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

test

But, I really

want a link!

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

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.

Does the author mean

to endorse this page?

Does he mean to say it

should rank better for

“a very similar thing?”

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

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/21-tips-to-earn-links-and-tweets-to-your-blog-post

It used to be that

the “Linkerati”

controlled the

web’s sharing.

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

Via http://www.seomoz.org/blog/facebook-twitters-influence-google-search-rankings

Individual link

metrics have lower

correlation over

time, while social

signals rise.

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

https://www.google.com/search?q=custom+kitchen+knives

Ranking here

will bring me

more customers

Decision Time

Option A sounds like a lot of work…

OPTION A:

Create lots of great content, start

a blog, shoot some videos, build

up a community via social

networks, participate in forums,

try to earn some press…

OPTION B:

Point some @#$%ing

links at my page.

Most SEOs Make the Obvious Choice

Option B can certainly work.

YEE-HAW LINKS!!

Strategic Marketing

What Really Matters to a Business on the Web?

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?

Competitors Tactics:

Paid Search

Banners & Display Ads

Brand Advertising

Television, Radio & Print Media

Contextual Ads

Avg Cost of Acquisition:

$95.00

$150.00

$Unknown

$180.00

$115.00

What Really Matters to a Business on the Web?

If you invest in inbound tactics, your cost of custom acquisition can be dramatically lower than the competition’s

“Inbound” Tactics

Organic Search

Social Media Marketing

Blogs & RSS

Community / Forum Participation

Video Content

Avg Cost of Acquisition:

$15.00

$35.00

$60.00

$20.00

$70.00

What Really Matters to a Business on the Web?

Thanks to Cascadia Capital for the chart: http://www.cascadiacapital.com/

COCA / CLTV = This

Ratio. Strength here

means you have more

to invest in every other

part of the business.

Decision Time

This time, Option A looks a lot more appealing.

OPTION A:

Content + SEO + Social +

Community + Press

OPTION B:

Point some @#$%ing

links at the page.

Which one of these truly

results in lower COCA?

Five Reasons I Invest in

Content vs. Links

#1: I Want to Invest in Multiple Channels at Once

Content, by its very nature, creates multi-channel marketing opportunities and wins.

Higher

Conversion Rate

More Brand

Visibility

Stronger Social

FollowingHigher Organic

Search Rankings

More Direct &

Bookmarking TrafficMore Referring

Links

More Long

Tail SEO

Bigger Fanbase &

Community

CONTENT!

#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

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)

If this is the future, I

better build a memorable

brand that has positive

signals of every kind.

#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

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)

Virtually every link here is

editorially-given because

of content we’ve produced

#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

http://www.theofficesuppliessupermarket.com/blog

This blog might work for

them, but IMO, it’s far too

topically specific and not

“interesting” enough to be

consistently share-worthy.

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?

This is basically what we did at SEOmoz – created a product that fit with the content + audience we’d built

Coudal Partners is a

fascinating example of this.

Remember, Content Can Mean:

The “content” you produce and market can be much more than just a blog (though blogs are pretty awesome at this)

Actual Content Community Products Platform/Data

10 PRO Tips to Do

Content Marketing Right

#1: Dollar Shave Club’s Video Launch

http://www.dollarshaveclub.com/

Expose everyone to your

great content; don’t hide it.

#2: Every Time Zone Visualized

http://everytimezone.com/

Suggest links! And

make it painless.

#3: FeeFighters’ Brilliant Blog

A smart move from http://feefighters.com/blog/

Make your tagline give you

great anchor text

#4: The Economist’s Graphics Blog

Choosing a linkbaity content style is a smart move: http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail

Hmm… I wonder if a blog

all about charts & graphs

will get lots of links and

embeds?

#5: Zemanta’s Blog Links Tools

Try out the demo here: http://www.zemanta.com/demo/ (no, I’m not affiliated with them in any way)

Puts your images and content in front of

800K+ bloggers while they’re writing

#6: Twitter Stories

Unique visualizations make for remarkable share-ability: http://stories.twitter.com/

This is basically just

content curation +

unique design

#7: Slate’s Partnership with Q+A Site Quora

Description of the partnership here: http://www.quora.com/blog/Quora-Partners-with-Slate

Emerging content platforms

desperately need visibility and

monetization; you need

content. Make it work!

#8: Koozai’s Viral Blog Post Via Google News

Via http://www.koozai.com/blog/search-marketing/are-ebooks-the-new-content-farms-2901/

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

Use every weapon in the arsenal – News, Video Rich Snippets, Rel Author, Schema, etc.

#9: See Jane Work: Demographically Targeted Office Supplies

Harnessing the power of an already-united group can yield tremendous results

#10:

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2107952_2107953_2109626,00.html

This strategy, which I’m calling “pridebait,” is just

cheating.

Even more effective? Nominating/mentioning those who have HUGE

social followings.

#10:

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2107952_2107953_2109626,00.html

This strategy, which I’m calling “pridebait,” is just

cheating.

Even more effective? Nominating/mentioning those who have HUGE

social followings.

Rand Fishkin | CEO

http://bit.ly/mozcontent2012

@randfish

www.seomoz.org/blog

rand@seomoz.org