It’s important to understand your audience, and today’s Internet audience are more savvy than previous generations. If they’re looking for information online, they’re easily able to distinguish a pitch from content that is relevant, useful, and actionable. If you want to get links for your site, you need to make sure your content is natural and worthy of people’s time and attention.
Here are some tips on creating content that is naturally engaging and worth sharing.
Teach people how to do something.
The Internet is one of the best resources for learning how to do things. People look up how-to instructions and tutorials on just about every subject you could imagine. Can you record a video, post a step-by-step tutorial, or answer common questions about making a DIY project? People like sharing what worked for them.
Make it timely and relevant.
Tie your content to the season, holidays, or current events (as long as it’s tasteful). For example, infographics on Super Bowl statistics or Christmas-themed photographs for people to download will quickly get attention. Holiday content performs very well during those months of the year, and adequately at other times.
Give them printable resources.
Taking your content to an offline format is a great way to boost value. People love things they can print out, including worksheets, quizzes, reference guides, and manuals. If you design it well and it has great content, people will print it and share it with friends or store it as a reference. They may even share offline copies, so make sure you include your site URL in a prominent location that can’t be left out like a cover page – a link in the footer of each page is a good choice.
Create contests and giveaways.
People love entering contests. A great giveaway might feature some photos of what is being given away, a simple set of rules, and different ways to enter. People can enter by sharing your links on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media, or they could be required to leave a comment to enter. These are all relatively simple, painless things that people are willing to do.
Post reviews of new items.
If there’s a new product on the market, post a review. Garnering the first few reviews is usually left for big-name bloggers, but if you’re quick, you can snap up a product and post the best early review. Some sites only post overviews or statistics you can find elsewhere, so make sure your reviews contain something unique and different.
Interview niche experts.
People like reading interviews with experts in a niche. The expert’s fans will come to see your site, and your site will benefit from the expert’s wisdom. Before you conduct an interview, hold a Q&A or set up an email address or way for people to submit questions they’d like answers to. You’ll get a sense for how to structure the interview.
Make sure you’re actually helping your readers by providing types of content they could use. This gives them the incentive to share and seek out more of your content, which creates a link every time. Sharing is the way link-building is going in the future, so put effort into building naturally-engaging content.
Jennifer Watts is a retired business writer and grandmother of five. She likes to spend her free time sharing her knowledge with others on the Internet. If you’re looking for web hosting, read the reviews at www.WebHostingReviews.ca.