My real link building secret is nothing but approach. I know this sounds a bit obscure, so I’m going to add a few details to help you better understand what I mean. In particular, I want to introduce you to the concept of lateral thinking. You’ve probably already heard about it, but if you haven’t, “lateral thinking” is a term coined in 1967 by Edward De Bono, that theorizes a different way of thinking: lateral, opposed to the vertical (logical) one. In very simple words, lateral thinking is a more precise definition of what we usually call, “thinking outside the box.”
I’ve been more and more interested in the theme, and recently I’ve started reading about it while going to my workplace by metro.
But I know this introduction doesn’t satisfy you. OK, lateral thinking is cool, but remains something vague and not actionable.
So I’m giving you an example right now.
Let’s start with a simple concept:
People link to interesting websites.
I think this can be generally endorsed by quite everyone. But what about this:
People link to boring websites.
This sounds strange: A boring website doesn’t garner attention, isn’t particularly remarkable and is probably soon abandoned by visitors. It’s unlikely a boring website can get links. So I’ll go to the extreme:
People link to empty websites.
Sounds crazy, right?
If you check Google, you’ll find that an empty website exists, and it actually has links.
But I don’t want to stop here.
Let’s continue. Vertical thinking: An empty website is useless.
Lateral thinking: An empty website is helpful.
Maybe your client has a website that is under construction. Rather than the typical, “Coming Soon,” message, perhaps you have a tagline with “Imagine hassle-free vacation planning.” Now the speculation can begin—hopefully by bloggers and journalists who will also provide links even before the website is up and running!
So the empty website becomes a place you can go to let your mind free to imagine a place, a situation. It’s now a website with potential. And potential is something people appreciate.
So you can now spend a little time to let bloggers and journalists know about it. And here, hopefully, links will come.
Employing concepts such as lateral thinking can help you find link building opportunities. [tweet this]
This is just an example of lateral thinking applied to link building, to let you understand how you can move out of the usual boundaries of approaching problems. The ugly part of it is that lateral thinking is not immediate and for the person who isn’t creative, it can seem nearly impossible to use it as working weapon. The nice part is that Edward De Bono affirms lateral thinking can be trained, and I like to believe it’s true.
So my suggestion is: study it and test it. A great idea is way better than a compilation of tools.
This tip, and 19 more, can be downloaded in one PDF.