Link Building Referral Partners – Showing The Love!

Knock it out…

I always say get the easy and foundational things out of the way first.  With a million things to do in marketing, getting the one and done things out of the way so you can focus on high leverage activities is critical.  So here is your first one and on link building strategy.

1. Go see what websites have your “handle” available.  http://namechk.com/
2. If it’s available, snag it!  Each of these social sites allow you to have a link to your website.
3. If you don’t want to do it yourself, outsource it!  Just make sure that your profiles are complete with name, biography, info, logo, website address and any other information allowed.  For $1500 one time – you can have over 300 social media sites completely set up for you, including custom branding and design on the majors.

There are offensive reasons to getting this done, such as link building and occupying more space on search engines for your brand, but there are also critical defensive reasons for knocking this out quickly!

1. The more real estate you own on Google the less risk you have of one client posting something negative and it siting at the top of search engines for customers to view.
2. Protect your Brand and your name.  Unfortunately there are competitors who play dirty, and one of their methods is to snag your brand name across other social sites, urls and so forth.  Why even take that chance.
3. You never know what social media site is going to take off in advance, for $100 a month, you can have someone monitor the social network space and automatically claim these handles for you so you can focus on the business.

If you are interested in outsourcing this process – just shoot me your information and I can tell you how to get it done.

Link Building Referral Partners | Where Are they?

Finding the right people who want to support and help you is a process. The idea behind great link building and developing actual relationships is a brilliant idea, but developing optimal high-quality links without people seems to be not possible. You will need that people connection.

Find your supporters, they are out there. All you need to do is open your eyes and look.

Link Building Referral Partners | Who Are they?

1. Who is already your best cheerleader?

This is the most natural first step and one of the most important. Ask for their support and help.
One of the most basic link building strategy is identifying existing brand mentions that don’t contain a link. Why? Because the author already chose to write about you! There’s no negotiations or meetings with them they are already writing about your brand or product and the only real effort they have to take is adding the link.

Also, there are companies posting with unlinked mentions and we do recommend you check out the possibilities in this area.

Link Building Referral Partners | Who is talking?

2. The Person Who Wants To Talk About You

With over 2 billion pages on the web and the quest for unique content, people are always in searching for new topics to discuss.  The key is finding those people who are looking to write a story…about you! A few key tactics include:

• Social Media Review and Monitoring
• Review Editorials
• HARO (Help a Reporter Out) queries:  HARO is an email list you register for to receive requests each day from reporters who need sources for their stories
• PR-focused links from reporters and bloggers.

Link Building Referral Partners | Consider your own employees. 

3. Employees

Employees are your content commodity and a valuable asset for new and fresh content as users on your company website.  They often like (love) their job, excited about the company direction, and want to tell their circle or community about where they work. Getting your employees excited about blogging can grow your community very quickly because they are also very likely to post and share to multiple social media platforms.

How people can connect to the company website, speakers, etc.

• Email Signatures
• Social Networks
• Personal Sites

 Link Building Referral Partners | Consider your inner circle

4. Your inner community, friends and family.

In 2013, Scarborough Research stated that  3.9 million moms in the US that recognized themselves as true blue “bloggers”.  A Google search today for “mommy bloggers” shows over 8 million results.  Is one of your friends one of those moms?

Friends and family are underrated relationships used in link building. We often do not ask because they are in our inner circle of influence, friends or family. The average Facebook user has 130 friends while 21% of LinkedIn users have between 500-999 connections. The connections of your friends and family may go further than you think, so consider speaking to your family.

Oh, and don’t forget about your niche peers!

Link Building Referral Partners | Consider your own Customers.

5. Customers
The power of word of mouth for building your online referral network is a big deal.  The power of the customer can be huge and business changing.  Your customers have a voice, opinion and can fall in love with you and change your world. Customers have a bigger influence than ever before and they aren’t shy to use it. This process is what grows your community, your tribe.

Creating “raving fans” takes effort and work, the payoff goes way beyond links. Taking company time off from sales to focus on your most valuable asset, your customers is another game changer.

This increased talk is good for your business and link building strategy.

Link Building Referral Partners | Find your brand influencers

6. Find your brand advocates and influencers

There are people that are big brand advocates and are ready to help you. These are folks that really like your brand and may or may not be a customer.

There are certain products, services, vendors that we often will recommend but we are not customers. We just love the brand and often refer others just because of our preference.  With so many social media networks available it is easy to discover your brand mentions and find the people who are your brand advocates.

Link Building Referral Partners | Find Your Partners and Distributors

7. Your Partners & Distributors
A huge step in starting your campaign is to designate your partners and distributors. Keep this task basic and clear.

Partners can play a large role in supplementing existing business and discovering new business.

Please consider these rules when evaluating existing partners as you develop the relationships:

• Invite them to be interviewed on your blog, live radio show, webinar or a google hang out.
• Invite them to be a guest blogger on your current website. Trade blog posts. (Avoid duplicate content!!!)
• Get a review from them
• Plan a joint event together.
• Find out if they have a partners page

The same thing goes with distributors. Distributors feel comfortable selling your product and should feel comfortable linking to your brand. For manufacturers, take a look at distributor websites for line cards. Many of them will link to their manufacturers.

Link Building Referral Partners | Who Else Do You Know?

Many of us have multiple networks at our finger tips to build one great community. Always consider your  friend, family member, or customer as the best person to ask…you never know.

Let get ready and begin to make the rest of 2014 and 2015 the best year ever.