I have decided to start writing some super simple and short guides for mom and pop. Mainly since the vast majority of the SEO blogs out there are addressing people in the web development & SEO business.
First, since this article is for mom and pop, let me define Link Bait. Link Bait is any content on your website that is so useful that other websites link to it. As you probably know (or maybe you don’t), links from other websites help with search engine rankings. So how does a local small business develop content that others will want to link to? Here is just one simple strategy.
1. Start a Blog (visit blogger.com for a super simple and FREE place to do this).
The blog audience doesn’t always have to be your potential customers. In addition to customer focused posts, I suggest blogging about topics your colleagues might be interested in too. Maybe you are in the printing business and you write an article aimed at other printing businesses. For example, this could be a top 10 list of favorite tools. Maybe there is a printing business in another town that finds the article useful and they mention your blog post on THEIR blog and they link back to your post. That is a link. Not only is that a link. It is a link from another printing business which is even better, because it is on topic.
2. Identify Your Linkerati (audience from whom you would like a link).
Let me define that term for mom and pop. Linkerati = potential linkers. So in the example mentioned in #1 the linkerati would be other printing businesses. Whoever your linkerati turns out to be, that is who you need to write for at least some of the time. Not every blog post is Link Bait. You will still write for your current customers, potential customers, the community at large and now your linkerati.
3. Join Twitter.com
Start following colleagues in your industry. You can find them by going to Twellow.com which is an organized directory of twitter profiles. Hopefully they will follow you back. Have meaningful conversations with them. This can’t just be about spamming them with blog posts. Setup your blog to post to your twitter automatically using the easy and free tool offered at twitterfeed.com. There are similar tools for other social networks.
4. Join a Few Message Boards and Social Networks
These would be communities where your linkerati hang out. Again the interaction here should be genuine. Some social networks allow you to feed your blog posts to your profile. For message boards you can include your blog link in your signature. Let me caution you that this can be a tremendous time waster if you are not methodical. Join just a handful of communities that you genuinely want to participate in related to your industry. Then once a day or every other day, visit and participate for a set amount of time (or else you will find yourself compulsively being there all day). Again, the goal here is not to spam them with your blog posts, but to network with others in your industry and in the process you can make them aware of your blog and any good posts that you write.
5. DIGG.com, StumbleUpon.com, Del.icio.us and Reddit.com
These are all places to submit to that can potentially get your post in front of the people who might link to it. If your post is really good, it will be voted up and more people will see it. The people who see it who find it useful will talk about it in their own blogs and link back.
That’s it for now. I’m hoping to keep doing these super simple and short guides for mom and pop in the future.Labels: Link Bait, Link Building, Mom and Pop, SEO
