B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®

B2B Marketing views, news and interviews.

Reciprocal Articles to Replace Reciprocal Links?

Everyone in the search marketing biz is pretty familiar with automated emails soliciting link requests as well as those for reciprocal link exchanges. Normally, anything that makes it past my spam filter that alludes to some kind of link request just gets the big “D” for delete.

I received one this morning that was pretty interesting though. It was a solicitation to exchange articles, not just links. I guess those reciprocal link schemes are trying to appear more legitimate by using links within content.

Dear Webmaster,
I handle article exchange program for my client, www.spammy-hypenated-domain-name-here.com

As an ongoing process to increase the link popularity of my sites, I am looking for some good high quality article exchange with my client’s site.


Reciprocal Articles to Replace Reciprocal Links?

The Power of the Link

Last night a PR manager from the New Yorker emailed me about the Terry Semel interview, so I watched it and put up a link to the actual video. I emailed a few SEO related bloggers about it and thought nothing more. (other than the interview being great insight into Yahoo).

While the bloggers I emailed did not mention the video, a few other sites did link to the blog post I put up about it including Digg.com (front page right now) and the Financial Times.

While I’ve had other things hit Digg and grow traffic as part of a SEO program, this was 100% natural. There was no suggested email to a large network of friends with digg accounts or anything like that. Not that I would ever do THAT.


The Power of the Link

BOTW Cinco de Mayo Promo

It looks like the good people over at Best of the Web are celebrating two years of doing monthly promotions by having a “Cinco de Mayo” promo during the month of May. The object of desire is a 10% discount on the directory submission cost, AND an entry into their contest to win an Applie iMac Powerbook:

Am not sure about you, but a 17″ Mac Book Pro would look mighty handy on the desk, on the couch, the deck – where ever your computing takes you. More info at the BOTW blog. If nothing else, getting into a quality directory like BOTW.org at a discount is worthwhile all on it’s own. FYI, they also have a blog directory.


BOTW Cinco de Mayo Promo

Link Building for Blogs

As blogs continue to mature as marketing tools, there are an increasing number of “blog optimization” articles and posts appearing. However, many of these resources underestimate the importance of inbound links.

To think that researching and placing keywords in the “right places” alone with improve a blog’s traffic is only part of the story. Blogs are simply web sites/content management systems with some special features. Getting web sites to rank well and to engage more traffic involves a large number of variables and the same goes for blogs. The difference is that there are unique linking opportunities with blogs that are not common with web sites. These include:

  • Trackbacks
  • Comments
  • Social book marks
  • Tagging
  • Blogrolls
  • Guest writing on other blogs
  • Blog, RSS directories

Link Building for Blogs

I want my Web 2.0

I noticed a little PRWeb press release action from SEOMoz announcing their Web 2.0 Awards today. SEOMoz has pulled together a fantastic collection of Web 2.0 companies in their first SEOMoz Web 2.0 Awards.

Rand, Kat and Matt have put together a great collection of awards in numerous categories ranging from Blog Guides to Mashups to Social Tagging. Plus there are interviews with Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineWatch, Newsweek reporter Brad Stone, Technorati founder Dave Sifry and many more.

There are enough honorable mentions in each category to make everybody happy. Well most at least. What I like best about lists is that they give you a chance to find out about sites that you might not otherwise have known about.


I want my Web 2.0

10 Creative Traffic Building Ideas

Traffic, everyone wants it and is trying really hard to get more people to their site. Good news, there are creative ways to bring people in without doing a lot of work.

1) Social Bookmarking. It’s been around long enough that some people know all about it and have a tendency to just search del.icio.us or Furl for what they want. Social sites are basically like a user defined search engine. Are you listed? Make sure to bookmark yourself every now and then and add social bookmark links to your blog posts and/or web pages so others can bookmark you too.


