Link Building: Review An Authority

In every niche there are a limited number of people who play the role of "thought leaders" within that market.

Obviously, getting the attention of the thought leaders in our industry is both very important, and quite challenging.

One link from a recognized authority site in our niche can be worth a thousand random links elsewhere.

So, how do we rise up out of obscurity, and get the attention of these thought leaders??

One way is to become an expert on their thoughts, and publish what we've learned.

Here's a quick example, which you can adapt to your own situation.

Let's say there are three experts in our field that we hope will notice us, and link to us.

- We might start a section of our site dedicated to reviewing the work of these experts.

- We can subscribe to these expert's blogs, and write regular reviews of their new posts.

- We could start a forum dedicated to discussing the work of these experts.

- We can regularly post comments on the expert's blog, being sure to only post when we can add something interesting and useful.

- We can write the expert, suggesting new topics we'd like to see them cover.

- We could debate something the expert has said in an article on our site, and send them a very polite note asking them to review our critique, and correct any misunderstandings we may have.

- Can we provide some service to the expert? Nobody is expert at everything, and maybe we have some asset or ability they could put to good use?

- There are sub-niches in every field. Can we identity a specialty within our niche, where we become the expert? Then the thought leaders in the overall niche will have a reason to link to us.

As a place to start, we can identify all the leading voices in our niche, and organize our approach to staying up to date on their work.

Who are the top 20 writers in your field, do you know?