Talented SEO and link developers are difficult to find. Learn ways to keep your employees motivated and driven in my latest column at SearchEngineWatch.com. This will help reduce staff turnover and keep your current staff ambitious.
Excerpt:
Design a contest that’s easy to measure and that doesn’t dilute the quality of the link campaign. If the contest is simply judged on the “number” of links people obtain, then employees will focus on numbers, and the quality will suffer. Instead, place the focus on rewarding quality links.
One question I am often asked is how much time and money to invest into link marketing. In my latest column at SearchEngineWatch.com I tackle the issue of budgeting resources for link building.
Are you hesitate to link to other sites? Think that is helping your rankings? Think again.
…when a search engine discovers a page pointing users in the direction of more useful information, that page will be given more credit. Ask yourself what’s more useful: information that cites other government, education, and medical sites on a particular disease, or a page of copy describing the disease without referencing any authority sites? Not even a citation. That answer is a no-brainer.
Read my SEO column at SearchEngineWatch.com Afraid to Link Out? Think Again.
Discover how to build links by giving back to your community on a international, national, or local level. Use this traditional public relations strategy to market your business and build links at the same time.
SearchEngineWatch.com: Link Building from the Heart: Giving to Get
Most E-Commerce sites are shopping carts on steroids. I often hear statements such as, “Who would want to link to my clothing site?” Replace clothing with whatever you sell.
Find out how to build links to online retail sites in my SearchEngineWatch column SEO Link Building: Online Retail and E-Commerce Sites.
Excerpt:
Let’s start by correcting a common misunderstanding about content. Just because your SEO company is adding 20 pages of generic content to your site each month doesn’t mean it’s the type of content that will entice people to link to your site. If it were that simple you wouldn’t be reading my column — nor would I be in business.
Looking for link build ideas & strategies? Discover some simple techniques to solve customer problems and build links at the same time. Check out my latest column at Search Engine Watch on 5 Ways to Discover Link Building Ideas
Consumer Review Sites
Spend time researching consumer review sites for your industry. Try to spot recurring issues. Review sites provide a wealth of invaluable customer data.
Read 5 Ways to Discover Link Building Ideas
Looking for an example of link development for business-to-business sites? Check out my latest column at Search Engine Watch for a case study for the restaurant & coffee equipment industry.
Read Coffee, Tea, or Link Love?
We each submitted a question we wanted each other to answer. Most revealing aspect was no one saw each other’s answers until it was published. Read 11 Link Development Experts Group Interview
Participates: Aaron Wall, Debra Mastaler, Rae Hoffman, Rand Fishkin, Eric Ward, Roger Montti, Todd Malicoat, Michael Gray, Jim Boykin, Andy Hagans, and of course myself
Discover how solving a customer problem can turn into link building opportunity. In this week’s Link Development Column at SearchEngineWatch.com I offer a case study for a luxury hotel.
Link building opportunities can be discovered by solving a customer’s problem. Consider the concierge at luxury hotels. A common service is to make restaurant recommendation and provide directions.
Who would you trust for a recommendation on a Mediterranean restaurant? A Greek food lover or someone who may have never even dined at the restaurant they recommend?
Link Building Opportunity
Create an interactive…
Read Link Building Case Study for Luxury Hotels for the details.
Excited to let everyone know my last column at SearchEngineWatch.com was picked up by a major trade journal HotelMarketing.com on their front page today.
Link to story at HotelMarketing.com
Top 5 SEO and Link Building Challenges for 2008
What are some of the top challenges facing SEO and Links Building for 2008?
Find out in my column at SearchEngineWatch
Top 5 SEO and Link Building Challenges for 2008
1. Webmasters Scared to Link Out
There has always been a segment of Webmasters scared to link out. The number of fearful Webmasters has increased drastically because they’re worried Google will consider it a “paid link.”
What does Google consider a paid link? Here are two real-world scenarios:
What are other people saying?
Jennifer Laycock of SearchEngineGuide.com
“The key to overcoming these obstacles is education and common sense. As much as business owners shouldn’t have to hang on Google’s every word, it’s starting to look like it will be necessary. “
Find out what else Jennifer has to say she on Five Link Building Challenges
Weip’s Link Building this Week
“Google’s anti paid link campaign has already resulted in the fact that some journalists of newspaper websites that got hit during this crusade will think twice before linking out to an other website.”
My last column at Search Engine Watch on In-House Link Building stirred up strong responses from people. Then again the in-house vs outsourced SEO debate always creates a lot of discussion.
In my new column I follow-up on the topic with Link Building: DIY In-House vs. Outsourced and address some of the main issues.
