Following on from the recent whiteboard friday post on SEOMoz which highlights the importantance of ‘Link Earning’ rather than ‘Link Building’ I thought I would go a bit more indepth with 3 methods you can use to earn links that are more beneficial to your websites optimisation than the general link building strategies that have been used over the last few years for SEO that now are becoming less effective.
Other Methods of Link Earning
Above are just some simple methods you can use to bring in the right kind of natural links that Google likes, if you have any others that you think might benefit your SEO campaign then please leave suggestions below
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4 Responses to Link Earning, 3 ways to earn links rather than to buy or build them
Thanks for your feedback, I have amended this slightly to ensure that I put this method across in a way that fully complys with Google guidelines.
With offering free samples, rather than being a tactic to build links, it should be done in a natural way whereby you do not directly ask for a link but if people appreciate the experience and they will write about it without being asked which in turn provides useful content for their users and earns a natural link to your website, I’m afraid I may have got caught in so many blogs I have read from SEO companies with the term ‘Offer something for free’ – I’m glad I have your feedback so I could amend my post so it fully explains how this should be done ethically
I would love to hear wyour opinions about the other points in the post
1. Some clients don’t have products that would work for free on a national basis. Even locally, offering something for free IN THE HOPES of getting ONE link is use of poor judgement and resources.
2. Personal experience articles don’t make me want to link to the company website. Even if I wanted more of the same, I would bookmark the website, not create a link to it.
3. Your…you mean “You are…” How many potential clients have websites with reviews on them? Isn’t this what Amazon and Ebay are for?
I am not going for link building anymore, but EXPOSURE. Every website I can find says they get no more than 10% of their traffic from Google. It is about damn time we approached Google with the “they aren’t as important as they think they are” mentality.
Keep trying. You are getting there.
Thank you,
Eric
Not leaving my SEO website for a link since this would be Link Building and not Link Earning.
I perhaps have not gone into enough detail about these methods so you understand them from a broader view.
1- My post didn’t focus solely on ‘products’ but referred to offering something for free, long before SEO this has been used in many industries as a means of exposure (which you later highlight and I agree with your point on this.)
In regards to ‘hoping’ people build links, anything given away should be researched first to ensure it provides a return, whether this be earning links or exposure of the business.
I would briefly give one example – Google webmaster tools – its a free product that Google have given away. Along with Googles other ‘free to use’ products (even the search engine itself!) it has provided exposure, links and revenue.
2- Personal experiences would be judged solely on the topic and what the post is reflecting. A personal experience could be a useful aid to somebody and yes it may only get bookmarked but there is a strong chance if its personal then firstly its unique content and secondly it has a personal, non corporate feel which a lot of readers appreciate.
3- I never stated reviews on customers website, I’m talking mainly about reviews on other websites, this is a great way of earning local links and trust within your local community
As for the comment regarding your SEO website for a link, as you made a contribution and didn’t just leave a comment with ‘great post’ then I would not consider that ‘Link Building’ as the link is ‘Earned’ by your contribution
I will be putting a more in depth post on about earning links through offering something for free in the coming week, so please check back again for a more wider range of ideas.
eric 
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2:27 pm 26th Oct 2012
Asking people to review your product/service and giving ‘free samples’ to webmasters, or bloggers is against Google’s guidelines, it is the very first point in the list of link schemes, http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66356