If you've been following the news in the SEO world lately, you know that linkbuilding is getting harder. More and more, Google is coming down hard on "easy" linkbuilding tactics. Recently, Google deindexed many blog networks and also removed low quality directories from the index. Personally, I think that a good number of self proclaimed SEOs are going to be out of business soon and only those who know how to truly attract natural links are going to survive.

In a recent SEOmoz blog post about link spam, I came across the following comment:

The comment really made me think. I think for many people who don't work for a professional SEO company and are simply trying to get their websites to rank, this is probably what they are thinking. What is the point in building links if Google is just going to devalue them?

The ideas I will present to you here in my first YouMoz post are ideas that will help you create content and build links to that content in a way that is natural and will be totally above board in the eyes of the search engines. This idea works best for building links to local websites, but can be adapted for other uses as well.

Step 1: Intelligent Twitter Searches

I love using the Twitter search function to see what people are trying to find out in your area. Here are some example searches that I use to find out what information people are looking for in my city, Ottawa:

anyone know Ottawa

anyone Ottawa (more tweets to search through, but I often find some gems with this search.)

where can Ottawa

Twitter is going to show you the "top tweets" first. Click on "all" and you'll get some great ideas.

Read through enough of these and you're going to get some great content ideas. My first thought, when I read the above Twitter search was to create a resource for where to buy organic foods in Ottawa.

Step 2: Create Awesome Content

Now I've got my idea, I need to create some content. People love lists on the internet, so a great way to approach this is to create a post like this one: "Top 10 places to buy organic food in Ottawa".

What I'll do next is make a list of places to buy organic food by searching on Google as well as a yellow pages search. It shouldn't take me long to create a list of places to buy organic food. The next thing I'm going to do is find the contact information for each of these businesses. I'll contact them with an email that looks something like this:

"Hi! My name is Marie and I run a blog that discusses great things to do in Ottawa. I'm currently writing an article that features the best places in Ottawa to buy organic foods and I would like to feature ABCOrganics. I was wondering if you could write me a little blurb about what makes your store so special. I plan to have my article published on my blog by [a week from now]. Once it is published, I'll advertise it to my Twitter followers and Facebook fans, so hopefully that will get you some more business! Thanks so much, Marie."

In a few days, if I don't get an email back, I may call the business or even drop in to discuss my article. It takes a little extra work to do this, but the more local businesses I can get to participate, the better success I will have.

Then, I'll create the article. I may include some business that don't respond to me, but I'll be sure to include all of those who do. Ideally it would be great to include photos of the businesses and as much cool information as possible. It may take many hours to create this content, but it will be worth it.

Step 3: Get people to link to my awesome article.

There are several ways that I can get people to link to the article. It's not just a matter of creating great content and watching the links pour in. That might work if you are SEOmoz. But, if you run a small, local website, you're going to have to do some promotion in order to attract some links. Here is a great way to do that:

Contact the business owners again: Once the article is published, then I'll contact the business owners again and let them know that they are listed in my article featuring the best places to buy organic food in Ottawa. It would be awesome to provide the business owners with a badge that they can use on their websites. Here are some steps to do that:

• If you are creative, you can build one yourself using something like Photoshop or Gimp. It's got to look professional though! Otherwise, you can check out Elance, or for a really inexpensive option, check out these options on Fiverr.
• Host the badge on your site. Give the business owners code that they can copy so that they can place the badge on their site. Note: Be careful not to get too spammy with your badge. Don't try to stuff the alt tag with your desired anchor text. Here is an example of some code to use:

<div style="width:200px">
<img src="www.yoursite.com/badges/organicfoodsbadge.png" alt="best organic foods in Ottawa" width=200px />
<p>One of Ottawa's best Organic food stores!</p>
<p>See <a href="www.yoursite.com/organicstores/">Yoursite.com</a> for more details.</p>
</div>

Step 4: Repeat

There are so many other ways that this tactic can be used. You can build a list of the coolest coffee houses in the city, the best hedge trimmers in town, places to find unusual gifts, etc., etc.

Your thoughts?

I am by no means a pro at doing this, but I thought I'd throw out this idea and see if it helps anyone to build some content and attract some links. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this idea. What do you guys do to build links to local websites?