The Art of SEO, 2nd Edition

Types of Link Building

There are many different link-building tactics—too many to list in this book. This section will examine in depth some of the more common ones.

Using Content to Attract Links

In natural link building, the publisher must provide compelling content. Publishers need a good reason to provide links to another site, and it is not something they do frivolously. Providing superior content or tools is the key to obtaining such links.

Aggressive publishers can even let their content strategy be guided by their link-building strategy. This is not to say that they should let their link-building strategy drive their business strategy, however.

Normally, there are many different types of content a site could produce. The concept is simply to identify the link-building targets and what content will most resonate with the publishers of the target sites, and then tweak the content plan accordingly. Keyword research can also help identify content related to your target market, and can play a role in identifying topics that may help attract links.

High-quality content is at the heart of achieving link-building nirvana—having a site so good that people discover it and link to it without any effort on the publisher’s part. This can be done, but it does require that the publisher create content that truly stands out for the topics that its site covers, and that it thinks about link acquisition in every aspect of the publishing process.

The types of content that can attract links vary ...