Link development has certainly changed over the last decade. It used to be the case that it was easy to employee outsourced Indians and drive links through forum posts, blog comments, profile creation and directory links. Nowadays things need to be done to a higher standard. Poor quality links can adversely affect your site and certainly won’t have much to offer in terms of ranking improvements.
So what can we do to improve our rankings? How can we get creative with building links in 2014? I spoke with Chan Dhillon from Kalexiko a SEO agency with renowned creative ideas about his thoughts on this matter and what they have been doing.
Get local
Chan pointed out that every business is in a certain geographical area; even online businesses. If you reach out to authority websites, newspapers and publications in your vicinity you may be able to drive some pretty high quality links. What is there about your company that is newsworthy? If you find an angle and get people to take it up then you might even extend beyond local coverage and get some national coverage.
Viral content
Many people doing SEO believe that viral content is just for the big players in the industry. They perceive that you need a big budget to produce a video or make a splash nationally.
Chan said that viral content can help level that playing field as its ideas driven not driven by finance. Viral content can come in many forms. It could be an amazingly insightful article. It could be an interview with a leading name in your sector. It could indeed be a video. Or it could be an amalgamation of statistics and insights about your industry. What is important is that you produce quality content that can be shared easily to drive you links.
Viral ideas
They told me to really think about your link building and you need to think about “ideas”, not just content. Many small companies have got big purely off the back of a great idea. Sometimes driving links is as simple as offering a promotion on your products and services. However, you can get a lot more creative than that and run a whole link building idea campaign.
An Energy Comparison example
An energy comparison site could contact all of the energy providers and ask each if they are willing to make a donation for pensioners suffering as a result of rising fuel costs. A partnership with Age Concern, or a similar organisation, could drive you links and increase your authority. The article/video that you produce, relaying the facts about which companies were willing to contribute, could quickly be picked up by news houses around the country.
Sometimes controversy, comparison, sentimentality and whistleblowing can be great way to drive links. The important thing is that you develop content that really is meaningful, funny or just.. well… comprehensive. Most creative link building ideas these days take time and investment. They take planning and strategy.
If you are willing to go the extra mile in your creative link building pursuits then you can achieve fantastic return on investment. Don’t expect to cut corners. Don’t do what everyone else is doing.