Link Building Tips Direct from SAScon 2012, Manchester
I went to SAScon last week (@sasconference) in Manchester and had a great day and came back with plenty of little nuggets of gold to help with everyday link building, some of which I’ve discussed briefly below along with a couple of my own ideas.
It’s sometime too easy to get stuck for ideas when it comes to building links on a regular basis, particularly when you’ve exhausted all of the typical avenues. So I’m hoping this should help spark some ideas and inspiration and add some life to your backlink profile to make sure you fly past your competitors leaving them blinded by your SEO dust.
- Control of links is a key part of link building. If a link goes live, do you think you’d easily be able to have it removed? As the internet changes so quickly and webmaster’s intentions for a site can also change it’s a good idea to have as much control as possible over the links you are building on a regular basis – just in case.
- A quick – but important – step is to approach sites that mention your brand or company name and ensure that they link to your site. It’s a quick and easy win as they are already aware of you and if they’ve mentioned you they are pretty likely to also want to link to you too.
- Social competitions are a great way to get links to your site, particularly where content on the site doesn’t add value or is very similar to content on other sites. For example, on a jobs board the job descriptions are the same across all sites.
- Link building without social media interaction isn’t natural, as is social media interaction without links. Back up your link building progression with a similar progression in tweets and Facebook likes. Don’t forget +1′s! A good piece of content will get attention across the spectrum, not just in links.
- Run a competition on your site, but first think about the URL you are going to use. A competition is bound to attract a lot of attention offline and online with links, so once the competition is over you can restructure this page to become a landing page that has instant authority for quick results.
- Be clever about the steps you take. Is a site likely to keep its authority or keep its content to a high quality? Don’t just go for ‘help yourself’ links that anyone can achieve. Utilise social media to help this gain traction quickly, while the links you attract will help maintain higher positions on a more long-term basis.
- Build relationships with webmasters. This will make it harder for other, less positive SEO people to get your links removed through persuasive measures. With a relationship comes trust and the site owner is likely to consult with you prior to acting upon any requests, however malicious.
- Sites that mention you but do not link to you are also important. Known as citations they support your backlink profile and suggest a higher online authority and bigger brand and counts towards Google trusting your site and product/service more in order to rank you higher.
- Finally, old tactics always win. Don’t jump on the bandwagon with the latest wave of ‘geniusness’ as the chances are it won’t last long. Old methods that have stood the test of time still work.
That’s it for now. If you have any other tips, thoughts, ideas or techniques please do share in the comments below, if you saw me at SAScon or if you want to find me on Twitter please either comment below or follow me @AshleyCreare.
I must thank Pete Young (Regional Head of SEO at Mediacom), Jon Quinton (SEO Consultant, SEOgadget), Martin Macdonald (SEO Strategy Director, Expedia), Matt Roberts (VP Product Development, Linkdex) and David Wilding (Head of SEO, Blueclaw Media) for some of these tips and for being such an informative panel at SAScon this year.
