Why are link building strategies important? This is a common question and the answer has everything to do with how much weight the search engines place on different aspects of our SEO activities.
Although paying attention to your on-site search engine optimization is important, and it’s vital to select and use the right keywords for your photography business (see “SEO For Photographers, Part 2: Where To Use Your Keywords“), that only accounts for around 25% of the factors involved in your search engine ranking calculations.
The remaining 75% of the ranking metrics are what we call off-site factors. Because the search engines know we have less chance of manipulating that data, it’s considered more trustworthy, and therefore given more weight in the calculations.
What Do We Mean By Off-Site SEO?
The foundation of off-site SEO consists of all the inbound links to your website from other resources across the web. (Tip: Confused about SEO? Read “How does SEO work?”).
For example:
- Links in articles and other content…
- Content shared via social media…
- Social media profile links…
- Author resource boxes on guest posts…
- Mentions of your brand name…
- Comments made by you on other blogs…
All of these, and more, serve to increase the perceived authority and trust of your website domain as well as the individual pages on your website.
We obviously don’t have complete control over every single link that points to our photography website, but it really helps to be as proactive as possible by connecting with good business partners, such as related blogs and business-owners, in order to encourage them to link to you.
To get you started with your off-site SEO, here are five very easy link building strategies that you can put to good use, starting today.
#1: Attracting Links Through Good Content
This is something you should already be doing anyway, as a natural by-product of your blogging activities, but many people seem to overlook it for some reason!
The aim is to produce very rich and detailed content on your blog or website that will naturally attract links from other website owners who happen to find it beneficial for their own audience.
Depending on the scope and presentation of the material you create, it may require a great deal of effort to copy, so other people are far more likely to create a simple link to it than to reproduce it on their own website.
Some examples of such content could include:
- Useful ideas and tips for preparing for a family portrait session...
- Getting your pets ready for a photography session…
- Hair and make-up ideas for high-school senior girls…
- Inspirational articles on the high sentimental value of wall portraits…
- Interesting and detailed “how to” articles on photography…
#2: Guest Blogging Opportunities
It should go without saying that your online marketing plan should include posting regularly on your own blog, but there is also much to gain from writing guest posts for other blogs, especially for those who happen to serve the same target market that you do.
Guest articles usually give a credit to the post author and include a direct link back to the author’s website or blog. This is therefore a really good opportunity to obtain a backlink in addition to attracting more website traffic.
Be on the lookout for those blogs written by business owners who serve your ideal clients. You can also search for industry-related blogs, professional organizations, non-profits, and even other professional photographers.
#3: Video SEO
Video has become a much more accessible marketing vehicle in recent years, thanks in part to the increasing bandwidth of the average Internet user. Vimeo, YouTube, and the other major video sharing websites are excellent places to market your photography business and also accumulate some good SEO value.
In addition to creating a link from your video channel profile, you should also include a backlink to your blog or website as the first thing in the video description.
If you are a Vimeo Pro or Vimeo Plus user, you can also show a link after the video has finished playing, which is a really useful marketing tool. At the end of the day, the SEO value of your videos also rests on the keywords in the title of the video, the number of “likes”, views, and embeds etc.
#4: Creating Joint Ventures With Other Local Business Owners
Joint ventures and partnerships with other local business owners are fantastic marketing opportunities. Whenever you do join up with someone for a common cause or promotion, each party should take the time to promote and document it via their blog or website.
As part of that promotion, it will be natural to share appropriate backlinks to the websites of each of the other partners, preferably using appropriate keywords as part of the anchor text in the links.
#5: Links From Human-Curated Directory Listings
It should already be understood that the vast majority of directory websites and “link farms” need to be avoided at all costs, however human-curated website directories can accumulate a good level of domain authority and trust with the major search engines, because all of their listings and submissions must be approved by a real human being before they’re listed.
For example:
- Technorati…
- Alltop…
- Your local chamber of commerce…
- Professional photography organizations and other bodies…
- The local Better Business Bureau…
- Other human-managed lists…
Questions or Comments?
These are only five of the very many ideas available for link building strategies for your blog or website, and I hope this has given you some good food for thought as you think about your own link-building strategy.
By the way, it is possible to go over the top with off-site SEO, so care is needed to make sure you don’t look like you’re attempting to manipulate the system in any way. There’s a great video about off-site over-optimization over on the SEOMoz blog.
If you have any questions at all about any of these or comments on how you’ve been able to put them into action, do take a moment to share those in the comments.
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