Call Girls From Pari Chowk Greater Noida â¤ď¸8448577510 âšBest Escorts Service I...
Â
Let go of the wire: Why you have to stop link building
1. LET GO OF THE WIRE
BLOW UP THE LINK BUILDING
Ian Lurie
@portentint
ian@portent.com
This is an annotated version of
the presentation I gave at
Distilledâs SEO Meetup in
September of 2012.
2. I always create a link bundle to
go with presentations. You can
check it out here.
PORTENT.CO/DISTNAR
(Yes, use .co, not .com)
3. weasel
 hem
 haw
 qualify
 cau2on
 pick
 nits
 dodge
 ahem
 equivocate
 weasel
 weasel
 hem
 haw
 qualify
cau2on
 pick
 nits
 dodge
 ahem
 equivocate
 weasel
 weasel
 hem
 haw
 qualify
 cau2on
 pick
 nits
 dodge
Â
ahem
 equivocate
 weasel
 weasel
 hem
 haw
 qualify
 cau2on
 pick
 nits
 dodge
 ahem
 equivocate
 wease
weasel
 hem
 haw
 qualify
 cau2on
 pick
 nits
 dodge
 ahem
 equivocate
 weasel
 weasel
 hem
 haw
 qualify
cau2on
 pick
 nits
 dodge
 ahem
 equivocate
 weasel
 weasel
 hem
 haw
 qualify
 cau2on
 pick
 nits
 dodge
Â
ahem
 eFirst off, understand that theem
 haw
 qualify
 cau2on
 pick
 nits
 dodge
 ahem
 equivocate
 wease
quivocate
 weasel
 weasel
 h
weasel
 data in aw
 qualify
 cau2on
 pick
 nits
 dodge
 ahem
 equivocate
 weasel
 weasel
 hem
 haw
 qualify
hem
 h here is based on just a
couple of tests. You need to test,
cau2on
 pick
 nits
 dodge
 ahem
 equivocate
 weasel
 weasel
 hem
 haw
 qualify
 cau2on
 pick
 nits
 dodge
Â
too. And of course, question my
ahem
 eideas. Apply them wisely. Donât haw
 qualify
 cau2on
 pick
 nits
 dodge
 ahem
 equivocate
 wease
quivocate
 weasel
 weasel
 hem
Â
weasel
 pour your whole budget into anyits
 dodge
 ahem
 equivocate
 weasel
 weasel
 hem
 haw
 qualify
hem
 haw
 qualify
 cau2on
 pick
 n
one idea, no matter how good it
cau2on
 pick
 nits
 dodge
 ahem
 equivocate
 weasel
 weasel
 hem
 haw
 qualify
 cau2on
 pick
 nits
 dodge
Â
seems. Diversify.
ahem
 equivocate
 weasel
 weasel
 hem
 haw
 qualify
 cau2on
 pick
 nits
 dodge
 ahem
 equivocate
 wease
weasel
 hem
 haw
 qualify
 cau2on
 pick
 nits
 dodge
 ahem
 equivocate
 weasel
 weasel
 hem
 haw
 qualify
cau2on
 pick
 nits
 dodge
 ahem
 equivocate
 weasel
 weasel
 hem
 haw
 qualify
 cau2on
 pick
 nits
 dodge
Â
ahem
 equivocate
 weasel
 weasel
 hem
 haw
 qualify
 cau2on
 pick
 nits
 dodge
 ahem
 equivocate
 wease
weasel
 hem
 haw
 qualify
 cau2on
 pick
 nits
 dodge
 ahem
 equivocate
 weasel
 weasel
 hem
 haw
 qualify
cau2on
 pick
 nits
 dodge
 ahem
 equivocate
 weasel
 weasel
 hem
 haw
 qualify
 cau2on
 pick
 nits
 dodge
Â
ahem
 equivocate
 weasel
 weasel
 hem
 haw
 qualify
 cau2on
 pick
 nits
 dodge
 ahem
 equivocate
 wease
weasel
 hem
 haw
 qualify
 cau2on
 pick
 nits
 dodge
 ahem
 equivocate
 weasel
 weasel
 hem
 haw
 qualify
cau2on
 pick
 nits
 dodge
 ahem
 equivocate
 weasel
 weasel
 hem
 haw
 qualify
 cau2on
 pick
 nits
 dodge
Â
ahem
 equivocate
 weasel
 weasel
 hem
 haw
 qualify
 cau2on
 pick
 nits
 dodge
 ahem
 equivocate
 wease
weasel
 hem
 haw
 qualify
 cau2on
 pick
 nits
 dodge
 ahem
