Building business relationships through link building in 2024

Identifying potential link partners

• Identify sites that operate in your industry or niche.
• Look for partners maintaining high-authority sites or wide audience reach.
• Explore sites with readers or subscribers and customer bases that overlap with yours.
• Consider sites that provide high-quality and non-spammy content.

The list of potential partners will understandably vary depending on your niche. For instance, small makeup company owners can target online publications for teens and women. Besides reputable digital media, consider industry associations, academic institutions, and individual influencers or complementary brands.

Nevertheless, this activity’s overarching theme is to find collaborators who can provide contextually relevant links to your site. Getting insights from marketing and SEO firms like NOBS Marketplace can save you from this time-consuming exercise.

Leveraging industry connections

Participating actively in online communities, industry events, seminars, and exhibits helps expose your brand. More importantly, these social meetings provide valuable opportunities for link building. Pinpoint influential people in specific organizations and offer your time and expertise by:

• Speaking at live events 
• Contributing expert insights through guest blogging 
• Accommodating interviews to discuss pressing niche issues 
• Supporting specific community or sector initiatives

Link building relies heavily on the essence of human connections. Opportunities for backlinks, brand mentions, and affiliations rise as you establish relationships and credibility. Be helpful, stay engaged, and find ways to align your business objectives without losing compassion.

Adding value to earn links

Every link building endeavor must be mutually beneficial to the involved parties. It’s human nature to want benefits in exchange for something. Think of what you can offer your prospects to make their lives easier for effective collaborations. 

Some of the most common ways to add value include:

• Co-marketing campaigns 
• Cross-promotions on social media and other channels
• Collaborative content like white papers, infographics, and co-hosted webinars 
• Guest contributions for blogs and other resources 
• Link insertion for existing high-quality content 
• Product samples, discounts, or VIP access

Building relationships and offering ways to boost your partner’s goals will push them to naturally link back to your website through citations, brand mentions, and recommendations.

Pitching link placement opportunities

Ensure you’ve established a credible online presence before initiating contact with others. Crafting customized instead of generic pitches is more effective when requesting link insertion opportunities. Study your potential collaborator’s website and readers to understand how your content of offerings may appeal to them. 

Pitches that get the most responses should: 

• Reflect on your familiarity with their site and audience preferences 
• Clearly explain how working with you can benefit them
• Demonstrate why your website would be ideal for a referral
• Highlight future collaboration opportunities

Following an outreach proposal, provide ample time for response and be respectful when sending out follow-up messages.

Making cross-promotions work

Most companies find that collaborating for marketing can be deeply rewarding. Partnership or co-marketing amplifies advertising efforts and allows them to tap new audience, generating valuable referrals. 

But simply slapping two logos together doesn’t cut it. A quick phone call or online strategy session can set the wheels in motion. 

For instance, businesses can agree to: 

• Bundle their products to boost their offering 
• Jointly sponsor brand exposure events
• Launch online contests and giveaways

As partnership marketing requires seamless coordination, it pays to have a written agreement outlining specific responsibilities.

Earning referrals through free services

Trying to get the word out about how awesome your brand is? Ensure you’re providing the best service possible. Identify your audiences’ frustrations, objections, and questions around your offering. Then, provide solutions publicly by:        

• Offering free product demos
• Creating useful tools like online calculators
• Crafting gated content for VIP members

If you can solve problems for free, customers are more likely to refer you to their connections. Showing expertise and compassion can spur word-of-mouth advertising, which makes it effective, as 88% of consumers are likely to be swayed into trusting your brand. While often done for free, some businesses can incentivize referrers with perks like discounts and free samples.

At the same time, boost authority by sharing expert insights on online community forums, uploading webinars, and offering solutions to common concerns across all channels. 

Measuring performance

So, you’ve been putting in the work to develop relationships and referrals. But do you know if these efforts are giving you the results you’re hoping for? 

Before making any changes, identify the most effective value propositions and partnerships by looking at the following: 

• Guest posts with high engagements
• High-conversion landing pages
• Most impactful link placements
• Site authority movements
• Top-performing partner websites

Make sure to stay on top of your domain authority. For example, landing a backlink from a site with low credibility won’t boost your metrics. So, assess each opportunity comprehensively, including factors like long-term partnership potential.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, link building is all about relationships and not transactions. Like most partnerships, trust and value need to be established and developed.  

Brands with the strongest connections enjoy mutual benefits over time. To find yours, get your brand out there and vet your prospects thoroughly. Curate win-win solutions that leverage each other’s audiences and regularly monitor performance to develop and refine your strategies.

By taking an authentic and hands-on approach to link building, you can create lasting and highly strategic alliances to uplift your brand sustainably.