Link Building: Wake Up, Get Creative Or Get Left Behind!

Whilst traditional methods of researching and subsequently contacting related websites for both one way and reciprocal links might offer limited success to your link-building efforts, it is a dated process, and one becoming ever more difficult to reap rewards from.

This notion is given further credence by the recent decision by Google–in an attempt to quash manipulations of its ranking algorithm through the sale and bulk buying of links through link brokers and automated submission software- to drop the PageRank (the formula Google used to rank pages) from many of the offending websites, blogs, directories and forums, rendering those links worthless.

Automated submissions and outsourced ‘black hat’ link building efforts haven’t helped matters and the whole ‘link building’ industry has been tainted with connotations of spam.

It is an inaccurate perception to assume that building links to your website is relative to how much you are prepared to pay. But even with a greater dedication of time to research and contact a range of complimentary websites, forums and blogs you will still be presented with perhaps the most unpredictable character within the link building process –the site owner.

Site owners or web masters and blog authors have noticeably become more closed to sharing their websites, promoting ‘for profit’ causes and recommending business or websites they have no prior knowledge or experience of. And whilst a review of how and why this has developed would not assist the situation, there are important points to consider:

Search engines ARE getting smarter in how they rank pages and how they detect genuine, paid, reciprocal and three way links and users ARE becoming ever savvier and critical of what they view whilst online.

“So if building high quality links to your website is a problem, then a solution would be to add value to your website.”

Adding value that naturally attracts links, generates buzz about your product or service, stimulates conversations amongst the social spheres or perhaps crosses over to the mainstream (offline) press is perhaps a far more interesting proposition, offering the potential of increased brand awareness, traffic and one way links to your website.

Examples include:

- Creating compelling video content
- Writing thought provoking articles
- Engaging with your customers and actually listening to what they have to say
- Regularly updating the company blog
- Interviewing high profile figures on your blog
- Recording a podcast or a range of.
- Developing an online game
- Launching a resources section of your website in order to ‘share knowledge’
- Developing expression and consumption widgets for your users to download to their desktops or embed within their blogs and social networking profiles.
- Create new pages of your website welcoming user generated content and reviews of your products and services.

The power of “adding value” to your website can be seen in all sorts of sectors – from travel to technology and from FMCG’s to fashion, but don’t just rush in without conducting some form of research. Instead, take a step back from the business, the product and the focus on sales in order to create something your readers, your community, your customers will actually want or welcome. The reward for doing so will come to fruition as users spread your message virally through the social networks, potentially attracting substantial exposure and backlinks.