Creative Ways to Get Links from a Reluctant Target - Whiteboard Friday

Key Takeaways

[Music] howas fans welcome to another edition of whiteboard Friday uh this week we're dealing with a particularly tough problem which is when you've got a link Target that's extremely hard to approach difficult to get a link from and you and you think to yourself boy this is a high value link Target right there got good metrics good rankings uh the link could send me maybe some some good visitors and I want to get that brand you know linking to me and I think it's a trusted domain I think it's going to help me in the rankings and a lot of times you know those those tough few dozen or couple dozen links can really push you over the edge uh in the rankings for particular things and so I wanted to discuss some creative ways to get links from reluctant targets now first off let me just say that I hope this situation doesn't happen right it shouldn't be the case that you first ask for a link and then get turned down if you think the situation is going to be tough you want your first impression that first effort to feel very natural and organic in fact it should be natural and organic they should link to you because they want to link to you because you actually have something to provide that's uh that's helpful and that's what exactly what these ways are so hopefully you know you don't get that no way I'm looking to your site um so first off some uh creative tactics number one the testimonial uh so one of the really interesting things that we've seen on the web is that people companies of all kinds are desperate for testimonials particularly ones that uh do a few things number one they come with a photo someone's willing to send the photo of themselves they're willing to have their full name their title and the company they're associated with there's so many Anonymous testimonials that people have stopped sort of believing in those right they worry like H is that an actor is that stock photography or is this a real person uh and they've been hardpressed to find people who will leave them testimon that answer the specific item that they want right so if if your company provides uh you know online surveys and there's a lot of people who are really worried about security and you know someone leaves a a testimonial that says hey I'm the CTO at a security company and you know this survey product like I always feel secure because I I checked out their stuff and I know that I can feel safe using them great that's terrific that's precisely the kind of testimonial that you want number two uh the social connection so this is the idea that building up a relationship uh through Facebook through Twitter uh Twitter's particularly powerful for this in in building professional relationships so is LinkedIn right that that by retweeting your Target by following them by uh engaging with them in conversation regularly by commenting on their blogs by participating in their communities you can make yourself known and typically build that relationship that will eventually lead to the link the great part about this is you're getting way more than the link you know if you think is a brand that can really help you a person that can really help you uh personally and professionally this is a great thing to do anyway uh and and that's the case with a lot of these right if you really endorse a brand being able to say nice things about them is a great way to pay it forward and and hopefully get some of that in return you know doing this social connection is a great way to build up that relationship uh and the next one the inperson connection uh relies on on just the same uh philosophy methodology but the idea being that you go to the places where you know your target audience is going to be the people that you're trying to get links from you go to those conferences you go to those events even if you think well they're not customers they're just sort of people that I want to partner with if they're people you want to partner with and get links from online they're probably people who talk to and mingle with and can help your business uh in offline ways as well right and this is prot exactly what the search insts are trying to mimic with their link craft so going to these events right going out to dinner I don't know why it's one of those uh medieval long tables and they're both at two ends but yeah I guess not quite as friend a dinner as I thought uh picking up the check right these are great things right to when when two people reach for the check and you say no no I got this one but maybe you know just link to me sometime on your site great you know great way to end a conversation and person will always oh yeah sure no problem you know a link what that's you pick up the dinner great it's a $25 link you know $50 link easy well depends on which bottle of wine you get I suppose uh next one the Press piece so interestingly uh and probably not surprisingly when press writes about you when they say particularly nice things about you and they do interviews of you or they uh you know have you on a a radio program they interview for a blog or those kinds of things and you can mention that third party right like you know link to the the target over here in that uh blog post where you're getting interviewed mention them in that radio interview uh talk about their business a little bit it sort of it feels very very selfless to them and it's very likely to get you that link and the mention of you in the Press right whether it's a big press piece or an industry press piece or just a Blog press piece uh is also one of those things where when you ping them and you remind them hey you know we've been in this we were in this press piece oh and I talked about you and those kinds of things it's very uh it fulfills that mentality of is this a trustworthy business right this builds enough trust to where the linking Target can feel like oh yeah linking to them is probably a really good idea anyway because they're you know they're a solid uh solid brand solid website and last but not least the missing content piece this is one of one of the ones that I I really love uh quite a bit for multiple reasons so first off the idea right is that your target probably has content they wish that they had on their website that could be a report could be a survey could be just a blog post could be uh you know some infographics could be a data set uh could be a tool whatever that thing is they're wishing you know right now I'm wishing there's you know a hundred different kinds of reports and research papers I wish people would publish on Omas and submit to humas and a lot of people do right and that's fantastic but what I'm saying is that uh that missing content piece if you can ID what those are talk to your contact and say hey I can write those build those uh etc for you when they put that piece up they're going to link to it well externally likely get linked to it well and you'll have a link from there as the content developer the author the Builder of that now what's beautiful is two things number one you've gotten a link from your target great number two you built a relationship with the Target also great and number three people who are coming to that page who are externally saying like wow this is a really good resource you're the person who authored it you know they're going to give credit certainly to the company that hosts it but as the author you'll get some credit as well and you'll get traffic from that and that traffic could be interested in what you do could be uh potentially people who will link more to you and and identify you when they uh link to the initial piece of content so it's just a a beautiful Synergy here that's happening really with all of these tactics and that's why I love that creativity that that outside the kind of thinking uh as opposed to a well you know what I'm just going to link spam this methodology just works so much better all right everyone hope you've enjoyed this edition of whiteboard Friday and we will see you again next week take care