Link building expert Eric Ward dishes out a never-before revealed link building strategy:
Google Alerts for Link Target Site ID.
By Eric Ward
Here’s how I use Google Alerts to give me a steady flow of subject specific high trust link targets. It won’t work for every subject, and at times there’s some junk to weed through, but then again, it’s free.
Let’s say you are seeking links for the following content
Travel Channel – http://www.travelchannel.com/
You know the content is linkworthy, plus this search shows the content already has proven itself able to attract high trust links from high trust targets, such as http://www.jwu.edu/default.aspx
So, go to Google Alerts, and set up this specific alert
“useful travel sites” library -travelchannel site:.edu
Set one Google Alert to do a web search only, and set a second alert to do a comprehensive search. Send yourself the alert once a day. The effect of this will be any time Google comes across a library based web site that has a list of travel resources that DOES NOT already include the Travel Channel, you will get an email alert about it. You can then contact that venue and lobby for the link.
I use this tactic for just about every client as one piece of the target site discovery puzzle. Sometimes it works so well it’s scary to think it’s free.
Bonus tips: Modify the search terms to account for the various terminology that might be used, such as useful travel links, or helpful travel websites. Also, don’t feel you have to restrict your search to just .edu’s. There are some sweet high trust trees growing out in public library land.