A Quick & Easy Free Linkbuilding Tactic

After all the discussion about paying for links last week we wanted to jump in with a short and sweet episode on one of our favourite FREE link building tactics this week.
Hope you enjoy!

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TRANSCRIPT

Local Digital  0:04
It’s time for the SEO show where a couple of nerds talk search engine optimization, so you can learn to compete in Google and grow your business online. Now, here’s your host, Michael and Arthur.

Michael  0:24
Welcome back to another episode of the SEO show. I’m Michael and I’m joined by Arthur as always, how are you going, Arthur?

Arthur  0:30
I’m good. I was about to do the intro. And you interrupted me.

Michael  0:33
Now, you did the intro last week. So

Arthur  0:34
I thought it was just Yeah, I thought also in the interest moving forward,

Michael  0:38
we should probably have a team meeting before we go live on air to discuss these things. But uh, yeah, anyway.

Arthur  0:44
Probably a good idea.

Michael  0:45
We’re all good. We have a short and sweet episode this week. So it’s okay, you’ll be back doing the intro again soon. You can do next week. So um, but um, as promised, in last week’s episode, we wanted to talk about a cool free link building tactic for the people out there that don’t want to pay for links, even after our episode last week talking all about why you should pay for link. So I’m like, it’s a tough slog getting free links. But this tactic is pretty cool. Pretty easy. Well, relatively easy. And it gets you some juicy links. What am I talking about? Image link building? Image link building? Yeah. You can ask me some questions about it. Or you want to give me a brief synopsis of what you do the

Arthur  1:28
brief synopsis because you you’ve done it successfully on your sites. So what is image link building?

Michael  1:35
Well, for me, it’s, um, it’s making use of Creative Commons. So as a licencing thing, where if you are the original creator of an image,

Arthur  1:45
so you’re talking like stock photos, for example. Yeah, just any image.

Michael  1:49
So the way I do it is like, so if I run an affiliate website, and I want to get links from for argument’s sake, businesses in the pet industry, I would go and create images of like dogs bounding through fields or like close up shots of dog food or a bowl with water, and then put it up on a website. imager is the one I use. Yep. And you put a licence on it called Creative Commons, which says anyone that comes across this image can use it free of charge. And the reason this is so good is because if you think about publications out there, like all these blogs, or news websites in the light, they are constantly publishing articles and wanting images for it, but they don’t want to pay for them. No. So they have their authors just go look for Creative Commons images. Yep. And so when you set the Creative Commons up, you can say, Look, this image is free to use, but you have to have a link back to my site as like a reference or a credit. Yeah. So that’s image link building in a nutshell.

Arthur  2:43
So essentially, what you can do is reverse image search that image to see whether or not they’ve actually looked back. And if they haven’t, then you can approach them and say, Look, I’ve noticed that you’re using one of the images I’ve uploaded. Can you please link back to my site? Yeah, as a reference? Yeah. Okay, cool.

Michael  2:59
Well, there’s different there’s upfront, like so when so I said, imager IMG, you are.com You go create your account on there. upload the images. And when you upload the images, you can put your instructions into like the description. So on every image, it says, free for us, just please give me a followed link back. Yeah. And I use brand. So it’s good for building a bunch of brand links to your site. Sure. You put that on every image. But yes, you can also then reverse image search yours. And also, you can put your images listing into h refs, because you’ll see that heaps of people, instead of linking back to your website will link back to the image of profile. Yeah. So then you can reach out to them and say, Hey, I asked to link back to my site. Can you please do that?

Arthur  3:42
Have you had to do that often? Or are they generally pretty good at following the instructions and linking back to your site? I would say it’s probably 5050. Yeah, it’s something I probably wouldn’t do. I’m just lazy.

Michael  3:53
Yeah. I haven’t been that bothered to follow up and chase people about it. Like, I know I should, but Well, it’s a free free link. Yeah, but it’s also time. So yeah, true. For me, it’s easy to create all these images, put them up there. And just know that every month people are doing the right thing. To take it to the next level you would you’d get like maybe a assistant or something like a virtual assistant to spend that time reaching out and chasing down those links for you.

Arthur  4:19
Yeah, I guess the only cost associated with that would be creating the creative Yes, is hiring a graphic designer or someone like that to Yeah, I guess create the images and graphics that you will upload to imager.

