Sucessful Link Development - SEM Konferansen 2011

Successful Off Page Optimisation Lisa Myers CEO, Verve Search #SEM11 @LisaDMyers

About Lisa Myers
11 years experience in Marketing, 6 in Search & Social
Speaker at Search Conferences Worldwide (SES, SMX, A4U etc)
Regular contributor to on and offline publications and author of several SEO Best Practise Guides including eConsultancy and B2B Marketing
Heavily involved in the global Search Community , founded SEO-chicks.com and co-founder of European search blog StateofSearch
Awards
Management Today “ 35 women under 35 ” list 2009
“ Best Use of Technology woman under 30”
BlackBerry Woman & Technology Awards (2008)
“ B2B Marketing Newcomer of the Year” (2007)

What is off page optimisation?

Off Page optimisation relates to areas OFF
Your page/site – the relationship between
your site and other websites that links,
bookmarks or socialises your site!

Areas of SEO

Link development is a big part of off page
optimisation and is interpreted like a “vote”to
your website.

{some history

PageRank
Google developed PageRank to measure
importance of pages largely based on incoming
linking structure and quantity

{then came quality and relevancy}

relevance + strength = quality Your Site
Not just about page 1 linking to your site,
but about the overall SITE and it’s relevancy
Also about Site 2 linking to SITE 1
/Page Site 1 link / Page Site 2 link

latent semantic indexing { LSI }

Increased attention to anchor text relevance,
and the concept of link "neighbourhoods.“
LSI expanded Google's ability to understand
synonyms and took keyword analysis to the
next level

In 2011the algorithm is significantly more sophisticated, but.....

Several Updates Later

{there are still weaknesses

Like....Article Spinning
Where one article is used to create several versions, by replacing original words using synonyms and rewriting sentences
Where a single piece of writing is remade into multiple variants of the original by substituting words and sentence structure using similar words.

Article spinning still works because the
Search Engines aren’t there YET. ....

INTENT

“ In the beginning there were Robotos”
.....then they evolved

“ If your site is rather new and still unknown,
a good way marketing technique is to get
Involved in the community around your
topic. Interact and contribute on forums and
blogs.”
Google webmaster central blog

Social Signals
# of tweets, facebook shares, Google +
Authority of authors and sharers is also used in assigning value
Links shared on facebook fan pages and retweets and mentions of URL on twitter HAS impact on rankings

# of Facebook shares = single highest correlated metric with higher rankings SEOmoz 2011 Ranking Factors

Emerging Ranking Factors
Incoming links are judged more strictly, big crack down on paid links
Relevancy of content around links and
semantic relationship between sites as well as pages
Social links and signs have a MUCH bigger impact

Link Development

SEO TOOLS +

Target audience
Link Analysis
Creative & Implementation

#1 { target audience

AGE
GENDER
LOCATION
?

Put yourself in their “shoes”

What are they thinking when trying to solve a problem/finding info?
What would they search for?
What sites would they visit?

Social Influencers
Identify social influencers within the industry/market you are link building to
Which channels are they using; Twitter, facebook, LinkedIn?

Finding Influencers
Linkdex is just about to add a feature that
captures and reports on the authors of the
content providing the links across a combined
datasets.
EXLUSIVE

{ link analysis #2

tools...

Linkdex can tell you how many blogs, article sites, directories, news sites, forums etc. have linked to you or your competitors in the last 30 days
Allows you to easily identify links that were valuable to your competitors for example

What to analyse
Anchor text
Depth of links (what pages are linked to)
Type of links (sources)
Authority & Strength of links

Use of Anchor Text

Depth of Links

Type of Links

# Domains Linking

Link Source Authority, Trust, Relevance
Influence (Authority & Trust) score puts best linking sites at top of lists and suppresses low quality sites
Relevance score looks at content of linking page in relevancy to your keywords and site

Filtering

Loads of filtering possibilities
Site type e.g. blog, article, forum
Link anchor (exact and phrase match)
Domain extension
New or dropped in last 30 days (Velocity)
Keyword in title / URL or both of linking page
Link target folder or page
Intersections/cross-over with other sites
No follow / No index
Image links / text link

Link Building Management

Assigning Tasks Assign link targets to the right people e.g. SEO, client, guest post writer etc

Set a task in competitor view

Get FREE TRIAL! www.linkdex.com Email [email_address]

{ creative & development #3

Types of Link Development
Utilising Existing Relationships
Link Building
Link baiting
Article/Content Marketing

Utilising Existing Relationships
Often it is the simplest idea that gives you the
most link juice!
For example;
Would your partners, customers etc link to you?
Which University did the CEO go to?

