Archive for the ‘link building’ Category
No-followed links are sometimes seen as worthless for SEO. We need authoritative, keyword-rich inbound links at all times, and a link which does not pass any link equity or “juice” is often considered inconsequential. This post explores the role of the no-followed link and why marketers are foolish to disregard them.
No-follow is an attribute that can be assigned to a link, which instructs search engines that the hyperlink should not contribute towards page authority and rankings. No-followed links are the easiest to get; the type of links you can submit manually in the form of a forum post, blog or social network status update or share. No-follow is often used to preserve authority, or “link juice” on a website.
Read on
Maybe I’m stuck in the past but I don’t think link builders give enough attention to back link analysis. The process of understanding who links to who is, in my eyes, an unavoidable step in the process of building the type of links that lead to more search traffic.
I think a big part of this oversight is based upon the fact that many people oversimplify the back link analysis process. In my talk at A4U London today on the Competitive Sleuthing Panel, I explained where I think the real value is in back link analysis. Read on
There’s a really interesting trend I’ve seen in some excellent posts like PR has a big role in joined up marketing, but can it step up? by Danny Whatmough, talking about Earned and Owned Media in relation to PR and Social media. Earned and Owned Media are part of a trinity with Paid Media.
Lots of people have been talking about this in the world of PR and Social media, but not in search, which is a shame as I would have thought the industry should be thinking about these ideas.
I’m a big believer that there’s a fine line between Link Building and SEO and I’d go as far as saying as ‘online earned media’ is probably a better description of what most link builders get up to rather than building links. Read on
The final talk of the day was an exciting group panel debate about the tricky issue of ethics in search
which featured several top digital marketing gurus;
Paul Madden, Automica Limited and Kerboo
Kevin Gibbons, SEOptimise
Jeremy Spiller,WhiteHatMedia
Mark Cook, Further
Bas van den Belden, State of Search
The talk evaluated if it is ethical to buy links And if it’s not, but your competitors are and they’re out ranking your should you point that out to Google?
The final point to take away from the day was that of if the whole process of trying to ‘engineer’ search rankings is ethical in the first place?
If you’re a search marketer who keeps even a passing eye on the blogosphere, you will have heard about recent tweaks in the Google algorithm which has punished Content Farms. If you did miss the announcement, here it is: Google has changed its algorithm in such a way that websites responsible for producing keyword focused articles in huge volumes have seen their rankings disappear overnight. The farmer name was coined by Danny Sullivan, though internally it was known as the Panda Update.
Like any Google update there’s been a huge amount of hand wringing and debate in the community. But most of the debate has missed the point. If you or your clients were being out-ranked by a content farm you had serious problems. A far more important issue is the potential inference in these changes. If these pages have lost their ability to rank they have lost their ability to pass a decent amount of link equity.
Read on
No doubt from my shameless self promotion across the web you may have heard now about my free ebook – Becoming a Clockwork Pirate. If not, you do now.
And though it’s not a real book, i.e. you can’t hold it in your hand or order it from Amazon, and it’s actually two thirds of the length of a normal non-fiction book; I really enjoyed writing it and think it’s a helpful experience for anyone working in internet marketing. Read on
Too often it doesn’t work,
And even when it does, it’s hard to work out exactly what you did that made the difference.
The ideas are great, the follow through is often not quite as creative.
Are you delivering on the promise of greatness?
What really shifts the needle, what really really makes a impact, is the type of work any creative person can be truly proud of.
Something that make the web a better place, fulfills a linkers need and makes the person behind it proud.
This work really makes a difference, it brings the type of links lazy competitors can’t buy or fluke. It gives Google goosebumps, makes phones ring, cards get processed and makes customers happy.
Too often link builders don’t do this. They churn out rubbish to trick the engines, that’s the horrible truth about link building.
Want to be a better link builder? Then you might enjoy my free ebook – Becoming a Clockwork Pirate
What is a press release?
A press release is a piece of company literature that is issued to the media and consumers of your service or product, it is used to announce an important piece of information about the company, an event or a product.
A press release can be written by anyone, but tend to be written by publicists or the marketing function within a company. This would then be distributed to various media channels such as newspapers, TV, radio and not forgetting influential websites.
A press release should be carefully constructed so that it gets the message your company wants to purvey across in the best possible way. The contents should be genuinely newsworthy and if you know your target audience or writing style of your particular media contacts then it is worth making it as easy for them to promote it without them having to make too many modifications. It is also worth noting that it should be written from an unbiased point of view and from a journalistic stance rather than a marketing one, with the aim of informing people not hard selling to them.
A well-written release can dramatically increase your sales, expose your company to the masses, and greatly enhance the image of your business or products. But can also help you search marketing efforts. Read on
What is a whitepaper?
Originally White papers have been issued by the government and lay out policy, or proposed action, on a topic of current concern. More recently, the term “white paper” has also come to refer to documents used by businesses as marketing or sales tools. White papers of this sort argue that the benefits of a particular technology or product are superior for solving a specific problem. Whitepapers can be a great way to build links and it’s a tactic we’ve been using too.
What are whitepapers used for?
A white paper is basically an essay that persuades someone of a better way, solution or technique of doing something, then all wrapped up and presented in a way that would make a magazine article look dull. They are used by companies as part of their marketing mix and in the sales process to attract new clients.
Some interesting stats on how they are used by potential clients;
MarketingSherpa has reported that 69% of prospects download a white paper as part of their buying cycle, and 36% of those pass along the white paper to a supervisor.
IT Toolbox has reported that about 70% of large companies rely on white papers, compared with only 59% of smaller companies. Read on
When you are trying to attract links to a website you’re niave to ignore the fact that your competitors will also been looking to attract links at the same time. But when your dealing with tens of thousands of links with thousands of overlaps between sites it’s actually quite difficult to visualize the overlap between sites.
Image credit
With this in mind I started looking at Venn Diagrams as a way of representing this data. Below is a free video taken from our podcast’s premium content area which will explain how to create the venn diagrams and hopefully whet your appetite to sign up for a membership.
In the video I mention the following links
