This weeks Whiteboard Friday is a little bit different than normal but a lot more awesome. I took the lead this week and am sharing 5 tips that beginners can use to get links from bloggers. This educational video is full to the brim with helpful tips, odd tangents and one very poor impression of a news anchor.
The Beginner's Guide to Getting Links from Bloggers
Try all of the following tactics and focus on building upon whichever one works best for your situation.
.gif){kind=small}
Make Lists of Niche Linkers (and post them) - Most bloggers are by nature marketers. Take of advantage of this by writing material that helps them market themselves. For example, if you wanted to get a link from a blog in the car space, you might make a list of the top 3 Honda Civic blogs. Remember to go niche and avoid stating the obvious (I.E. Techcrunch is the number one tech blog). "The obvious" doesn't attract links.
Do Interviews - This tactic has two main benefits. First, by conducting interviews you get interesting content to write about. What could be more interesting than what the industry experts are talking about? (Clever interviewers will realize the answer is the stuff the experts don't want to talk about). Secondly, by getting your name/brand in the head of an expert, you have more chances of getting links from them in the future.
Be Virtually Social - Being virtually social is easy and can provide higher short term ROI than talking to people face to face. (e.g. It is easier to get a link from someone who is in the process of writing something online than it is to get a link from someone who is not at a computer.) I use the following three avenues to do this:
- Facebook - Since Facebook replaced "Fan" with "Like", it is now easier than ever to promote your work via Facebook without being too "salesy". This won't get you links per say (as the entire process exists within Facebook's ecosystem) but it can help drive traffic.
- Twitter - Like Facebook, Twitter won't necessarily help you build followed links but it does help you spread your brand/product/idea around the net. This makes it a good long term strategy.
- Blogs - One great way to get links is to find supporting evidence for a given blog post and letting it's author know about it. If they use it, they are likely to cite you as the source.
In addition to promoting my work on Twitter, I use the platform to spread Internet awesomeness. (Thus the image above)
Make In-Person Connections - This is the best long term way to get links. When bloggers are trying to come up with supporting evidence for a point they are trying to make, they are much more likely to use a example that is already in their head than they are to go out and search for it. The best way to get into someones head (other than a chisel) is to meet them and spend time with them. (Wait a chisel? Did anyone else read that?)
Send Linkers Demos of Things (Websites, New Products, Games, Etc...) That You Want Links To and Include the Linkers Stuff In It. - This tactic is newer and has been proving to work very well. If you want coverage from a specific blogger, try including their blog in the product demo and sending it to them. This way they can promote themselves while promoting your work.
If you have any other advice that you think is worth sharing, feel free to post it in the comments. This post is very much a work in progress. As always, feel free to e-mail me if you have any suggestions on how I can make my posts more useful. All of my contact information is available on my SEOmoz profile under Danny. Thanks!
Great strategies Danny! I think the hardest thing for some people is thinking of engaging content for topics/products that typically people don't crave a lot of information on. Think toilet paper vs cars, or how to use a stapler vs how to optimize for search engines. There tends to be few bloggers in that field that you can acquire links from to begin with, and that frustration leads to black hat strategies in my estimation.
You could point to the mantra "if nobody is creating the content- you should" but sometimes it's just not that easy- you could spend time improving your business operations and other forms of marketing or you could spend struggling over what top 10 list you could write about toilet paper.
There has been some great content on SEOMOZ and YouMOZ about building links in tough industries... I would LOVE to see more, skewed towards the beginner/new ecommerce site that maybe has a link from a couple directories and no other links.
You don't need to write a top-10 list to get links from bloggers - we've genuinely found that any kind of reasonably unique, good quality content will attract links over time. We have articles about Viart and Increasing Average Shopping Basket size on our site and both have been linked to, without ever having been promoted other than via the blog. In each case we simply wrote about something we were working on at the time, applied a little bit of keyword research.
If you're working with a new ecommerce site, why not write something about the kind of products they sell...talk about a problem the industry has...there are genuinely limitless opportunities to target content niches out there and it's simply a case of starting small and building and building.
Thinking a little more widely, every business faces challenges so why not get involved in commenting constructively on blogs that talk about these problems....tax hikes, cashflow, shipping...anything really!
