I was at a recent client meeting for a new project and we were brainstorming ideas. After considering all kinds of wacky schemes, plots, techniques and tactics we came up with what is, in essence, a very simple linkbuilding technique. In the interests of openess I wanted to share it with you, I'm just nice like that. :-)
This idea works best when you are working in an industry where the value of the items that you are selling is high, and the object is somewhat unusual, distinctive or customised. Examples of businesses which might fit this category:
- Antiques dealers
- Bespoke interior decorators
- Painters
- Bespoke aquarium builders
- Photographers
- Landscape gardners
If your site is within one of these niches then the basic premise is as follows:
"When your clients have purchased something from you which is unusual or distinctive they are often happy to link back to you. This is especially true for high-value items."
A Real Life Example
Disclaimer: Distilled built and designed the Aquarium Architecture website but we are not involved in their SEO. The below is an illustrative example. Also, I love aquariums so it's a win-win :-)
Those of you who are paying attention will notice that I carefully slipped "bespoke aquarium builders" into the list above. The reason being that Aquarium Architecture are just such a company - they design and build bespoke high-value, custom-install aquariums. To give you a flavour of what I'm talking about:
Pretty aren't they?
Anyway - while you're all drooling over the nice pretty fish I'm going to talk about how they can get links out of the work they do. The website doesn't have prices on but you can imagine the kind of money you need to get one of these aquariums. So the buying process is often a long and involved affair where clients will want to ensure every little detail is correct. Because of the intimate relationship which Aquarium Architecture have with their clients it should simple to build into their process at some point, asking for a link to their site. Obviously, this isn't going to be applicable for all clients (the above image was taken from an installation in a professional footballer's house, and he doesn't even have his own website) but they do a reasonable amount of business with Pubs, Hotels and the like. These businesses DO have websites and would provide valuable links.
Remember To Add Value
When building a link building campaign however you should always remember that you'll get more links if you can add value to the linker. Therefore I don't suggest that Aquarium Architecture simply ask for a link. Instead, I'd recommend that as part of the process a case study is built on the site for each new client which shows off photos of the aquarium along with making-of shots and/or design sketches. They've already done this to a limited extent as you can see here:
So now, not only do Aquarium Architecture have a direct and intimate relationship with their clients but they also have now built some content on their site which the client has a motivation to link back to. If you were building this process for an antiques website instead of an aquariums website you might want to include the history of the particular antique item on the case study page. These kinds of case study pages can be really high value and are a natural place for the client to link to. Not to mention the fact that you're building out website content all the time to help long-tail rankings and you're constantly adding testimonials which will help conversion rates. Win-win-win!
Or, Alternatively, Why Not Make Some News?
Of course, manually building links is hard work, even when you have a process like above. Therefore you might also want to consider taking some of the more unusual/remarkable/impressive contracts and craft a news story out of it. Again, the Aquarium Architecture guys did this well (again, nothing that Distilled was involved with):
The above story appeared in the Daily Express in the UK and is a fine example of the kind of linkbait that you can create when you have products of such a unique and high-value nature. Unfortunately in the above example Aquarium Architecture didn't get a link out of the story but there are plenty of ways you can go about getting links from this kind of thing.
Key Takeaways
So I completely understand that not all clients or websites will be able to do this kind of thing but hopefully even if you can't follow this exact process you can gain some insights into how you might build a process into your existing business practices to help your company build links.
For all the Yanks who had no idea what "bespoke" meant in this context, here's the definition:
"Bespoke is a British English term employed in a variety of applications to mean an item custom-made to the buyer's specification. (from Wikipedia)" We do use the word "custom" in the same manner...still a most excellent post relevant to everyone (and not just the Brits).
Ha, sorry about that Todd - I didn't realise you didn't use that word so much over in the US!
@ Todd - Thanks. I was just looking it up again as I was having trouble with the translation. I couldn't find a good definition for it. All I found was "of clothing" I was all "Huh????"
@Tom - It's not so much that we don't use it much as it's that we don't use it at all ;)
Well, thanks to Tom we can also learn English and not just SEO ;). And you could broaden your market to the UK/IE islands :)
LOL! Excellent point Sir!
dude you did the exact same thing i did... damn you for stealing my comment idea!
I agree with many here saying that your strategy is a winner one.
As said in some other posts here in the past weeks, to simply ask for a link back "just for the face" (literally traduction of "solo per la faccia" in Italian) is not possible anymore.
Therefore, to optimize the "Our Clients" section as it was a "Study Case" is really something useful in a link building strategy.
I've to add to your list that this strategy can be used also for other kind of business website, and not only for luxury products or service ones. For instance, I suggested it - and they are putting in practice - to an incentive and congress organization company website can take advantage of this tactic. In their client section and in their news (that are then readapted for article marketing) they describe with a lot of details, photos and sketches how they organized a congress or an incentive travel (usally for the MD sector); then they ask to their clients to link to their page and so the link is up there to the Googlebot happiness.
Finally, I do not consider it a newer version of the classic link exchange tecnique, as an editorial job is really behind this kind of tactic.
Ciao
Nice article tom. I try to tell my clients to reveal their products as best as they can most of the time :)
I was like, bespoke, what? Thanks for the clarification!
Anyway, one of the sites I work on has a paid directory for businesses in a certain industry. I got the sales people to ask clients if the client sites would link to our sites or even to our directory. Sort of like a Better Homes and Gardens Seal of Approval. (Is that an American reference? LOL) Anyway, we got some new links in to the site. Sweet.
One point to add here is that the type of link building Tom has outlined here usually gets a link on a page with very few links. Even sweeter.
