4 Methods For Organic Link Building

Posted on June 19, 2012 by Scott in Link Building

link-building-methods

With the recent Panda and Penguin updates from Google, link building has been taken to a new level of difficulty.

Google frowns upon services or applications that are designed specifically for link building. Google is now forcing website owners to fix what they call bad links, which takes a lot of time. If the un-natural links are not removed, there is a chance for Google to de-index and/or lower page rank.

There are still many ways to have your content shared naturally. In this article, I am going to share a few of these methods with you.

High Quality Content

You may have heard of this before, but instead of just reading about it, do it. Create something that your readers will want to comment on and share with their friends and readers. Don’t just publish an article; create a graphic that also shares educational content. For example, an Infographic. People love to share content with stunning graphics on their Pinterest boards.

Social Sharing

Make sure that you have social sharing buttons on your website. However, make sure that it is done in a clean, un-obtrusive way. You do not want to negatively impact the user experience of your website. There are two great plugins for adding social sharing buttons on a WordPress website: Digg Digg and ShareBar.

Also make sure that the share buttons that you have active are ones that your readers are likely to click. For example, if your target audience is not using Reddit, then there is no reason to have a button for it.

Videos

As photographers, there are so many opportunities to create video content. With 4 billion videos being viewed on YouTube every day, there is no reason to avoid it.

Here are some tips to create videos for your website.

Set up a video camera aimed at a well-lit whiteboard. Then have creative whiteboard sessions explaining how your services can help your target audience.
Don’t like the camera? Install screencast software, and then design a virtual whiteboard in Photoshop.
Smartphones typically have great video quality. When you’re out on a gig or shooting for yourself, ask your assistant or friend to record you explaining what you’re doing and why.

Off-Site Engagement

The last method is one that is often done incorrectly. Social engagement is the act of interacting, chatting and discussing a specific topic on a social website.

Visit sites like LinkedIn, Quora, StackExchange or any website that your target audience is using. When you see a question or discussion about a topic that you have the knowledge and expertise to answer, dive in.

When you are in the discussions, do not add links to your website for the sake of link building. Let the discussion warrant a link or let another user add the link. Keep the discussion natural and le the engagement work its magic.

Link Building Evolved

Link building will never be the same and I am sure future changes will make the efforts even more difficult.

We, as photographers, can only do so much. The most important thing when trying to build links is let it happen organically.

Do you have a trick of your own? Comment below to share with the Photographers SEO Community.

Thanks for reading.

Scott

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