A few friends have asked me recently about how they can get their personal or business websites ranking higher in Google. I've tended to explain SEO - and link building in particular - quite differently to how I'd talk about it to Internet Marketing pros such as yourself.

In particular, there's one piece of advice that I've given so much recently, that I thought it's worth mentioning here. I hope that even experienced link builders will see value in considering this (and to be honest, they may get even more out of it.) It's not intended to be rigidly stuck to, but I think that its greatest use is in how it can be applied to any link building tactic or framework, so much so that I think it's worth putting on a faux brass plaque:

"The most valuable links you can get, are those which your competitors will never be able to have."

It might be something to do with your content, your business or your internal resources, that gives you opportunities that competing sites don't have. You can use this rule to assess any link opportunity to see if your site has a unique edge (or if your competitors could get the link too) but if you can actually identify some of those unique factors of your site, then you can use these to proactively discover new opportunities.

If it's not already explicit (and because you deserve more than a 215 word post) we'll take a look at how it applies to various link building tactics, and then look at how it can be used to find new opportunities.

Linkbuilding Tactics, Assessed

Directories:

Directory submissions have been discussed on SEOMoz before (see posts from 2007, 2008, 2009). With this rule in mind, you say "is this free-for-all directory, in which people who've paid the money are almost always listed worth being in?" and the answer is probably not. Then you come across something like Ethical Duck which lists websites which they consider "in some way are of a positive value to humans, the environment, the planet." If you've made an ethical commitment that sets you apart from your competitors, then getting a link in this directory would be something you can do, but that your competitors can't. Likewise, any quality directory that editorially discriminates on your niche/location/other factors may be equally worthwhile.

Create content specifically to attract links:

Whether it's out-and-out 'Linkbait' or just some great content, you can attract links from sites in a particular niche with the right content. Will this help you target sites that your competitors can't get links from? Well, that depends on the other competitors in your industry, propensity of niche sites to link, etc, as well as making sure that you pick the rights aspect of your business to market in this way. However. the overwhelming influencer is likely to be whether you are capable of creating great content. If you have the time/resource/motivation to do this - and do it better than your competitors - then you'll be able to count this tactic amongst your most valuable.

Article Sites:

You know the score with this practice: a site creates tens or hundreds of articles (including a keyword rich link back, naturally) and then gets the published across large and small article sites. Could your competitors do this as well? You betcha. If you're able to create some quality content and distribute it to sites that wouldn't typically publish articles like this, then you are using article marketing the right way. (Thanks Patrick.)

Buy exact match domains

Can you or your competitor do this better? It basically just comes down to who has a better budget and moves faster - therefore it doesn't really say much about which site is more relevant to a particular keyphrase. This probably explains why the more established search engines don't pay quite as much attention to it, as say, the less advanced ones.

These are just examples, and you can go through any linkbuilding technique to see how it measures up on this score.

Linkbuilding Opportunities, Discovered

I'd suggest beginning by writing a list of everything that sets you apart from some or all of your competitors (both the online and offline ones, if appropriate) - but these only need to be differences, with no predjudice as to whether these things make you better or worse. If you have dedicated marketing staff, they may even have put time into creating lists like this already. Grab them, and anyone else who's interested to help you build this list - you never know where the interesting ideas may come from.

This section has examples of differences you might have to other websites / companies, and examples of how you can use them to help get links based on this rule.

You are a respected source of information/expertise/etc in the industry, but users of these resources rarely convert into customers:

Get your valuable resource online, and use it get links to your site. Make sure that the pages with this information on pass link juice to the appropriate money pages.

You don't make the products that you sell:

If your competitors are manufacturer-retailers, they'll benefit from vertical integration, double margins, etc. However, if you buy your products from a number of sources, then you should look at getting those of them with websites to link to you. If they're proud that you distribute thier product, then you shouldn't have much trouble getting them to link. You may also consider offering them a genuine testamonial, some end-user feedback, etc that they'll be keen to publish, along with a link to you.

You have much higher margins than your competitors:

High profit margin products (and services likewise) might be tougher to sell, but they will carry a considerably higher perceived value than the actual marginal cost to you of producing each unit. Go ahead and use this to your advantage by running a competition. If you're a music label, you could give away $1,000 worth of CDs, but it would only cost you a tiny fraction of that. If you run an online subscription service, there's typically very little cost to adding one new user, so give away some subscriptions. Executed well and seeded to the right places, a competition can gather a valuable number of links. (I was recently involved in a competition where the prize value equated to about 50cents for each unique linking site. Pretty good value.)

You have some really cheap products:

The Ferrari Store has a varied selection of products - as well as inlet valves from the Michael Schumacher's car in the 2000 F1 series (400 Euro) and a 'Ferrari Limited Edition' Segway (8,500 Euro) they have keyrings and pins from about 10 - 20 Euro. If they're requesting links from bloggers and site owners, then giving them one of these cheaper item along with the request could significantly increase their chance of a response. (Note to Ferrari: I can be contacted through the Distilled website. K Thanx.)


You have great sales staff:

You've got staff who can sell ice to Eskimos? Take them out for lunch, and teach them about SEO and linkbuilding. Great salespeople tend to have the cajones required to call people up out of the blue and get the response they want (in this case - links.)


You have lots of staff (e.g.: in a call center) who are not fully occupied:

There's no doubt that you have (at least occasionally) come up against tasks that could be valuable, but you can't spend time on. ("I wish I could email the webmaster of every rambling society in the UK" or "I wish I knew the top 100 Dugg pages in my niche" etc.) If you have a staff who have alternating periods of activity (eg: call center staff where morning are quiet and afternons busy, or booking agents where summer is busy and autumn is quiet) then teach them the value of some of this work. Don't forget to properly thank them for the work done, and to later show them how it has benefited the business.


Your site or products have won awards:

As hard as we try for them, awards rarely convert directly into new business. However, if you make sure that you get all the links possible out of then at least your SEO team will benefit from the accolade. Begin with the site of the awards themselves, and work from there. (Do you notice anything missing from this Sony Radio Academy Awards page? Clue: it's an anagram of 'KILNS')

You have a PR team who are great at getting you in the offline press:

You didn't choose your PR Team because they are great at getting you into newspapers, you chose them because they are great at getting you talked about. Even if they don't know the first thing about the web, they might relish the challenge of getting you into some large online-outlets. Once they've got the PR done, you can always follow up to make sure the links are properly in place, etc.

Actions & Epilogue

I'd suggest taking a quick look at your current link building practices now, and see how they measure up on this scale. I'm not suggesting that you should drop anything in particular, but it may be enlightening to think about which links you've built that couldn't be emulated by a competitor.

After that, go for the brainstorm mentioned above to see what makes you different, and then think about how that could help you build more links.