I spent a couple of days painting last week and was reminded of an old post I did in 2006  so I’m running it again.  ~ Debra

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I spent most of last weekend painting the living room, dining room, and hallway of a house we’re trying to sell. I had never understaken a paint project before so I wasn’t aware of the labor intensive set-up and prep work that needed to be done before the first coat of paint could go up. Even deciding on colors, supplies and types of paint before we started was a chore; new colors needed to complement those already in place, the paint had to be washable and within our budget… Nothing about this was easy.

The goal of any link building campaign is to find, cultivate and keep a loyal base of quality customers linked to you. Tactics vary but the prep and research needed before implementing a link campaign are the same, even for simple programs like Directory submissions and article writing. Use surveys, ask questions in all correspondence and of course review your stats often.

This information alone doesn’t net links but it does help paint a clear picture of what sites to target when link building. It also helps make the process of link research and planning a linking campaign manageable – unless you can schluff it off on someone else of course!

Market Segments.

After it was all over I decided that link building and painting had a lot in common – you have to invest a lot of time and sweat equity in the set-up to see an effective end result.

Regardless of the link tactic used, if you stay connected with your customer you’ll find link success. If you have a good handle on the who, what, when and where of your customer base, you’ll be able to find partner sites with similar characteristics and a similar customer base to secure links from. Go where your buying public frequents when they’re not buying from you, get links from those sites.

This means you need to be very familiar with the people buying your products in order to determine their common characteristics. Break it down by market segment and look for commonalities. For example:

Demographics. Age, income, gender, etc.

     Are your client’s baby boomers? Women? Hispanic?

Geographics. Physical locations. States, countries, zip codes etc.

     Sales trends to the South? 90210 zip code?  London or New York City?

Lifestyle. Are your customers animal lovers, tree huggers or sports enthusiasts?

Look for trends, patterns, and reoccurring themes from your customer base. Ask for feedback often and keep an eye on the major lifestyle publications and blogs within the different demographic segments for signs of change or fast breaking news and use what you find to either create content that will attract links from your customer base or get links from the popular sites. 

At least with painting there is a beginning and an end.  With link building – not so much

from: Link Spiel

For more link building information, ideas and the occasional rant, visit LinkSpiel .