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

Classic Link Building

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

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

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

Keep Pounding But, I really
want a link! test

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

Earn Links… Painfully 1-2 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
Side http://www.bloggingtips.com/2012/03/22/link-authority-review-the-next-buildmyrank-alternative/

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

Go Overboard Once 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 Burned
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/unnatural-link-warnings-blog-networks-advice

Retreat and Try Again BTW
– 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 Marketers http://marketingland.com/is-googles-over-optimization-penalty-its-jump-the-shark-moment-in-web-search-8633

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

WebSpam Struggles to Keep Up
http://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 Group Via 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’ Side An 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 customers https://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 $115.00 Paid 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 $70.00 If 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 Links Content, by its very nature, creates multi-channel marketing opportunities and wins.

#2: I Want to Be
Proud of My Work Am 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’t actually believe any of those things will happen, but I do like to be prepared)

#3: I Want Strategies that
Last No Matter What Who 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 produced https://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
& Trust http://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 Shares
Three tools: http://followerwonk.com, http://topsy.com, and Google’s Discussion Search

Brand Your Content to Align
with Your Business/Products Fiskars 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/Data The “content” you produce and market can be much more than just a blog (though blogs are pretty awesome at this)

10 PRO Tips to Do
Content 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 text A 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 writing Try 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 design Unique 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, Koozai Via http://www.koozai.com/blog/search-marketing/are-ebooks-the-new-content-farms-2901/

#9: See Jane Work: Demographically
Targeted Office Supplies Harnessing 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

#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 @randfish
www.seomoz.org/blog rand@seomoz.org http://bit.ly/mozcontent2012