Yesterday was the first day of awesome SEO Summit that was hosted by Neil Patel. Neil invited several speakers that talked about increasing traffic, and improving website ranking. One of my favorite sessions was presented by guest speaker Glen Allsopp, an owner of ViperChill company. Glen presented very interesting information on what works right now in link building. His main focus was on PIN’s, content that earn links and ranking one-page websites. Glen has been working as SEO for the past 11 years. He wrote booked called “Viral Marketing for Dummies” and his work has been featured with several major websites. In today’s summit, Glen shared 8 most effective link building techniques. So here they are.

8 Most Effective Link Building Techniques

1. The Survey/ Study

Survey your audience and share your findings. This technique allows you to get links even for the toughest topics. People that want to talk about
that topic, they may want to link up to your study or survey to back up their article. Glen gave and example of personal finances. So if you interview people on their credit card spending, or anything else relating to their finances, those are the facts that can serve as a bait for others to link to. Any financial specialists, market researches or other that are interested on the topic of finance may use your survey or study results in their article and of course link back to yours as a source of information.

2. The Interview

Interview someone who is hard to reach that is on top of your industry. It may take time and persistence to get such hard to reach individual to agree to talk to you, but people will love to read it. Prepare well for such interview. Think about interesting questions that you may want to ask. For example you can ask about challenges that person had to overcome before they were able to get to the top of the industry. Or maybe ask about their daily routines. Getting an interview with somebody like that will help you to build your site credibility and encourage others to link up to your content.

3. The Twist Post

Add a twist to a traditional post. Usually you find the articles like “10 best ways to… ” or the “The top 5 products that…”. Well, adding a twist to it like: “How to Save Money: 100 Great Tips to Get You Started” or “100 Must Read Books: The Man’s Essential Library” are proven to be way more effective and present a lot more value to the readers. Remember- the title of your article is what people will see first. If the title is interesting and different from what people are used to- they may want to read it.

4. The Evergreen Guide

Create a guide or a tutorial that people would want to link to. It could be step-by-step instructions on how to start something- how to start new business, or how to loose 25 pounds in 2 months. For example Glen wrote an article on “WordPress SEO: The Only Guide You Need” and he continues getting links to it every week. That information continues to stay current and people can still see the value in it, so they link to it.

5. The Core

Write about something you are passionate about and that appeals to the emotional side of your readers. When you appeal to people emotions, they love to comment on articles like that and they love to share it. Even if it something that is controversial- even better. It gets people talking.

6. The Comparison

Compare different options or products. Glen gave an interesting example of a blogger that got 309 links to an article about lightbulb just by comparing different options. People like comparisons, because it helps them to make decisions. And if they already made the decision- it reassured them that they made the right one.

7. The Journey

Start a public journey that people would like to follow. Whether it is personal lifestyle, diet, or how to build a startup company, people love to follow good examples and look for a guidance in so many areas.

8. The Item-Hype

This method is basically using this formula:

The example that Glen showed was an article: “Open Source Blogging: Feel Free to Steal My Content”. This article earned 1,000 plus backlinks. This formula gives your readers clear expectations on the article and what they can get from it. The title is also intriguing- why would somebody want to allow others to steal their content? And there is the bait.

PIN- Private Influencer Network

This is another interesting topic to Glen talked about during the SEO Summit. Every webmaster should be using this technique and it is proven to be very effective. Basically, you create relationships with other people who are already doing well with link building. You become part of a network where you help each other. You promote them and they promote you. Now the idea is not to find friends who just become a linker. You want to start building relationships with people who are already active in blogging and promoting their content.

So do you have any other techniques that work for you exceptionally well? Feel free to pitch in and add your ideas.