Monthly Archives: April 2023

Link Building | Creating Meaningful Website Links

Building meaningful links, also known as link building, is like networking at an event, but for your website. So the good news is the introverts in the room won’t be overcome with anxiety!

Why is Link Building Important?

Link building is an essential part of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Everyone’s favorite subject! Links help search engines find and then rank your website pages. Without links, search engines like Google may take longer to recognize just how excellent your content is. First let’s look at what different link types we have:

  • Internal Links: These are links on your website that direct users to other places within your website.
  • External Links: These are links on your website that direct users to another website with relevant information.
  • Backlinks: A backlink is a link from another person’s or business’s website back to your website. This builds credibility for your website and content.

Not All Links Are Treated Equally

Although establishing internal links is important and can help end-users explore content, it isn’t the same as link building. The ideal goal is to get other websites to link back to your pages, but it is important that these links are credible and beneficial. Not all links should be equally coveted. Take a look at the good and not-so-good link examples below.

Good Back Linking

If you own an elite restaurant, having a review on a renowned food critic’s website that links back to your website will give you more credit on search engines. Hopefully, it is also a positive review! Event bloggers who visit your restaurant and mention it in their post is beneficial! However, the higher traffic and rating a website has that mentions you, the more credit and ranking that link get as well!

Not-So-Good Backlinking

As we mentioned earlier, not all backlinks boost your site’s credibility in the same way. Low-quality backlinks are links to your site from websites with little to no engagement. When looking at sites to help build your backlink network we advise against software or services that promise to add you to “100’s of directory websites.”  The key here is to build your backlinks with websites that relate to your business and may resonate with your audience.

Build Great Content

Before even considering building meaningful links, it is essential to have unique website content (see what we did there? what a beautifully placed internal link!) that represents your brand that people want to share with others. This includes a company history, employee bios discussing their contributions to the company, and industry-specific content that highlights your expertise. Creating and sharing content that is interesting to other individuals in your industry or your highly engaged consumer base makes it that much more easy to get those coveted links.

Define Your Audience

Who are you trying to reach with your content? How do those individuals usually consume information? Now, this is the part where the introverts will start squirming. This part feels a lot like networking. Once you have a defined list of ways your ideal end reader consumes information, it is time to reach out to them. Depending on your industry, the communication might look different.

For example, if you have a new tech product you are working on promoting, you could send a few samples to major tech publications asking them for a blog review to be featured on their website. Or maybe you invite a well-known health and wellness blogger to visit your state-of-the-art gym for free in exchange for an article on their blog highlighting how they can use your equipment. It is important to remember people will only add links to your website if it’s in their own or their audience’s interest.

You have to get creative when creating a link-building strategy! If you need help establishing your website content and marketing strategy to grow your business, promote an event, or increase product sales, we can help!

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Heather Morrison
Heather is the VP of Operations at Innereactive and we are lucky to have her. She has over five years of experience running an HR department and enjoys helping businesses like yours find solutions to their HR needs.

Create a Culture of Coaching

What is a coaching culture? Creating a culture of coaching means your business intentionally establishes a structure, processes, and systems across the organization where individuals and their personal and professional development are prioritized. If it sounds daunting, it is, but the benefits of creating a coaching culture are substantial.

You may already have some individuals in your organization who promote a culture of coaching without any formal processes or systems in place. So what are these individuals doing to create this ideal culture?

Create a Safe Environment

This one is a no-brainer, but many businesses need help with it. People in working environments with explosive leaders or leaders who prefer to place blame instead of explore solutions often hide mistakes and feel like questions are a way to trap them. If employees do not feel safe, secure, and equitably treated, they will not be willing to explore the deeper conversation necessary for a culture of coaching.

Ask Questions

Quiet Leadership has been around for a long time, but when implementing a culture of coaching, the idea of asking questions instead of giving answers takes on a new level of importance. The main premise of Quiet Leadership is to ask questions to encourage individuals to think through challenges and solve their own problems. Many people in leadership positions mean well when they jump in to solve problems or immediately share how they would handle the issue, but it sends the wrong message to employees. Instead, leaders should focus on asking the right questions to help the person get to the answer independently. Some of these questions are:

  • What does the ideal outcome look like?
  • What are the options for moving forward?
  • What barriers do you foresee running into?
  • How will you overcome barriers?
  • If that doesn’t work, what else could you try?
  • What is your first step going to be?
  • When are you going to take that step?
  • Is there anything specific I can do to help?

Setting Clear Expectations

It is important to know what success looks like, what to prioritize, and how to improve. Defining what success looks like begins with setting goals. From there, it is communication, communication, communication. And in case that didn’t sink in, some more communication!

Everyone at the organization has many fighting initiatives they are attempting to juggle. Communicating your expectations on a project once and then not following up again until the deadline is going to result in a misunderstanding. Be sure to continue to share necessary updates, ensure people have the tools they need, and trust them to do the work.

Focus on Development

To have a culture of coaching, people in leadership positions must want people to and believe people can grow, learn, and develop new skills. What’s the point of coaching if you believe they couldn’t? This process should be collaborative, exploring each individual’s unique strengths and passions. Sometimes it means letting one of your best sales reps explore a path in web development. It is about giving individuals opportunities to explore things they find engaging.

Creating a plan allowing your organization to implement coaching into its structure, processes, and systems can be daunting. Get started by grasping your team’s desires and headspace through an employee engagement survey. Based on the results, identify who will have access to coaching. Hopefully, the end result would be “everyone!” but select a small group within the organization when getting started. Test some processes, collect feedback, tweak the process, and expand. If you need help getting started, consider using Innereactive’s employee engagement services! We can implement surveys, measure and report on results, and consult on the next steps based on individual results.

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Heather Morrison
Heather is the VP of Operations at Innereactive and we are lucky to have her. She has over five years of experience running an HR department and enjoys helping businesses like yours find solutions to their HR needs.