Yes, we all know it. Link building is essential if you want to be a successful search engine optimizer. However, with all the Google algorithm changes and updates, how can one truly know what the best way to build links is?
The answer is actually simpler than you would think. Create great content that leverages existing communities and leaders.
Here’s how:
1 – Find Out Who The Leaders Are In The Niche You Target
The first step in getting hundreds of natural links to your website is figuring out who in your niche is really a leader or innovator. Let’s say you are in the health niche, and specifically in the paleo diet health niche.
What you need to do is figure out where the paleo diet health niche community hangs out and who they listen to. Maybe it is someone named Josh Smith (I don’t know) or a website called Paleo123.com (again, making these up.) The point here is that you need to find out who already has a huge audience of people in your niche.
Generate as big a list you can of these types of people and keep them in a spreadsheet. Record everyone from the top dog people with 1000’s of followers on Facebook to the smaller bloggers with audiences of 30 – 100 subscribers. It is important to have a large list.
2 – Make Connections With These Thought Leaders
These leaders are your key to natural and effective links (not to mention tons of potential subscribers and customers.) Your number one goal should be to communicate with these people and try to build a relationship with them. This is not going to be easy, but nothing worthwhile is.
First try responding to a few of their Tweets. Maybe send them a personal Tweet. Comment on their blogs. Try to friend them on Facebook. Do everything you can!
Next, try sending them an email, maybe asking them a question. The key is to start conversations and start building relationships with these people.
You are going to have an easier time building relationships with the people that are lower on your list (have less followers) because they will be more likely to respond to you. Start low and work your way up.
Step 3 – Start Projects That Involve These Leaders
This is key. You need to start working on projects that involve these leaders. For example, for the paleo health diet example, maybe you work on a blog post called: “Paleo Health Tips From The True Masters”
In this post, you have interviews with some of the true leaders I mentioned above. Involving other leaders in your projects is going to provide you A LOT of benefit and is going to be the easiest way for you to grow your following QUICKLY.
Step 4 – Ask For Help When Launching Your Involved Project
Ask these leaders that you got involved to help you when you launch your project. Since they will have been involved, they should be more than likely to Tweet your recent post or share it with their email list.
Why? Because they were DIRECTLY involved with the production.
Interviews are a great example of this. If you interviewed the most well known Paleo Diet guru in the world, there is a good chance that he would still tweet the link to the interview to all of his followers. This could potentially mean hundreds of visitors and tons of followers.
The Big Picture – How This All Adds Up To Natural Links
Now you’re wondering, how does this equal links? It is time for some honest truth.
It is VERY hard to get natural links without a large following. AKA You have to build a large following to get 100’s of natural links to a post. This method I have laid out is the best way to get a large following and thus is the BEST way to get natural links.
If you aren’t focusing on building strong relationships with thought leaders in your niche, you probably aren’t pointing your focus in the right direction. Not to say that other link building doesn’t work, but this is the safest and most secure way to build solid links over time.
This was a guest post by Jason from Survey Examiner, a website dedicated to giving useful reviews and information on paid survey panels. Check it out now to learn how you can get paid to take surveys, whether you are a stay at home mom or looking for online jobs for 14 year olds.
About Josh Nadeau
I think this process can definitely work, but it does take TIME to build up those relationships, it’s not a quick process. Something that might be quicker is to ask to guest post on their blog. That way you get a link on their site, but you’re starting to build that rapport, simply through the guest post. So from there, you can go through this process.
Interviewing people is a great idea, too!
But I’d also like to point out that anyone can be an influencer. Whether they have 100 followers or 100,000 followers, in order to tell if they’re an influencer, look and see how engaged they are and overall connected with their community and how their community responds to them.
Great article!
Hello Jason,
As everyone says content is the king, it needs to stand out in the rat race to attract readers. It should touch the chord of the readers. It should be relevant to your blog and must have catchy words and phrases that get registered in their minds. All this can be achieved with dedication and commitment.Of course, one must be good at language skills.
Thanks and Regards,
Sanjib
In my opinion if you want to natural links there is only one method, you’re content must be unique and the style of writing does matters a lot.