In my last post I explained why free stuff is link building gold, and in this update I'm giving you 99 actionable ways to gain links by giving stuff away. By the end you'll have a ton of link building ideas, some of which I hope will be new to you. This is a springboard for new ideas, so I hope this 99 can become many more, so please leave your comments and help grow this list.
These ideas come from methods I've seen customers use to get free stuff in researching the Free Stuff Everyday book, and also ideas we've used for clients at Koozai. In short there's nothing below that can't be sourced to the real world, so please give every idea a chance.
These ideas focus on getting increased chatter about your brand online, with the logic that when people are talking about your brand they are likely linking to it as well. If you find there is a lot of brand chatter without any links, you can always use brand monitoring tools to track your mentions, and then followup to ask for a link.
I've tried to make the list suit all styles, so you can either look at the nine titles and take it from there. Each bullet point has a short solution with a summary after the dash if you want more detail. Enjoy!
Product Giveaways
1. Ask bloggers for reviews - Contact any relevant blogs in your niche and ask for a review. Send them the product and if they like it, you may get a link in return.
2. Provide products to gift bags - If you can provide your product at a key event as a freebie to the attendees there's a chance they'll then talk about the product online later. Think "Oscar award bags", but on a more manageable scale.
3. Let people test your product before release - Invite people to try your product and give them the finished item at the end of the process. Tell them how they made the product great. If people can see they made a difference they'll talk about it.
4. Host a focus group during product development - As above, but this occurs before the product has even been started. Ask past customers what you should do on a new product and then include what they say. You've given them an insight in to the product and they'll talk about it later.
5. Free pens / food / branded merchandise - Always have branded merchandise on you at all times. Whether it be something as small as a pen, or larger like a T-Shirt. Give them away whenever someone seems keen on your brand. They'll then see your brand frequently thanks to the merchandise, and it improves the chance of brand mentions.
6. Give products to photographers in return for awesome images - You get great shots of your product to use on photo sites, which let you link back. The photographers may also use these shots on their portfolio websites.
7. Build a website plugin and give it away - How many free Word Press themes have a sneaky link at the bottom? All the best ones do. So do the same thing and develop a branded plugin - this can be fun and brand specific too, it doesn't just have to be a tech tool.
8. Create a free version in a different format (e.g. Digital books) - Let people try the product in a format that is cheap for you to distribute. Give it to anyone who you feel may talk about it later.
9. Leak the product (but with a twist) - Codemasters had their game ArmA leaked, but they included code that meant the leaked game deteriorated in quality over time. It was a clever way to deter pirates, and got them loads of great press.
10. Let employees have time for personal projects - Lionhead games do this, and they reveal the best games at events. The media is then invited who write about their weird and wonderful games.
11. Provide a free app that compliments your brand - Although Koozai aren't a tools company we built one anyway. It's a free SEO analyser, and although we have no plans to build a paid version, it's a handy tool that people link to which makes our main site stronger.
12. Sell a micro / stripped down version of your product - Make it as easy as possible for people to sample the product. The cosmetics industry do this very effectively with sample versions. Get people trying it and talking about it.
13. Run an advert free website - For a website no adverts seems like a death sentence but it's the way Facebook started. No adverts until they had the right business model in place. Customers were attracted, linked were pointed, then they started worrying about money.
14. Stand in a busy town center giving stuff away - People like spontaneous freebies. So do something crazy like this. People will tweet about it and talk about it. Alert the media as well and you've got good coverage and links too.
15. Give your product to TV shows in your niche - Home makeover shows are great for this. Every product on these shows has been given by companies keen on media exposure. They give away the free product, it's featured on TV and that creates more brand chatter.
16. Offer a free trial - Let people try the product for a short time. People will then decide if they want to buy it at the end of the trial, and may then share their experiences online with others.
