Link Acquisition & Contextual Relevancy [Part 1]

This is the first post in a two part series on how to engage and attract new audiences purely with the content that you create, whether this is outreach for link acquisition, or content to host on your own website.
Is Innovative Link Building Dead??

Barry Schwartz recently reported on a Webmaster World thread around the topic of innovative link building, and questioned whether new techniques have dried up. Whilst I do believe that the industry is forced to evolve as new technologies become available – and so the approach to link building will undoubtedly evolve as well – there are still trending strategies which remain overlooked and relatively untapped by competitors.

This post will take a look into how we can open up more outreach opportunities by tailoring your content to a new audience, but remaining on-topic and relevant to your websites key targets.

Typically when we look for potential link acquisitions, we naturally look for sites related to a specific niche, and do not go beyond the realms of familiar verticals. Fair play, after-all these are all highly relevant and on-topic websites. For example let’s take a look at the automotive sector:



These are just some of the related verticals that can lead to link generation. But why limit yourself to niches and verticals that your competitors will surely be dominating as well? It’s time to break out the box and the confines’ of your ‘niche’ and target untapped, new verticals to acquire links where your competitors would have not thought to go.
Unrelated verticals, unnatural links…

Generally speaking links from websites in unconnected topic verticals look unnatural, but the links themselves will only be viewed as unnatural in terms of the context in which they are defined. However we can use this to our advantage: why not adapt the content to suit the needs of a new vertical? This can be done by ensuring the content contains the contextual targeting that will generate a natural relevance for a link to be placed back to your website.

With this in mind, let’s take a look at the automotive sector again and start to include some other verticals:



Ok now that we have some awesome new verticals to reach out to, how can we tailor content to suit the needs of websites defined by these verticals?

The first step in this process will be the same as if you were identifying blogs within a similar niche, find out the types and styles of posts that engage their audience. Once you have this in mind you can then start to adapt your content ideas to meet their audience base, and so present the web master with tailored new content ideas that will suit both parties.

For example let’s take a location specific website based on topics related to the UK, one content idea could be ’The 10 Most Expensive British Cars Ever Made’. Lets use another more niche example say ‘Toys’, something like ’Model Cars That Cost More Than The Real Thing’ would also work well.

Here are a few other examples:
Games That Make Virtual Cars, Real Cars! [Games]
Videos To Prove That It’s All About The Car and Not The Girl [Media]
The Most Terrifying Roads To Drive In The World [Travel]
And when we really push down the walls…. BOOM!



As a result we end up with a lot more verticals that our competitors have never thought twice about, and these niches don’t end there! As a famous inventor once said “Our imagination is the only limit to what we can hope to have in the future” – Charles F Kettering.