The Lit­tle Big Horn Strat­egy of Link Building

Are you in a niche that’s so damn com­pet­i­tive no one’s will­ing to link to you?

If so, the Lit­tle Big Horn strat­egy of link build­ing might just be your answer.

Read on if you:

• Are in a highly com­pet­i­tive niche
• Strug­gle to get links from blogs within your niche
• Want to out­rank your com­pe­ti­tion quickly with white hat SEO
• Want to know how to cre­ate a VIRAL TSUNAMI

This post is the lat­est up­date from my ad­ven­ture to build a $9K/pm au­thor­ity site and in it I’ll share how I’m us­ing the Lit­tle Big Horn strat­egy of link build­ing to get my new site shared by A-lis­ters and cre­ate a Vi­ral Tsunami.

If you read my last post Vi­ral Car­rots & Con­ver­sion Rab­bit Holes you’ll know my aim was to make my new site go vi­ral on launch day by pro­mot­ing “vi­ral car­rots” (con­tent that has po­ten­tial to go vi­ral) to the right people.

The goal was to at­tract links and shares from A-list blog­gers both within and closely re­lated to the niche.

Well on 17^th De­cem­ber 2013, the site went live and I emailed a large chunk of the A-list blog­gers from my lit­tle black book of 1000+ contacts.

But did they share it?

No.

Freight Train Out of Nowhere

To cut a long story short, the site failed to cre­ate the waves I hoped it would and like a freight train out of nowhere it hit me – this niche is go­ing to be tougher than I thought.

Nev­er­the­less, I was pre­pared for this and didn’t base my en­tire strat­egy on be­com­ing the next best thing since Buz­zFeed overnight.

I knew it was go­ing to be a strug­gle to get links and shares from peo­ple within the niche, which is why I’m us­ing the Lit­tle Big Horn strat­egy to make a stand and:

• Get white hat links from A-listers
• Out­rank my com­peti­tors FAST

The Lit­tle Big Horn Strategy

In the movie, The So­cial Net­work, Mark Zucker­berg and Ed­uardo Saverin meet Sean Parker for lunch. They ex­plain how they used the Lit­tle Big Horn Strat­egy to at­tract stu­dents from Bay­lor Uni­ver­sity (a col­lege that al­ready had their own so­cial net­work) to Face­book, by putting Face­book on the cam­puses of all the schools within 100 miles of Bay­lor first:

To im­ple­ment the Lit­tle Big Horn strat­egy for a new site, you first need as­sets you can lever­age to at­tract juicy white-hat links from be­yond the con­stric­tions of your niche, in ad­ja­cent markets.

This way, it doesn’t mat­ter if peo­ple within your niche aren’t will­ing to share your stuff in the first few weeks be­cause you can al­ways get links elsewhere.

The Lit­tle Big Horn Strat­egy is split into two key phases:

Phase One – Get links and ex­po­sure from ad­ja­cent markets

Phase Two – Get A-lis­ters to share your content

I’ve al­most com­pleted Phase One by lever­ag­ing a cer­tain type of as­set that at­tracts white-hat links on drip feed from ad­ja­cent markets.

Phase One: Lever­age Infographics

In­fo­graph­ics make ex­cel­lent link bait and if pro­moted the right way, at­tract a heap of traf­fic, at­ten­tion and links.

For this rea­son I de­cided to in­vest in cre­at­ing not one, but two epic in­fo­graph­ics to pro­mote the blog and build links for Phase One.

And these aren’t just any old infographics.

The sub­ject mat­ter is 100% orig­i­nal be­cause I col­lected the data my­self from a 20 ques­tion sur­vey sent out to 100 peo­ple us­ing Sur­vey Mon­key.

Once the data was in hand, I used Lu­cid Chart to map the flow of how I wanted the in­fo­graph­ics to look to save money on in­fo­graphic de­signer costs, which only came to USD225 per in­fo­graphic (on PeoplePerHour.com).

Since the day of the site’s launch I have been sub­mit­ting them to var­i­ous in­fo­graphic di­rec­to­ries and reach­ing out to dozens of peo­ple in ad­ja­cent markets.

I’ve been im­ple­ment­ing the tips from Brian Dean’s re­cent post on how to rank #1 with Guesto­graph­ics.

He shared a strat­egy David Gross’ team from In­ter Greater used to get their in­fo­graphic way more at­ten­tion than it would have if they’d only reached out to peo­ple within the niche.

As well as reach­ing out to a more di­verse crowd of peo­ple, Brian also sug­gested you of­fer to write a unique in­tro­duc­tion for each per­son – this way they’ll be more likely to share them, since you’ve made their job that much more easy.