17. Surprise your friends with a freebie - Don't forget that friends and family can be asked to talk about your product.
18. Find superfans - Who are the people online that talk about your product a lot? Give them free products, or insights in to what you have coming up next. They'll relish the chance to work with you, and that can then be turned in to links.
19. Send products to industry experts - Who do you respect in your industry? Speak to them and give them exclusive access to your products. Ask them to share their thoughts on their blog.
Give People Money
20. Vouchers - Create voucher codes and pass them to voucher websites. They will then link to your site with the code in place.
21. Hold a sale - Offer great prices and people will naturally spread these offers around.
22. Affiliate schemes - All Amazon affiliate links point directly to their website so pass on link value. The referrer makes money, you make a sale and get extra links.
23. Link to someone - Don't charge for a paid link. Instead give it away for free, in the hope that writing about others and linking to them will encourage more links in the future (think of it as link karma)
24. Pay people for giving you great content - The entire Squidoo business model is based on user generated content. But unlike other sites they pay users for great content that gets a lot of views. So users are incentivised to bring in extra traffic, which they do by link building and spreading the word.
25. Giveaway your product for a day - Ben & Jerry's hold a day every year where they give away free Ice Cream. They lose thousands on that day, but get loads of press and lots of links.
26. Create a pricing 'error' - Price a product incorrectly and it will attract a lot of attention from people passing it round (asking "can it be true?"). Do this for a short term error and you'll attract a lot of links quickly. But be nice, honour the price.
27. Pay for referrals - Groupon grew initially because they paid people for every referral who then made a purchase. They even gave people a URL they could use for this process. Which referrers then stuck on their personal sites, and Groupon got a link.
28. Give money back for people talking about your brand - In January Toyota offered $500 for anyone tweeting that they had bought a new Toyota. This was a clever campaign that attracted links from the media, and good brand exposure for Toyota.
29. Offer a money back guarantee - ASDA in the UK will give you money back if they aren't 10% cheaper than any other brand. It's a great scheme that is doing wonders for their press in the UK.
Help Charity
30. Donate to charity - Giving money to charities not only has a feel good factor, but a lot of charities list their key donors on their websites with links back.
31. Do random acts of kindness - Give away your product to those who need it then tell these stories on your blog.
32. Do something unique - The Humble Bundle was an offer where games companies came together and let people pay any price they wanted for a set of games. You could also chose to donate to charity. It gave those games more exposure than they had on their own and was great PR for all involved.
33. Build charity in to your brand - TOM's Shoes give away a pair of shoes to the Third world for every pair you buy. It's a strategy that is at the heart of what they do and it resonates with customers who can't wait to tell other people about it.
34. Give products to charity auctions - If the list of auction lots is listed online then that's an instant link. You can also get links from PR coverage of the event, or the main charity website.
35. Give products to local hospitals - If the donation is big enough they may release a press release, or mention it on their website.
36. Double any money that employees raise for charity - Have a charitable cause in your company. If employees are doing things for charity it creates lots of opportunities for the local press to cover what they've done, or for the charities to mention the donations.
Improve Your Community
37. Help other companies out - Tell them what you love about their product and offer to write about it for their blog in return for a link.
38. Give back to the local community - Fund a school, clean the streets for a day or start a neighborhood watch scheme. Do anything that helps the local community and let the local press know what you're doing so they'll write about it.
39. Train someone with an internship - Think like the Seth Godin MBA (where he offered people a free six month MBA sharing his knowledge in business). Take on someone in your business and train them up. Let them write about what they've learnt for your blog so it can be shared and linked to.
40. Give away awards to the community - Reward people in your community who deserve it. List the winners online for all to see
41. Help another local business out with a free service - Could another business benefit from having free access to your product? Give it them and ask them to write about it on their blog.
42. Make your product eco friendly - Giving something back to the environment by making eco friendly products, means the chance for PR in environmental blogs / magazines and other sources.
43. Pay for someone to learn - Ask a local school for someone who is a rising star but who can't afford tuition. Fund them in school, and offer them a job at the end of it.
