Thinking Outside of the BoxWhen Link Building

Inbound Marketing vs. Internet Marketing

A lot of SEO’s mention the importance of practicing “unique” inbound marketing activities and thinking outside of the box when performing research, writing content, and building links to that content. For some reason, Internet marketers have put their heads in the sand. Where has the personality gone? Where is the genuine human-to-human interaction?

Inbound marketers and Internet marketers have different mentalities. An inbound marketer focuses on connecting with people and creating relationships that last. An Internet marketer focuses on promoting stuff and getting the sale. In the world of link building, being an Internet marketer is like trying to swim in a pool of jello. Ain’t gonna’ work, man. You can’t buy someone’s trust. You need to earn it.

One Example

I’m sure a ton of people who keep up on the latest SEO blurbs have read the SEOmoz post about WOW Internet’s Matthew Barby and his experience with thinking outside of the box when searching for quality back links.

Matthew takes link building to a whole new level:

1. He finds an interesting article about a topic he enjoys.
2. He then writes his own blog post on that topic.
3. In that post, he basically brags about the author of the article he read, mentioning the author’s name, points of view, and even giving a good review or recommendation on what the author is describing or offering.
4. He then contacts that author via email, Google+, etc., and tells him or her about the blog post he just wrote about them.
5. He asks the author to share that post with their network.

Here’s a response from one of the authors he contacted after going through this process:

Hi Matt, Thanks for writing this up. I’ve tweeted it, submitted to inbound.org: http://inbound.org/seo/2012/09/improving-your-keyword-analysis-with-wordstream-wow-internet-blog and shared on my facebook and google+ page. I’ve asked the people who do our company social stuff to share as well. Thanks again! Larry

Matthew’s overall strategy was to add value to existing content. With that added value, the content is more shareable. This is thinking outside of the box.

If you have any other experiences similar to Matthew’s, feel free to share.

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