F%$#! Link Building. Content Marketing FTW

F#$%! Link Building. Content Marketing FTW.Rand Fishkin | CEO http://bit.ly/mozcontent2012

Classic Link Building

Discover Link Opportunitieshttp://www.seomoz.org/labs/link-finder/index.php

Brainstorm Acquisition TacticsTravelpod built an embeddable quiz that universities use… What can I do to get .edu links?

Pound Head Against WallFeel free to use this high quality link acquisition email. Effectiveness not guaranteed 

Keep Pounding But, I really want a link!test

Damage BrainManual link building has a surprising amount in common with stuffing crayons up one’s nose.

Earn Links… Painfully1-2 links per hour of link building is fairly common, particularly if you don’t have a great site to work from.

Give In to the Dark Sidehttp://www.bloggingtips.com/2012/03/22/link-authority-review-the-next-buildmyrank-alternative/

Buy Some LinksAlways a fun time: http://fiverr.com/gigs/search?query=links

Go OverboardOnce you’ve gone to “supreme link pyramid elite,” you know you’re desperate. http://www.wickedfire.com/links-seo/154095-supreme-all-one-seo-solution-only-28-proven-results-dominate-google.html

Get Burnedhttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/unnatural-link-warnings-blog-networks-advice

Retreat and Try AgainBTW – If you need a simple meme generator: http://imgflip.com/memegenerator is pretty solid

Why Links Are in Danger

Links Were Never Really Votes Does the author mean to endorse this page? Does he mean to say it should rank better for “a very similar thing?”Search engines found links useful as a proxy, but most of those linking on the web don’t intend to contribute to the link graph.

The Algo Wasn’t Intended to Benefit Marketershttp://marketingland.com/is-googles-over-optimization-penalty-its-jump-the-shark-moment-in-web-search-8633

But SEOs Are Better at Links than Everyone ElseAnd worse at karaoke… via http://www.distilled.net/jobs/seattle/search-marketers/

WebSpam Struggles to Keep Uphttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-google-makes-liars-out-of-the-good-guys-in-seo

Sharing on the Web Has Evolved It used to be that the “Linkerati” controlled the web’s sharing.http://www.seomoz.org/blog/21-tips-to-earn-links-and-tweets-to-your-blog-post

Today, the “Linkerati” are a Far Bigger GroupVia http://www.slideshare.net/fullscreen/PewInternet/022612-nfais-newnormalpdf/6 (Pew Internet & American Life Project)

Google’s Clearly Trying to Move Beyond Links Individual link metrics have lower correlation over time, while social signals rise.Via http://www.seomoz.org/blog/facebook-twitters-influence-google-search-rankings

Many Links are a Thorn in Search Engines’ SideAn enlightening example of spammer mentality: https://www.google.com/search?q=build+my+rank+alternatives

Tactical SEO

I Want to Rank Higher For This Query Ranking here will bring me more customershttps://www.google.com/search?q=custom+kitchen+knives

Decision Time OPTION A: Create lots of great content, start OPTION B: a blog, shoot some videos, build Point some @#$%ing up a community via social links at my page. networks, participate in forums, try to earn some press…Option A sounds like a lot of work…

Most SEOs Make the Obvious Choice YEE-HAW LINKS!!Option B can certainly work.

Strategic Marketing

What Really Matters to a Business on the Web? Competitors Tactics: Avg Cost of Acquisition: Paid Search $95.00 Banners & Display Ads $150.00 Brand Advertising $Unknown Television, Radio & Print Media $180.00 Contextual Ads $115.00Paid forms of acquisition are easier to measure, optimize and invest in. Management’s comfortable with them.The engines/platforms make it easy to buy them. Why wouldn’t you use paid acquisition?

What Really Matters to a Business on the Web? “Inbound” Tactics Avg Cost of Acquisition: Organic Search $15.00 Social Media Marketing $35.00 Blogs & RSS $60.00 Community / Forum Participation $20.00 Video Content $70.00If you invest in inbound tactics, your cost of custom acquisition can be dramatically lower than the competition’s

What Really Matters to a Business on the Web? COCA / CLTV = This Ratio. Strength here means you have more to invest in every other part of the business.Thanks to Cascadia Capital for the chart: http://www.cascadiacapital.com/

Decision Time OPTION A: OPTION B: Content + SEO + Social + Point some @#$%ing Community + Press links at the page. Which one of these truly results in lower COCA?This time, Option A looks a lot more appealing.