10 Creative Traffic Building Ideas

T-Shirt Link Bait

The Search Engine Journal “Search Engine T-Shirt Contest” will be announcing winners soon. Be sure to check out the entries in the comments section of this post.

This contest is a good example of clever link bait. It also shows some of the creativity on the part of SEOs in the industry.

Spreadshirt is providing the shirts, RustyBrick is providing the design and the judges are listed here. I’d share some of my favorites, but since I’m judging, I’ll wait on that until after Loren announces the 10 winners.


T-Shirt Link Bait

Friday Roundup Links

John Scott Interview. Talks about V7N SEO contest, being in the Wall Street Journal and Fun Uses of Coco Nuts in Japan – Search Engine Journal

Matt Cutts at SES NYC – One of the sessions he’s participating on includes Robert Scoble and Jeremy Zawodny, “Pundits on Search”. I will be speaking at Pubcon in Boston with those two in a session about Blogging. Should be fun.

Todd Malicoat on WebmasterRadio.fm – Todd and Greg Niland talk links and more. Todd is a linkMASTER and an all around great guy. This is a must-listen podcast.

Finding outsourced SEO help – WebmasterWorld

MSN Search updates search home page and search results. And as much as I am not a fan of MSN Search and rarely ever use it, I LIKE the new new MSN Search. Incidentally, Jensense has the scoop on ContentAds, the name of MSN’s new contextual ad program.


Friday Roundup Links

Linking vs Traffic

Excellent post at WMW by user sugarrae on the what is old and what is new about link building. It’s all about marketing, not just getting links. Via TW

If you like that, then you’ll definitely like the interview of master traffic and link builder Eric Ward. While I’m at it, I would be remiss not to mention Brett Tabke’s seminal work, “26 steps to 15k” as well.

OK, one more link about links/traffic: Here’s an excellent interview with Patrick Gavin of Text Link Ads over at Search Engine Journal. TLA is fast becoming a top alternative to AdSense, YPN and other renenue generating programs for blogs and web site publishers. TLA is also offering a new service called Articlelinks. One question that comes to mind whenever I think about the notion of paying for links was answered:


Linking vs Traffic

Seth Godin Link Bait

Todd Malicoat throws it down in a recent link baiting article at his Stuntdubl blog (Todd doesn’t just write posts, he writes articles) on his thoughts about bloggers’ and SEOs’ common love for the link. He also laments his efforts to get a link from Seth Godin.

I am not so sure there is as big of a disconnect between bloggers and SEOs as he points out and Nick Wilson didn’t create link baiting any more than Seth Godin created viral marketing. He does post links to a ton of resources though, as Todd is prone to do.

SEO and link building is indeed becoming more about viral and creative marketing and less about code optimization.

Stuntdubl is a must read and a must link.


Seth Godin Link Bait

Interview with Eric Ward of URLwire

Spotlight on Search – Interview with Eric Ward

If there is a ying and a yang to search engine optimization then many SEO professionals would agree that content is the ying and links are the yang. OK I’m simplifying, but work with me. Optimizing content without implementing a linking campaign is like trying to drive a car without wheels.

Linking is important for more reasons than building PageRank though. Links from high profile sites can drive significant amounts of traffic AND attract inbound links as well. In that field there’s one person that stands out as the prominent “old school SEO” authority on link building and that is Eric Ward.


Interview with Eric Ward of URLwire

Online Marketing Resources

I know many companies that want to engage in search or online marketing for the first time and also those that want to step it up a notch are always on the lookout for better resources. You can spend a lot of time lurking in forums, reading blogs and information sites, reading books, attending conferences and networking and still not be sure of what to do next or what’s right for you. There are a few resources that I’ve found to be consistently effective and high quality that I’ll mention here. This is by no means a comprehensive list – it really represents the resources I find myself using often and/or recently:

Books

  • Winning Results with Google AdWords – Andrew Goodman
  • The Virtual Handshake – David Teten & Scott Allen

Online Marketing Resources