Offline Link Building Methods

Leveraging online platforms for the purpose of building relationships makes great sense, but there is no reason to stop there. Do the major influencers in your space speak at conferences? If so, go to one of these conferences and introduce yourself. This can include not only bloggers, but also other people influential in your space.

Another related tactic to consider is contacting the publisher of an authoritative site and offering the publisher a free seminar/webinar, with you as the speaker. Or you could propose a joint marketing campaign with the publisher. Either way, call it part of your company’s outreach campaign to build relationships with leaders in the space.

If you do this, make sure you articulate well the unique nature of what you will present. You have to attract their interest with the pitch before you can take the next step. Make sure you bring a lot of value in the actual presentation.

Then collect business cards, answer questions, and make yourself available to answer followup questions by phone or email. Once you have done that, you will have a ton of relationships with people involved in the authoritative site.

There are other ways to extend this too. For example, you can sponsor the organization in some fashion. There are, of course, sites that link to their sponsors, and this may be a win, but it is a link that Google will want to discount (because it is “paid”), so you should not count on that aspect of it. The other win is that sponsors often are able to establish a deeper relationship with the organizations they sponsor.

Last but not least, most likely you have other businesses/organizations that you interact with in the normal course of your business. Once again, you can ask them directly for links, but you can also ask them for introductions to other people in your space. This type of networking can be an effective way to build relationships that eventually lead to high-value links. Some