Putting together a link building strategy might sound like a complicated task but if you put on your marketing hat (white of course!) you could get the job done fairly easily. All the tools are available - you just have to put them down on paper or a spreadsheet so you can visualize the approach over time.
Link building should not look like an out of control science project but rather a comprehensive marketing approach specific to your business.
Let's take a look at some of the most important factors that your plan should have.
1. Structure: Layout all the areas that you want to target (video sharing, pr, article, etc...) fill in all the various websites you would like to use to execute each section for each month of the year. This will keep you on track with your link building and allow you to really see what direction you are taking to market yourself online. I always recommend putting together a link audit, using tools like Google Webmaster Tools and other third party good quality linking tools.
2. Diversity: Keep your link building strategy diverse. You never want to focus in one area and repeatedly beat that effort into the ground every month. When you look at your Google webmaster tools and analyze your links they should be diverse and well balanced. They should come from a variety of sources and include everything the web has to offer. A diverse link building campaign is one that will help you and your business the most. For instance, think of your link building strategy as a stock portfolio, keep it diverse or sink!
3. Robust: Approach your link building campaign like a marketing plan. You want to include some very robust marketing approaches. Launching a thousand articles is not the right approach. Make sure your link building strategy has some really beefy marketing elements to it. If at all possible try including some link baiting type techniques to really grow your business online along with sticky PR news and expert advice via article marketing.
4. Link Types: Typical good link building activities are nothing more than really building your reputation, brand and company online.
Some typical good link building activities that I always recommend are:
- Online Publicity
- Article Marketing
- Social Networking
- Local Profiles
- Blogging
- Blog Commenting
- Industry Associations
- and Many Other Natural Sources.
I always say, keep it all simple, because if you do over time it will work well! Ask yourself what a marketing plan should look like. Take the top industry leaders in your category and analyze the types of efforts and elements they have included in their day to day marketing approach. Chances are you will only see strong white hat SEO marketing techniques being displayed. You can't build a business for the long haul by cutting corners. You need to apply concrete marketing elements while building up your links in order to achieve the best online results.
About the Author - Nick Stamoulis is a SEM and SEO veteran and is the President of the search engine marketing company, Brick Marketing. Nick Stamoulis also writes daily in is SEO blog, the Search Engine Optimization Journal.