Last week Jake wrote an awesome post about leveraging relationships for link building and it got me thinking.  Seeing that I am a hermit who lives in front of the computer, how the heck do I build links without those daily “real-life” relationships?  Well, believe it or not, I do actively build links with relationships without meeting people in the flesh and wanted to share some of my tips and tricks for doing this across my social media networks.

The main thing to remember is that if you are helpful and can provide value to someone else, it is basically a virtual handshake and a way to fire up your virtual relationship.  Simple things like a vote, comment, retweet or even just praise can strengthen your relationship.  Here are a few things to do to meet people in Social Media, and turn them into friends (who can help you build links).

Make it Easy for People to Contact You

Put your instant messaging name up on all of your social profiles so that you can connect.  Internal messaging on many social sites is lackluster, and getting someone’s IM name can allow you to get in touch when you need to.  A few tips for messaging would be to create a separate account for your “public IM name” so you won’t overload your personal account with voting/favor requests.  Also, create an account on all of the main messaging platforms.  Many people prefer using Gmail over AIM, or Yahoo! over Gmail, so set it all up and use a service like digsby or pidgin to neatly manage it.

Many times you can instantly help your friends by giving votes which will go a long way when you need a favor.  People who are asking for votes/re-tweets/comments probably have a website that they are promoting – and guess what?  If you have a good relationship, you now have a friend on IM that you can use if you are looking for a link!

Allow People to Easily Find You

So now we see the power of people who are actively promoting social media content, and how targeted they can be for links.  To expand your networks, make it simple for people to find you across all social networks.  Place your Digg profile link in your StumbleUpon profile description, and include your Twitter account in your Digg profile.  The more places where people can find you, the more relationships you are going to build.  Also, having the ability to help people across multiple sites will just add to your cause when asking for a link.

Act Like You Would in Real Life

When a person finds your IM name from a social network, many times they “say hi” by sending you a link in which you should vote on.  This is one of the things that amazes me on a daily basis.  I rarely meet any people who try to get something from me without even saying hello.  When contacting people, you should try to really connect with them.  Say you met someone from StumbleUpon, subscribe to their favorites and let them know when you really liked a story that they found.  Find out where they live, what their name is, see what they like; basically, you should act like a human to them and you will work your way to a real relationship!  The more information you have on someone, the more you can help them, and in turn, the more you can ask from them.

All-in-all, while I might not have as many “real life” relationships as Jake, I have found ways to acquire links while using social media and building my networks.  To me, the biggest benefit of these virtual relationships is that the people you will meet will have a high probability of having a website where they could link to you,  and you can easily help them to start a positive relationship.  So even if you don’t have a wealth of personal connections offline, don’t fret!  These tips should hopefully help you reach your link building goals!

Ah, relationships. Good relationships are strong, meaningful bonds that act to hold people or objects together.  Like the furniture maker’s forgotten “dovetail” joint that once held a strong piece of furniture together and is now replaced with weak staples between faux wood fiberboard, relationships seem to be the forgotten glue that once held the business world together. Oh relationships, where have you gone?

Actually, relationships are alive and well, out there, calling your name with opportunities awaiting just beyond that first handshake. And why do we love relationships? Relationships lead to links online! Some of the best links that a business can acquire to their website are those developed through real-life relationships.

The best advice to grab these links is to get out from behind that keyboard and monitor (don’t worry, you can take your iPhone or BlackBerry with you) and go meet some real PEOPLE.

By meeting people and developing real relationships with them, you have the opportunity to garner quality links to your website. If you’re networking in the right places, these links are often targeted and of relative high value for SEO and for traffic purposes.

What do we mean by “real-life” relationships? These are relationships with people that you’ve spoken to on the telephone or have met in person. These are actual people you’ve developed a rapport with at some point at an event or in online social networking.

How does one go about garnering links from real life relationships?

First, you need to initiate or develop the relationship:

• Start by attending industry conferences and social events. Those who you meet at industry conferences, if you have a similar philosophy, will allow you to link to them and visa versa. The great thing about industry conferences is that you meet targeted prospects for link opportunities. Sometimes there are dot-org (.org) website owners who run trade or industry sites and are willing to link to you.  We all love .orgs, don’t we, for many of them are trustworthy and non-commercial in nature.

• If you’re not able to afford major industry conferences, it’s helpful to look for local networking groups and informal gatherings within your industry. It doesn’t have to be a huge once-annual event to attract a strong, focused group of attendees.

• Within industry magazines, find vendors who are offering related products but aren’t direct competitors.  Approach them and let them know that they have an opportunity with you.

• Within industry trade journals, find other businesses and organizations that you can call on to work up a relationship. Offer up lunch in your neighborhood and then discuss with them your online opportunities.

• Look to your local Chamber of Commerce, get involved and become active as a volunteer / member. Make sure to get some linking going from the Chamber website.

• Use online social networking sites like Meetup.com, LinkedIn.com and even Twitter.com to network with users who have like-minded interests.  The search features in these sites are solid and can lead you to some of the most valuable relationships anywhere.
  • Visit targeted users’ websites from their profiles to see if they could be a good linking candidate.
  • Find local MeetUp groups with people who are interested in like-minded topics or even topics that are slightly related.  For example, if you’re in the art-supply business, find a MeetUp of artists such as photographers, painters and/or sculptors.  Attend the MeetUp, be friendly and good things will happen.
• Twitter can be a great resource for finding links because the search is efficient, targeted, pretty much real time, and the initial pitch only has to be 140 characters in a direct message!

Once you’ve established a relationship, simply brief the target linker on the potential of the relationship.  If you think it’s a good linking partner based on audiences (and not solely on SEO weighting), chances are this is a very easy pitch and beneficial to both parties. Engage and see if there can be a meaningful way to share information between sites and help each other out in whatever form would work for both parties.

Granted, in a fair amount of cases you may end up with reciprocal relationships, but a targeted and natural-looking reciprocal link may be better than no link at all, both for SEO purposes and for actual traffic over time!  In many cases too there are simple, overlooked opportunities to garner one-way links directly back to your site and content.

Linking is a cumulative effort. Don’t expect to get hundreds of links overnight from this method. This is an organic, methodical process and not one which will bounce you to page #1 for all of your target or most competitive keywords in a day, or even a week. BUT, if you start out and say to yourself, “I’m going to garner quality, meaningful links over the course of time through hard work” - and set your goals to do so – it will happen. If you take the opportunity to ask for a link from most encounters and relationships you develop in your industry, good things will happen.

Relying on real-world networking, going out and pressing the flesh and meeting people in your industry (both at events and in online social networking websites) allows you to start on this path of natural linking success.  You’ll find that your business “dovetails” with some of the best places on the Internet!