7 Link Building Techniques that might still work in 2013

This is a guest post by Brian Dean from Backlinko, an SEO blog that helps people build powerful backlinks through content marketing and good old-fashioned email outreach.

Let’s face it: you’ve heard enough about guest posting, press releases, and article directories.

If you’re looking for some fresh, actionable tips you can apply to your link building campaigns today, then this post is for you.

Today I’m unveiling seven advanced link building strategies that I use to complement the bread and butter techniques we all know and love.

#1: Siphon PageRank From Pinterest

Remember the good ol’ days when Pinterest links were dofollow…

…and you could get link juice from pinning and repinning images?

Just because those days are long gone doesn’t mean Pinterest has lost its SEO punch.

Why?

Because the links to your website in your Pinterest profile is still dofollow:

Usually these profiles wind up as PR0 or PR n/a.

But you can quickly turn these pages into authorities by siphoning PR (which Pinterest has a lot of).

Here’s how:

1. Find authority pages on Pinterest with the most siphoning potential. You can use Open Site Explorer to find

pages with the most PA:

2. When you find an authority page, comment or like a pin:

And it will send PR towards your Pinterest profile page…and onto your site!

#2: Audio Sharing Link Building

You probably already know that you can leverage podcasts to nab links from dofollow podcast directories like Podcastdirectory.com and Podcast411.com.

But you may not know that there are plenty of authoritative audio sharing sites that you can grab quality links from with a few minutes of work.

Here’s how:

1. Create your .mp3: Use the free Vocaroo.com to create an audio file from your browser window. It doesn’t have to be the next White Album…just talk or sing into your computer mic.

2. Create a profile (with a backlink) at these high PR audio sharing sites:

http://yourlisten.com/

http://reverbnation.com/

http://8tracks.com/

http://sharemyplaylists.com/

http://sutros.com/

3. Upload your audio file: Most audio sharing sites will give you a link whether or not you upload any audio. But the audio file builds internal links to your artist page…making it more powerful.

#3: Knowem.com

Knowem is a treasure trove of link building opportunities. Knowm is a site that

helps you claim your “brand real estate”, like social media profiles and blog platforms.

However, it’s also used by white hat SEO agencies to build quality links to their client’s sites. If you dig enough you can find

dozens of authority sites that offer dofollow links to their users.

In fact, I’ve found completely new link building strategies using this site.

First, head to Knowem.com and put any keyword:

Then sort through the list of social networks.

In my personal experience, the “Design” and “Entertainment” sections have the highest concentration of dofollow targets.

#4: Site Evaluation Websites

Did you know that there are sites out there to get real-world feedback on your site’s design?

Pretty cool, huh?

Well, I don’t usually pay much attention to the advice I get from these sites…

…but I DO pay attention to the links I get by submitting my site to them!

To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, here’s a page that I built at BounceApp.com in literally 30-seconds, rocks a dofollow link:

And is PR2:

Here are a few more to consider submitting to:

ConceptFeedback.com

SuggestionBox.com

ABTests.com

Obviously, you need a family-friendly site for your link to stick and accumulate feedback. But as long as you have that down, you should be able to get a handful of authoritative links with a few minutes of work.

#5: Host a Scholarship

If you run a legit site, you can turn $1000 into fistfuls of top-quality .edu links by creating a scholarship.

I discovered this idea by accident one night when I was reverse engineering on of my client’s competitors.

I noticed that they had an insane number of .edu links…which is weird considering that the site was about investing.

When I dug deeper I realized that they ran dozens of scholarships for schools in their area.

And you can easily do the same thing.

Here’s how:

1. First, grab a list of all the schools near you (this adds an extra layer of legitimacy to your scholarship).

If you don’t want to make a school-specific scholarship you can make yours specific to an industry related to your niche, like physical therapy or accounting.

2. Create your scholarship page. Make sure to list your criteria (age, essay length etc.) and your award amount.

If you have a lot of ads on your site consider making a custom ad-free page just for your scholarship. This will increase the chances that you people actually link to your scholarship page.

A good scholarship page to use as a template:

This particular page has attracted 60+ .edu links…not too shabby!

3. Look for lists of scholarships with dofollow links using these search strings:

site:.edu “scholarships”

site:.edu “scholarship information”

4. Email the people that run that section of the site to let them know about your new scholarship (be sure to remind them to link to your scholarship page!).

#6: Lists of Terms

One of the best shortcuts to establish yourself as an authority in your niche is to start coming up with your own terms or coming up with solid definitions for terms in your niche.

And if you list these out, they’re likely to get linked to all day long.

Just look at the link profile from this “Glossary of Internet Terms” page:

DA: 68

PA: 73

LRD: 1,382

Amazing, right?

I’d be willing to bet that there’s already a glossary of terms in your niche.

However, I’d also bet that it’s incomplete, outdated and in need of improvement.

If you can swoop in like a superhero and create something better — and email the people that link to the now-obsolete glossary to change their links to your page — you can get some insanely authoritative links.

#7: .edu Link Bait

I’m sure you already know about link bait: where you create a piece of content that (hopefully) attracts attention, social shares and links.

But you don’t need to post something controversial just to get links…even from authoritative .edu sites.

Skeptical?

Check out this page from a commercial site in the nursing school niche:

It’s simply a list of 100 online libraries. Not the least bit controversial or attention-grabbing.

But what makes this page such a link magnet is that it’s a great resource of nursing students.

And when I say “link magnet”, I really mean it.

This particular sites has attracted a dozen top-notch .edu links by creating pages like this.

Think about how you can list 50 or even 100 resources for the community that your site serves. It could be 100 best DIY home improvement Google+ profiles, 100 of the most helpful search strings to find niche-specific information, or a list of 100 of the best bloggers in your niche.

Once you do, reach out to .edu webmasters to let them know about your killer resource.