 equivocate
 weasel
 weasel
 hem
 haw
 qualify
cau2on
 pick
 nits
 dodge
 ahem
 equivocate
 weasel
 weasel
 hem
 haw
 qualify
 cau2on
 pick
 nits
 dodge
Â
ahem
 equivocate
 weasel
 weasel
 hem
 haw
 qualify
 cau2on
 pick
 nits
 dodge
 ahem
 equivocate
 wease
weasel
 hem
 haw
 qualify
 cau2on
 pick
 nits
 dodge
 ahem
 equivocate
 weasel
 weasel
 hem
 haw
 qualify
5. When I rewired my first house, I
grabbed what I thought was a
ground. It gave me a shock.
Unlike laboratory animals, I
didnât learn from that, and
grabbed the wire 4 more times.
Hey, stupid:
Do not touch
Especially you, Ian
Sigh.
6. But SEOs are doing the same thing, and have been
for years. Going back before even the Florida
update, Googleâs hammered site owners who tried
to rank through link spam.
Letâs build links
Google says any form of link acquisition could be
spam. But we keep trying to âacquireâ links.
We grab the wire again, and again, and again.
Bzzzzt
Letâs build links
Bzzzzt
Letâs build links
Bzzzzt
8. I really do mean this in a nice way. âWeâ includes
SEOs, clients who believe link building is a good
long-term strategy, pundits who recommend it, and
me. Why do we keep doing this?!
ARE WE ALL IDIOTS?!
9. I suspect link building is now Googleâs favorite
drinking game. Every time an SEO mentions it or
tries another harebrained scheme to âfoolâ Google,
someone at the big G gets a free beer.
They get lots to drink there.
LINK BUILDING
G O O G L E â S FAVO R I T E D R I N K I N G G A M E
10. Of course, the moment guest posts became trendy,
we turned those into spam, too. Bzzt.
â
Â
11. Or, how about this. A link exchange?! In 2012?!!!
Bzzt.
â
Â
12. The best analogy I can think of is the old days of
PR. Weâd contact journalists to let them know why
our clientâs story would matter to the journalistâs
readers.
If weâd done PR the way we now do link building,
weâd call journalists and say:
â
 can you write about
Hi,
my client so he can sell
more stuff?â
Itâs nuts. Note that Iâm not saying âArtificial link
building never works!â Of course it can work. It just
doesnât work consistently, or permanently. And the
wake-up call can be a nasty one for a business
dependent on Google traffic.
13. CONTENT MARKETING
But wait! It gets better! Now we have âcontent
marketing.â Itâs all the rage. Marketers everywhere
push it as a new strategy that can get you rankings.
14. CONTENT MARKETING
A G R E AT WAY TO S E L L M O R E B O O KS
What it really is is a trendy term that doesnât mean
much. Mentioning âContent Marketingâ may get
folks to read a blog post or buy your book. Itâs not
a strategy. Itâs not even a tactic, the way most
marketers define it.
15. I WROTE ALL THIS STUFF
So now, marketers and site owners say, âI wrote all
this stuffâŚâ
16. âŚAnd by âstuffâ they mean 5+ articles for
$100 or less, each, with specific keyword
densities. aka: Crap
18. LET GO OF THE WIRE
STOP IT. Let go of the damned wire. Stop looking for easy solutions
to authority-building. âCranking outâ crappy content wonât do it.
