Link Building Through Developing Relationships
December 5, 2006 by Eric Hebert in GeneralComment
I was happy to read an article by Bill Slawski today titled SEM: Make the Right Connections: Build Web site traffic through links.
After reading the article, I began to think about how I have managed to get links to my website from trusted sources in the internet marketing community, and it basically comes down to developing relationships with these people, more than it has been developing great content or linkbait.
It’s a topic that I think is always talked about in various internet marketing articles and circles, but never really spelled out for the new kids on the block who are seeking the link building wisdom we all exude from time to time.
We all know that creating stimulating content, consistently, over a period of time, will get you links to your website. This is not an easy to do task; it takes time, education, and constant research to constantly generate content such as this.
Just look at all the popular internet marketing blogs out there; these guys produce good content because they spend the time to plan out there topics and then research said topics to provide content for us to read and digest.
These same guys are also constantly meeting new people, going to conferences, commenting on blogs, picking up the phone, shaking hands, patting each other on the back, reading each others books — building relationships with those in their industry. Yeah, it’s the content that gives us all something important to talk about, but it doesn’t end there; it’s the building of relationships with those around us that turns into the building of links.
It’s that “I met this guy and he’s cool as hell” link (the ones that I usually get!) or the “This guy shot me an email about working on this project” link or the “I played Fantasy Football with this guy and I kicked his butt” link. Getting links to your site is like getting your number in somebody’s cell-phone; you gotta give ‘em a reason to call you sometime!
So if your pounding your head on your desk about this whole link building thing, think about all the people you know, whether it be a best friend, a lover, or the guys who run the pizza place down the street. You have a relationship with each of these; albeit different kinds of relationships, they all have given you a reason to keep in touch with them, to “link” to their lives with yours.
Give your industry and your readers a reason to link to you, take the necessary steps to build relationships (hint: commenting on blogs is the first step to meeting people in your industry), and before you know it, the links will start rolling in. Just don’t to try to sleep with them to get links (But a pizza never hurt anyone!)
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