An Unorthodox Link Building Strategy from McDonald's
Last week I saw a documentary about the food titan McDonald's. I'm a big fan of informational TV so I listened intently. Nothing special happened until the documentary turned towards their real estate strategy.
The McDonald's executive articulated a simple, clear and concise explanation of their plan. You need to be able to see a McDonald's everywhere. It makes a ton of sense and McDonald's has the cash to pull that off.
Now lets turn that same analogy to blog marketing and building traffic.
Conventional wisdom tells us that blogs need to receive high quality links from a small subset of relevant sites to rank high and get more views. However, the top sites on the web are taking the McDonald's approach with much better results. I can think of at least four very prominent sites that get links from all over the place. I'd venture to say that they get very few (if any) links from similar sites.
1. Google - I doubt Yahoo! is sending links their way.
2. Technorati - I've never seen a blog directory linking to them.
3. ESPN.com - Good luck getting a link from the Best Damn Sports show.
4. YouTube - Vimeo wouldn't dream of linking to YouTube.
These sites are leading the charge by getting links from interested users all over the web (not just niche sites). If I were you, I'd try to copy their success.
Be honest. Would you rather be McDonald's or Mom's Corner Burgers? The choice is up to you.
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