Posts on State of Search about ‘Linkbuilding’

Lessons Link Builders Can Learn From England’s Bungled World Cup 2018 Bid

russia-blatter-bid

Despite the best lobbying efforts of our biggest sporting star, a newly engaged king-to-be and our Prime Minister England failed miserably in their attempts to gain the right to host the 2018 World Cup, I’ll leave the discussion on they whys and the wherefores to the better qualified; what interested me was how convinced everyone seemed to be of the success of the bid despite its impending failure. I don’t think this was naive wishful thinking but the kind of self deceit that often affects un-successful link builders.

So what can we learn from the disastrous bid to help us become better link builders.

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UK OFT Judgement Could Have Impact On Linkbuilding

In an interesting development that could have wide-ranging repercussions for UK linkbuilders, the UK’s Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has taken action against a company (Handpicked Media) that paid bloggers to write promotional blog posts, comments, and tweets.

While writing promotional material is not misleading in and of itself, what the OFT did have a problem with was that these posts/comments/tweets did not include a statement that they were paid for. The OFT concluded that this was misleading and against the Consumer Protection Act.

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Bad publicity as fuel for your rankings

Yesterday I ran into this article in the NY Times about DecorMyEyes.com. The article explains the online strategy of DecorMyEyes.com which is based on bad publicity. Not just bad publicity because they deliver wrong products, overcharge their products or don’t deliver at all. They raise the stakes by threatening the people complaining with lawsuits and even threats to pay these people a personal visit.

On GetSatisfaction.com the complaints about this company have been stacking up. One topic consists of 243 replies tagged with labels like:

  • he’s racist
  • offended
  • unprofessional
  • liar and cheat
  • rude and abusive (more…)

SEO Tools 101 – The most under-utilised tool: Your Clients

I’m always jotting down useful ideas, tools, pointers, thoughts etc. etc. for SEO – everything from chats in the pub to conferences – there’s endless amounts of information out there to help make your life easier and your rankings climb.

However I think there’s a really crucial tool that just doesn’t get used enough by SEOs when working on projects, and that’s communication.  Especially with clients or stakeholders.

Get them on board and it’s amazing the difference it can have on both your stress levels and your keyword positions.

I want to give a couple of examples of this point, as the idea for this post actually came to me from a client a couple of weeks ago.

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Why your Link Strategy Should Involve Guest Blogging and Tips for Success

Guest Blogging is hardly front page news, yet does this mean it shouldn’t be at the forefront of your link strategy?

Nichola Stott, one of our fellow State of Search members, examined the ratio of brand versus keyword anchor text in her study over at Search Engine Watch. After reading this post it really reinforced the importance of guest blogging as a tool to manipulate a link profile. Now, when I say manipulate, I don’t simply mean for exact anchor text, but for brand, phrase and synonyms. I will go over this reason a bit later. Guest blogging is the perfect way to gain control over your link graph as you can decide; who you want to target (geographic location of the site as well as industry), where they link (link placement) and also how they link (anchor text)

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Avoiding Link Devaluation -#ProSEO Seminar 2010

My last live blog of the excellent Distilled information-laden conference is on Patrick Altoft  of Branded 3′s presentation about his experience of Google link devaluation and how to avoid this. His focus is on link building efficiency, as he believes the majority of people just don’t realise how many links Google devalues.

Buying Links

Don’t buy links unless you are 100% sure it’s safe. Think about it: most text link brokers actually have Google Analytics on their site so Google knows exactly what they’re doing! (more…)

Link Building in Competitive Niches – #ProSEO Seminar 2010

As Ayima’s Jane Copland explains, her talk focuses on: “the biggest link building issues you can face in competitive markets, and their solutions”. She runs through some common problems and questions:

What sort of links do I need?

No two industries are alike, the rules change. It’s not necessarily about Google treating industries differently, it’s about who’s competing in them. You don’t need to understand what’s working for everyone else, you need to focus on what is going to work for what you want to rank for. (more…)

Setting Up Your Own Link Building Network – A4U Expo London 2010

Ralph, better known as Fantomaster’s presentation is based on his own self-constructed link network, baptised Link Whisperer. So why should you do it? The simple answer:

You get 100% control over your in-links, which then allows you to fine tune your web campaigns and boosts your ranking potential.

Setting up a link network is not that complicated. Setting up a strategy for it is the difficult part. Without decent content, all link building campaigns will fail anyway. (more…)

Link Building The Philanthropic Way

Recently I’ve been reading a few posts across the search and social blogosphere touching on the issue of philanthropic campaigns within the digital industry. I’m always interested because it’s often about helping a worthy cause through the simplest of methods. If I can help out, why wouldn’t I? (NB. If there were ever any Catholics in my family ancestry, I definitely inherited their guilt. Taoist family guilt maybe?). It’s also often the root of some of the more innovative ideas around.

oil spill birdOne post that got me thinking was by Justin Kownacki, entitled People Are Desperate to Care About Something. Is It You?. His remarks centre on humans’ natural inclination to want to help, and how we can cash in on that through strong imagery. He does make a good point: the general populous do want to care, they want to feel that they’ve helped a good cause so why not give them the imagery and the method to do so? It’s a trick that has worked for years – buy this washing up liquid with this very cute child on the front of it. It’s 50p more than your standard choice but 40p of that extra cost will go to charity. It’s no major impact on my shopping bill and it’ll help out those cute kids clearly portrayed on the front of said washing up bottle.

fairy liquid make a wishThey’re age-old marketing tactics that may be as subtle as a sledge hammer but let’s face it – the brand makes their money, they help out a good cause that wouldn’t otherwise get that help and the consumer gets both the product they want and the smug satisfaction of knowingthey’ve done a good deed that day. Who’s the loser? (more…)

Google Instant Proves Chinese Wall is a Myth

Editorial: This is a guestpost written by Dixon Jones of Receptional.

Google is rolling out “Google Instant” – where suggested results are returned as users type. In doing so, they inadvertently debunked their long and heavily pushed mantra that the paid results and the organic results are not linked. Infact, this move – whilst probably doing all the good they say – will cost advertisers more and will line Google’s pockets.

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Who Would I Pick For My Link Building Dream Team?

Gone are the days when link building was merely checklist of repetitive tasks you could work your way through and given enough data entry and link requests you could start to see yourself rise up the rankings.

It requires a huge combination of skills that no one person or type of person could ever manage. Like any good sports team you need a mixture of talents and an understanding of each other strengths to really do well.

In real life it’s a hard job; but when day-dreaming of the link building dream team it’s much easier job to pull off. (more…)

Six Ways to Increase Internal Links

Be honest with me… how often does this happen?

“Yes hello, we’d like to buy some of your optimisation please. We have the business idea, clear objectives, brand values, and loads of shit-hot original content of all types. We’d like to get you involved right now, before the design RFP goes out and we’d like you to advise on everything from choice of domain onwards.”

I suspect the answer to my question may be “never.”

More often than not we’re engaged as online marketers somewhere down the line and we inherit a website or business that whilst functional; might not be optimal. Not every client or business has a web team or a generous budget for an extensive re-build, so at times we may find that we’re making do. In such situations there are two areas I find most sorely in need of attention and these are Information Architecture and content. In this case I wanted to look at some ways to boost internal linking for when the site Information Architecture isn’t ideal. (more…)

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