44. Give away your expertise - Train people about your business and how to do well in your industry. People like to be taught, and will write about it later.
45. Help someone succeed with a crowd sourced project - Donate to a project relevant to your niche. Many sites list rewards for donors including links and other SEO perks.
46. Sponsor someone - Chris Barrett & Luke McCabe were sponsored through University simply by people giving them free stuff. They then got all the brands who gave them freebies a load of free exposure on national TV and online.
47. Help someone make their product free by paying for it - Sponsoring a project and getting your name on it is a good way to benefit by association. For example The Domino Project gives away its eBooks because they're funded for by corporations. The author gets their work in the market, and the company who donates gets exposure every time the book is read, and is included in Domino Project PR and links.
48. Build a forum for customers to talk - Giving customers a place to share their views, and maintaining it takes time and commitment. But it's also a good way to create a well linked to resource. People can then link to the forum if anyone needs help with a question elsewhere.
49. Allow comments on your blog - The free gift here is the time it takes to maintain this, but improving conversations on your own blog draws people back and gets them passing around useful information.
50. Hold a flashmob - Then give everyone who attends the flashmob, your product for free and make sure the press are aware of your event.
51. Take great site imagery and make it creative commons free - People love great imagery and if you can make your images available for all then it gives them something to share and link to.
Hold Competitions
52. Create a unique product variant as a prize - People love someone different, so change your product in one simple way (such as a colour change) and offer it to the winner as a one off.
53. Give away a money can't buy prize - Offer a tour of your factory, or something cool from the office. Let people have a meeting with your MD or star in your next advert. Give them something they could never buy to help your competition spread.
54. Offer a free advertising spot on your site as a prize - Your site is a prime real estate. So why not let the winner have a spot on your site to do with as they wish? Skittles do this well with their Facebook page where they pick a fan of the week and immortalize them on the profile.
55. Challenge people - What is the one thing your product does well? Challenge customers to beat your product and offer a prize for the winner (e.g. break our safe).
56. Give the public what they want! - Let the public decide what you should cover next. For example Google Webmaster Tools videos are all based on user generated suggestions.
57. Ask people to sing a song about your product - Offer a prize to the most viewed video and host them on your website. People will then link to their video to get it more views, and you get extra traffic and links.
58. Request videos about your product - Ask people to film a fun video based around your product. Let them do whatever they want, and then host the best ones on your website.
59. Hold a competition to find your next employee - Compare the Market did this with an excellent mini site to find their new Social Media ambassador. The winner was whoever got the most votes, and votes were all done on the site itself. So to win you had to tweet and promote your page like mad.
60. Add your product as a prize on popular sites - Lady Gaga used Farmville to promote her new album with the chance for people to hear songs for free if they did well on the game. This would have worked better if the app was on her website, so any press hype would have pointed back to her.
61. Give someone your product to set a world record - The Oreos lick race is a challenge to lick Oreos the fastest. Oreos could help this work by giving away free biscuits to entrants to help them win the record.
62. Hold a competition on Twitter - Run a competition that people must tweet to enter. In the message that they must retweet include your URL so it gets lots of extra mentions on the social platform.
63. Giveaway products to Facebook fans - As above, but ask them to write a message on their Facebook wall with a link.
64. Let fans decide your next product - Prizes for the winners, as well as the chance to be immortalized on the finished product.
Giveaway Your Knowledge
65. Create a survey - Then giveaway the results for free and help others in your niche. Ask questions people want to know the answers to, so that they will pass on the information via links.
66. Write a guest blog post - Share what you know with other websites, and write useful content. Add a link back to your website in an authors bio.
67. Create how to videos - Teach people how to use your products, or how to be better at their jobs. Give them the type of insights they'd usually have to pay for and they'll thank you for it. We giveaway how to guides that we could charge for, simply to build brand awareness.
68. Accept questions from the community - Then help them out with detailed answers so they will be likely to share the results with others.
