Links continue to be a valuable influence on a website’s ranking. If anyone tells you “links are dead,” they’re lying. However, how a website should (or more so, should not) go about getting links has changed dramatically in the last 2 or 3 years. For those that would “build links” in the past, this often meant submitting to directories and commenting on any website and everything online that would let you. Those days are long gone, and have been for some time. If you got away with poor link building tactics in the past it is unlikely you will nowadays. Particularly once Google Penguin rolled into town. Unless you want to chance getting a penalty from Google.
While an increase in quality links to your website is always nice, it shouldn’t be your primary focus. But if links are so valuable, but you can’t try and get any, what do you do?
Don’t build links. Acquire links.
You should be focusing on building out your website in ways that your viewing audience would enjoy. Show them things that they would find useful. Write stories or blog posts that would capture their attention. When you do this, guess what happens? You get links.
What do we mean by “don’t build links. Acquire links.”? When you begin sharing your infinite wisdom with your audience, they begin to listen. Since links are still a great boost to your online exposure it doesn’t mean you can’t try and attract them. Create shareable content and assets on your website.
- videos
- infographics
- product reviews
- blog articles
When you write up a blog post about something amazing, or create an insightful video, or generate a creative infographic, people eat that stuff up. Better yet, if they like it they will want to share it. If you can strike a chord with someone in a particular demographic they are likely to share that asset with their friend and co-workers that are in the same demographic.
There’s a good chance this approach is new to you. If so, don’t worry. Your first video or infographic probably won’t be so hot. That’s ok. At least you are getting started. Pretty soon you’ll be cranking out a video or two a week and gaining thousands of views. You’ll be creating infographics left and right and gaining thousands of shares.
Let’s face it. Making a fun video is a thousand times funner than sludging through low quality sites looking for a posting opportunity anyway. And, once you get the hang of it, you’ll be getting more links in a day than you used to get in a month, or even a year. If you knock it out of the park with the right product review, or shareable piece of content on your site you could go viral. You may hit a grand slam and bring in hundreds of links over night. What’s nice about taking this approach to acquiring links is that you can repeat the process over and over. What are you waiting for? Get to writing or creating!