Another Approach To Link Building

If you have ever spent any time trying to gain links to your law firm website, you know the process is tedious. Even worse, most traditional link building tactics are vastly inefficient. And yet, we know that acquiring more links is critical to gaining organic search positions. Here is another approach to getting links from sites from SEOmoz’s Rand Fishkin:

Many of us trained in the ways of classical SEO are familiar with the link building process:

Step 1: Find relevant sites from which to get a link.

Step 2: Search for contact information (email or phone number).

Step 3: Get in touch and find a way to make the link happen (sell them on great content, do a trade in-kind, plant a seed and hope, etc.)

If you’ve ever done this (for the first 2 years of my SEO career, it’s practically all I did), you know how much it sucks. Conversion rates are low. Time/link is high. The ROI is there, but it’s a painful, boring, awkward slog.

I’ve got some good news. There’s a better way.

Try this instead:

Step 1: Find relevant human beings (bloggers, journalists, forum participants, members of online communities, active social networkers, people in media, PR, or simply the well-connected).

Step 2: Follow their contributions to the web world and engage (in blog comments, over Twitter, via LinkedIn, through Q+A sites and forums, or directly over email). Ask for nothing.

Step 3: Build something highly relevant and useful to them. If you’ve truly built that connection and gotten to “know them,” even if it’s just virtually, you will know what they need/want/will appreciate.

Step 4: Let them know about it. This can be over Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, email, in a blog comment, or whatever medium makes sense.

This people-centric approach to link building is simply far-more effective. Developing consumable, shareable, and link-worthy content and getting that content in front of audiences that are ready, willing, and able to consume it, share it, and link to it, is fundamental to successful web strategy.