69. Build an amazing infographic - Spend the time to make a great looking infographic that presents key information on your niche. Make it fun to view, and post it on infographic sharing sites for a link back.
70. Create Kinetic Typography - Or 'video infographics' as I like to think of them. Answer a question with the Infographic so people share it. Here's a great Google example.
71. Write a whitepaper - Give it away rather than charging for the results, but ask people to tweet about the whitepaper so they can get it. Here's how the Clockwork Pirate does it.
72. Make a Top 10 list - Then link to everyone in the list and give them a badge to display on their own website. You're giving them links and exposure for free, but if they are proud of the achievement they'll link back.
73. Fight against something you feel is wrong in your industry - I spent hours fighting against eBook piracy and writing content to complain about it. I did it because it was an issue that needed exposing. The fact it became the most linked to piece of content on our blog was an added bonus.
Expand Your Network
74. Host a free event - Give people a chance to get together in your industry and make it free. Organise the event through your website, so people have to pass the link around to make other attendees aware.
75. Speak at a conference for free - You'll improve awareness of yourself, and get a link from the conference website.
76. Attend free networking events - Make friends in your industry and give them information and your time. If they like what you have to say then they'll talk about you later and may pass on link love.
77. Buy someone a beer - Twitter is great, but no substitute for taking people out and chatting face to face. So take someone out for dinner, or just buy them a beer. Get them on your side so you have a possible linking partner in the future.
78. Pay for a phone call - Email may be free but phone calls are much better for link prospecting. If you want a link then call up and ask for it. Give the person a reason to link to you, and explain why they should.
79. Teach a class - Pass on the industry knowledge you have in a class. The people you train today are link allies for the future.
80. Provide lecture materials to Universities - Work with lecturers to ensure their classes have the most up to date information in your niche. Then over time you can ask the University to mention your assistance on the course page or in their blog.
81. Have dedicated Twitter feeds - When your brand in mentioned online you want to be able to react. So when Peter Shankman asked for a steak at the end of his plane journey he got one. Of course Peter has thousands of Twitter followers, so fulfilling his request was great PR for Mortons who provided the steak.
Alert the Media
82. Hold a Press Event - Spend time and money holding a press event to ensure maximum exposure for your next product. Then give it away for free to all who attend so they can write about it afterwards.
83. Give journalists a sneak peak - Collect together a group of journalists who are influential in your niche. Promise them exclusivity and a free product in return for a writeup.
84. Reply to HARO queries - Spend your time helping reporters out with HARO, and get exposure in the press.
85. Sign up for PR wire services - Do the same with any PR wire service and see what journalists would like help on. Give them knowledge when they need it, and you can build strong PR relationships for life.
86. Distribute press releases - Invest in a PR firm, or spend the time writing a killer press release. Give away information on the product and offer journalists review samples.
87. Call the local press - Ask if they need a source on a topic. Whenever there is motoring news in the UK, journalists ring the AA. It's because they know the AA will drop everything and help them out with a quote. The AA give something to journalists and get great press back.
88. Give your product to a celebrity - Get people talking about your product by photographing a celebrity with it and passing that on to the media.
89. Appoint a PR person - Then make their details available online for any questions. It'll take time on your part, but helping out journalists is the best way to get high quality links.
Use Rewards
90. Provide fan discounts - The SEOmoz perks scheme is a set of discounts for pro members. The companies involved are missing out on revenue but they're also creating opportunities for people to check them out and share the word.
91. Improve customer security - Barclays bank sent all of their customers a free device that added extra security checks whenever they wanted to check their balance online. This gave them a new selling point and press coverage.
92. Add new features for free - Create a patch for your product, or give it extra features to create a new opportunity to promote the product.
93. Let the fans decide - Relinquish control to your fans and help them decide what you should do next. The design for the lead female character on the Mass Effect 3 box art was decided by a user vote. The competition went viral and exploded in a parade of links overnight.
