While some people have been pushing the notion that link building is dying a slow, irreversible death, many others have found great success in this practice over the past few months. As with most elements of SEO, changes in search engines’ algorithms often change the way we must go about doing one task or another. It comes as no surprise that link building has been affected profoundly over the years as a result. As search engines continue to become more sophisticated in recognizing true links versus spam attempts, the notion of building links is turning toward more organic forms of creation. Below, we’ll discuss some creative ways you can now build links while improving engagement and boosting sales.

Have a Giveaway

People love free stuff, and as it turns out, people love to share links to free stuff with their friends, family and readers. Anyone who is serious about pinging links to search engines and other readers can find great success through the promotion of a giveaway or contest. In many cases, the item in question does not have to be expensive – or even tangible. Some businesses can give away a free product or service that is desirable, allowing for hundreds of links to be created as the news spreads across relevant blogs and websites. Any type of link building exercise that is contest-motivated has a naturally large potential for success, so consider this angle in your next round of link building.

Create a Scholarship

Many people out there wish to obtain backlinks from authority TLDs such as .edu and .gov. One great way to do this is to start a small scholarship and then have it listed on a variety of websites by convincing the webmaster to each to include it. In most cases, this is a straight shot approach to being listed on dozens of .edu domains, which will help boost SEO authority and ranking. Who knows? You may not even have to pay out the scholarship, depending on who applies, so a small amount allocated toward this link building technique can be both creative and lucrative in the right situations.

Offer a Job

Are you in need of content creation services, a programmer or full-time web development? Any number of tasks can pop up for a webmaster, but many ignore the opportunities that these can present for link building. Any job that needs to be completed should be listed on a page of your site, which can help give you and others reason to link to this page. Blogs that share your interests or industry will be more inclined to advertise a job posting relevant to them, which in turn helps you build additional links.

Conclusion

Link building in 2014 no longer has to be a drab, repetitive affair. You can gain true benefits by pinging links to educational sites through the use of scholarships, to hundreds of blogs by posting job openings and to even more pages with the use of a giveaway or promotion. There are plenty more creative ways you can engage an audience and help build back links these days, but these three are among the most effective.