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5 Amazing Link Opportunities For Startups To Capitalize On

Link building carries with it quite a number of roadblocks. And some of these become even more problematic when SEO programs set aside just a small fraction of their resources to link building. Even when you have quality content to share, which you think should be reason enough to compel pages to link to your own, there still isn’t any guarantee that link building will take place.

In 2015, BuzzSumo and Moz both did a study that looked into over a million articles to determine the correlation between shares and links, and to identify the kind of content that acquires both. When they analyzed more than 750,000 well-shared posts, researchers of the study found that more than 50 percent of these had no external links. This finding suggests that acquiring links is not necessarily directly proportional to the number of shares a post gets. Hence, getting your desired number of links is in itself a challenge.

Managing and purposely acquiring links is crucial in any link-building campaign. The good news is you can develop strategies on how best to get the links that are valuable for your site. Here are some link opportunities you can pursue and capitalize on for your site.

Local Directories

person holding black smartphone

Local directories are exactly what they sound like; they provide you a quick way to draw links to your site. They are directories that are specific to your location. In pursuing local directory links, it is paramount to keep the “local” part at the forefront of your mind. You have to optimize your business listing and address for Google to find your business. Just like using location-based keywords like “near me” as an example. Take for example that you own a Pawnshop business in Texas, you can use keywords like “pawnshops near me“, “Texas Pawnshop”, or “Local pawnshop”.  Local directories can also be really useful if they tend to focus on your specific niche as well. 

Options include the following:

-City/county directory

-Local chamber of commerce

-Local newspapers

-Your building’s online directory

Once you have the directory you’re interested in, you should be able to analyze its value and see if it is serious about the quality and legitimacy of its listings. Directories that pass link juice often have editors whom you will pay to review your site.

Local Sponsorships

Local sponsorships may offer an ocean of link-building possibilities as well. Often, the most common sponsorship opportunities originate from local events. Through local sponsorships, you are not building just a mere brand recognition at the actual event; you can also get solid links from the sponsorship page of their site.

Seek some conferences, trade shows, or awards ceremonies to sponsor. You can also go on parades, concerts, fairs, and festivals. Another option is for you to sponsor organizations, league teams, charities, or other local projects then you may ask for a link instead of a plaque or certification for your sponsorship. More often than not these organizations have a website, and it’s a win-win trade for both of you if they will give you links in exchange for your sponsorship.

Host Competitions

Another crucial and effective means of link building for startups is to host competitions or giveaway promotions. This way you can encourage your existing participants to link back to your site to show others where they could sign up to join the competition. Or, you can release an announcement on your site that lists the winners. This gives the participants something to link back to when they happen to tell their peers or family members who won the competition.

One important aspect of giveaways and contests is to ensure that you promote something to the audience in the right places so you can get to your target users. A great way to do this is to communicate with local websites or bloggers and let them know you are running a contest. Most of these promotions will link back to your site to let your niche audience know more details about the events you are hosting. 

Just provide the managers or bloggers of these local websites with enough information to give people the basics about your events. But make sure you leave other important details available on your website alone to encourage link building.

Offer Local Scholarships Or Discounts

Offering local scholarships or discounts for local college employees can be a good move in building some .edu links from local colleges. Educational institutions are often willing to make things more affordable for the students with great potential, and by sponsoring a scholarship, you may be able to build links from their website.

Now, in reaching out to school websites, it is paramount to ensure you have credible contact info. Usually, colleges may have a good number of different departments and employees, thus make sure that you reach out to the most appropriate individual to maximize your chances of building a link successfully.

Depending on your site or on your client, you can tailor the kind of scholarship you will offer. If for example you or your client are mainly concerned with business management and marketing, then students taking courses related to your field will fit the bill. Or if you have a specific group of students to offer a scholarship to, say aspiring women professionals, then you can market your site to different women’s organizations in your area. This will likely get you more than a single .edu link.

Know that these kinds of links can be extremely valuable in link building as .edu domains typically have a myriad of trusts and authority from the kinds of link neighborhoods where they are located.

Provide Testimonials

Giving testimonials could be one of the most straightforward local link building available today.

You may offer to give a positive testimonial to another company website. This will give them legitimacy and in return, they can provide a link back to your site making prospective customers who view the testimonial see who you are.

Testimonials are a positive way of link building as many of our contacts ourselves included even, would love to get affirmative statements about the services we offer. This is to encourage potential clients or customers to get in touch and at the same time reflect the kind of business relationship we’ve built with others.

Final Thoughts

Link building for startups may require thorough research and effective communication. As you are on your way practicing link building, you’ll get familiar with your brand’s resources as well as your specific industry’s link environment. Over time, this practice may help increase links from relevant websites and blogs.

Written By

Sabahat Akhter, the Project Manager for leading printing companies producing promotional advertising products. She has experience in Data Management and Products Quality Assurance. QA and large-scale production workflows are her expertise.

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