6 ways a designer can get natural links for his client’s website

Links are an important part of SEO although their importance has been greatly exaggerated by the spammers who like to peddle link buying services. Nevertheless, for any websites, a few links will definitely help tp get the website from traffic from the search engines.  At the minimum, the links will get the new website in Google’s index much faster which helps it to draw in long tail traffic. As designers, there are a couple of ways we can share our clients to get more natural links. Using these approaches is safe as they are not spammy in nature.

how to get natural links through design

#1: Submit to website showcase galleries

If you have done a great job on the website design, I am sure your client will have no problem getting their sites being showcased in the numerous showcase galleries such as cssmania or awwwards. Each of these showcase, once accepted, gives the website a natural link.

 

#2: Create linkable design resource

Design bloggers like to link to resources that can be downloaded for free by the community. What you can do is to create a few of these resources and place them in a section of the client’s websites called ‘downloads’.  If the resources are solid, they will eventually be linked to. These resources can include the psd files for the font or the color scheme used on your client’s website, wallpapers, ecard designs etc.

There are also sites that showcase email newsletter design. If this is one of the things you have done for the client, you can also submit this resource to the relevant newsletter showcase sites for another link.

 

#3: Have a portfolio section on your business site

If you have been designing for a while, you will have a list of past clients. You can list them out in your portfolio section and ask them to link to this section on their website’s footer. Over time, this portfolio page will have both link power and traffic. For any new clients you have, just listing their website here will give them a natural link to start.

 

#4:  Share designs on social websites

You can share your client’s website design on numerous social sharing sites such as Dribbble, Behance, DeviantArt etc. All these not long gives the website a natural link but it may encourage other designers to link to your client’s website when they want to highlight a particular design that you did.

 

#5: Create sections within the design site for content

The best way to attract links is through content. As designers, we should create space within our design to allow more text to be accommodated.  Whether the clients will eventually populate these areas with great content is their choice but we should plan ahead for them.  Examples of such sections include a FAQ, a blog, production description, company history,  industry news etc.

 

#6: Introduce clients to each other

You can always let your clients ask for from each other. This need not be spammy. For example,  one client can provide guest articles for others if the information is relevant. Alternatively, they can also cross promote each others related services, which will earn them a link in the process.

 


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4 Comments

  1. jon says:

    yet but getting quality links is getting harder and harder as Google continues to disseminate disinformation to scare website owners into thinking that making out to other websites is dangerous. Links are what connect the the web and are important. links are not just important for search engine marketing but that’s how people discover content is through links so instead of building links for Seo just build links to drive traffic

  2. Sushil Rajput says:

    Enjoyed this post but would have appreciated more information on the whether or not some of the links sources above are DoFollow or not (for instance, Pinterest use to be DoFollow and was a great source of links until they changed it).

    • Ali Qayyum says:

      My personal view is that nofollow links which bring you traffic are as good as dofollow links. We shouldn’t just get links for Google’s sake.

  3. spencer says:

    Looks like your link building tips is old but it does unique from what i’ve learnt of. I am usually sharing on few social network site such as fb, twitter or pinterest and of course, nothing to happen. Let me try yours once