Link building, just like other forms of marketing or sales, benefits greatly from being genuine. If you truly have a great product, it becomes incredibly much easier to build links. Today I want to tell you about our international link explosion.
Not everyone is fortunate enough to have a unique product. Many have to rely on what can be sourced from a wholesaler, many offer services that have existed for hundreds of years and have taken a form that works well. If you have a completely unique and significantly better service, the situation is different—then the opportunities are far greater.
Our well-known workdays
If not before, you are surely familiar by now with our workdays. As the first company in the country (and seemingly the world), we chose to define a 6-hour workday as full-time employment. Admittedly, a Toyota workshop in Gothenburg reduced working hours when switching to shift work, but shift work often comes with shorter monthly working hours. Six-hour workdays are not only a hot topic in Sweden but, as it turns out, around the world.
When The Guardian picked up the story about our workdays—Swedish media had already had their eyes on us for quite some time—things really took off. Google’s Search Console currently shows links from 62 unique domains that were added, and even then Search Console has missed, or not yet updated, a large share of the links we received. Sites that were missed include Yahoo, CNN, and the Daily Mail, which chose to link to our English website. Our estimate is that we received links from up to 100 linking sites, the majority of which carry high trust with Google.
Of course, it’s great to be written about, and it’s a clear example of how something genuine can spread. This is not about link bait, it’s not about a social media campaign or a campaign site. The reason it spreads so well is simply because it’s something we actually do. Another interesting aspect I’d like to highlight here is that even if you also had six-hour workdays, even if you were also mentioned, it’s not certain it would work as link building. Let me explain why.
Note that there are other companies mentioned in the articles about us—the Toyota workshop, an app developer, and one or more public healthcare institutions. Only one of us received links, though. Why?
The key difference is that we acted deliberately. When we were interviewed, we made sure a link was included, that there was a relevant page to link to with in-depth content, and we were careful to point this out. Even when you receive this kind of exposure, you can’t assume links will follow unless you know what you’re doing.