Wow am I jealous. That's an incredible fish tank. Then again, given that kind of money to spend makes me pretty jealous too!
This was an interesting example, which also illustrates just how often the request or even encouragement for a link is never made.
Taking a slightly different view, this should serve as a reminder that links aren't just about search engines.
When we're talking bespoke, custom-made, rare, or simply at the extreme of the price range, natural search may not actually be the most important aspect. Sure, you want the links, the contextual relevancy signals, and the boost to rankings that they may provide, but it may be the direct human (qualified) traffic as much as anything.
The people buying these services/products generally are connected with others who buy or influence the buying of similar products/services. So word of mouth or celebrity influence may place as much or more a role than anything else.
In which case, drawing the association in whatever way may be the overall goal:
All great points - sometimes the handful of visitors that these links will send are worth many hundreds of thousands to the bottom line!!
Love what you guys do, but that text was just too optimised for your client :P
made it a little icky to read
Its a good tip and worthy of a post tho
hi firegolem, sorry you felt that way - one thing I've found is that examples work really well to demonstrate points and sometimes it's hard to find examples of sites which you haven't worked on. Like I mentioned we're not doing SEO for them so this post wasn't part of any work we were doing for them!
Also, I really do genuinely love aquariums :-)
just seemed to read quite unnatural and forced to me. maybe im oversensitive ;)
edit: just to point out it wasnt about the subject, but about the style of the writing - i.e. how many times did you mention their name etc
Nice strategy. Thanks for the article tom :)
Isn't this kind of an obvious tactic....or is that the point of the post? Surely asking customers for links is like step 1 in the process!?
Hi Ben,
It's not the most advanced link building tip in the world but it's good to let people know about these things as well as the more advanced stuff.
I think the tip about creating link-worth content for each client is worth holding on to.
We try to please everyone on the blog, I'm sure there'll be some more advanced stuff along soon :-)
T
True Tom, I some times lose perspective that you are catering for all and sometimes the head smacking stuff gets forgotten.
i.e., The head smacking tips posts previously were actually really good.
Didn't mean to sound critical!
Yep, good one.
Each link building campaign should be different and this is a great example of thinking outside the box (or inside the fish tank).
Very special thought, I will try, thanks.
Great for postings,tks!
Hey Tom,
Keep it simple as they say.
We design/develop new client sites all the time and as part of the design process we normally ensure that we include our name / anchor text in the footer section of all new sites.
Great, simple way of getting those inbound links.
Cheers
Conrad
I always like the plain vanilla in SEO.
I've been struggling with doing this and have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I would love to have the inbound link, but at the same time the client has paid me to design/seo their site and giving myself credit in the footer would look unprofessional on a client's site. Unless the client is aware of the credit added in the footer and they're ok with it, then by all means.
Well, that is something you can always negotiate in the pre-contract fase.
Or, for an extra-bucks offer it without link.
For me out of the whole of your article the one paragraph that jumps out at me - especially in these difficult and challenging financial times - is the added value! It doesnt matter what services you either provide/sell or use - added value is now more key than ever and is an excellent way of protecting price point and not being tempted into discounting which on many products and services can undemind the core brand values.
Good article - thanks for sharing
Fred Governo
www.luxurybreaks.com
I've been touting this technique for years, but rarely remember to tie it into the on-site case study. Thanks for reminding me!
Good content, and it keeps me coming back!
The hard part is actually making newsworthy content. That's the cinch if you got a newsworthy product!
Godspeed you link emperors!
OT: Stevie ain't gonna be able to afford fish tanks and Bentleys for much longer if he continues to sit on the bench.
Wonder what Mancini is thinking!
CTID :)
items that are niche, custom, exotic, one-of-a-kind, rare, etc. and carry a big price tag have a huge array of channels (online / offline) to explote in obtaining high quality links and traffic. Depending on how comfortable the client is in making his purchase public, document EVERYTHING - consultation, planning, implimentation, etc. and make it available in writing and video form (documentary style / interview). With the right SEO in place, good things can happen. Nice post Tom.
Great strategy Tom. We used similar tactic with somewhat limited success, mainly because it took a long time to implement everything. Still I would not rush with planning and implementation of this type of link deal.
Thanks Tom!
I think it's always worth reminding people to ask the right audience for links and that's why I think this is a good technique. Of course asking customers for a link may be a common practice, but it is one that many companies forget to use far too often.
Thanks for sharing, this post should be quite useful to those trying to get their feet wet in all of this or for those with broader marketing responsibilities outside of SEO.
Good idea. I have thought of doing something similar.
Thanks for sharing this linkbuilding strategy; I'm always looking forward to add another string to bow (Thanks to Idioms Dictionary - It seems to be used in Britain... I tought it was a typical french expression!).
We're almost always showing a "What we've done" section on our clients' websites, but often end up in showing only the final product. Your idea of showing the "making of" of one of their specific product can be a proactive approach on getting links - Not only from the client's clients, but from specialized websites evolving in their domain (landscape gardning, etc.).
What I love from this idea is that under this form, it's not only applicable to football (? soccer!!) superstars, but to small-sized business too!!
Great information!
Again just like "real world" networking it's a case of creative marketing and leveraging the assets (like customers) you already have. In my admittedly limited context it seems like very often the basics get overlooked in favor of the ongoing search for a holy grail type SEO solution.
I would think that one aspect shouldn't preclude the other. Practicing sound fundamentals will only enhance your occasional flashes of brilliance.
Nice, worthy post Tom! Thanks!
It's not always the advanced stuff that gets the rankings going! It's good to see that some very basic steps can make a difference in a nice niche!