Link Building Method: The Niche Crossover
Alright, quick show of hands… who wants more links to their site or blog?
I’m no psychic, but I can pretty much guarantee that every single person reading this raised their hand (or more likely thought “I do” but didn’t want to play along with the hand raising. Don’t worry, it’s cool.). The reason I can guarantee this is because on these here internets, links are everything.
They send traffic, they cause content to spread, they get you recognition, and they are the key to SEO. So, if you have a site of some sort that you actually want to be a success, one of your top goals is to get as many high quality links to it as you possibly can. Of course, understanding this is the easy part. It’s actually getting them that tends to give people problems.
I’m sure by now you’ve come across a bunch of link building methods that have been mentioned a million times before by a million different people. And they are all fine and good and effective I’m sure, but today I want to tell you about a favorite link building method of mine that I rarely (if ever) see mentioned.
It’s a little something I’ve nicknamed The Niche Crossover.
The Niche Crossover
I briefly alluded to this link building method in my case study about How To Increase Traffic To A New Site Or Blog, and now it’s time to fully explain it.
The Niche Crossover is exactly what it sounds like it should be. It’s a way to cross over into other niches outside of your own. The purpose? To tap into a whole other world of previously untapped sources of links and traffic and potential subscribers, users and customers. You know… everything you want more of.
Like most link building methods, The Niche Crossover revolves around the very simple concept of creating a great piece of content and then getting that content in front of the people who would want to link to it.
The big difference however is that with this link building method, the number of people who would potentially want to link to your content is going to increase, big time. And with this increase, there will be an almost equal increase in the number of links your piece of content actually ends up getting. Now we’re talking.
The way to make this happen is actually quite simple. Like anything else, it starts with the creation of great content. In this case though, the great content needs to appeal to 2 different niches: yours, and the niche you are looking to cross over into.
Your basic goal with this piece of content is to create something that either connects your niche to some other niche, or connects some other niche to your niche. Normally your primary goal when creating content is to create something that your audience will like and find useful. Your goal now is to create something that both your audience AND some other unrelated audience will like and find useful too.
And of course, you need to do it in a way that makes sense and ends up being an actual high quality piece of content. But that should have been obvious.
You know what I hate? When I read some article that explains how you can do something, but then doesn’t give any realistic examples.
10 Realistic Examples Of The Niche Crossover
- Have a blog about cars? Write something about the best/safest family sized car, and then mention it to parenting blogs.
- Have a blog about gardening? Put together a guide to growing your own vegetables in your yard, and then mention it to health blogs (or even cooking blogs).
- Have a blog about weight loss? Rank and review the 10 most useful weight loss related web apps, and then mention it to tech blogs.
- Have a blog about home improvement and repair? Explain the best ways to save money on supplies, and then mention it to money-saving blogs.
- Have a blog about style and fashion? Make a list of the X most stylish running shoes, and then mention it to running/marathon/fitness blogs.
In every single one of the above examples, you have created something that is relevant and useful to your own readers. That’s always goal #1.
Doing so means that you have also created something that other blogs in your niche would find useful too, so right there you’ve given yourself an opening to get links from all of those blogs. That’s goal #2.
And goal #3, which is what makes The Niche Crossover possible, is that you have created something that appeals to another niche altogether, meaning you have now put this piece of content in a position to get links from blogs in a completely untapped niche that heretofore had no reason to ever link to your site.
And that’s what The Niche Crossover does… it greatly increases the potential number of sites who’d want to link to your piece of content. This in turn greatly increases the number of links it will actually end up getting. What more could you ask for?
Oh, and if you’re wondering why there’s only 5 examples above when I said there would be 10, I didn’t screw up. A funny thing about The Niche Crossover is that it’s always reversible. If a piece of content would allow you to cross over from Niche A to Niche B, it would also allow you to cross over from Niche B to Niche A just the same. So, reverse the 5 examples above to find 5 more examples.
In fact, this is a good way of checking your content idea (like how you were taught to check math problems in 3rd grade). If you can’t reverse it, you came up with a shitty idea.
A Bonus Benefit Of The Niche Crossover
Ok, so by now you understand the main benefits of this link building method. As an added bonus, here’s an extra benefit that you probably didn’t realize…
One of the most common complaints you hear from people who are unable to get links is that the sites and blogs that should be linking to them are their competitors, and there is no way that their competitors are actually going to link to them. Wait, hang on. This letter just arrived in the mail:
Dear People-Who-Make-The-Above-Complaint,
Suck it!
Love,
The Niche Crossover
You see, The Niche Crossover completely bypasses this problem. By creating content that crosses over into some other niche, you are no longer stuck in a situation where your only potential linkers are your competitors in your own niche. You’ve now opened yourself up to a whole other world of potential linkers (and traffic, subscribers, users, customers, etc.), none of which are even remotely close to competing with you in any way whatsoever.
Not bad, eh?
A Final Reminder (or 2)
Before you run out and start brainstorming ideas for trying this method out, I should probably remind you once again that no matter how perfect your idea is and how well it would work in terms of allowing you to cross over into the perfect niche… the piece of content still needs to be good. Preferably really good.
This is true with any link building method, of course. You can get it right in theory all day long, but you need to ensure it translates well in reality or else it just won’t work. So, make sure it’s good.
Oh, and one other little reminder. You still need to actively go out and get this piece of content in front of the people who would like it and want to link to it. In case you forgot, these people = bloggers/site owners in your niche, and bloggers/site owners in the niche you’ve crossed over into.
That’s about it. Now go get yourself some links.
Stumped for possible cross over ideas? Not sure if yours are any good? Let me know in the comments and I’ll throw some suggestions your way.
Just wanted to say I love this idea and plan on trying it out with my next post.
Matt: Sweet, let me know how it goes.
I must say that this is an awesome article. Make sense to me but never thought about it. I will give it a try.
By the way, I stumbled and tweet this post.
Deneil: Nice, glad you liked it. And thanks for the tweet/stumble.
Hi,
I never thought of that but I will try it out. It really makes sense so much that I do not understand why I havent thought of that before.
Thanks,
Luis Torres
Luis: Yup, it’s one of the those weird things that seems so simple and obvious, but actually isn’t.