiles
Oh no's!!! Somebody said profiles on an SEO blog, this one is a spammer!!!
Not quite.
We aren't talking about 1,000 profiles on forums, we're talking about full info profiles on highly related sites.
For example, for an SEO like me the perfect opportunity is an SEOmoz profile. If you look at the top 100 profiles on SEOmoz you will see what a quality profile looks like: full info, details, biography, interests, services, and branded link. You can do so on Focus, About, Ted or other market related sites you find useful.
Again, don't overdo it, but don't skip it.
Directories
Same principle as above.
Go for quality directories and niche directories. Take time to write a description for each directory and provide as much info as you can, contact number, email, address, office complex, services, products, even work hours.
Local Link Building
We left the best for the last. This is one thing that will get you ranking rather fast (depending on your competition too, of course). But for new websites the first thing is to think locally. So fire up your horses, tackle some local keywords to rank for. Do some local directories, profiles, forums, blogs, comments, ads or whatever you can get your hands on that doesn't spell spam and the way you go.
This is not all, there is always more, you can do special invites, start a giveaway, do a promotion contest and let's not forget about learning from your competitors and getting some of their links, a must do for any new website. The only thing that is standing in the way of some high quality links and your website is your creativity. If you put your mind to it you can find hundreds of link opportunities to pursue.
What are some quickstarters you thought of?
Great post Zarko! Most businesses tend to get burdened with the “extra work” of link building and don’t realize their current assets for getting off the ground quickly and easily.
Yeah, unfortunately that is the most common issue, companies not knowing their own linkable assets. With everything in life we tend to take things for granted, the same is with SEO and link building, if we just think about a simple question “who would want to link to me and why” we can increase our productivity and the number of quality links by 300%…
Social media profiles work best when they are coupled with content on those social sites. Just creating profiles on social sites is a waste of time. Creating good profiles on sites where you contribute helpful, meaningful content is productive and useful in the broader context.
Nice selection of ideas Zarko. I’m glad you pointed out the need to look for higher PR and niche directories than chasing after every one that gives you a free link. It’s true that the amount of links can make or break a site, but so can the quality of the links themselves!
Great post Zarko – been finding a lot of your posts around recently and they’ve all been a good read.
I’ve found tools to be a fantastic way to gain quality links. If they’re specifically related to your industry they are an effective method to getting relevant links from quality domains in your niche… even unknowing competitors!