All about the intersection of search engine & social media marketing, optimization and online public relations.
Day Two coverage of the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose:Â The Popular Kids Have Good ContentÂ
Tuesday morning was the morning to learn about link building. As a linking specialist at TopRank, I knew I would learn a lot, and review what I already know, in this session by listening to Mike Grehan and Christine Churchill.
The topics we focused on this morning were ways to increase a website’s ranking, such as link requests, paid links and reputable links from authority sites.
In the late nineties, the current search marketing buzz words, “link bait”, “social media”, “search engine PR”, etc were nowhere near the lexicon of web masters tasked with promoting web sites. Sage advice of the day centered on evangelizing the internet as a channel first, and then focusing on web sites as the vehicle.
The logical question of, “How do I get people to visit my web site” from new web site owners would come up and advice often centered around using familiar marketing principles for web site promotion. For example, telling site owners to print their web site address wherever they were printing their phone number: on business cards, signage, direct mail and collateral, stationary, advertisements and even including it in hold music.
At Search Marketing Gurus blog, Li Evans has a great collection of opinions on paid links from both the search marketer and publisher’s perspective. She asked several people that work in the search marketing industry these questions:
Responses come from Greg Meyers, Andy Beal, Chris Sherman, Christine Churchill, Frank Watson, Anne Kennedy, Bill Slawski, Debra Mastaler and a little something from Cameron Olthius.
Oh we love the links and then some here at TopRank. Today, old school online marketer Larry Chase published a few more link building tips and resources in his most recent Web Digest for Marketers newsletter. I’ve added a few of my own comments:
There are two perspectives on creative link building that I’ve been thinking about lately involving creating content and resources that offer value and the sensationalism of content promoted through social news communities. My take is that link bait focuses on creating unique, useful and provocative content that people respond to by linking to it and sharing with others.
Digg bait, which is not limited to Digg but all social news and bookmarking sites, focuses specifically on the interests of social communities and what they respond to. With Digg bait, the power is not in the usefulness and value of the content, but the title and description of the news item, sometimes bordering on the sensational. Think tabloid style writing, “Elvis gives birth to alien baby”.
In the past I’ve written about the content versus links debate where SEOs seem to fall on one side or the other when assigning the majority of importance for search engine rankings. What’s missing from that conversation is the need for a distribution network.
There are many that believe the key to a successful link building campaign is to create content worth linking to. However, if you create great content and no one knows about it to send a link, then there’s a lot lost on the effort. “Build it and they will come” is not the reality with search marketing despite the hype from SEO nay-sayers.
There’s a long standing debate in the search marketing industry about links versus content. Which is better?
On the one hand there’s the perspective that if you create great content, people will link to you naturally. That’s true, but it’s a bit misleading.
On the other hand there are those that say links are the answer. You can get pages to rank well based purely on links. Again, that’s entirely possible, but such a statement does not give you all the facts.
(I’m crazy for hatbait)
On the tails of the Drink Bait promotion during WebmasterWorld Pubcon in Las Vegas a few weeks ago, Li from Search Marketing Gurus ran a very interesting “Hat Bait” promo during the Chicago Search Engine Strategies conference. I believe she has the largest single collection of labeled SEO photos anywhere!
Everyone from Danny Sullivan to MC Detlev posed with one of Li’s funky hats. Now’s your chance to vote (via comments) on which photo of a search marketer wearing a silly hat is your favorite.
I think some other creative variations for “bait” that include some social media could be:
SEO is constantly changing, but at the same time, the more things change the more they seem to stay the same.¬† Yesterday’s viral marketing becomes today’s linkbaiting. Despite changes in SEO tactics and nomenclature, the fundamentals stay the same: content and links. In order to keep up with these kinds of changes, smart online marketers are continuously revising tactics and execution to provide companies with a competitive advantage.
One of those tactics focuses on both content and links by promoting unique content that propagates virally through social news, blogs and network sites. This viral online marketing tactic is more commonly called “linkbaiting”. Regardless of what you call it, companies are starting to allocate marketing dollars to these tactics and search marketers are responding with new services.
Andy Beal comes over to the dark side and launches a new blog design using WordPress.
Rae posts an excellent interview with Brian Prince of BOTW.org.
Gord Hotchkiss of Enquiro does it again with a great article on search marketing reaching critical mass in a follow-up to his previous “Cross the Chasm” article.
Aaron Wall posts “Trusted vs Untrusted Links” and follows up with another “vs” post, “Tactical SEO vs Strategic SEO“, which is excellent, but has more to do with SEO for sites/blogs whose business model is ad revenue than advice most business web sites can take advantage of. Great advice all the same though.
Directory submissions used to be a very big part of most search marketers traffic and link building efforts. That’s changed a great deal in the past few years or so but some directories are still important and have been consistent in their quality guidelines and ability to offer link/traffic benefit.
A short list of our favorite directories include:
The PG SEO (pre-Google) and master linker, Eric Ward has recently launched a new newsletter on link building called, The Ward Report.¬† I’ve seen the initial free-trial issue and it’s pretty good with topics including:
It’s a paid subscription and well worth it. Subscribers will have access to discounted training, how-to Podcasts, video training modules and other resources as well.¬† You can sign up for the Ward Report here or request the trial version.
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