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Building & Structuring Inbound Links Part 4
12 Essential Strategies
By Stephen Mahaney
Originally Published: December 2004
Continued From:
<<< 12 Essential Strategies for Building & Structuring Inbound Links Part 3
Link Outside The Box
Figuring out
where
to get your incoming links from is like solving a puzzle. It takes a little creativity coupled with following formulas and patterns. Ask yourself,
who else has a site that might benefit from linking to me?
Suppliers you do business with or professional organizations you're involved in might be willing to list you on their referrals page. Legal advisors, accountants, or financiers you do business with might also like to list you as a client or maybe showcase your business in their online portfolio. Your employees may have blogs or personal homepages that could link to you, and so forth.
Here are a few more ideas to help you spark that creativity:
Many online business owners write articles about topics related to their sites. Then they offer to let other sites use them as content in exchange for a link back to the author's site. You're probably an expert in the business you're in and therefore an authority on certain subjects that may lend themselves to interesting reading that becomes worthwhile information for a basket of ancillary products and services.
"Swap" links with a partner company that you closely do business with - or whose services compliment your own. Look for business partnerships with other websites that are useful to your own customers and whose customers are useful to you. Look for compatible (but not competing) businesses, then form a partnership where you link to each other actively through mutual promotion. Not only can this bring in new traffic and boost your PageRank, but you may also develop important business relationships this way.
Press releases are an excellent way to gain relevant links to your company's site. Again, be creative - chances are that there's a number of reasons (product launches, staff additions, promotions, partnerships, new services, etc.) you can find to release
news
about your company to the press. Press releases are quickly picked up by the engines and the links contained within them are typically trusted. They also tend to remain on the web for a good long time.
Another interesting way to promote your own site is to submit testimonials, along with a link to your site, about products you are really enthusiastic about. If the testimonial is well-written, the company will often post it on
their
site.
One of the more under-utilized "secrets" for gaining incoming links is to participate in forums that allow a text link to your site within your forum signature. Look for subjects in which you are knowledgeable and begin
posting
- asking and answering questions. Be sure to make legitimate contributions and you'll find that your participation will be a welcomed addition in spite of the plug for your site.
One of the most potentially productive tips
- Find out who's linking to your competitors and convince them to link to you instead. Go to Yahoo and enter:
linkdomain:www.your-competitor.com -site:www.your-competitor.com
in the Yahoo search box and you'll learn who you should contact.
Bear in mind that whenever you're successful in getting someone to switch, you gain
twice.
Once
for gaining a new link, twice for
reducing
the incoming link count of your competitor.
If the link is an especially good one (authoritative site in good standing with great incoming links, few outbound links, and high PageRank, then
pay them
if you have to. Offer them a better deal than the one they have (if any). Do whatever it takes to get those quality links! Write it off under
the cost of advertising.
By using your imagination and dovetailing the nuances of your own business into the mix, you'll no doubt discover a plethora of opportunities for gaining legitimate incoming links.
Continued:
12 Essential Strategies for Building & Structuring Inbound Links Part 5 >>>
Continued From:
<<< 12 Essential Strategies for Building & Structuring Inbound Links Part 3
Part 1:
<<< 12 Essential Strategies for Building & Structuring Inbound Links Part 1
This article is copyrighted and has been reprinted with permission from FirstPlace Software.
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