94. Spend more on customer service - Remember that investing in your business is the same as giving something away. People love to compliment good customer service and will do so now they have social networks at their disposal. So treat them well and they will talk about you.
95. Recruit brand ambassadors - The Relentless energy drink team recruit people who can talk about their brand and help out at events. The group then get free stuff at events in return.
96. Build a street team - The London 2012 Olympics will give you free tickets if you help at out the event. With main tickets sold out now it's the perfect place for people to link to if they want to help their friends get tickets.
97. Hire mystery shoppers - Recruit people to go in to your stores and buy products to test the store customer service. Then let them keep the products. Create a subdomain where people can apply and refer others.
98. Reward fans with early access - In the run up to the release of Portal 2, Valve software set a competition where people could get early access to the game if they beat an Alternate Reality Game. The winners only got two extra days play, but the competition was reported by the mainstream gaming press with links to the ARG site.
And the final rule:
99. Tie everything together - Right now these ideas are separate bullet points but you can tie them together. For example ask fans what they want, then give it to them for free, and offer to donate to charity every time they buy it (The Behemoth pulled this off amazingly).
If you like these solutions I hope you'll also try my book - "Free Stuff Everyday" which explains more about the concept of getting stuff for free, and why that's great for brands and customers.
Would way #100 be:
100. Give 99 ways to build links on YOUmoz
...?
:)
Seriously, great post! Going straight to my bookmarks!
Hah I love it, in my case yes :) . Although writing great content is always a good way to get a link.
Totally agree with you Mike! :)
This is going to kill a few trees I'm sure of it...I'm printing 3 copies as we speak :)
Amazing.
Thanks Dave, that's a great idea. Cross off the irrelevant ones and go to town on the rest (although I may have to plant some tress for karma's sake...)
When you get chance to digest it all give me a shout on Twitter so I can hear your experiences with them.
Guest Blogging is also a good way to fetch some quality backlinks by giving away a informative content that is worth reading.
oh!!! very good and thanks for ur information sharing
It is very good way to express our thoughts regarding this topic, all of you have shared a very good information
When people ask me how to link build I always say "Make News" and most of your tips are great actionable ways to make news. Good post man. I especially like the "pricing error" tactic. Imagine the flurry of link activity that would come from one of those. Wow.
Only thing that would have made this better would have been screenshots of all of them.
-Mike
The great thing about this post is it's not really about link building. Links are a pleasant side effects of effective marketing and brand awareness generation.
Great post of ideas for anyone who runs a business in how to get more attention.
Will need to spread this one :-)
Definitely, it's a brand building exercise in many ways. Although the link possibility may not always be clear on the above examples (such as helping the environment) but doing good things, tends to lead to good PR (with links) in return.
Mike Essex simply beautiful post I am working with many of the techniques you had shared but still there are many more which I had never thought or listen before. Frankly speaking i was looking for some innovative ideas from last couple of the days and discovered 99 strategies in your article.
Thanks Raunaq for the kind words. I hope you find all 99 useful :) Although it would be tough to do every one, if even a few help, I'd love to hear how you get on with them.
As I said I was working with some of the techniques you had sharing but their are lot more which I had never heard off.So I had tried some of the tips and frankly speaking I am feeling lucky to have your post in my bookmark.Until now I had tried 6 tips and how they helped I had expressed under.
Point 1. Ask bloggers for reviews . I had asked some of the blogger to review my product and website and result was outstanding I had never got such a intelligent reviews ever before. Some of the blogger appreciate the act and some had not but I got opportunity to get link from couple of the blogs.Â
Point 22 .Affiliate schemes.  I had also asked for the links to those I am giving my services and they had just accepted my request results a links from the page which has good page rank.
Point 37. Help other companies out. This tip help me to gain the maximum mileage as doing these is really noble. I received much respect from the people of the industry.
Point 44. Give away your expertise. As point 37 this tip also can be used for gaining respect I had followed the idea and seems like I had hit the bullseye.
