Tom Casano discusses the importance of link-earning over link-building for search engine optimization. He defines link-building as links you directly create yourself, while link-earning means others link to your content naturally. Casano argues link-earning is more scalable, aligned with Google's algorithms, and powerful. He provides examples of highly link-worthy assets like tools, reports, and interactive content that earned hundreds of relevant domain links without outreach. Casano's formula for link-earning involves researching competitors, creating high-value assets, and using catalysts like PR, virality or referrals to accelerate natural link acquisition over time.

1. The Highest ROI
Link-Earning Strategy
Tom Casano
Sure Oak

2. Who is Tom Casano?
tomcasano.com
@TomCasano
sureoak.com
@SureOak

4. Why Links Matter?

5. Why Links Matter?
● Most heavily-weighted ranking factor in Google’s algo today
○ “social proof” on the web
○ you can’t directly control/manipulate it
○ indicates your page/website is resourceful, useful, trustworthy, worth linking to

6. Why Links Matter?
● Might not be the case forever
○ increase in UX as a ranking factor
○ Google is smart
■ LSI
■ RankBrain
■ machine-learning

7. Why Links Matter?
● But as practitioners, we must...
“Do what works.”
...for the long-term

8. Necessary Attributes of Referring Domains
1. quantity
2. domain authority
3. trust flow
4. relevance

9. Link-Building
vs
Link-Earning

10. Definitions
Link-Building: You created the link.
Link-Earning: Someone else gave you the link.

11. Link-Building
● unnatural
○ you control the anchor text, placement, link target, etc. etc.
● not scalable
● Google is fighting with algo updates
● less effective
● the purpose of many algo updates
● Example: guest posting

12. Link-Earning
● natural
● scalable
● outreach not required
● aligned with Google
○ on the right side of Google’s future algorithm updates
● more powerful
● immune to algo updates

13. The Problem:
How do you increase
DA from under 40 to
over 70?

14. The Answer:
Not with link-building.

15. “How is BuzzFeed Doing Link-Building?”

16. The Second Problem:

17. Link-Building = Hard

18. Link-Earning = Harder

19. Starting Points

20. The Process
1. Competitor Analysis
2. Model What’s Working
3. Execute
4. Track Results
5. Iterate and Improve

21. An Even Better Way
Understand the first principles
● what works
● why it works
● application

22. Principle #1:
Create a
Link-Worthy Asset

23. What Link-Earning is Not

24. Blog
Posts

26. Link-Begging: What’s the Incentive?

27. Link-Worthy Assets = Creating High Value
...That is SO valuable, people actually want to share it.

28. Example Time: Yay!

29. Example 1: Tool

30. Results: 240 RDs

31. Why It Worked
● useful and helpful
● incentivized to share it
● great UX/UI
● free

32. Example 2: White Paper or Industry Report

33. Results: 496 RDs

34. Why It Worked
● authoritative research/data
● thought-leadership
● a resource
○ source for citation, reference, statistics
○ Page & Brin’s model = universities citing sources in documents

35. Example 3: Original Research

36. Results: 851 RDs

37. Why It Worked
● emotional hook:
○ body-image issues
● unique and original data
● interesting
● pitched to PR

38. Example 4: Interactive Data Visualization
drones.pitchinteractive.com

39. Results: 1,060 RDs

40. Why It Worked
● interactive data visualization
● powerful story-telling:
○ the number of innocent people who have been killed by drone strikes in Pakistan
● emotional and provocative

41. Principle #2:
Create High-Value

42. Competitor Analysis

46. Accelerating Link Growth

47. Principle #3:
Use a Catalyst to
Accelerate Link Acquisition

48. Outreach
● success rates correlated to link-worthiness of content
○ 1% vs 10%
● targeting the right people
○ have linked to similar content in the past (Ahrefs)
○ interested in this niche
● personalization
● building long-term relationships
○ Twitter, interviews, real person connections

49. True Link-Earning
● no outreach required, “hands off”
● the most scalable
● painfully slow unless:
● another catalyst or vehicle:
○ referrals
○ virality
○ PR
○ brand awareness
○ social media

50. Factors to Increase Link-Earning Potential
● valuable, useful, helpful, unique
● authoritativeness
● free
● “10x”
● hard to replicate = competitive advantage
○ the “only” tool or the hands-down best tool
= Link-Worthiness

51. User-Generated Links

52. User-Generated Links
Examples:
● Linking back to user profiles
● Linking back to content created
● Embedding content that includes a link
● Badges
● Crediting (e.g. photo credit)

53. User-Generated Links

54. Link-Worthy Assets
≠
Just Content

55. Basic Link-Worthy Ideas
● Tools
● Interactive Data Visualization
● White Paper/Report
● Original Research/Study
● Curated Content
● Media (Video, Images)
● User Profiles/Portfolios
● Content Creation Tool (Make Events, Videos)

56. The Link-Earning Formula=
research
+
create value
+
catalyst or outreach

57. Traps: Beware
● low-value
● no outreach
○ “build it and they will come”
● no emotional component
● nobody cares
● no incentives

58. ProTips:
1. See what has worked for others.
2. Create awesome stuff.
3. Share it through outreach.

59. SEO is an Investment

60. Monthly Recurring Traffic
Monthly Recurring Revenue
or
Monthly Recurring Revenue Growth

61. TomCasano.com
SureOak.com
Questions?