Exchange online link for offline publication? A good linkbuilding strategy?
-
Lets say I own a company that sells bakery-supplies. I would want links from websites with "bakery" as their main topic. So it seems obvious to try and gain links from local backeries.
Next step is: How do I convince them to link me? What is their benefit?
I can't link them back because it would weaken the linkpower. Therefor I was thinking about publicating an offline "Backery Guide" which includes all backeries in the area. Backeries which link us, would get more visibiliy and company information. That would be their benefit and we would get a 1-way link.
Is this an idea which could work? Any remarks are welcome!
-
Hi Cyrus,
Thank you for the response!
I have taken the time to deeply review your comment. You did make some good points.
1. With reciprocal links, I'm not worried about a penalty but it would weaken the linkjuice if it went both ways.
2. I do believe bakeries will see the benefit in a advert in the guide, if only they need to place a link on their website, which is free. I would be amazed if this would been seen as buying links, let alone that Google could track offline publications. But but then again, Google never stops to amaze us :).
3. So many SEO's stress the fact that content should be something which your clients want to link too. I totally agree when your clients are consumers but not always if they are professionals. This market is way smaller and is less social vibrant. In this case I must skip my target audience and concentrate on their clients. Your tips are great. I will try to implement them!
-
Seems like you're starting to think this out in creative ways, so let me add a couple of thoughts:
1. I wouldn't be too worried about linking out to these local bakeries. Reciprocal links are a natural part of the web. When you get in trouble is when you have dedicated "links" pages that exist solely to harvest link juice, or a significant % of your backlink profile comes from reciprocal links.
That said, you're still probably wise not to make this the backbone of your link building strategy.
2. The offline guide seems reasonable to me, but I have a cognitive disconnect between the guide and the motivations for the bakeries to link to you. If you actually require folks to link to you to be in the guide, then this could be considered "buying" links and could lead to a penalty. (although in reality, this is rare)
3. Better yet, I'd really rather see you create online assets that live on your website, that provide motivation for folks to link to you. These might include:
- Reviews
- Top "blank" lists / Ego Bait
- Business profiles
- Awards
- Content Marketing (like "5 Secrets Your SuperMarket Bakery Doesn't Want You To Know" - bad example, but you get the idea.
- A scholarship for local baking students
- A certification program
- A blog
- Charity Fundraising
- Interviews
- Contests / Giveaways
- Discounts
The trick, in my mind, is to give away freely more than you ever expect to get back in return. Never demand a link, but create resources that are actually useful to both the bakeries and their customers, so that they have a natural inclination to link to you.
More link building ideas from Jon Cooper: http://pointblankseo.com/link-building-strategies
-
I would love to digitalize the guide and have it run online. I have thought about before. But then you would get 3-way linking. This isnt very beneficial either.
Good points though... Will have to think on that.
-
You are definitely approaching it right. Like you said, there has to be something in it for them. It seems like a good idea to me, but also seems like some serious work. Getting 'em designed, printed could get pricey...and since it's not digital, how would you modify the bakery listings as time goes on to reflect which bakeries link and which ones don't? Seems like you'd almost need a monthly publication...it's a tough one. If you can somehow digitize this idea I think it'll be a lot easier for you.
-
Well the only way to know is to try it first.
If you can sell the idea to them, then it can work.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
I am looking for a software to keep track of the back links or link building
Hi Guys, I am very new hear. I just joined. I have a few websites that I need to manage. I am looking for a software that will allow me to manually add the links that I have been able to acquire. It would also be a bonus if it could search for the links to my site and to see if its still active. Because I have a freelancer working a few hours a week on link building and I need to keep track of the links. I am looking for something simple and good. Any suggestions? By the way, I used Raven Tools many years ago, and it had this feature. But since joining Moz, I don't want to be paying for 2 subscriptions. And I don't know if Raven still has this feature. Your suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you. Ryan
Link Building | | RyanNewman0 -
What is a natural link?