Point 60. Add your product as a prize on popular sites . I had offered some product as free at some sites and doing this results me to gain good and potential traffic.
Point 92 . Add new features for free. I had given some smart and important service for free to some valued client and these help me a lot to improve up a relation and also gained me some links.
I am planning to work with many other tips and I am 100% confident that using your strategies will definitely lead me into the competition. Thanks again.
Thanks for the update Raunaq, I love hearing how people have een able to put these ideas in to practice.
On the whole it seems like you've gained a lot of respect and got links from some sources that would otherwise have been unreachable so that's awesome.
Yes Sir its really awesome to have a benefits of hidden resources. It feels like I just had discover the treasure.
I got 99 problems but building links isnt one (thanks to this). Cheers.
Love this!
I have 99 Problems but the links ain't one!Great tips Mike. Well done!
Nice! That was going to be my alternate title. Can't beat a bit of Jay Z.
Mike, this is epic! There are so many actionable nuggets in here it's unbelievable.
Great post. This one is bookmark-worthy!
Cheers John, I always wanted to do a 99 ways.... blog post so am chuffed to hear it's epic. Well worth doing to put all your ideas down on paper.
Indeed - bookmarked! Huge thumb up!
Great post, some real food for thought. As per #22 though, am I the only affiliate who nofollows affiliate links? They aren't having my traffic AND my juice!
wow !!!!!
mike really crazy about your 99.but with out using social media was it able to succeed in all above mentioned link building ways?
 and here i would like to appriciate your worthiness in exposing your "tasks" and "mind blowing" appliances in getting links. really really really really you are great. . . . :)
Fabullllousss post! I especially like the idea of getting people to sing about your product -hahaÂ
Wow! Truly fantastic post! There is definitely something on the list that could work for everyone.
This is a good list but some of it seems unrealistic. But then again, comprising a "99" list of anything is hard. In my opinion, a good infographic, as you stated above, is one of the very best ways to get links. Infographics are by far the "sexiest" way to get links.
Great posts
There are so many helpful & actionable tips. Product reviews & survey are great ways to improve ecommerce sites. I like 27 number  point ( Pay for referrals) .
Thanks For sharing.
Holy moly wow I'm a bit behind reading this one but thanks for posting - going to incorporate this into an internal list and suggestions to clients too - WOW. Thank YOU! :)
Great post Mike - fits well with 'get free stuff everyday' and has at least 10 or so points on there that I know I need to do but just haven't quite got to yet!
Very straightforward post!
Puts a "wrong" price is a very smart technique, congrats!
What a fantastic list. Well done Mike. Really appreciate you taking the time to put this together.
We are an older company but have a brand new web site and are just getting started in our serious online marketing. This info will help a lot!!!
[link removed by editor]
Came to this a bit late but still really helpful, we actually have the 100 list blue tacked to our office wall!!
https://instagram.com/p/O3lbicJXfI/
Thanks William, that's one of the nicest comments I've ever had. I love it!Â
Great marketing promotion stuff through SEO and all these tips and tricks are great to get quality links. Thanks a lot you are simply putting the required information rather than putting irrelevant detail under each category. I would like to appreciate your effort for providing us such a wonderful list of 99 tips.
I have to agree: the 100's and best link building strategy is to give a link to this article away for free, everywhere.
Excellent piece Mike. I like the voucher methid.
Great tips Mike. Well done! i thinks we always using all our Networks to do that
A very helpful and well laid out article!
Great list, something here for everyone!
The best way its the 77! Who dont like a good beer and chat?
I was thrown into the position of having to update our website at work, even though I knew NOTHING about web design or HTML or anything web related. Slowly, over the last 3 years I have learned more and more about building and maintaining websites (granted, I use Dreamweaver so I cheat a little). Just when I think I have the website at a good place, I learn about this thing called SEO.Â
This post is amazing and so helpful to me... someone who is still learning how to best utilize the web. I am printing a copy as we speak and I'm going to go have a sit down conversation with the CEO of our company on how we can implement some of these ideas to promote our civil engineering firm, something that is turning out to be an absolute necessity, especially in this time of recession when the housing industry has seen better days.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I see myself referring to this document for a long time.
