How Giving Stuff Away Can Drive More Traffic, Sales (And Maybe Even A Date!)

If you’ve been working on your SEO and online marketing, you’ve probably come to the conclusion that you’ll have to build links at some point.
Now, one way of building links is using somewhat shady techniques like PBNs…
but I’ll assume you’re of the more ethical persuasion, and want to build white hat links, via outreach and relationship building.
One thing I’ve noticed after thousands upon thousands of hours of testing is, you need something valuable to get a link.
“Yeah, good work genius”
I know, I know, that is obvious.
But we need to get down to the bare bones and define what is valuable.
It’s either going to be :
- Great quality content – and not overly advertorial or boring. It needs to answer pain points, be interesting, unique, funny or whatever.
- Cash – obvious one and while it’s against Google’s guidelines, the fact is, many utilise sponsored link placements and it works.
- Free product – companies use this all the time to entice influential bloggers or insta influencers. Although the bigger the following, the more likely you’ll need to pay a fee on top.
- Business link – sometimes you can work out a deal where you send some business to them, if its something which doesn’t detract from your own revenue, in exchange for that link. I.e. like an SEO agency sending clients to a web designer. I do this myself and sent link building clients to someone who creates content.
- Work or advice – maybe they need some advice or help on something you have expertise on? if it’s truly worth it, and they’re not taking the p**s then go for it.
- phone call/meeting/Date? Sometimes just by having a chat, you’re providing something of value to them. They may get a few ideas from it, it helps build their contact list, purely the human interaction aspect, or whatever it is they get out of it. And sometimes it could turn into something very unexpected…. Yeah I didn’t exactly get asked on a date, but when doing some outreach for an engagement ring consultant, using her persona (who was a very sophisticated and attractive girl) , I did have a link opportunity and offer to appear as a regular contributor on a digital magazine. However, didn’t take a genius to work out, it was clear he wanted to take her to a restaurant in central London! That offer had to get turned down on that occasion of course…
Ok so the point is, you need to be prepared to leverage something of some inherent value, in order to receive something of valuable back, in this case, a link.
It applies in online marketing and in other aspects of life, give value out and you’ll receive it back ten-fold. Maybe not straight after, but after enough work and being consistent enough, it will.
I’ll leave you with this quote which sums up something which keeps me motivated and encourages me to keep going.
“Giving is better than receiving because giving starts the receiving process.” – Jim Rohn