Apple.com Links to domain= 35.8 MILLION! PR=9/10

link building

Link Building
Directories
Blog & forum comments
Usually low quality so work best as fillers.
Should NOT be Primary Link Dev Strategy

Finding Relevant Sites
Keyword + “artikkel”
Keyword + “blogg”
Keyword + “directory”
For example iPad + “blogg”

link baiting great digital content

A piece of digital content (article, video,
infographic, etc) that specifically increases
the chances for generating “organic links”
{

GREAT IDEA funny interesting competitions intelligent newsworthy educational provoking

Host the content!
This type of link development requires you to host the content on the domain you are doing link dev for!!
Creating a fab link bait or social media campaign that is not on your domain = lost link equity

Spread the Word
Once you have created the “content”, you have to SPREAD THE WORD! This is where social media merges in....
Use the already identified social influencers!

Power of the People

INTEGRATE Your Website Landing/ Campaign Page Email Campaign Offline (mail campaign)

real examples {link bait

City Inn
{advent calendar

Result
LOTS of links & Social Mentions
Generated the equivalent of 50% of their average monthly traffic
Increased email database considerably
Twitter followers increased by 300%

SEO-Chicks.com
{#SEScrapmas

article marketing Using a piece of content to get a link can be very EFFECTIVE!

Give something back
Have something to trade, why should they
be linking to you?
Content (must be relevant!)
Discount/competition
Breaking news
Free “something”
YOUR USPs??!!

The Process
Do your research (list of sites, find out as much about the site as you can)
Hunt down most appropriate contact
Tone of voice in email, although best to call!
Tailor your email to person
Be direct, don’t waffle.
Develop a relationship
Follow up
ALWAYS, ALWAYS be polite and personable!

Writing the content
Spend time writing the article, it’s got to be good! Include stats, research or similar.
Make sure the angle is appropriate for target site
Including keywords that you are targeting for surrounding text
ANCHOR TEXT (ideally your main target keyword)
Stay away from main keyword in HEADLINE though, as you don’t want them to rank ABOVE you!
real examples {article marketing

Yale Door
Needed links and relevant traffic from websites with similar or relevant content
Angle/Idea
Free “keyless lock” competition/give away
First 10 orders of the composite door get’s free lock worth £200

Step by Step
Researched relevant sites (authority, content, audience etc)
Creative and writing of article (optimising content)
Contacted site owners
Created landing page (with promo code)
Tracking
Publishing

Stuff.TV Links to domain= 378,071 Monthly visits circa.150,000 (UK) circa 240,000 (global) 74% male readers 67% of visitors between 25 – 44

Coolestgadgets.com Links to domain= 425,886 Monthly visits ca. 60,000 (UK) 72% male readers 60% of visitors between 25 – 44

Wired.com Links to domain= 7,79 MILLION PR= 8 Worldwide readership

Result = Links & Traffic

Writing the content
Spend time writing the article, it’s got to be good! Include stats, research or similar.
Make sure the angle is appropriate for target site
Including keywords that you are targeting for surrounding text
ANCHOR TEXT (ideally your main target keyword)
Stay away from main keyword in HEADLINE though, as you don’t want them to rank ABOVE you!
{live example: Elkjop

About Elkjop
Nationwide electrical retails shop front and online ecommerce presence
Thousands of products in hundreds of categories
Some social presence

Link Analysis
Optimising anchor text of current links

Types of links This is where you get the competitive advantage!

Link depth (most linked pages) Broken links

Competitors Links

Link Types OUCH, forum heavy!

Elkjop Strategy
#1 Optimise anchor texts and fix broken links (link reclamation)
#2 Get a Social Presence and integrate with site, possibly integrate a review feature that can be seen in SERPs
#3 INCREASE Link development strategies such as article marketing and link baiting as competitors has next to NOTHING of this

link development ideas

Easy Linkbait
Infographic on energy saving appliances and the money you could be saving. Fridges, washing machines etc
Kit out your office, send pictures (twitter and facebook) of how bad your office is and why you should win, people could vote for the office in most “need” of Elkjops “kit out”

Social Linkbait “Socialbait”
Win an iPad with Elkjop. Retweet and facebook share campaign.

“ Gamebait” - Link Opportunity
Create a forum within the Games section. This will considerably increase long tail and traffic to site and also generate considerable amount of links and visits
Have monthly top scoring lists, get badges for expert level in “insert game name” to include on their blogs etc

@LisaDMyers Thank You! Email: [email_address] Web: www.vervesearch.com www.stateofsearch.com www.seo-chicks.com

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Sucessful Link Development - SEM Konferansen 2011

by Lisa Myers

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