While in a particularly inquisitive mood today, I picked up my girlfriend's copy of Lucky Magazine, which is subtitled - the magazine about shopping. Sure enough, inside were "links" to hundreds of stores both online and off from which to purchase the trendy gear (clothing, accessories, hygiene products, furnishings, etc.) that was featured in the spreads.

As I flipped around near the back of the magazine, a page caught my eye - luckymag discounts. These discounts were purchase codes that could be entered online during checkout to receive a discount on the merchandise featured at the site or in the magazine. I thought to myself - now this is a brilliant method of combining traditional and online marketing, and it works well for link building campaigns too.

If you've ever checked out at Gap.com, EddieBauer.com or the hundreds of other online retailers (lately I've been partial to UrbanOutfitters.com), you've seen the spot to enter a discount code on the checkout or shopping cart page. What you may not realize is that almost every time that discount code is mentioned online, there's a link to the website in question accompanying the code - a fantasticly simple way to conduct SEO link building without even trying.

I plan to give this new methodology (which I haven't seen mentioned before on the forums) a try in the near future as we will be launching two e-commerce sites in the next six months.