If you really want to rank well in search engines, you need to build inbound links from external, quality sites. Google looks at two sets of factors when assessing a web page – the on page factors, which are essentially the textual elements existing on a given web page (title tags, Metadata, content body, link text, etc.) – and the off page factors which come from external sites, such as what other people are saying about you.
Writing and publishing good articles is one of the most effective ways to build inbound links. This happens in two main ways:
- If you publish good quality articles on your own site, then bloggers, information sites, resource sites and industry experts may quote your article and link to it.
- If you submit your articles for publication on external websites that carry editorial content, then you’ll get exposure to a new audience and you can publish a link to your site as a credit for writing.
You can be useful, topical or controversial – it doesn’t really matter – but to get these inbound links your content needs to be something special. You need to be passionate about your industry and show your passion with every word you write. Your content needs to offer value in three ways:
- Direct benefit to the end user – it allows them to do something.
- Direct benefit to your own business – it must help you generate leads or generate a transaction.
- A benefit to the website that will link to you– by linking to you they provide something useful to their readers.
Here’s what you have to do:
- Take part in the online community that exists around your product area. Identify news and information sites, blogs, directories, social media sites and others that service your industry. Read them regularly and comment on articles and contribute – start to build an online reputation for yourself.
- Write and publish keyword rich articles or blog posts on your own site. These articles should be useful to your customers and members of your community. From the article you write, reference and link to articles that you’ve written previously.
- When you’re reading or commenting on external websites, mention and link to articles you’ve published on your own site when you’re certain they’re appropriate and add value to any discussion.
- Mention your articles on Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites and encourage other people to reference your articles.
- Publish articles you’ve written as a newsletter and encourage people to sign up to a mailing list. Once you’ve established a list, you’ll find that each edition of your newsletter will generate a number of links from people on your mailing list.
- Provide your content as an RSS feed. This is relatively simple to do and will again bring your content to the attention of other people.
I’m sure there are many other solutions on various ways to create link worthy content and I’m interested in any ideas and or comments that you would like to share.