Good ideas, thanks! I didn't consider the business itself as a source of content- but when I think about it like that, there is some engaging stuff there.
Danny! Awesome job. I appreciated your point that people who do SEO at higher levels lose sight of what it's like when you're starting out, and techniques are different then too. Thank you for addressing while remaining relevant for people with more experience.
You have a natural persona in front of the camera that puts people at ease. But a note to Rand - please, give Danny a Whiteboard art lesson!
I simultaneously agree and respectfully disagree with you Cyrus.
Agree - Danny has an awesome presence in front of the camera. I hope we see a lot more of him.
Disagree - He totally doesn't need an art lesson. He's a master! That drawing of Walter Cronkite? Pure genius.
Keep the drawings coming Danny, they're classics.
Thanks Danny, great video, it´s good not to see Rand all the time... He, he, just kidding.
I will use this video next Tuesday for training our new link builders.
We did something last year like finding a niche of bloggers in the industry we were targeting and made a set of banners for them, it worked and some of them linked back to us.
Also we did some cartoons like of a niche of bloggers, posted them on our blog and sent the post to the bloggers, that gave us quite a few links too.
So it´s about being creative and offer something too.
Awesome tips Danny! Great ideas and a good reminder of some fundamental link building techniques. Also. I'd like to argue with you about that picture. Exhibit 1
Exhibit 1 is impressive but have you seen Evil Seal? https://cheezburger.com/mlundercuffler/lolz/View/3030173952
Oh great. Thanks Danny. Now I'm going to have seal nightmares for the rest of my life. Awesome.
some great ideas there, Danny! love the #3 one...and will look into putting it into practice myownself, eh!
happy upcoming fourth of July too....to all my american friends!
:)
Jim
Creating lists of blogs in your industry or geographic location can attract a lot of good links. I have had success by creating Top 100 Blogs in ______. You can create an attractive award badge that people can easily embed. Several bloggers tell their followers: "Check it out, I was named the number 7 best blog in _____" and will often link to the list.
Agreed, appealing to people's vanity and making it easier to promote themselves via premade badges is a sure fire hit.
Nice job Danny, thanks for this.I've been suffering from a bit of a writers block lately with my link building, so this has come at just the right time.
Interviewing people is a gem, so obvious but I hadn't thought of it.Cheers
Nice post Dan, Thanks!
I really like the idea of doing interviews and the in-person connections point. No matter how strong the online world is, the offline world creates some persisting long term relations which are valuable even when the link drops!
That said, I really think you did a good job, with a good load of humor as allways! Keep it up!
Yay! Beginner tips are always welcome and I appreciate the fact that I haven't seen these tips everywhere.
Good Job Danny.
I must step out of the office occasionally and talk to real people, great tips, thanks a lot.
:-) Easier said than done but makes for a much better long term strategy. Plus my doctor says its healthy. ;-p
Thanks Danny for posting this video. Your cheatsheet and other posts are helping me learn a lot of SEO. Looking forward to more tips from ya.
Probably I should add you on the list of top SEO experts blog and link back. ;)
Asim
Glad I am able to help. This SEO stuff can be overwhelming!
Yes. Indeed. Would like to know how do you come to know about the character limits on meta tag description. 155. :)
Can you share it some info on that..?
Asim
Funny you should ask. There is a place to read more about this. The SEO knowledge center is still being developed (read as: UGLY) but has tons of great content https://www.seomoz.org/knowledge/meta-description
I hope that helps!
Danny
Thanks Danny for sharing this link. I'm learning a new tip or two every time I read something on SEOmoz.
Kudos to all :)
Asim
Thanks for the post. The information for beginners is solid gold.
Very interesting tips Danny!
I have already used 3 of them, so I'm looking to find time to use the others to my SEO blog!
Hi Danny,
Pulled my blogger gf to watch this. :D
Cool WBF!
Jurgen
Excellent post and video, Danny. And some nice drawings. ;-)
I totally agree on the interview stuff. We made some good experiences with interviewing authors/writers, who have released some new material (books, articles, collections).
