Inventive Link Building – Link Rewards

This is because when you first begin SEO and link building on your site you can easily trump those who are doing no SEO, or those who are performing outdated SEO techniques. But as time goes by, and you've taken out all of the low-hanging fruit, you're going to be going up against the big guns. These are perhaps sites which have been around for a long time, with a solid link profile and a lot of authority and a good brand. You're going to need a lot of strong incoming links to catch up with these guys.

Before you rush to the nearest link farm, think about a unique way you can generate links for your niche. The best unique link building techniques will not be found in a list, but we can give you some suggestions that have worked for others in the past. This time we will focus on one tried and tested truth - people like getting things for free.

Now, the simplest way to go about getting links in this manner is to actually offer something tangible in return for a link. Consider setting up a 'link rewards' page, where you take customers' details of where they have put your link, and a number of different rewards based on the PR (PageRank) of the page. (Note: although PageRank is no longer an exact indicator of a page's strength, it is still a broad indicator that people understand, so is ideal for this purpose).

For example, if you are in the biscuit niche, consider sending incoming links that register on your links rewards page a free packet of biscuits if they link to you from a PR3 or above page. If they link to you from a PR5 or above page, you might send then a gift-boxed set.

The downsides to this process are you don't have too much say in which sites your links will appear, and what's to stop someone from removing the link after they receive the free gift? In this case it is best to try and send the gift after you know the site had kept the link for a significant amount of time, but not too long or the linking site may become disgruntled.

Whilst this may sound like an expensive prospect, weight up how much a link on a PR5 site would actually cost you if you purchased it on a contract. Furthermore, you get to spread a lot of positive marketing about your product. If your niche affords you the ability to send free gifts to those linking to your site, consider it as an option.

Guest post by: Claire Jarrett runs Marketing By Web, who offer SEO services and AdWords Management to SMEs in the UK.

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