Building Links Without Creating New Content

Building links is a powerful way to boost your website’s search engine optimization (SEO) value. Links, specifically external links, indicate relationships and connections online. These relationships and connections add credibility to your brand as well as increase the value of your site and its content. In turn, this can further your site’s overall web authority and SEO value.

When another website links to your own, they are signaling to Google and other search engines that they use your content as a reference and find your brand reputable. One way to get other sites to link to yours is by creating content. Creating content is the best way to encourage other sites to link to yours, but sometimes maintaining a steady stream of content is not feasible.

Most small and medium-sized companies do not have a dedicated team of writers, graphic designers, and web developers who can focus entirely on creating new content for linking. Thankfully, link building without creating new content is possible. The experts at Front Porch Solutions have researched four ways to help your digital marketing efforts by encouraging linking without creating content. 

1. Mentions For Building Links

Mentions are an excellent way to build links, but they are often overlooked by many marketing professionals. Mainly, you want to find any mention of your company online so you can reciprocate. 

Brand mentions are anytime your business, products, or services are mentioned online. Essentially, whenever your company is mentioned online, Google and other search engines view that as an endorsement that your company is valuable and has valuable services, resources or products. Mentions, even unlinked mentions, boost your SEO value by showing that your business has online relationships and that those relationships are valuable. Linked mentions are even better for your SEO value. A linked mention signals to search engines that other sites view your content as valuble to link to which indicates that your site has value.

There are a variety of tools you can use to track mentions. Two of the most frequently used are Google Alerts, or advanced modifiers in Google Search. Specialty services exist too. Some notable ones include Mention, BuzzSumo, Critical Mention, and Ranker.

Opportunities for link mentions tend to be relatively high converting and if the mention does not already link to your site, it is usually not out of the ordinary to reach out to the mentioner and request the link addition of the link.

The following are a few key mentions to look for:

• Prominent employees
• Favorite products
• Events your business hosted or sponsored
• Building your business owns
• Offline marketing campaigns
• Brand representatives or spokespeople
• Slogans, Taglines, or brand phrases
• Key business actions like mergers, acquisitions, funding, etc

2. Building Links with Partnerships

Aside from the cooperative marketing, referral business, and product collaboration, partnerships are a great avenue for building links because they use already existing real-world connections.

If you have a public, offline collaboration with a company, you should call attention to it online. Reach out to your partners and discuss adding in links to draw attention to these connections. These links can be mutually beneficial for both partners by building SEO value. These links are also a great first step in co-authoring and co-creating content for even stronger link building opportunities in the future.

3. Community Engagement

When a company supports its community, it doesn’t go unnoticed. Helping your local community is great for many reasons, including the opportunity to have a brand-building event complete with link opportunities. Local newspapers often write short pieces about local companies getting involved in the community. These articles then get pushed out through the newspapers websites. This is where the link opportunities are. If you are interviewed by a local reporter about a community engagement activity you are doing, make sure they have the necessary links to your websites so you can get link credit on the online articles. 

If you are partnering with an event, sponsoring a local team, hosting a networking event, or organizing a food or clothing drive, make sure to talk about it online. See if you can work with the Public Relations specialists for the event, team, or charity and work out a mutually beneficial linking strategy. Offer linking to their website and politely request that they link to yours where applicable. This will help the SEO for both you and the organizations you are working with.

We never recommend putting linking opportunities over relationships with organizations, charity sponsorships, or other philanthropic and community events. Securing the link should be a secondary benefit of the community engagement.

Focus on accurately representing your actions, activities, partnerships, and events and then work on the relationship. We have a variety of useful ways you can get involved with your community outlines here:

• Sponsor local events
• Volunteer at a charity
• Offer scholarships to local students for college
• Sponsor local athletic teams
• Organize a food or clothing drive at the office
• Host networking events for the community

Companies that are actively involved in their communities quickly become part of the fabric of the community. Getting involved and helping out in any way you can really make a difference for your company, your community, and your SEO value through building links.

4. Testimonials and Reviews

Reviews and testimonials are increasingly important to consumers and clients. It is not uncommon for someone to comb through pages and pages of reviews before deciding to purchase your product or use your company’s services.

When a client or customer takes the time to write a good review about your business, acknowledge it and thank them. The same applies to a dissatisfied customer. Is someone writes a negative review, reach out and see if you can help address their concerns and issues. Witnessing engagement from a company on review sites and forums can have a positive impact, attracting future clients and customers.

Search engines pick up both positive and negative reviews alike, and they can all count as links. It is important to stay on top of them and make sure that you are paying attention to what your customers are saying online about your products or services.

Creating a linking strategy can be a complicated and frustrating process especially if you lack the capacity to continuously create content. Thankfully with these tips, you can boost your SEO value and link-building opportunities without completely relying on original content.

If you are looking for SEO support and a thorough linking strategy, the professionals at Front Porch Solutions can help you create a plan custom built for your business. Contact us today!