More Word-of-Mouth Link Building Ideas
This is the third in a series of articles on building your own word-of-mouth link campaign. To start at the beginning read Looking Differently at Links.
Social Networks & Blogs
Social networks – such as Live Journal, My Space, Facebook and many others – is a complex topic and each one offers a great number of possibilities to promote your company. The basic idea comes down to the fact that a lot of people come to these sites and hang out there regularly. Social networks and blogs are a great way to find a target market group, but remember – just like groups and forums – you need to contribute to the group, not just market to them.
Social networks are considered separate from websites on the internet, especially in searches. How often do you see Facebook content come up on a Google search results page? Additionally social network have their own internal search systems that provide results from within their own pages. This means that when someone is on Facebook and does a Facebook search they are only going to find information available on Facebook. An internal search won’t find a regular webpage. This is why many companies have MySpace pages to supplement their regular website.
There is much controversy about the value of social networks for companies – especially those providing business-to-business products and services. It’s true that placing a company on the social networks is not for every business out there, but it is something to consider – especially for specialty companies selling to the general public.
Online Magazines and Articles
There are an amazing number of online magazines and other outlets where you can post news and articles. Writing an article to be published and referenced by others is a tremendous source of buzz and can drive a great number of people to your website.
Keep in mind that it takes more than just a single article to generate traffic through this method. It requires a steady output to see results. And, your articles need to be more than just press releases for your company. Articles need to contain the sort of information people will use and want to share with others.
The advantage of this system is that you only need to focus writing the articles. The distribution is done by other people. The challange is that you have to be (or hire) a skilled writer with something to say, and you have to find someone interested in publishing your articles.
I want to make it clear that I am not talking about spam. E-mail is a wonderful and very powerful promotional tool, but it can be easily abused. There are many good ways to use email without getting a bad name.
The most basic type of e-mail promotion is a simple electronic newsletter system, where people sign up for information and can cancel their subscription themselves whenever they wish. This tactic is used extensively by everyone from large well-known retailers, such as Borders and Sephora who send out graphically heavy html messages containing discounts and specials, to local quilt shops letting their customers know about upcoming classes with simple text messages. This is a very low manpower system that can generate an amazing amount of traffic and sales on your website.
Even every day email can be used to generate links. I am shocked that anyone forgets one of the simplest things possible with e-mail: place a link to your website within the signature portion of your e-mails. The e-mail signature can contain everything from the sender’s name to business hours to the company legal statement. Think of the total number of e-mails that your company generates. Each one has the potential of being a small advertisement for your company.
Are the sites and ideas I’ve mentioned over the last few articles the only places to pursue a word-of-mouth web campaign? Of course not, but it is enough information to get started and to help you think about different ways of publicizing your business and your website on the internet. Time spent reaching out every day will snowball you into real success.
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