If you like reading, this is a good way to combine it with linkbuilding. Write a review and try to get an interview. Most publishers and authors will link to it. Especially, if they're at the beginning of their carreer. Plus: most of the time you'll get the book for free. ;-)
Really like thew interview segment, great idea , a really useful way of getting the creative juices going for articles and a nice way of helping sites choose your pices for inclusion on their sites.
Great overview of link building tactics Danny. Short, sweet and to the point! Thanks :)
Hey Danny,
Great post; very informative. I will definitely be heeding your advice.
Stephanie
We've found that interviews can be really powerful for both gaining links and being very authoritative content. Especially in our field. We are very fortunate in that we get to meet artists from all over the world.
Awesome Whiteboard Friday Danny!! That Walrus had me laughing!!
Great post Danny, I was only just thinking about this very topic. Great timing for me as I can better get my head around it, thanks again
I think it depends very much on which niche you are in. The most social and generous niche is the political blogging niche. If people like what you are saying they will instinctively link to it without a second thought. Pity it's almost impossible to make money from this niche!
The SEO niche is the next more social - but it's changed from 2006 before no-follow/do-follow came in. Back then, people freely linked to each other - but IMO folks are more reluctant to do so now because they are loathe to give a leg up to potential competition. The "mommy blogger" sub-niche is more generous.
The "innocent" niches are also easy to get links from e.g. fashion, mainly because they are full of fans who will happily link with no thought of the SEO implications because they are unaware of them. Any niche with fans - eg World cup fans, are part of this group.
The toughest niches are the "big money" ones - where you are talking about money, personal finance, mortgages, property etc. You may be a genuine expert (because of your off-line work), yet no-one will link to you because of fears of competition (though everyone wants you to link to them...)
I quite enjoyed this comment. Esp. as the "mommy blogger" niche is something we're looking into now...the "mommy/giveaway bloggers" in particular for some quicker links.
Great job Danny!
Another technique I've found that works great for getting really strong links: find a controversial topic that your client is a legitimate authority on. Then, Google on that topic and look for reporters/prominent bloggers who have talked about that topic in the past. Email/call them and offer an interview with your client on that topic for their newspaper column, radio show, or blog. Ask for a link credit back when it goes live, of course.
Especially with radio, magazine, and newspaper reporters, you'll find the sites carry a lot of link juice.
Thanks Danny, some great ideas.
Another idea is to ask a blogger for their opinion on something.
As Geir above me,Your last tip started a chain reaction effect. Great post, thank you.
I hope its not one of those "a butterfly flaps its wings" thing. Those tend to end poorly :-)
Hopefully no :o)
That's not how I picture Mark Zuckerburg at all. He has 3 $ signs. You missed the one floating over his head.
An enjoyable video to watch, good info, well presented and I might just be tempted to do more networking at the Par from now on ...
Nice job Danny, it's good to see that at SEOmoz you're not forgetting the beginner, with your beginers SEO guides and this post. It's all really useful information - Im mkaing my interns study SEOmoz at the moment!
Great job Danny! It's nice to hear beginner's tips occassionally because it reminds us we can do simple things to build our links. The biggest problem I run into is that people don't consistently build links because they get busy and forget to do even the easy things.
Thanks Danny. I like your point about making personal connections for links. We do a few networking groups, and I have been working on educating the members to leverage their offline relationships for generating some good backlinks from the ones that have blogs.
I'll have to go back and watch the video - this machine won't let me update to the latest version of flash!!!! So I appreciate the write up.
Thanks for the tips and ideas, that was a great White Board Friday!
I'd also be interested in hearing about the more advanced tactics you mentionned in the Video. :)
Mat
I think these are all great ideas, but won't most people just add the link via twitter or facebook? While tha still helps with marketing, the link isn't as powerful as, say, from their blog.
Following this will really help us a lot. Nice post
The video seems to not be working, do you plan on replacing it with an updated version?
As a new manufacturing business that is strickly e-commerce, our presence on the web is critical. We want to begin using a SEO company but have heard so many times that some of the tactics can get you black listed on Google. How do we sort through this concern or is it just urban legend that this happens?
Love the video and the concept of Whiteboard Friday. I was able to really engage with you in the video for a few reasons. The main one was it was valuable information, but they way you deliver it was most helpful. You had numbered points on a board and you walked through them very timely. I wanted to learn from you. I also really like your humor and your genuine "be yourself on camera" style. Thanks for the info.