Nicole Redes, Sharrah Dunlap Sawyer, Inc.
Hmnn! Thanks for that
Great ways to build links showed here. Thanks a lot :-)Â
Your article quoted in Russia. Great stuff.
Hey Mike, really interesting and valuable stuff. Thanks for sharing your ideas. Can you please help me to clear my doubt that, why 99% of blogs have their comment links nofollow?Â
It was really great post! Enjoyed reading, all of them interesting but some of them are applicable for certain project or product/services.
Please DO REPLY......Hey Mike, thanks for all these above mentioned startegies for link building as well as brand making. But I have a question, If a particular organization providing the services of "Business Incorporation" or "Internet Marketing services" wants to make the brand development, what should be the right approach for that? (note:they dont have any products to sell,but services to provide.)
Hi Ajay, no problem I'll always reply if I can ;)
If we take Koozai as an example (who offer online services) we sponsor events, offset our cabon emissions, sponsor charities, build free tools, write content and make video tips - all for free. So even without a tangible product there's a lot that can be done.
Thanks mike...for resolving my doubts..and for quick response as well!! Thanks a lot.
Hi Mate,
Good list most of them I have done in the past with some sucess, but one thing which seems to stand out is the brand you have behind your link building if it is a big brand ideas seem to gain more traction if you are smaller it is hard you need to adopt your strategy to work these with these sites.
But fantastic work putting it together mate.
Reagrds,
James Norquay
A bigger brand certainly helps, although if you have an innovative product that has a fresh idea, then there's no reason why it can't attract attention. Small companies can also benefit from most of the above, if they use PR to get the message out.
But number 43, Too bad if they work for you for 3 months and then they take a job somewhere else hehe after you have invested soo much money into them...hehehe
That's always a risk, but even if they don't take the job, the PR you generate (and links from the school) all help.
What the… This is the real perfect guide to be Rockstar… obviously it always take time to spread the voice among the people but if you want people to tie with your brand and talk about it and market and introduce your product to the wider audience when you are sleeping then this is the straight rocket science if you can make packages of the bullet points…
Launch a competition, Giveaway a prize and then let other people informed about the competition results through Press Releases and social media channels, also invite them to sign up for the upcoming events…
Superb Post sir!
Absolutely, wrapping the above items together is the way to go. Rock on Rockstar!
We created http://publishedin.com/businesses/ to boost Internet sales, traffic, and SEO rankings, and it actually uses some of your tactics ;-)
That's awesome, care to share which ones you used and where they worked?
Fantastic Post. I never thought I would see the day when someone post an article like this that gave close to 100 tips. Nicely done.
Drat now I wish I had a 100th one... One of these comments must count right?
Very great information. Thanks.
Great post mate - so many actionable tips in here!!! :)
Thanks Paul, it's pretty much my entire freebie brain in one blog post, so I may need a sit down before the next one.
Product reviews/giveaways are great ways to get links for ecommerce sites. The gold lies in "Mom Blogs" as long as you have a product appropriate for their audience.
Playing devils advocate here...couldn't this be classified as a "paid link" though?
Personally I don't feel freebies are the same or should be penalised like a paid link.
From a brand perspective giving a free product to someone for a review is of far more benefit to the website owner, readers of the site and the Internet in general than paying someone to give you a link. Giving someone a freebie isn't a guarantee of good coverage (like a paid link can be), so if it's honest reviews of your stuff then it's all good.
Plus if freebies were penalised as paid links, then the majority of review blogs would fall off the net!
I'd like to see Google's algorithm try and identify that as a "paid link". I know this is a white hat blog but let's not go that far.
Mike!!
