Thankfully the world is starting to get back to normal, just as I predicted it would. While the events that occurred due to Covid-19 and the resulting pandemic were scary and uncertain to an extent, it was also very important to remain positive and know that it would eventually pass.
This is why I preached so strongly about the importance of having a “business as usual” mentality. The worst thing a business could have done during that down time was to just press pause and sit idle.
If you did that you became a sitting duck. Many businesses made huge gains in terms of organic search traffic and exposure during the past few months. Now, I understand that some businesses simply couldn’t thrive if their revenue stopped entirely. In those situations it’s truly sad and I hope they find a way to bounce back.
But, the businesses that pressed paused on everything due to fear are going to have an uphill battle over the next few months, especially if some of their competition saw the opportunity and went hard on the offense.
We can talk about SEO and optimizing for the maximum organic traffic, and all of the different things that contribute to ranking — but if you know me and how blunt I am you know that there is one factor that trumps them all: links.
If you had a defensive mentality during the pandemic then the smartest way to make up ground is by building links. You can either build them manually yourself by doing outreach or you can buy them. We only have so much time each day, so the manual approach is going to take longer and it’s just not humanly possible to build real links at scale rapidly if you are a one-man link building operation.
With all of that being said, here are five ways to put together a larger SEO budget for the upcoming months without taking on extra debt or doing yourself into a financial hole. These are all very simple, yet often overlooked ways to generate extra revenue for your business. This extra revenue can be used to ramp up your link building efforts and help to push your website to the top of the SERPs (or back to the top).
Build links on over-drive..
Send a special exclusive offer to your already existing customer base.
It amazes me that a lot of businesses put all of their energy and focus on new customer acquisition when they have previous customers at their disposal that they can market to at any time — for free.
Think about it for a minute. If an ecommerce company has a database of 5,000 people that have purchased from them in the past, but are focusing all of their attention on new customers they are missing a huge opportunity. Sadly, many businesses think that once they get the customer to buy once that they will naturally turn into repeat purchasers.
This isn’t the case at all. The average consumer is marketed to hundreds of times a day. They buy from dozens of different websites. You have to remain in front of them and constantly remind them that you exist. If not you will be drowned out amongst the other marketing and advertising they are presented with.
If you have an email list of customers, put together a special offer that is highly appealing, yet also generates a nice chunk of revenue (profit) for your business. Bundle deals, discounts, etc. all tend to perform well.
This is something that you should do on a consistent basis regardless, but it’s also a way to generate capital that you can roll over into your SEO budget to really ramp up your link building effort. Even if you send out special offers to your existing customers on a regular basis, dedicate some of those campaigns strictly to your SEO — imagine what you could do with an extra $1,000 or $3,000 a month that you could toss at link building?
It’s often as simple as just taking the time to think of an irresistible offer and pressing “send” on the email — put in the time and effort and watch your effort reward you.
Run paid social media campaigns dedicated to generating capital for SEO link building.
This takes the same strategy as above and just applies that offer to paid social media channels. The great thing about testing the offers against your existing customer base is that the cost is literally $0.
If you see that an offer receives an incredibly high response rate then why not copy push the same offer out across paid social media channels? For example, if you are an ecommerce store that sells home goods and your customer list bites hard on an offer, create a similar offer and run a Facebook ads campaign.
If your targeting is onpoint it should be as successful. You are more than likely already running ads for your business, but when you create ad sets and campaigns that are designed strictly to generate additional revenue to be used for SEO it helps you generate capital that you know is for link building.
A lot of business owners might have a hard time justifying spending $2,500 for a handful of high authority editorial links if they are looking at their business operations account balance when they know they have other expenses. But, if there is a separate source of capital that was created specifically with link building in mind that “mental block” is removed and it becomes much easier to part with and spend that money.
It’s no secret that the businesses that build the best links dominate the SERPs. This strategy will give you access to the capital needed to play along without dipping into the regular operations balance.
Launch an affiliate or referral program.
Don’t have extra money laying around to run additional paid social media campaigns? That’s not a problem. Do you have an affiliate or referral program set up? If not you are missing a huge opportunity — and one that can not only help you create more revenue to fund your SEO effort, but one that will help elevate your business to another level.
Again, like most things, it comes down to effort or lack thereof. It doesn’t matter if you’re an ecommerce business or a service provider — there is an opportunity to create a program that pays for new customers or sales.
Ecommerce stores that run on Shopify or Woocommerce have endless choices when it comes to apps and plugins that create and manage an affiliate program with a few clicks. There are also several affiliate networks you can place your offer on.