Neither will buying, begging for or otherwise artificially acquiring
links.
Understand this: THERE ARE NO EASY SOLUTIONS. Acquiring links
in such a way that Google wonât quickly detect it isnât easy. Nor is
successful content spam.
Youâre better off focusing on marketing.
19. LET GO OF THE WIRE
Stop grabbing the wire.
Rant: The truth is, we keep grabbing the wire â weâre not clinging to
it. We just keep grabbing it and getting shocked, again and again.
20. Create marketable content
Donât build a marketing strategy around âcranking outâ content. Build
your strategy around creating marketable content. That means good
stuff.
This isnât the focus of this talk, so Iâm not going to go into more
details. Hopefully you know the difference between marketable
content and total dreck.
21. Build authority
through conversion
THIS is what Iâm talking about tonight: Build authority by starting
with the assumption that everyone converts in some way. Every
visitor to your site should read something, or share it, or âlikeâ it, or
subscribe to your blog/newsletter, or request info, or buyâŚ
Everyone converts, somehow. Thatâs the goal.
23. MARKET YOUR CONTENT
(This is content marketing)
CONTENT MARKETING: Building authority for your site
and your brand by creating & promoting fantastic
content.
NOT CONTENT MARKETING: Writing one 500-word
blog post per day, for as little money as possible, then
announcing it to my 10 Twitter followers.
27. OH C'MON IAN,
REAL BRANDS
DON'T DO THAT.
First thing I hear when I talk about this kind of marketing
is âReal brands donât do thatâ. Oh no?
28. USA Network created their âAsk a Spyâ series: Free, short
videos you could watch on YouTube or on the USA web
site. The goal? Promote the show Burn Notice.
29. They promoted the heck out of these videos, with
commercials, PPC ads, etc..
30. I donât know what the results were, but the show is going
on its 4th season and has a solid following.
31. How about a knitting company running a PPC ad for
their free patterns? Why advertise free content?
Because theyâre doing CONTENT MARKETING.s
33. THE PROCESS
The process:
1.⯠Create great, free content so good
that itâs a service in itself.
2.⯠Promote it.
3.⯠Convert readers into fans into
customers.
Lots of people talk about #1 and #3. Iâm
going to show you some tools and tactics
for #2.
34. OUTBRAIN
Outbrain: A service that lets you place
links to your content in an ad widget they
put on major sites, like Slate. You pay by
the click. The links are not crawlable, so no
Google TOS problems.
36. IMPORTANT
NOTE: Iâm not suggesting you write crap
and then spend $9999 getting visitors to
it. I am suggesting that you have a lot of
competitors, and waiting for organic
traffic to something you slaved away at
writing for a week may lead to indigestion.
Paid advertising is a great way to give
great new content a boost.
37. Once you do that, you need to see if itâs
working. That means looking at content
effectiveness.
TEST YOUR CONTENT
38. Sigh. My bounce rate is ridiculous⌠MEH MEH GAH!
This report shows traffic from the
OutBrain network, and whether itâs doing
anything for me. If I was tracking goals like
subscriptions and sales, I could look at
that, too. In this case, I was sloppy, so all I
get is visito duration and bounce rate.
39. HMMMM. IâLL KEEP TESTING THESE.
These two titles arenât doing all that bad.
41. Portent.com/reading-time.htm
And, for that top article, I need to see how
long it SHOULD take to read. We built a
quick little tool that lets you evaluate
reading time and grade level. Hereâs the
report on that article.
2:37 to read. So an average time-on-page
of :24 is pretty awful.
44. REFINE THE CAMPAIGN
NONE of this means you give up!!!!
Instead, look at where trafficâs coming
from.
45. In Outbrain, I can turn off articles that
arenât performing. So I took the worst
performers from my content report and
remove them from the stream.
47. 5% RESHARES
(so far)
And generated a 5% RESHARE RATE
through Google+, Twitter and Facebook.
Every reshare helps build site authority
and rankings, AND increases the chances
someone will link to that page.