I’ve done this and the re­sponse has been fantastic:

Ac­tu­ally, be­cause no-one in my niche is us­ing in­fo­graph­ics (but mainly use links from black hat SEO / grey hat SEO to rank) I’ve de­cided to in­vest in cre­at­ing one new in­fo­graphic every month, be­cause af­ter only 3 weeks of go­ing live, the link juice from the in­fo­graph­ics has helped our best money page rise up the SERP and ap­pear on Google’s sec­ond page!

The funny thing is, that money page has NO ex­ter­nal in­bound links. So…how the heck is it rank­ing already?

A Ris­ing Tide Lifts All Boats

I dis­cov­ered that a ris­ing tide lifts all boats when a cou­ple of my older posts on clambr started rank­ing in the SERP af­ter my ex­pert roundup about the best SEO tools for link build­ing went a lit­tle viral.

Its’ pop­u­lar­ity and ac­cu­mu­lated back­links helped lift other posts in clambr’s har­bour, es­pe­cially this one: https://www.clambr.com/49-free-web-directories-for-building-backlinks/ which is now rank­ing for quite a few free di­rec­to­ries based keywords:

I never even built a sin­gle back­link to it.

But what I did do was im­prove clambr’s in­ner link struc­ture by send­ing link juice from my “star” pieces of con­tent, to other pieces of con­tent on the site.

I’m do­ing the ex­act same thing for my new niche site.

I’ve made sure the cur­rent star pieces of con­tent (my two in­fo­graph­ics) are send­ing link juice to my most im­por­tant money pages.

That’s why one of my best money pages is al­ready ap­pear­ing on Google’s sec­ond page.

Now comes the fi­nal push: cre­ate a Vi­ral Tsunami that lifts all boats in the harbour.

Re­mem­ber how when I first launched the site no A-lis­ters would share my content?

Phase Two: Ex­pert Roundups

Now that the site has built up a solid amount of white-hat back­links and so­cial proof from its’ unique in­fo­graph­ics, it’s time to reach out to the A-lis­ters again, only this time, they’ll be more likely to help out.

Why?

Be­cause I’m go­ing to be invit­ing them to take part in an ex­pert roundup!

If you’ve vis­ited clambr be­fore, you’ll know I’m a bit of an ex­pert at ex­pert roundups 

Hell, it was thanks to my first ex­pert roundup about link build­ing tools that clambr got no­ticed in the first place!

Ex­pert roundups are KICK ASS be­cause they have a habit of go­ing vi­ral since the con­tent is EPIC and the peo­ple in­volved usu­ally share them like crazy which gets you a flood of at­ten­tion and or­ganic white-hat links:

And if you choose your tar­get key­words wisely, once the so­cial shares and back­links kick in, you should hit the first page of Google in no time at all:

YES – I strongly be­lieve that so­cial shares play a HUGE fac­tor in rank­ing content.

And be­cause I’m so con­fi­dent in the re­sults roundups cre­ate, I’d be nuts not to use an ex­pert roundup as Phase Two of the Lit­tle Big Horn strat­egy of link building.

Even if a lot of the ex­perts in my niche are still un­will­ing to get in­volved in a roundup, it doesn’t mat­ter, be­cause I’m go­ing to:

1. Reach out to lesser known ex­perts in the niche who’ll be more up for get­ting in­volved (thanks to Matt Gratt from Buz­zStream for sug­gest­ing this)
2. Cre­ate a ques­tion that can be an­swered by ex­perts out­side my niche (not just those strictly con­fined to the niche)
3. This will mean I have a larger list of peo­ple to reach out to and thus, en­sure a greater amount of re­sponses (quan­tity is key be­cause the more peo­ple = the more shares & exposure)

So even if the A-lis­ters don’t get in­volved the first time round, I’ve still ac­com­plished the task of get­ting on their radar sim­ply be­cause I am ask­ing for their ex­pert opin­ion.

And when the roundups go vi­ral, the ex­perts who don’t take part will be swept up in the Vi­ral Tsunami, visit my site and be GAGGING to get in­volved next time round.

But what the heck is a Vi­ral Tsunami?

Vi­ral Tsunami

im­age via: deviantart.com

A Vi­ral Tsunami is a wave of so­cial shares so vast and wide, that A-lis­ters and Au­thor­i­ta­tive news sites can’t do any­thing but get swept up in it.

This will then bring a Tsunami of vis­i­tors to your site, which you can then fun­nel down chan­nels (links) lead­ing to what­ever other con­tent you want lifted as it ploughs through.

To cre­ate a Vi­ral Tsunami you need to merge two huge waves of traf­fic to­gether, to cre­ate one gi­gan­tic wave.

To achieve this, you don’t just launch one ex­pert roundup and pro­mote it like crazy.

No.

