Today’s edition of Resource Shelf listed a report from PEW on how Americans were using the Internet to cope with the recession. This bit caught my eye and got the link brain going:
Some 69% of all Americans have used the internet to cope with the recession as they hunt for bargains, jobs, ways to upgrade their skills, better investment strategies, housing options, and government benefits. That amounts to 88% of internet users.
First off, the numbers the article references are huge, 88% of American users are turning to the Internet to find certain types of information. If that doesn’t scream “CONTENT and LINKS” to the enterprising webmaster I don’t know what does.
For newbies with no clue what I’m talking about, let me explain.
There are a bunch of Americans using the Internet to find solutions to problems. If you have content that’s good and will help them, they may link to it and/or pass it along to others they know will benefit. The excerpt above is pretty specific in what they’re looking for so your job is now a little easier in trying to figure out what to write. To refresh your memory the specifics the article showcased were:
they hunt for bargains, jobs, ways to upgrade their skills, better investment strategies, housing options, and government benefits
Is there a way you can write content on any of these subjects as it relates to what you offer? I bet there is. If people are actively looking for it, why not write about it instead of another stupid top ten list ?
Here are a handful of promotion ideas to get the link ball rolling:
1. Email your mother, brother, sister and your current and past customers with a link to the article. Encourage linking and ask they pass it on to others who may benefit. (these people already like you so they’re prone to respond positively. This is why it pays to be nice to siblings 
2. Write a press release announcing the new article, be specific in describing what problem/issue your article will discuss and provide solutions for.
3. Be sure to include a quote/link to the PEW report as a credibility builder in the release.
4. Be sure to include a quote/link to the PEW report in your article as well.
5. Take a shorter version of the article and pimp it to a handful of bloggers in your niche.
6. Include social media buttons like “share this” under the article on your site. Encourage your mother, brother, sister and past/current customers to socialize the material.
7. Tweet the link, encourage RT’s (RT = retweets. Here’s a how-to RT article)
There’s more you can do but this should get you started. With 88% of Americans searching for a specific type of information be the one they link to for answers. 
Added:
Please read the comments with this post, someone brought up an article written on Search Engine Watch yesterday and I’ve responded since I think the article was a piece of crap. Thanks ~ debra.
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@Tim I’m glad you feel it’s useful! 99% of what’s written about in the SEO community is regurgitated crap, there is little new info. The point of this post is about sources and how to use them, less about the tactic.
Despite what others have said about repeating information, I think it is very useful, especially as you bear in mind the people it is targeted at.
Many website owners either forget, or don’t realise they should be promoting the content they have just created meaning they could have created a little gem of an article but it fails to generate the interest it deserves.
Keep providing these interesting concise posts pleeeease.
You’ve got some good tips there, I just found this blog but I think I’ll keep following it. You can never get too much good info about SEO.
Thanks for the ideas.
Sean
This will help to further educate our link builders. Thanks for great article
Provided really a nice article.Thanks for sharing.
Debra,
I think this great article exemplifies why so many people look to you for guidance in our industry. You bring imagination and creativity to a task that demands more than just replicating everyone else’s efforts.
I recently realised that I dropped every time I posted a comment such as this, hopefully I will not get penalised for this one.
Content is very important, to me content itself is as important as links. It is the links within your own site that will do as much for ranking than going for every conceivable link out on the web. That said I think your article is good and can only enhance peoples chance of getting noticed.
I am sorry but..errr…what was new in that :S
you are like attacking other person’s article and at the same time giving the people same old news :S
Just search for link building ideas and you can get same stuff on thousands and thousand of articles….
Bring us something new Sire
@Noah – the article syndication is also a great idea, thanks for reminding us.
@FrankMarcel – the world needs more Michael M types!
@Bob – sig links are great little tools, another good point.
@PatShaughnessy – glad to hear you’re participting on the SEOBook forum, it’s a great community.
@FloridaWebDesign – in the past I’ve recommend people shy away from the free press release sites but lately, we’ve used several with decent results.
Good article. Another thing to keep in mind is the PR companies out there that will publish a FREE press release. Yes, it may not be at the top of the content heap, but getting it out there and building links off and to it could be very beneficial to gaining inbound links and gathering a following of traffic to your site.