Good stuff, thank you for the ideas. We are rebranding our agency and launching Oct. 1st. Your list has good inspiration. And your company website is a good example of positive design and user experience!
Jay
Hi Jay, thanks for the positive feedback on the Koozai website. Adding the drop down top nav was one of the only ways we could fit everything in and still make it findable.
Good post man! I like #77 the best!Â
Can't go wrong with a free beer (or cider in my case).
Mike : I've been considering developing & giving away a free plug-in (your Suggestion No. 7) but am wondering how to get the maximum SEO benefit from it.  Varying the anchor text is a thought. Would G devalue the URL or anchor text inside the plug-in because of its location ?  Would love to hear your more detail suggestions about this idea. Does anyone have success stories (or lessons learned) that they would share?  Great post with many actionable suggestions. THX
Based on other mass scale links a varied anchor text would be the way to go - covering not just your SEO keywords but also branded terms. Good luck.
This is a long list and although I haven't had time to read even the first 10 yet. There's bound to be something here which will work for us. Thanks
I hope you enjoy them when you get chance to really get stuck in Shelly.
Thanks for sharing. A solid place to start ideas moving on our next campaign.
This is a very extensive list of methods to help you get build quilty links for your site. Thanks Mike
Great post mate but too much of solution for me :)
buzzfluzz, put these into a Google spreadsheet and prioritize by estimated time and estimated cost. You'll thank me later. :)
I have read all 99 points + dew comments here. It was quite interesting with some completely new terms. But I think all those are for branding more and link building less. It will ask for good amount of investment. and some of them are very risky. probably give no ROI. But still for branding good tips.
From link building point of view I would recommend for guest blogging, blog reviews and give aways. Those are good tactics.
Idea of Photography seems quite interesting for me. I am thinkig to put it in action.
I hope the photography route works well for you and that you can benefit from some of the other items. With 99 there are certainly some that are better for other businesses than others, but they all have the potential for a return so anything that can be tested cheaply is worth trying.
hmm. I am looking forward use that trick. Your post will help ecommerce site owners a lot.
I'm a big believer in the "giveaway your knowledge" section. Every blog post or article I publish is designed to help educate my target audience. You want your brand to become a trusted resource for your industry because people are more likely to share information from someone they trust.
Thanks Nick. That's our approach at Koozai - giveaway blog posts, videos, and advice to everyone (also the logic behind this post). It's been a great asset in getting good links and raising brand awareness.
AWESOME List full of great tips!Â
One concern is about having a contest on twitter where people must tweet inorder to enroll. I know with FB it's a breach of the terms or use to use facebook as a contest. Does this apply to Twitter as well?
Actually Twitter are really keen for users to have competitions. They even have a page telling you the best methods:
https://support.twitter.com/articles/68877-guidelines-for-contests-on-twitter
So much better than Facebook and their restrictions.
Create online survey,create how to videos and recommend people to post theur reviews are important according to me.
great post , really ! Â a lot of nice stuff in there, some I did not even think about.Â
There's so much good stuff here. Every time I thought, "Oh, I know one to add," I'd find it the next group of the list. Nicely done. It really got me excited to start using so of these strategies.
Thanks!
Thanks Heather, please drop us all an update in this post or let me know on Twitter how you get on.
I like letting people know about products before they arrive...I'll certainly try that :)
Good luck with it, the sooner you can involve people the better.
I really like the aspects of this list that focus on helping and creating relationships in your community. Share your knowledge, help others succeed and you'll find success and opportunuties yourself along the way.
Yeah it's really more of a "be a nice guy, get a link" guide. Although there's few better white hat methods of link building than being a nice company.
Im impressed, thanx for this post!
You haven't left much creativity room for people here. Well, I guess there is some 'room' in that people would need to decide which ones are good to implement for their size and kind of business. Seriously though, love the post.
Pricing 'error' could be a huge link bait if the Brand is even decently known (at least locally) and executed well.