Does your website (or your client’s) have a beautiful design? You can take advantage of a unique, creatively designed websites in your link building efforts by submitting them to the following types of sites.
CSS Galleries
Was your site’s template designed using CSS? Then you have a world of options in terms of submitting your site to CSS galleries that showcase the best web designs as inspiration for other web and graphic designers. You can find CSS gallery lists, or even pay a small fee for a service to submit your site to the top CSS galleries for you.
A few things to remember when submitting to CSS galleries. First, you will want to check if the gallery does a direct link to the websites (like CSS Heroes) or if they use a redirect (like CSS Elite). Both will get you traffic, but only ones that directly link to you will give you the link juice. Also, be sure to read the gallery’s submission guidelines – include thumbnails when requested, select the appropriate categories, and supply all of the required information to make sure your entry is easy for the gallery owner to place on their site.
Platform Galleries
Is your website built on a particular platform or using a popular CMS? Chances are, there are galleries showcasing the best designs using specific technologies, such as the We Love WP gallery for great WordPress designs, Drupal Web Design Museum, and Joomla Showcase.
Theme Specific Galleries
If you are using CMS platforms such as WordPress, you may not have a custom design, but a customized theme for your website. Popular themes such as Thesis have their own DIYThemes showcase as well as the independent Thesis Gallery that allows anyone with a customized Thesis theme to submit their web designs.
Design Blogs
Some of the most popular posts on design blogs are roundups of the best designs of sites using particular platforms or within certain industries for inspiration. Just a few examples include:
- Modern Design Trends of Medical Websites
- Web Design Trends in the Lingerie Industry
- Showcase of Acedemic and Higher Education Websites
- Showcase of Ugly Government Websites (may not be flattering, but it’s still a link)
If you find a compilation that has already been created, it wouldn’t hurt to ask the blog owner if they would consider your site to add to the mix. If you can’t find a compilation that has already been done, why not think of a theme that your website might fit under (like best single-page websites or beautiful ecommerce sites) and submit it as a guest post on a design blog? Sure it will be a lot of research, but well worth it if the post goes viral and gets your site some traffic!
Design Related Link Building Options
Have you gotten links based on web design alone? Can you think of more ways to get creative links based on attractive design?
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
Link Building with Great Web Design
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These kinds of links have been discounted by search engineers as offering much value. The technique has been used and abused for years.
Hey Kristi, thanks for the link to our article. To answer your question, 'Can you think of more ways to get creative links based on attractive design?'… I've come across some sites that allow you to submit your email templates, great if you design your own that are branded for your company newsletter. You can find one or two of the sites that accept email template submissions in the CSS directories that I have listed in the article you linked to.
Warmest regards,
Karl
Well observed point. Thanks.