How To Get More Visitors To Your Website – And More Business! – With A Link Building Strategy
The web is simple. At its core it’s made up of 3 things:
TRAFFIC, CONTENT, and LINKS.
Traffic – Visitors to your site. The more often people visit, stay, and interact with your site, the more visible you will become. Interactions include making comments, taking a survey, and setting appointments online.
Content – Entertaining and relevant information your prospects want to know about. Content includes images, descriptions, stories, before and after makeovers, how to tips, hair care tips… and more!
Links – Clickable connections to some other webpage. Links help people search for and find what they are looking for on the web.
Not Only Visitors Follow Links
Two main audiences look at your website
- People wanting your services
- Search engines like Google, Bing, YouTube, Yelp and Yellowpages
A link looks like this: http://www.website.com/specific-page. But what you see in on the page is the “anchor text”, a clickable word or phrase. Your website platform will have a tool that allows you to create the link.
A Link From Another Site Is Like A Vote In Your Favor
The search engine robots or “bots” follow links to improve search results. The more links you have from reputable sites, the more visitors you’ll gain. Since search engines value traffic, your link building campaign will gather traffic like a rolling snowball gathers snow.
Sound overwhelming?
You know, being a cosmetologist is both an art and a science. That’s true about link building, too. So cast off any fears you may have and dig in to the tips below.
“Every site has its own linking potential,
depending on its subject matter, depth of content,
and intended audience.”
~ Ultimate Guide To Link Building by Eric Ward
The key to building links is to make your website searchable and link-worthy.
To be searchable, be sure to use Keywords in your posts and pages, and anchor text. For instance, instead of “click here”, use Get tips on natural hair care. Bold anchor text also helps the search engines and your visitors take note.
Useful Content Gets Links
What is link-worthy? The more valuable your content is, the more likely you are for another site to link to it. The content-richer the better – think of reference sites with hundreds of pages of free info that knowledgeable and passionate experts have written.
Sites like those will get LOTS of links!
Link Building Action Steps
Create searchable posts and pages of information on topic. Be sure to show your personality. What do you find relevant and entertaining? Likely, your audience will too, and maybe pass it on to their friends. (Think, referrals!)
6 Ideas For Content Topics:
- Stories of customers, before and after
- Your story about how you got started
- A section devoted to trends
- A glossary of salon terms
- Promoting your Avatars
- Engaging the expert community
Look for people who care about your topic and contact them. Invite these industry experts to write blog posts for you.
Ask youself, what can you write about that your clients and prospects want to know? The more frequently you post unique content about topics that inspire you, the more frequently your site will attract and earn links.
To get new ideas, you can also look at your competitors’ sites and see what content they have that’s linkable.
TIP: Find other bloggers in your niche and put a comment on their blog – be sure to give the URL to your own site!
Link building does take a commitment of time. As with any marketing effort, it’s important to know your key business metrics. That is the only way to measure your return on time invested.
What Are Key Link-Building Metrics?
Measure your link building efforts to impact the search engines. Find out:
- Has your site authority increased?
- Do you come up on the first page when searching for your keywords – such as “natural hair care tips in District Heights MD“
- Are you attracting more visitors?
- Do they stay longer and look at more pages?
- Are you developing conversation threats with people commenting and you replying to the comments?
- Are you getting links from authoritative, relevant sites?
And the #1 QUESITON:
- IS YOUR SALON CHAIR STAYING FULL? Make that happen on a daily basis with Salon Plaza’s 52 Keys to Salon Owner Success – right here, right now…
Salon Plaza – Your Space For Prosperity!
