The Basics of Link-Building

When you do the same things over and over again it’s likely that you’ve developed a checklist. Many business people use checklists – from the realtor who sold you the lot to build your house on, to the builder who built the house, to the lawyer who handled the closing. Checklists are essential parts of doing business even if you’ve done something over and over again…and that includes your link-building efforts. It’s the one way to ensure that something isn’t overlooked.

When you build a website you’ll want to get visitors to it, right?  So that means creating links to your website.  To begin implementing a link-building strategy, it’s helpful to have a workable checklist.

Before you get started it’s important to know your audience.  Learn as much as you can about your customer.  And understand and use their language in your content. Make recommendations to complementary products and services relevant to your audience, and link to their sites.

This is a checklist for beginners and should be considered a starting point.  Over time, you may choose to add or subtract from this list depending on your needs and the available technologies and tactics.

The Easiest Link-Building Strategy? Create Profiles On Social Media Accounts

This is absolutely the first thing you need to do.  Know where your audience hangs out and go there – whether it’s LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.  Create full profiles with descriptions of your products and services, contact information, hours of operation, and (of course) a link to your website.  Engage your audience by providing good content, commenting intelligently on discussions and adding new discussions. Also use your social media accounts to promote all your content, products and/or services…just remember to not be overly promotional.

Ideally, all your social media profiles will have the same “handle” or “user name / ID” for branding purposes and to make it easy for your audience to find you.

Resource:  You can check this website to see if your chosen handle is available across the various social media platforms.

Add Social Media Share Buttons To Your Website

Seems simple, but you’d be surprised at how many people forget such a simple thing! If you use WordPress it’s easy to add social media buttons; if you don’t, you can look on the social media site itself to figure out how to create or grab a button for your site.  There are lots of options, both free and paid…only you can decide which one has the features you need/want as well as the look and feel that fits your brand.

Get Listed On Relevant Local Sites, Industry Sites and Directories

It really doesn’t matter how big your business is…and it doesn’t matter whether your business is local, national, or even international…getting listed on locally focused sites will help you get more relevant links as well as more business.

Check out Bing, Google, the Chamber of Commerce and other locally focused organizations to ensure that you are listed. In some cases you may get to list your business free and in some cases you’ll need to pay, so research each one for relevance and site rank so that you can determine if it’s worth it or not.

Resource:  This blog post lists 50 directories where you can add your business’ information.  The key to getting the most from these listings is to make sure your listing information (i.e.: business name, address, phone number, etc.) are written exactly the same way.  And I do mean exactly!  For example:  “Lane” vs “Ln” or “123-456-7890” vs “(123) 456-7890” vs “123.456.7890.”

Create Great Content Consistently For Ongoing Link-Building

Do we really need to mention this?  YES!  As an ongoing link-building strategy, you must create relevant content that is well produced in many different formats from articles, to blogs, to infographics, to videos, white papers, etc. If you are creating shareworthy content on a regular basis, you’ll get even more links back to your site than you thought possible – all naturally occurring.

Resource:  After creating your content, consider submitting the link to your content to a service that creates links back to your content.  You can outsource it to someone on Fiverr (be sure to read their reviews!), or you can easily do it yourself with a service like SocialMonkee.

Comment And Discuss Intelligently On Relevant Blogs, Social Media Sites And Articles

You already know that commenting is powerful, but you may not realize that even if you get a “no follow” link it’s still relevant and a good link to get back to your site. You never know when someone will read your comment and want to find you so that they can purchase your products or services.

Tip:  Simply Google “