Five Reasons I Invest in Content vs. Links

#1: I Want to Invest in Multiple Channels at Once More Long Higher More Brand Tail SEO Conversion Rate Visibility Higher Organic CONTENT! Stronger Social Search Rankings Following More Direct & Bigger Fanbase & More Referring Bookmarking Traffic Community LinksContent, by its very nature, creates multi-channel marketing opportunities and wins.

#2: I Want to Be Proud of My WorkAm I making the Internet a better place?

#3: I Want Strategies that Last No Matter What If this is the future, I better build a memorable brand that has positive signals of every kind.I want marketing that will last even if Siri replaces Google, social replaces search, apps replace the web, etc. (note: I don’tactually believe any of those things will happen, but I do like to be prepared)

#3: I Want Strategies that Last No Matter WhatWho knows, maybe DDG is really on to something: http://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html

#4: Content Builds Links While I Sleep Virtually every link here is editorially-given because of content we’ve producedhttps://www.google.com/search?q=seomoz+-site:seomoz.org&tbs=qdr:h (qdr:h at the end of the query narrows to results from just 1hr)

#5: Content Builds Brand Loyalty & Trusthttp://thisismadebyhand.com/film/the_knife_maker play 4:45 - 5:45

OK. What Content Should I Make?

Don’t Limit Yourself to Content About Your Subject This blog might work for them, but IMO, it’s far too topically specific and not “interesting” enough to be consistently share-worthy.http://www.theofficesuppliessupermarket.com/blog

Discover What Your Audience SharesThree tools: http://followerwonk.com, http://topsy.com, and Google’s Discussion Search

Brand Your Content to Align with Your Business/ProductsFiskars Scissors (fiskars.com) runs the amazing Fiskateers blog (http://www.fiskateers.com/); a great example of alignment.Though, for SEO, I wish they’d gone with fiskars.com/fiskateers or fiskars.com/blog

Or Brand Your Product to Align with Your Content? Coudal Partners is a fascinating example of this.This is basically what we did at SEOmoz – created a product that fit with the content + audience we’d built

Remember, Content Can Mean: Actual Content Community Products Platform/DataThe “content” you produce and market can be much more than just a blog (though blogs are pretty awesome at this)

10 PRO Tips to DoContent Marketing Right

#1: Dollar Shave Club’s Video Launch Expose everyone to your great content; don’t hide it.http://www.dollarshaveclub.com/

#2: Every Time Zone Visualized Suggest links! And make it painless.http://everytimezone.com/

#3: FeeFighters’ Brilliant Blog Make your tagline give you great anchor textA smart move from http://feefighters.com/blog/

#4: The Economist’s Graphics Blog Hmm… I wonder if a blog all about charts & graphs will get lots of links and embeds?Choosing a linkbaity content style is a smart move: http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail

#5: Zemanta’s Blog Links Tools Puts your images and content in front of 800K+ bloggers while they’re writingTry out the demo here: http://www.zemanta.com/demo/ (no, I’m not affiliated with them in any way)

#6: Twitter Stories This is basically just content curation + unique designUnique visualizations make for remarkable share-ability: http://stories.twitter.com/

#7: Slate’s Partnership with Q+A Site Quora Emerging content platforms desperately need visibility and monetization; you need content. Make it work!Description of the partnership here: http://www.quora.com/blog/Quora-Partners-with-Slate

#8: Koozai’s Viral Blog Post Via Google News Use every weapon in the arsenal – News, Video Rich Snippets, Rel Author, Schema, etc. It’s naturally assumed great content will fall flat without link building. However this post had no outreach but journalists and authors found it on Google News and linked to it, which sparked a debate that got us 473 backlinks from 106 domains (without doing outreach). - Mike Essex, KoozaiVia http://www.koozai.com/blog/search-marketing/are-ebooks-the-new-content-farms-2901/

#9: See Jane Work: Demographically Targeted Office SuppliesHarnessing the power of an already-united group can yield tremendous results

#10: This strategy, which I’m calling “pridebait,” is just cheating. Even more effective? Nominating/mentioning those who have HUGE social followings.http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2107952_2107953_2109626,00.html

Rand Fishkin | CEO@randfishwww.seomoz.org/blogrand@seomoz.org http://bit.ly/mozcontent2012