5 Legitimate and Creative Link-building Tactics
Most marketers know that earning backlinks and link-building tactics naturally is key to maintaining and increasing rankings, but the difficult part comes in figuring out the best ways to get these links. There are a lot of ways to go about earning them, and some are more questionable than others. Begin to utilize these five creative ideas and start seeing quality links pointing back to your site.
Appeal to egos
One great way to earn backlinks is to appeal to others' egos. A lot of the time you can do this through “Top 10” posts; one example of this would be to create an article like “Top 10 Digital Marketers of 2014.” Articles like these are easily promoted and picked up by those mentioned. Tweet at those in the the article to make them aware and to stoke their egos; hopefully, they will mention the article in a tweet. Ideally they will link back to you, if not now then in future articles on their blog.
Interview or be interviewed
Reaching out to experts in a certain field is like appealing to one's ego, but in a more specific and targeted manner. Crafting a piece of content about someone should gain backlinks from the interviewee since it is promoting them or their company. To get interviewed, reach out to someone who is writing on a subject you know well and offer yourself as an industry expert willing to be interviewed. Be sure to do the required homework on the subject and on the blogger or journalist you reach out to.
Host competitions
Giving away free things is a great way to catch people's attention, and a beneficial way to do this is through giveaways and contests. Reaching out to people after hosting a competition will return better results because they will see you a more favorable light and will be more likely to respond positively. Giving away things for free is enticing, and not just for those looking to win; bloggers and others seeking to attract followers and viewers will be more willing to post a giveaway or contest because there is something in it for them.
Craft high-quality infographics
Webmasters and bloggers are always looking for quality content that will get them noticed. Produce and promote original infographics or other high-quality images and share them across different platforms. After the graphic has been published, check to see if it has been republished elsewhere; if it has been, it's likely that the graphic was embedded but that a link pointing back to you was not given. In this case, you will want to contact the website to ask for the link. Finding where the graphic is being published is not very difficult.
Start by getting a copy of the filename where the graphic is hosted. You want the actual jpg or png filename rather than just the URL. To do this, go to the graphic, right-click, and select “Copy Image URL.” Next, go to Google Images and look for the camera symbol. Click on it and paste in the URL that was just copied. Click “search by image” and the results will show the URLs where the image is being shared. Go to these URLs and make sure that there is a link pointing back to your site. If there isn't, reach out to the website owner and ask them to add a link back to the original source.
Make a quiz
Quizzes are especially useful if you are a B2C business—consumers love them. Getting the most use out of them might require action similar to what you do when hosting giveaways or contests; outreach to bloggers to post the quiz with a backlink to you. Producing a quiz also presents a good opportunity to embed code to put on your site, making the quiz easier for people to share. Quality link-building tactics takes creativity and a little bit of time, but the results from quality backlinks are considerable and too good to pass up. Throughout your link-building tactics for campaigns, you should be conducting SEO competitive analysis to make sure your backlinks are the most beneficial for you. Don't forget, you can analyze your site's backlink profile inside BrightEdge platform under Reports and Backlinks!