Hi everyone, I'm trying to better understand what is meant by a natural link and would appreciate any assistance. Doing some competitor link analysis I've noticed a web developer who has created a directory for all its customers. This is not a directory in the traditional sense of being of use to an end user, but to my untrained eyes, it looks like an internal directory used solely for the purpose of link building. For all I know this might be perfectly good practice in the industry, but as a beginner, I'm attempting to get an understanding of things. My question is, what precisely is meant by a natural link? If the above scenario is all ok, whereby there are businesses in the same field of work, but ultimately could be in any given location, on a directory, are they natural links? Do these kind of directories that don't service an end user, exist if the common feature between them is say location only, or an seo agency only? Appreciate I could be completely out of kilter on this, but it seems the benefit on SERPs is pretty significant for something that seems pretty "unnatural" to me? Any guidance would be appreciated...tom
Link Building | | T-J-I1 -
Penguin Recover: Remove links vs Burry Links
The best is to do both. However with those with limited resources, would building more links with branded and naked URL anchor links be a better solution than painstakingly asking every webmaster to remove links.
Link Building | | reprisemedia10 -
New website, small business, niche market --- what's my best link building strategy?
Hi everyone, We are a small company manufacturing a niche product (indoor playground equipment), our new English website (www.funlandiaplaygrounds.com) has just been launched 2 months ago, before that we didn't even have a website in English. As the international sales manager of such a small company, I have to do all the international marketing jobs including SEO, but before this I'm almost a noob on SEO. I've just started the linking building work for our website, after a research on the links of our highest ranked competitors, I have found out that almost ALL of the external links of them come from directories and purchased links, many links are very dubious, please see the open explorer results below: http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?page=1&site=www.spiplay.co.uk&sort=page_authority&filter=&source=&target=page&group=1 http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=www.softplay.com%2F http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links.html?page=1&site=www.china-cheer.com&sort=page_authority&filter=&source=&target=page&group=1 http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aileplay.com%2F http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=internationalplayco.com%2F The search keywords is: indoor playground equipment. According to the latest SEO theory and numerous posts I've read here, links from these directories carry very low value, and solely relying on these links may even cause penalty to the website, but the reality is, all these competitors rank on the top as a result of these "spammy" links. For example this website www.aileplay.com that has the highest PA of 64 and rank on the first page on the search result of indoor playground equipment, has tons of spammy links. That is the situation we are facing now, then my questions is: As a small business in such a niche market, what is our best strategy to rank well in a reasonable time, say 3 months to 6 months? I do not think our competitors are very strong and hard to beat, I believe we will beat them in content creation for sure, but what should we do in link building? should we start to get directory links now, as it obviously works for them? Or should we first create more attractive content, then use these content to get natural links BEFORE we submit for directory, as recommended by most link experts here? If so should we just sit back doing nothing before the link worthy content is created and natural links starts to come in? I highly appreciate any comments! DSG_clan
Link Building | | DSG_clan0 -
Finding links online that already exist as link juice based on search results
I'm curious about this, I can't find anything on the net that talks about it. I wrote an article about it on squidoo and have had no responses so I am thinking this is very rare subject. The question is I have done some backlink research with my competitors with linkdetective.com and found many links (even follow ones) related to sites that provide search results. Here are a link about what I am talking about as an example, I have found many more besides this one. http://search.lphant.com/es/webResults.html?q=free%20scrabble%20dictionary&hl=en&page=1&src=hmp_es&ref=1 My site appears in those results. When looking at the source there is no "nofollow". I found this page because linkdetective.com had this link listed pointing to my competitor. Are these valid backlinks? What I have been doing is adding these links to http://www.google.com/addurl so that Google knows about them. Is there something I am missing or are these valid?
Link Building | | cbielich0 -
Do No follow links from social media platforms transfer authority or value when they link to third party websites?
With social media playing a bigger role in SEO (since the Panda, Penguin updates etc) and how search engines rank sites now, does anybody know why Twitter for instance has 'no follow' when I check my client's websites under 'inbound links' on Open Site Explorer?
Link Building | | caroline19770 -
Best way to create deep links - Building links to inner pages
I am looking for a cost effective way to rank 30 inner pages, which are all low competition, long tail keywords. What type of links are the best for this type of project, social bookmarks, article marketing, high pr links, etc.... Also who would be good to hire for this type of project?
Link Building | | newcitymoving0 -
Any good content sites with good quality links?
I have some content which is still relevant and interesting but not really suitable for my current websites. I have been thinking of using this on an article site to generate some links back to my sites, but I am wary about this due to Google's targeting of content sites. I currently have good PR's on Squidoo and Hubpages which link back and work quite well. Can anyone suggest any others or any ideas how to use this content for SEO purposes? Is using it for article submissions to get links short sited?
Link Building | | JohnW-UK0