Step Up Your Link Building: Getting Links from Bloggers

Every company with an SEO strategy has a scary monster haunting them from under the bed, namely link building. A manager of SEO may claim: “We need to gain at least 100 links from pages with a PageRank of 4 or higher,” and every marketer in the room facepalms as they begin to envision the hours of web spelunking that are ahead of them. Yes, link building is absolutely necessary, but you don’t have to create some generic template that you blast out to your “desired link opportunities.” Instead, think about link building like you would about community building. For example, how do you learn about the underground music scene in any town? You talk with people, you engage them, they recommend things you might like, and eventually you are invited to a hub (e.g. club, bar, venue) where other people are trying to engage the same content as you are. This is how we should think about link building.

So how does this kind of link building apply to blogs? How do you get links from bloggers who are voices within your industry?

1. First, research your niche and make a targeted list of relevant blogs. Google Blog Search is an easy way to search for blogs by search term.
2. Then discuss something on your company blog or similar forum where it shows that you’re trying to engage them. Interviews are highly effective ways of doing this as well, as they might even link to you after the interview so their audience can check it out (ego-gratification is a good incentive).
3. Third, be virtually social by keeping up with the blogs and regularly commenting on topics you find interesting. This will put you on the bloggers radar and they will think, “hmmm, this person has contributed to the conversation.”
4. Fourth, if possible make in-person connections. Face-to-face interactions will greatly improve the chances you have of garnering links since the request will come from a human and not a spammy template email.

If you follow these steps and maintain a presence within your relevant communities, users will notice, and most importantly, bloggers will actually give you the time of day when you ask for a link in a personalized email. Not sure what to write in the email? Well, you’ll have a series of past conversation topics to leverage for the content. Now, that’s some synergy. Contact your SEO team for further insight into link building strategies.