4 Untapped Link Building Opportunities for Startups

5:21 PM
Fortunately, you don't need a full-time hire or a pricey SEO firm to bring your site the search engine traffic it needs to thrive. In fact, you only need to set aside a few hours of work per month to take advantage of these these quick and dirty link building opportunities.

1. Turn Brand Mentions Into Links

You'd be surprised how often bloggers and media sites mention your site without actually linking to your website. While a mention can help get your name out there, you'll land significantly more referral and search engine traffic by turning these brand mentions into live links. The easiest way to do this is to use Mention.net.

Mention is similar to Google Alerts, but has more filtering features and robust reporting. Just enter your brand name into Mention and it shows you your latest mentions on blogs, news sites and social media outlets. If you find a mention in a blog post that's not linked, reach out to the blogger.

Thank them for the mention and ask them if they'd be willing to change their plain text mention into an SEO-friendly link.

2. Get Busy Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is a bread and butter SEO strategy that lands you links, referral traffic, and important relationships. According to Search Engine Watch, Buffer App took their business from completely unknown to 100,000 paying customers largely through guest blogging. It's important to note that the Buffer team published a whopping 150 guest posts over a 9-month period to reach this kind of growth, something that may not be possible for your startup.
Fortunately, you don't need a full-time hire or a pricey SEO firm to bring your site the search engine traffic it needs to thrive. In fact, you only need to set aside a few hours of work per month to take advantage of these these quick and dirty link building opportunities.

1. Turn Brand Mentions Into Links

You'd be surprised how often bloggers and media sites mention your site without actually linking to your website. While a mention can help get your name out there, you'll land significantly more referral and search engine traffic by turning these brand mentions into live links. The easiest way to do this is to use Mention.net.

Mention is similar to Google Alerts, but has more filtering features and robust reporting. Just enter your brand name into Mention and it shows you your latest mentions on blogs, news sites and social media outlets. If you find a mention in a blog post that's not linked, reach out to the blogger.

Thank them for the mention and ask them if they'd be willing to change their plain text mention into an SEO-friendly link.

2. Get Busy Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is a bread and butter SEO strategy that lands you links, referral traffic, and important relationships. According to Search Engine Watch, Buffer App took their business from completely unknown to 100,000 paying customers largely through guest blogging. It's important to note that the Buffer team published a whopping 150 guest posts over a 9-month period to reach this kind of growth, something that may not be possible for your startup.