Excerpts:
“For some companies, in-house works; for others, outsourcing link building works. A combination of the two might work for other companies. However, the lack of experienced link developers in the search engine marketplace makes a compelling argument to manage link building campaigns in-house — especially for competitive and high-margin verticals.”
“Link development is not some secret magical wizardry only a select few can ever learn. Like anything else, people can be trained on it.”
Debra Mastaler also posted a great follow-up on the topic that I did not see until after I sent in my column this week (due Tuesday mornings). As always she had some great insights.
“We tend to put blinders on when we talk about link building and look at it from a technical standpoint rather than a marketing or tactical viewpoint.”
“…we hit the SEO/link building aspect and boom –not so instant, not so easy. It doesn’t matter if you outsource or keep this part in-house, this is where it gets hard for everyone.”
” Link building requires a technical and creative outlook, it’s the one aspect of online business you shouldn’t automate and can’t just upload for success”
Read her article Why I Won’t Quit My Link Building Job
Read my new column Link Building: DIY In-House vs. Outsourced
Rae Hoffman (Sugarrae.com) posted her presentation from PubCon (Webmaster World Conference) on Outsourcing & In-House Link Development. It is packed with great information, list, questions and key points.
Some of the topics covered include:
- Types of link development
- Where to find good link development firms
- Questions for link development firms
- Hiring and training a link developer
-
Questions to help you find a future link developer
- What might be in your link development training manual
Here is one quote about link training:
The most important thing you can do during their training is to train them to be traffic developers and marketers and not simply link requesters.
Download the PowerPoint presentation on Outsourcing & In-House Link Development.
Discover some key advantages of in-house link building in my Search Engine Watch column 5 Reasons to Build Links In-House
While a third-party company might be sending e-mails or calling a company without making much headway, your people could use existing business contacts to get into the door, get past the gatekeepers, and talk to the right people. This always presents the opportunities to call in favors or ask for introductions.
Martinibuster.net also did a great write-up on Outsourcing Link Development
3. Mystery-meat link building techniques
Some link development firms, particularly cheap ones, may promise one way inbound links but what they are doing is, at best, providing triangular links with a database of thousands of low quality sites
4. Derailed by meaningless metrics
A common pitfall of an outsourced link campaign is to base payment upon meaningless metrics. Forcing link developers to measure success in terms of toolbar PageRank is the top mistake.
SearchEngineWatch.com : 5 Reasons to Build Links In-House
Martinibuster.net : Outsourcing Link Development
In my column today at Search Engine Watch I layout a plan for an independent film “Reservation Road” to create a contest that will engage users, create buzz and build links. It is all based on the movie content and user involvement.
Read SEO PR Plan To Create Buzz, Traffic, Links
For those who use content for marketing, public relations and link development check out Junta42. It is a new social site focused on content marketing. I discovered it after reading their blog post called Content Marketing Strategy Trumps a Search Marketing Strategy.
Definitely recommend subscribing to their blog.
Found via Small Business Brief
In a two part column at Search Engine Watch I discuss the value of links and simply strategies to help determine their worth.
Astoundingly, the answer is rather simple when you step back. Ask yourself what are top rankings worth to your company? How much more revenue would your company take in if you were in the top ten for your keywords? How much revenue would you lose if you lost your top ten rankings? Are top rankings worth $20,000, $50,000, $100,000, or more per year? That answer will help you decide what to invest into link development with regard to time, resources, and money.
Read my column on Link Value: Top Rankings, Secrets and Lies - Part 1
eMarketer.com published a study that more than three-quarters of people trust consumer recommendations over any other type of ad.
The question remains how are you incorporating that into your link building and internet marketing strategies? Notice consumer opinions posted online are trusted 61% of the time. Yet only 34% trust search engine ads. Is your site taking full advantage of consumer opinion for sales and links?
In the survey below it shows that 56% of respondents trusted editorial content.
Questions to Reflect On
Is your company
…investing advertising dollars in “trusted” source of information?
…making use of link development with editorial content?
…utilizing consumer opinions for links and sales?
…encouraging consumers to talk about your product/service online?
Dan Thies has written a great article illustrating the holes in Google’s plan to make webmasters use NoFollows on all paid advertisements.
Here are some clips:
By relying on past FTC statements (on advertising disclosure) Google further weakens their case. If advertising must be disclosed as such (this is why the FTC would weigh in), then Google’s nofollow plan won’t work, because nofollow does not (and can not) explicitly mean “this is an ad.”
After all, the FTC isn’t going to give a rat’s tail about the effect of paid links on Google’s organic results. Or at least, Google had better hope so, because if the FTC decided that organic listings are a form of advertising, that would put all of the search engines onto a very slippery slope.
