Is it even possible to have a link building strategy?

[RobSchofield]

I've been learning all about the SEO industry since starting my own website and l am truly baffled as to how to even begin generating inbound links. Does anyone have any tips or ideas?

Every article l read swears that by generating good content, other sites are going to link to your own naturally. According to many, the best sites to link to your own are related sites that publish similar content to your own. If you are business however, these sites can only be competitors. Why on earth would a competitor want to link to another competitors website?

Even if you launched a email marketing campaign notifying other organisations in your industry about an article you have written regarding the latest market news.......they may click and read it.......but are they honestly going to contact their web designer and tell them they must mention this article on their site!?!?!?!!?

I would love to here various thoughts this matter. Have l got it completely wrong?

[dotfly]

No, you are not wrong about that... the keyword is "linkbait". There are several techniques which are very different but they all have one thing in common: the aim that they will create links to your site (maybe!)

The standard splits those linkbaits into the following tactics:

• informational (e.g. top-10 or whatever lists of interesting facts etc.)

• provoking (e.g. false statements) - I personally don`t like this one

• awards & interviews

• rewards (competitions)

• Tools (you have done something that might help others? e.g. a little guidebook or a calculator for xy)

• curiosity (e.g. polls and their results)

• humor (mainly pictures etc.)

well you have to take a closer look at these options because they have to fit to what you intend to do... this is just a hint which could guide your thoughts AND all these techniques are absolutely controversial... they have good aspects and might have bad consequences if you use them... it depends on many, many aspects

[RobSchofield]

Thanks Marc,

all of these sound like they would fit into what Google is looking for.......new, informative, genuine content. Why would they be controversial?

how would you go about finding webmasters and let them know you have this content available?

[dotfly]

it`s just a little inpulse Robert... well, with "controversial" I mean that you have to be careful with your choice...

for example the methode of rewards: this won`t lead to links that last longer. If you promote that you offer an iPad or something like that for just a referral you might loose this link after the competition is over ... furthermore if you request a link from each participant Google might interpret this as buying links if they recognize it.

If youve got an onlineshop for example its much more difficult to initiate successful linkbaits...

The most difficult aspect with linkbaits comes up when you try to convince other webmasters. Try to imagine their position (you already mentioned that): why should they put a link to your site? There are many reasons to do not.

Let me quote another example: there is friend of mine who created a 40-pages PDF which explains how dangerous a fire can be and what to do to avoid serious injuries etc.

He created a landing page especially to promote that little ebook which is for free! Then he figured out the webmasters of all the local fire departments and told them about that PDF. They liked the information and what he did. They regarded his work as very useful und linked to the landing page of this book... successful linkbait I would say.

Other webmasters are not interested on what you do or what you`ve done unless you can provide something very useful...

Sorry for not telling you the perfect solution but this depends on your project, you know?

[KeriMorgret]

There's a link building section of the Moz Blog that will give you a lot of ideas, as well as our section on links in the Beginner's Guide to SEO at http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/growing-popularity-and-links.