The reality of “building links” or generating authority when it comes to SEO is one of the more difficult tasks when it comes to SEO. This is largely because it requires interacting heavily with other sites, and convincing them of the value of your site and brand.
This becomes even more difficult when your “brand” is associated with calibrating waste water instrumentation instead of something fun like hemp extracted CBD or an exciting travel destination.
Building Links For Boring Industries
People often think that building links is difficult in “boring” industries. However, there is a benefit to working for clients who’s peers and competitors are not at the top of their online marketing game. I’ve worked in plenty of boring niches.
A perfect example for being creative came from this idea I had for a steel door company I’m working with on their marketing that could apply to other “boring industries” like home care services or driving limos.
Leverage Your Product/Service’s Benefits For Links
Here’s an example: One of the benefits for building to utilize steel doors is an improvement in fire safety. So that opens so many possibilities for links and visibility!
Let’s open up BuzzSumo to find some of the top influencers when it comes to fire safety.
From here there are a couple of different paths you can take to turn that concept into links and social shares here’s my favorite way.
Come up with a “question” you want to get answered about fire safety. Then you do need to dig for some contact information.
For NFPA, I went to their Press Room page to get their media email. For the question I came up with this:
“We’re putting together some resources for our customers about fire safety, specifically around steel doors but general research and statistics could help too, can you point us to your best resources or have a quote from one of your officials that we could include?”
Once they reply with a resource, keep that conversation open with a thank you, and let them know you’ll share that resource when it becomes available online.
Repeat this process with other influencers until you have sufficient content to make a page, post or infographic and then share it with the contributors, who now have a vested interest in sharing it.
Since they’re not direct competitors, they will not feel anything holding them back from sharing it and often mentioning it on their own site or blog as well.
Remember to tailor your question’s difficulty and focus based on your target, and the less sophisticated the website the less sophisticated your question should be!
Additional Resources for Link Building
- Use unsplash for building links
- Look at relevant keywords, find potential allies
- Resources for marketing in the outdoor industry