Read the full article on Paid Links, Google and FTC
When NoFollows were first utilized in 2005 Google wrote this:
Q: What types of links should get this attribute?
A: We encourage you to use the rel=”nofollow” attribute anywhere that users can add links by themselves, including within comments, trackbacks, and referrer lists. Comment areas receive the most attention, but securing every location where someone can add a link is the way to keep spammers at bay.
Does that mean advertisers are now spammers?
Found via Sphinn.com
Debra Mastaler has a great column at SearchEngineLand.com called the
7 Habits Of Highly Effective Link Builders
She gives some great tips such as this one:
5. Become a high profile editor, not just an editor. If you knew a million people visited a website every day and that website was actively looking for an editor in a category you were expert on, would you be interested? With 99% of journalists using the web to research and verify information, being an editor on a popular news site greatly increases your website’s chances of exposure, links and being asked for an interview.
Read the full article on Highly Effective Link Builders
I will be presenting at Search Engine Strategies (SES) Travel conference in Seattle on July 27th & 28th. The topic is Online PR & Reputation Management (with Link Love).
“How to deal with the good, the bad and the ugly of social media, travel review websites and other viral outlets to effectively manage the reputation of your travel related company. Learn to leverage the power of broad reaching travel-media sites and get the good links.”
There are still discounted passes available until the 20th. This is a great opportunity for those of us who work in the travel industry to get together and share. Hope to see you there!
On a side note, I decided to pass on the invitation to SES San Jose since I am already going to SES Travel and booked up with client work. Plus I have some great internal projects I am working on. Travel related of course!
Search Engine People is running a lyrics contest that is sure to garner them some very nice links. So far Yahoo is showing over 1900 links to the contest page as of 2pm on June 1st.
Here is what I like about the contest that will make it a success.
Interactive
Users submit lyrics, votes and comments. Since users are involved the word will spread naturally.
Reward
There is a $1,000 prize that will entice more people to submit lyrics.
Targeted
It is focused on the SEO/M community.
Fun
People are more likely to get involved in something fun. Plus funny things spread more virally than other types of content.
Posted a column on Search Engine Watch (SEW) about how to find high-value links that will help place your site in trusted neighborhoods and associations, including an example of NASA giving links to the travel industry.
Read: Link Safari: Gear Up for a Hunting Expedition
I am excited to announce I am now a columnist for Search Engine Watch. I will be writing in the SEW Experts section on link development.
Thanks to Elisabeth Osmeloski, editor of Search Engine Watch, for extending the invitation and providing me with this opportunity!
Read my first column on Engaging Customers for Links
I will be speaking on Linking Strategies at Search Engine Strategies NYC in April. This is one of the biggest conferences on search marketing. I highly recommend you attend. It is a great opportunity to learn new things and network with lots of smart people.
If you are unable to attend Search Engine Roundtable will be covering the conference.
Thanks to everyone for their positive response when I spoke at SES in Chicago this past December! Special thanks to Debra of Alliance-Link for the recommendation!
Sugarrae did a group interview with 5 link developers. In her lineup is Eric Ward, Rand Fishkin, Roger Montti, Todd Malicoat and herself.
She had some great and highly relevant questions:
What are the factors you would take into account before buying a link from a directly contacted site (not a link broker or seller)?
In sectors where links are particularly tough to come by (retail, B2B in boring industries, etc.), what are content tactics you’ve taken to appeal to relevant sites in those industries (specific examples would rock)?
What is the current climate with paid links, and how can I navigate the paid links landscape so that I come out smelling like a rose on the other side?
Automating the link acquisition process: How far do you recommend going with it? What are the benefits and pitfalls of automation?
What are the top 3 over-rated and under-rated criteria for determining how valuable an individual link will potentially be to your site’s search engine rankings?
What’s the most common mistake you see people making in their link building activities?
Read her interview for the answers.
Andy Beal reports that Adam Lasnik, from Google, told an audience that Google is “perfectly fine with people buying and selling links”. Then later in the article “Punishments for buying and selling links vary, according to Lasnik…” Hmmm….
The most interesting part is something a lot of us have been saying for years… Read more
I was interviewed by Michael Gray, aka GrayWolf, for his series on local search. Check out my interview on Links and Local Search. Debra Mastaler over at The Link Spiel pointed out one point in the interview she particularly liked and gave further insight.
Read more
Jennifer Laycock, Search Engine Guide, wrote an excellent article on successful low-cost viral marketing with examples. She talks about the customer acquisition cost (CAC) in developing these promotions.
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