Have you just launched a new website that needs to build its online authority? Does your existing website a strong, diversified link portfolio to help it compete in the organic results?
If you are nodding your head to either of these questions, then a link building strategy needs to find its way into your marketing plan.
Fortunately for you, there are some quick and easy ways to build links to get you started – referred to as the low hanging fruit of link building.
Before you go getting all excited about building some links quickly and easily, there’s something you need to understand…
Just because we are going to provide some low hanging fruit doesn’t mean that your link building efforts should stop there. To make your website competitive online – and to get useful traffic from your links – you need to incorporate a diversified link building strategy.
Are we saying that the low hanging fruit is not going to help much?
Definitely not.
What we’re saying is that you should not expect to rely on the low hanging fruit as you’re only source of backlinks as they will merely be a start for your website – and probably not incredibly effective on their own.
Coupling them with stronger links (like editorial links from authoritative websites) will strengthen your link profile, but let’s focus on the easy stuff first.
A comprehensive, effective SEO strategy has to include link building. More specifically, link building that brings a diverse set of quality backlinks that will accomplish any or all of the following objectives:
Link profiles made up of all different types of links from varying sources tend to help websites realize these results sooner than later.
This even includes easily attainable links that may not carry the same value as higher quality, more authoritative links.
Here are the varying types of “low hanging” links and how to get them…
Don’t overlook the link opportunities you may have available to you right under your nose. In other words, if your company has other websites or blogs, then consider cross-link strategy between them by using backlinks on deep, internal pages of each asset.
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Although most social profile links are “no follow” links they can still provide some value and shouldn’t be ignored, especially since they are simple to get.
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Much like social profile links, local business listing links are not going to provide much in terms of direct SEO value to your website. However, their other benefits make them necessary for any link profile especially with the increasing importance of having a strong local search presence.
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Despite some rumblings that press releases have become useless for SEO, specifically link building, there remain to be some valid reasons to continue using press releases for links.
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Although not your conventional backlink, a link to a page or post on your site that gets shared via social media can be very beneficial for your website. On top of a few primary benefits, these shares are becoming even more valuable as they act as signals to the search engines that your content is popular or authoritative.
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If so, then please share with everyone (including us) by leaving a COMMENT BELOW.
It wouldn’t be right to close out this article without reiterating the fact that the 5 easy types of links outlined above are not enough to help your website compete online.
They will help to build and diversify your website’s link profile, and may even bring some traffic increases, but you shouldn’t expect your website to grab that #1 spot in Google or Bing anytime soon with just these links.
Instead you should always be thinking about how to attain links that will build your authority, bring more traffic and lead to more conversions.
Expand your link building efforts to mix in these types of higher quality links for the best results:
If you’re not sure how or where to get these types of links, then we’d love to help.
Go ahead and hit the button below to schedule a consultation with one of our link building strategists to learn what strategy may be best for your business.
Need help starting or improving your link building strategy?
5 Comments
Internet Reputation Pro
June 7, 2013
Nice summary. I absolutely agree. In order to execute successfully, you have to learn the basics first!
Hudson Hornick
July 1, 2013
Hi. I’ve heard that these blanket approaches to social bookmarking and local directory submissions don’t really help that much, and in fact can hurt your seo by seeming “spammy.” Any thoughts/updates?
Thanks,
-H
imFORZA
July 1, 2013
Thanks for reading our post Hudson.
What you’ve heard definitely holds some validity. This is exactly why we have these tactics described as “low hanging”. We also stated that things like locking up social bookmarking profiles and even niche local directories are usually good for a few reasons other than just link building.
If you’re expecting any of these things to deliver big SEO or traffic wins in the short term (or even the long term in most cases), then you’d be disappointed of course.
These things are really just easy things to grab, in moderation, and lock up for your brand name. The second someone starts abusing these things, then they can most definitely come off as spammy tactics.
Hope that helps a bit.
Spook SEO
December 7, 2013
Nice work Vinny, I do believe that Press Releases are still worth to work on even though Matt Cutts said that the links pass no value, but still from what I’ve heard and seen so far it doesn’t seem to be 100% true, as long as we keep ’em clean and really making them news worthy.
adeem jan
January 25, 2015
Even seasoned SEOs still don’t seem to get it: there is one over arching thing Google tries to excel at: the best ONE search result for the user’s search question. If they could ascertain that, then most results (SERPs) would contain one or ten links at the most. So when Cutts says guest posting is dead he means those posts that were done to game the SERPs. So they want to get a higher listing in the SERPs than -based on their content answering Google’s most pressing question above- they deserve. And Google then tries to purge that erroneous result from the list and “restore” order. This leads to algorithm changes that then end in a lot of “stranded investments” in time and money in “obsolete” link building and other SEO activities. But we can all see, where Google is headed: finding that elusive ONE (or few) answer(s) to the searchers’ questions. If we don’t bother at all (!) about SEO in the dated sense but focus only (!) on the content, we might not get quick results but.… if my reasoning is right, like with Shakespeare who prevails where hundreds of his contemporary “competitors” have waned into oblivion, you will see your OLD content rise a little in rankings each time Google closed another SEO “loophole”…