A lot of newbies are really having a hard time on getting quality links. I hope that newbies will become successful on getting good and relevant links from the other bloggers through the help of this good article.
We'll practice advice from you, thank you!
Good list and whiteboard friday. The last tip is prettey clever, havent tried that one before.
Not only are these good ideas but they are thought starters for similar spin offs. Thanks for geting the ball rolling.
Short and precise. I liked it.
Cool (and very entertaining) whiteboard. That walrus picture is pretty much my brother's favorite picture, EVER.
I have a question for you re: link building. Would you say there's a difference in approach when pursuing non-profit versus for-profit links?
For example, I work in the health industry, and a lot of the links we frequently want are from non-profits, who generally (but not always) are loathe to be seen as endorsing a business. Do you have separate strategies for these kinds of links, or do you just double up your efforts in organizing group interviews, for ex.?
Something you might want to try is sponsoring the non-profit or providing some services for free to them, in indirect exchange for a link. Could you donate a prize for a raffle/draw? Provide some online marketing consultancy? Interview them on how they market their organisation, blog about it then get a link back from them about the article?
Good tips, thank you for your comment!! I will have to do a search for related non profits that includes "raffle" or "draw" - narrow it down to the most actionable opportunities. And you're right, non profits must market as well...
Thanks a lot. If anything, non-profits will be marketing even harder in this 'age of austerity' to make sure they receive the income they need.
On a mostly related note, I have found that online marketing for non-profits can actually be a bit easier as it is more acceptable to make a harder sell.
For example, pop ups and multiple e-mails are much more acceptable when they are promoting curing cancer rather than obnoxiously selling some product. You still need to be tasteful but you do have more wiggle room.
Thanks for a great post. I have to say I love link building posts as I think it really is one of the biggest challenges in SEO...and also one of the most satisying when it goes well.
Always good to get other ideas....cheers!
Jon
Danny, this is great! Thanks for sharing :)
Hey Danny,
Thanks so much for the post. I am taking your advice and commenting on a credible blog! Haha, yep. I am doing SEO for a company in Fort Walton Beach, FL and was doing some research on SEO tips...found this entry, good stuff. So do I just add a link to our company below? Well, I am going to and hopefully it's the way to do it. I am diggin the SEOmoz, you guys have some good stuff. Thanks again.
Todd
<Jen removed link>
Great post, it's nice to see link building tips/tricks outside of the norm... even if they are for beginners. All of these are actionable which is fantastic! :)
Hey Everyone!
Thanks for the amazing feedback :-) I am blushing over here :-p
More videos to come. You all rock!
Danny
Social Engineering FTW! Great video... im glad your paying attention to the needs that we have that may be different from what your doing now.
What a great WBF Danny! New bumper music, new swish graphics and a new presenter. All good things.
Thanks for the link tips. They are all solid gold.
Hi Danny,
Thanks for a awesome post but i have few questions:Like u mentioned:"The obvious" doesn't attract links.What you mean by "The obvious"? can u site 1 example pls?Also there is another stuffs like "The best way to get into someones head (other than a chisel) is to meet them and spend time with them. (Wait a chisel? Did anyone else read that?)" What u eaxctly mean by this?Hope to get a answer soon! :)
[Broken links deleted by Staff]
Hey Matt,
With regard to "the obvious", I am referring to avoiding talking about the same stuff everyone else is talking about. In a lot of industries (and even more so in SEO, people will grab on to one idea and write posts and posts about it. 1 example of this would be the usefulness of nofollow. Rather than restating what others have said, it is better to discuss new information or post on a entirely new topic. This is less obvious but more likely to attract links.
Danny
P.S. The chisel comment was my attempt at a joke. It flopped :-p
Very interesting post.
As usual, make interesting content, and the links will flow. :)
Great WBF Danny,
I thank your for showing how you began, I would have never thought of helping the blog poster/author with their argument as a means to get a link back,
Also, The term "Par" could be a useful term in pub golf.
Shawn,
Thanks Shawn :-)
Pub golf is an avenue I didn't even think of. The possibilities are endless. :-p
Danny