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Live blogging from SMX East: Please forgive any typos or grammar mistakes; I will follow up later to correct them. I may expand on this later, but I’m keeping it brief to get the information out.

Speakers:

• Debra Mastaler, President, Alliance-Link
• Eric Ward, CEO, EricWard.com

This session is very basic for me, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to hear both Eric and Debra speak.

Debra Mastaler

In July 2009, 76 billion searches were done on Google. Of those, 25 billion were done in the United States. The biggest ranking factor used by search engines are links.

Link popularity is an off-site factor that measures the quality and quantity of links pointing to a web page.

4 Components of Link Popularity

• Quantity - the pure volume
• Quality - a measure of the authority, signals like PR
• Anchor text - the click-able part of the link, very powerful
• Relevance - topical community, relevant links

Goal: large number, quality, keyword rich, and relevant

Which Link Building Tactics Are Working Best?

Content solutions. Content tactics hit all 4 of the components of link popularity.

How to Start?

Start as if you have a business offline: chambers, industry associations, sponsorships, etc.

Tip: Use expert witness directories. Become an authority and issue a press release.

Foundational Links

• Niche directories - start out with a good base with directory links
• Local directories - lots of good clean links
• General directories - only about 15 decent general directories left
• Element directories - target directories for specific elements: contests, coupons, videos, articles, newsletter, etc.
• Social media profiles - develop a company profile on large and niche social sites

Link Building with Content

Traditional

• Q&A
• Articles
• Tutorials
• Reviews

Link Bait

• Breaking News
• Top 10
• Emotional
• Digg
• Mixx
• Bloggers

When adding new content: issue press release, release articles, and share it in your newsletter. Always encourage linking.

Tip: Use blog outreach to ask bloggers to guest blog for them. Bloggers need content.

Tip: Ask bloggers to review you.

If you’re an authority, drop your content on other sites.

Media Links

• Backtrack your competitor’s news links
• Use Google Alerts to track news about a keyword
• CyberJournalist.net
• Press Releases - success using niche wire services
• Niche social media sites

Tip: Track social articles on Digg to find their source, get listed there.

Authority Links: You Have to Go For Them

Use SEO Book Hubfinder co-citation tool to find authority links. Beg, buy, and borrow to get these links. These are hard to get, but worth it!

Eric Ward

In 1993, nobody cared about link building; in 2009, everybody cares.

Why? Google.

Link Building = PageRank = Search Rank, Right?

Two audiences for links: people & bots.

Quality links based off merit are more important. Just because you can a link from a site, doesn’t mean you should.

Four Things Links Can Accomplish

• Direct click traffic - these may not help your search rankings, but can send lots of traffic
• Search rank
• Both - A rare and beautiful thing
• Neither - most content added to web is crap

Effective Link Building

• Low hanging fruit - the links anyone can get
• Merit based from link “curators” - links only you can get
• Online public relations
• Non-sensationalist linkbait
• Click traffic driven link buying aka advertising
• On-site link optimization

The link building approach used for any given web site should be different based on each site’s focus, content, and intended audience

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