You pub­lish 2 ex­pert roundups at the same time.

The ex­pert roundups should also be on the same or sim­i­lar topic so peo­ple in­volved in each roundup will be dy­ing to see what the other group of ex­perts said too.

Think about it.

If you and a friend were ar­rested on sus­pi­cion of van­dal­is­ing a po­lice car and then split up and in­ter­viewed in sep­a­rate rooms you’d wish you could hear what your friend was say­ing about you right? Did he stick to the story you both agreed upon or did he rat you out? That’d drive you crazy right?!

Here’s some ex­am­ples of how you could split groups up to pave the way for a Vi­ral Tsunami:

Mommy Blog­gers VS SEOs
Black Hats VS White Hats
Pa­leo Di­ets VS Veg­e­tar­ian Diets
Strength Train­ing VS Body Building
Men VS Women

Not only will this urge ex­perts from each roundup to check out the other one, and share those too, but it will also:

• Dou­ble your site’s ex­po­sure (be­cause you can tap into the dif­fer­ent va­ri­ety of fol­low­ers from each group of experts)
• In­crease each visitor’s time on site (great for SEO)
• Al­low you to di­rect waves of vis­i­tors to an­other fresh piece of con­tent you want to rank (e.g. my money page stuck on Google’s sec­ond page)

But it gets better…

…As well as bounc­ing two ex­pert roundups off each other, I’m also go­ing to pub­lish a unique in­fo­graphic that com­piles the data from both roundups to cre­ate an ul­ti­mate guide.

Imag­ine if you were one of the ex­perts who’s an­swer con­tributed to the cre­ation of an amaz­ing and unique in­fo­graphic?

You’d love it right? Be­cause it would feel like your infographic.

In fact, you’d love it so much you’d share it like crazy and prob­a­bly even pub­lish it on your own blog.

So…this will in turn, give the in­fo­graphic a huge chance of go­ing vi­ral, at­tract a ton of links and hope­fully rank it for its own tar­get keyword.

As part of my mon­e­ti­za­tion strat­egy I’m also go­ing to link to the money page I men­tioned ear­lier in this post (the one that’s rank­ing on the sec­ond page of Google), be­cause re­mem­ber, a ris­ing tide lifts all boats!

The im­pact of the Vi­ral Tsunami should hope­fully pro­vide me with two ex­pert roundups, one in­fo­graphic and one money page that dom­i­nate the SERP.

In ef­fect, this strat­egy could po­ten­tially kill 4 birds with 2 stones.

Think Vi­ral Tsunamis ROCK? Click the bird to Tweet this:
“2 Ex­pert Roundups + 1 In­fo­graphic = VIRAL TSUNAMI!”

Rinse and Repeat.

I am con­fi­dent the Lit­tle Big Horn strat­egy of link build­ing will work like magic, which is why I’m go­ing to cre­ate one new in­fo­graphic and two new ex­pert roundups every sin­gle month.

The monthly in­fo­graph­ics and roundups will not only boost my chances of get­ting no­ticed by A-lis­ters in the niche, but also by Au­thor­i­ta­tive news sites.

In fact, I have al­ready been asked by two ra­dio sta­tions to let them know when the next in­fo­graphic comes out:

Fo­cussing on be­ing a con­sis­tent pub­lish­ing house for spe­cial types of con­tent will, in a nut­shell: make your site known as a go-to place for some­thing spe­cial and es­tab­lish you as an au­thor­ity.

Pat Flyn is known for his pod­casts about gen­er­at­ing an in­come on­line, Matthew Wood­ward is known for his in­ter­net mar­ket­ing case stud­ies and video tu­to­ri­als and Neil Pa­tel is known for be­ing kind of a big deal.

My new site will be­come known for its unique monthly in­fo­graph­ics and ex­pert in­ter­views, (some­thing no­body else in the niche is doing).

Con­clu­sion

If you just do what every­one else is do­ing, you won’t stand out and you won’t get no­ticed, let alone linked to from A-listers.

The Lit­tle Big Horn strat­egy of link build­ing gives you a solid way to get ex­po­sure, white-hat links and rank your site quickly af­ter you launch.

In my next post I’ll re­veal ex­actly what hap­pens when I im­ple­ment Phase Two of the strat­egy (the ex­pert roundups) for my new niche site and whether or not it cre­ates the Vi­ral Tsunami I’m bank­ing on.

The email out­reach has only just be­gun and the re­sponses are al­ready com­ing in:

By the way, if you love posts about link build­ing check out the 3 Link Build­ing Tools 55 SEO Ex­perts Can­not Live With­out here.

I hope you en­joyed this post and if you liked it be sure to give it a share!

Do you plan to use the Lit­tle Big Horn strat­egy of link build­ing in your niche?