Tamar Weinberg pointed to an interesting topic over at the HighRankings forums about link building for big brands. Although the thread was opened over a year ago, the discussion lit up again and the subject remains interesting. A good reason to dedicate this episode of Link Building Strategies to link building for big brands.

So how do big brands build links? Well, in most cases they don’t, at least not actively. Just ‘being alive’ often is enough to attract several links a day from different places. A product launch, a CEO leaving the company, an angry customer, a study at a university or even a cool tv ad can result in fresh links. In other words, like Jill said, “they get links by virtue of their brand name”.

The link building challenge of big brands isn’t in obtaining new links, but in using the strength of these links optimally. Converting link juice isn’t very hard, but certainly worth the effort.

Make sure that your domain gets the links

It sounds pretty easy, but apparently it isn’t: put something online before you start an offline campaign. If you’re launching a new product and still have to set up a page for it when the first ads have been aired, you’re too late. Affiliates, domainers and other clever folks are fast as lightning, or at least faster than your designers. If they manage to beat you with their page or site, they will attract the links and traffic. And they’ll rank.

Another pretty hard thing to believe is that some companies still use agencies that send out press releases hosted on a third party domain. This means that every website that writes about your release will probably end up linking to your PR company. Great deal for them, but not for you. Make sure that your domain gets the juice, since you’re probably already paying them too much.

Tip number three is to set up profiles of your most important employees. In stead of linking to sources like Wikipedia, online media will link to your site more often when they’re writing about the company’s CEO, CFO or CFETWTF.

Make sure that the right page gets the links

Large companies attract links to their home page by the dozen, but you -and Google- want links to be as targeted as possible. This doesn’t mean that you have to get in touch with every single webmaster that links to your home page, but you certainly want the best links to be perfect. Contact the websites that send the most traffic, send visitors that click through to lots of different pages (do these visitors have to search for what they were looking for?), or just are extremely relevant to a specific page, and ask if they can alter the link target. After thanking them for the initial link, of course.

Get rid of the ‘click here’s

Good links can result in better rankings, but good descriptive links can result in awesome rankings. Anchor text helps, so make sure that the most relevant links and the ones coming from authority domains have the right anchor text, in stead of just your company name or ‘click here’.

Control the link juice

So, your pretty flash page managed to attract hundreds or thousands of links. Too bad that flash pages still suck for SEO and aren’t able to pass link strength to other pages on your site optimally. Make sure that the juice can flow around to pages that make you money, have the ability to rank, or -ideally- both.

Get those extra ’special’ links

The ad agencies of big brands usually know how to get offline attention, their social media specialists will hopefully manage to reach bloggers and social networks, but both probably don’t know where they can find the ’special’ spots. You know, those pages or sites that can give you that extra little boost. That’s where link building -or hiring a link builder- can mean the difference between just being a top brand and being a top brand with top rankings.

It pretty much like Brian said in the original forum thread; although big brands attract lots of links just because they exist, link building is needed to help sharpen their link profile to become more keyword targeted.

This is the first part of a brand new series, which will be featuring specific link building strategies every once in a while. Every ‘Link Building Strategies‘ post will explain what the benefits of the featured strategy are and it will give tips on when and how to use this tactic. This first part will discuss Product Reviews.

If you’re planning on launching a new product (or just want some exposure for an existing one) and know where to look in “your” blogosphere, the product review can be a great way to get targeted traffic, positive brand exposure and good links. Just sending out (or offering to ship) one of your products might help you to obtain great links. Can you think of something better than an authority blogger explaining to his audience what your product is and why it’s great, together with providing a deep link to the product itself? Neither can I, but getting one is harder than it sounds.

Step 1: Make great products
It’s impossible to get nothing but positive reviews while your product is crap and still look sincere. It all starts with a great product. If your products are of bad, mediocre or ‘just ok’ quality, actively pursuing product reviews probably isn’t the best choice for you.

Step 2: Participate online
Online participation is a must, whether you do this yourself, have a web savvy co-worker or have an online marketing agency that handles this on your behalf. Contacting people in your industry out of the blue with an email that contains information about your product will be perceived as spam in probably eight out of ten occasions. If you already know the people you want to send your product to, you’ll have a lot more chance of being successful.

Do you think that Glen Alsopp would have been able to get industry bloggers to talk about his Online Reputation Management eBook (which is an excellent read btw! Buy it before the price goes up!) if he didn’t participate online? It not only saves you time if you know who the top bloggers in your industry are and if you know where and how to contact them, but it also increases your chances of getting some great coverage.

Step 3: Pitch your product
A good pitch doesn’t look like a pitch. If you want to control the way that your review should look like or where the links should point to, you can better use a PPP-like review service. If you want great links, a natural and unique piece of coverage and honest feedback, make it look like you’re doing something for the person you’ve contacted. He or she will be more than likely to help you out as well.

To get back to Glen’s book; he contacted me about his ebook and without asking me to write about it, let alone that he mentioned where I should link to or what the post should look like. And yet he still ended up with positive feedback (did I already mention that his book is a great read?) and in content links (with the right anchor text). Not because he told me to, but because his product rocks (step 1), because I knew him before he contacted me about his book (step 2) and because he contacted me the right way (step 3).

Step 4: Follow up
There’s nothing more rewarding for a blogger than seeing that his or her words have had effect. If you’re able to show that you’ve used the feedback that the bloggers that covered your product provided, these bloggers will probably be of great help the next time as well. Also, sending out an update or just a thank you note can help you expanding your network with loyal contacts.

Main goal: Building awareness, traffic
Effectiveness: 4/5
Which markets: Business to Consumer (and sometimes B2B)
When to use: When your products rock
When not to use: When your products suck
Possible Dangers: Backfire (remember this one?)
Biggest benefits: In content deep links, targeted traffic, customer feedback