Especially in today’s hyper-connected culture, knowing how to build relationships and leverage those relationships to improve your standing is important. It might sound a little brutish or cold, but it’s as true in search engine optimization (SEO) as it is in the rest of the business world – it’s not what you know, it’s who you know, and how much you can ask of them.

The Rule of Reciprocation

The rule of reciprocation is an extremely powerful influence. The golden rule – Do unto others as you would have done to you’ – hinges on the importance of reciprocation. After all, the definition of ‘reciprocation’ is a mutual exchange or a return in kind or of like value, according to Merriam-Webster.

Can I Ask You a Favor?

You might think that the main exchange in business is the exchange of money for goods or services, and that’s true, but when it comes to marketing, it’s about favors.

In marketing and SEO, you are often in the position of asking people to do something for you. Will they post a link to your site on theirs? Will they retweet your tweet? Will they sign up for your newsletter?

The power of reciprocity shows that the person of whom you are asking the favor would be more inclined to fulfill your request if they were given something. The stronger your relationship, the more power reciprocity has.

Think about it; asking users or customers to subscribe to your feed is one exchange – great information for more hits – that might net you some subscribers, but if you ask your friends and family to subscribe to your feed, they’ll probably all sign up.

The great thing is, often the ways to strengthen your relationship with your customers, users and business contacts are also ways to leverage reciprocity.

You want to show your clients and customers that you and your company are a solid source for information, tips, and advice. An email newsletter, eBook, articles and blog post are all great ways to do that, and they’re also great ways to leverage reciprocity.
You can offer a free eBook when your customers or users sign up for your newsletter. And as in the example above, you can post a note reminding your site users that if they like what they read, they can subscribe to your feed or Digg it.

To build relationships with business contacts, you can blog or tweet about their mentoring, how you love their services or products, and then share that information with them. Email the contact to let him know you posted a piece on the widget he just created, or to let her know you’ve been tweeting about her writing so she’ll want to follow your tweets. Besides encouraging your contacts to visit your site, you could get a backlink or more Twitter followers and more traffic out of it.

The basics of build backlinks and SEO, like forum or community marketing, rely on reciprocity. When you post an observation or advice on a forum along with a link to your site, you’re providing information in exchange for the potential traffic.
Keep the power and rule of reciprocation in mind as you work at optimizing your site and marketing your products. You never know when you’ll need a favor from someone…