So this is a win, to say the least.
48. STUMBLEUPON PAID DISCOVERY
Stumbleupon has an amazing advertising
program called âpaid discoveryâ. You pay a
per-Stumble fee to have your content
inserted into the stream for relevant
readers.
55. âŚand got huge re-shares, which let to 129
simultaneous visitors on Portent.com for a
few hours. Whoa.
56. Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit
Outbrain and Stumbleupon are just the
start. Do the same thing on Facebook,
LinkedIn and other sites.
But do it smart. RememberâŚ
57. EVERYONE CONVERTS
Everyone converts. If youâre not getting
conversion, you may not be targeting the
right content, or the best audience, or
something else.
58. And NEVER quit. EVER. Marketing is equal
parts creative genius and pure pig-headed
stubborness. Make sure you use both.
DONâT QUIT
THIS
59. CLOSE THE LOOP
Sometimes, seeing your great content
once isnât enough. So you need to close
the loop by showing readers the same
stuff a few times.
61. Outbrain Visit Pixel
Facebook
In this example, a reader sees your article
for the first time via Outbrain. Then they
Ad
go to Facebook. Because Facebook
Exchange retargeting uses Outbrain data,
we can show that person an ad for the
same content again.
Share/Like
If they come back, theyâre even more likely
to re-share.
62. FACEBOOK CUSTOM AUDIENCES
You can also build and target Facebook
campaigns based on your âhouseâ e-mail
list. Thatâs even better targeting. These
people already like you. They just need a
gentle reminder that your stuff is there.
66. Can you even
prove it works?
Of course, someone will ask if I can prove
this works. I wonder why? When the same
person spent $500,000 on TV ads, or
$25,000 on a print ad, or $5,000 on a
Yellow Pages ad, did they demand that
level of measurement? Nope.
But anywayâŚ
67. TOO MUCH NOISE
Thereâs too much noise to know for certain
when someone links/re-shares content
because of a paid campaign.
The ânoiseâ in this case includes clicks from
social networks in the normal course of
business, visits from organic search
bolstered by the brand reinforcement of
previous content marketing, etc.
69. Hereâs a quick case study. I posted this
article, then promoted it the ways Iâve
talked about in this presentation.
70. That got me 195 links to this page. 18 from
unique domains. Including one link from
Reddit. I spent $200 promoting it.
IS THAT WORTH $200?!!! HELL YES.
71. ON AVERAGE WE SEE AN
INCREASE OF 2-3 LINKS ABOVE
NORMAL ACQUISITION PER 3000
PURCHASED PAGEVIEWS ON
STUMBLEUPON.
72. $9/LINK
On average, campaigns like this cost $9/
link. Pricing by the link is a little silly, since
social shares matter too, and link value is
so inconsistent. But people insist, so there
you have it.
I dare you to find a less-expensive way to
acquire authority this fast.
74. EVERYONE CONVERTS
Plus, youâre getting more than just ranking
authority. Youâre getting real brand
authority, because potential customers/
clients learn how much you know,
subscribe to your newsletter and come a
step closer to full conversion.
75. i dunno, ian. Isn't
there an easier,
faster way to do
this?
76. THE SHORT CUT
Of course there is! Itâs
much less work if youâŚ
78. Or just search for âbuy linksâ
and then go buy some.
No one at Google WILL EVER
SUSPECT A THING.
cough
79. Letâs build links
Bzzzzt
Letâs build links
Bzzzzt
Letâs build links
In other words, you can
just keep grabbing the
wire.
Bzzzzt
The problem, of course,
is that youâll continue
to get shocked.
80. CHANGE THE CONVERSATION
Instead, I suggest we change the entire
conversation. Talk about smart
marketing and authority building. Talk
about diversified strategies. Help
people test results. Never use the
phrase âcrank outâ.
Accept a different definition of âcontent
marketingâ.
81. Questions? Catch me on Twitter or
Google Plus.
Me:
@portentint
plus.google.com/+IanLurie