The kicker here is that you are only paying for performance — it’s an advertising dream. There is no wasted ad spend. No testing. A sale comes in and you pay a commission. Simple.
I’ve seen first-hand how some businesses went from not having an affiliate program (and spending very little on SEO) to completely dominating the SERPs because of the increased revenue that came as a result of an affiliate program.
Start small. Dedicate 15 minutes a day to it — building it out and developing relationships. As extra sales come in, apply more energy to its growth. Consistency is the key, and this is a source that can be tapped to generate a tremendous amount of extra revenue each month.
I can promise you that the brands pulling in an extra $10,000 or $20,000 a month via this stream are not blinking when it comes to buying the best authority links. It all goes hand-in-hand. More sales equals more revenue. More revenue equals more links that can be purchased. More links equals more organic traffic. More traffic equals more sales.
Open your blog up to sponsored content and guest posting.
We talk about buying links, but what about selling links as a way to generate revenue that you can then flip into your own link building effort? This is something I have been seeing a lot of websites start to do now.
There is a good chance that you already receive emails and inquiries looking to “guest post” if you have a blog, so why not consider monetizing it? As long as you are smart about it you can do it without risk.
First, you are going to have to have a blog and second, you are going to have to have some authority. After all, nobody is going to be interested in buying links on a blog that lacks authority. I tell people that consider doing this to implement publishing guidelines and rules like a top media entity.
This means only linking to valuable resources (not home pages or questionable websites) and only using natural anchor text. Many people fear that linking out to other websites will hurt their rankings by “passing” too much of their juice.
In reality the opposite is true. If a website has no external links it can look a bit strange. Creativity is key. You would need to develop a program that makes sense (and looks natural) for your specific website.
A consumer review website, for example, could easily create sponsored listings and reviews, and charge for those with links. Unpaid reviews or listings would include no links. A local service provider (like a plumber or electrician) could create a “our community friends” page and link to other small businesses in the community. This wouldn’t create competition and would be an easy way to generate extra revenue.
Many link building companies (us included) will search for pages that include titles and text like “advertising partners,” “write for us,” or “guest post.” So, keep that in mind when creating and optimizing these pages on your website, as they can help you attract interest.
Integrate affiliate offers — via display ads, email offers and social media posts.
Want to generate some extra revenue to really speed up your link building? Do you have room on your blog to promote some similar offers that pay you for sending qualified buyers? Do you have a responsive email list that you can market to?
Again, this will depend on the type of business you are and what your audience looks like and how they relate to your business. But, with creativity you can generate extra revenue with ease and I am going to give you an example that shows how it can be applied to almost any type of business.
We were working with a local pizza restaurant in a very competitive city. The local map results were ultra competitive and it was going to take some huge authority links to push them up.
Their SEO budget was limited, but they had a massive list of customers (email and on social media) so we began to think of ways to monetize that in order to generate revenue that could exclusively be used for SEO and link building.
We found an affiliate offer for pizza themed clothing and gifts. We then sent out an email campaign and promoted the offer via social media. The items were high quality and the payout was very attractive. What happened next even surprised me. The customers responded very well and sales were through the roof.
The company was able to generate more than $10,000 in affiliate revenue from a single email offer and social media posts. It worked because it was highly relevant and something their customers enjoyed. Not only did we make significant SERP gains because of the new links we were able to buy, but it also opened up the idea to a new revenue stream for the business — merchandise.
The impact this decision had on this business goes far beyond what we first set out to accomplish. None of what followed would have been possible without thinking outside the box and trying something new.
And that is the point of this blog post — to encourage you to think outside the box. While your competitor is sitting there with the, “we need more sales so we can ramp up our SEO” you need to create new opportunities and revenue streams that you can funnel directly to your link building efforts. Do this, and watch the type of SERP gains you will experience.
Final Thoughts
While we aren’t completely in the clear when it comes to Covid-19, it’s definitely getting back to normal across the world with more countries opening up and resuming business and travel. While there are some changes to how we interact in the world, one thing is very clear: this situation has made online business even more important.
This situation forced many people to turn to the internet for things like grocery delivery, checking the status of local and national rules, closures, etc.
If anything, the pandemic made the world even more reliant on the internet. It also introduced more people to the concept of doing everything online. So, now more than ever, it’s important to plant your stake online and build a solid foundation you can build on for long-term success.
Online success revolves around Google — and being found in its search results. Links are still the most important factor, so it’s time to build them. Use the tips I mentioned above to stack aside extra funds that you can allocate to link building. Doing this on a consistent basis will help you improve your website’s authority and online visibility.
What is your biggest post pandemic business challenge? Let me know in the comments below.