Michael  4:31
You’ve got to try and think about it through the lens of like what what are people writing about? Like what topics will be interesting to them? So I’ve done one where I wanted links from like finance sites. Yeah, so I would do like images of the Amazon logo on like a shared trading black background and stuff so if people are doing an article about Amazon earnings call something like that. They could just take that image and you get your your branded link back to your site. But yeah, you’re right you I use a a sort of freelance graphic designer to create They think, yeah, you could use photos, if you have did that for

Arthur  5:04
a client a while back, they did our custom clothing apparel. And they had a lot of images that they took of people playing sports and just kind of generic looking uniforms. So I think that’s when you first mentioned this tactic, we tried it with them. And I think we go to feelings back that way. Because a lot of people are looking for stock photos or people playing, you know, soccer or tennis or whatever. Yeah. Yeah,

Michael  5:26
yeah, it’s got to be the right, it’s got to be the right angle. Yeah, you couldn’t, if you’re just

Arthur  5:30
it has to be a good image as well, obviously, has to be high quality, high resolution. Like, if it’s junk than that, right? No one’s gonna use it

Michael  5:37
yet. So you got to put the effort into it, you got to think of those creative angles. If you’re in a really sort of niche, even if you’re super niche, like let’s say you’re subset of a subset of law, you could still go broad, but broad topic or even business, you know, or finance

Arthur  5:52
professional, anything for people in suits. Yeah,

Michael  5:55
yeah, pretty much. But I’ve managed, like, I’ve got links from Uber, for example, which is like, epic, like you cannot get a link from Uber, but any other form of outreach really. But other like all the massive publications, that Yahoos of the world, I’ve got links to them followed, branded. So it’s like, it’s not going to do heaps for moving organic rankings, I guess, necessarily, but it’s really good for building the 30 overall trust of your domain, basically. Yeah, so that’s it, if you want to spend time doing that, that is a way to build links for free without having to pay for them. But you know, you sort of pay for the,

Arthur  6:35
it’s a small upfront cost. Yeah. I mean, if you can find someone on Fiverr, or any one of those websites, and if they have a portfolio of decent graphics, why not give it a crack? If it’s gonna cost you a couple of 100 bucks, maybe? Yeah, to start off with and just let it sit there and see if you accumulate links, you even go is there any way you can kind of advertise your images? Like maybe write it or somewhere like a forum?

Michael  6:58
Probably, I’ve never really looked into that. But like the imager alone is good, because it will search people search. Yeah. And then like when your images start getting favorited and commented on, and then there’s

Arthur  7:08
filters where you can obviously set where the copyright? Yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. Yep.

Michael  7:13
So it’s not like, this is for me, like, when I’ve done it with my affiliate sites. It’s just one sort of, I guess, avenue that I’m using to get links. I’m also doing all sorts of other link building paid link building, of course, absolutely. But if you if you relied on this as your any link building tactic, then it’s not stuff that you can set your watch to like they come in in dribs and drabs. But that being said, I have found that you know, every month without fail, I’m picking up new links from big publications, Dr. 5060 7080 type sites, happy days, happy days. If you’re an SEO nerd, or a title that doesn’t want to pay for links, for there you go. As we said, short and sweet. We’re looking at like, less than 10 minutes for this episode. Maybe we’ll have to do another one and release two at once. But I’m an athlete’s looking shocked at that idea.

Arthur  8:02
They’re gonna think of something.

Michael  8:04
We haven’t planned that far ahead. We’re still a bit rusty after our month and a half break. But why not give that a go? If it works for you, if you pick up some juicy links, send us a message on the Seo show.co.

Arthur  8:17
Yeah, give us some examples.

Michael  8:18
We would love to hear it.

Arthur  8:20
Maybe you have an Instagram page.

Michael  8:22
Like at local digital Co.

Arthur  8:25
I guess we should create one for the SEO show just for you and I Yeah, okay. Well, I’ll do that. That’s your project. Yeah. While you’re thinking of the next topic, I’ll create a Docker page.

Michael  8:35
Next episode, we’ll give you the handle for our brand new Instagram page with awesome photos of us in this room chatting away. Sounds like exciting content. Can’t wait. And on that night, happy SEO ing. See you later. See ya.