Link Building
Jade Webster
Link Building
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Link Building
Ranking Factors
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Link Building
Link building is the process of acquiring hyperlinks from other websites to your own. A hyperlink (usually just called a link) is a way for users to navigate between pages on the internet
• Text• Image• Frames• Videos
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Link Building
Quality links has a stronger ranking factor than quantity.
Versus
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Links are like votes. The more you have, the better your website looks
Your Site
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Link Building
Links from authoritative sites have much more weight than other websites
Your Site
Types of Authoritative Links
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Link Building
University Domains – (.ac/.edu)
University Domains are a good place to gain authoritative links as they are considered websites that contain credible content.
Good types of things to target would be job offers for graduating or placement students and other tools that could be useful for university students such as financial advice.
University of
SEO
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Link Building
Government Domains – (.gov)
Good ways to target a government site for linkbuilding purposes is to provide them with information about a thing that you have done conclusive research in and would raise awareness about a specific topic that people could find interesting.
People will always be interested in jobs thereforeif they have a job board on the site it could be worth advertising your job there if it is relevant to your target audience.
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Link Building
Media Domains – (BBC, Sky, ITV)
Linking from media domains can be tricky as you will have to research on potential angles that could possiblyinterest these outlets. An avenue which some media domains offer would be paid editorials which would include a link to your site
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Link Building
Social Domains – (Wikipedia)
A good Social Domain to get links from is Wikipedia although anyone can publish content on the site it is monitored regularly therefore links will be removed if they are deemed inappropriate. The reason gaining a link from Wikipedia is deemed authoritative is that all information needs to be cited by a credible external source.
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Link Building
Links from spammy websites sites or low quality links have the opposite affect
Your Site
Exercise: Find 3 authoritative websites which are relevant to your industry
What is Google Penguin?
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Link Building
Google launched the Penguin Update in April 2012 to better catch sites deemed to be spamming its search results, in particular those doing so by buying links or obtaining them through link networks designed primarily to boost Google rankings.
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Page Layout
#3Feb 6th
Google Updates 2014
PandaMay 19th
Payday Loan 3.0
June 12th
Payday Loan 2.0
May 16th
Authorship Photos
RemovedJune 28th
PigeonJuly 24th
HTTPS/SSL
Aug 6th
Authorship Removed
Aug 28th
Panda 4.1
Sep 23th
In The News
Oct
Penguin 3.0
Oct 17th
Pirate 2.0
Oct 21st
PigeonDec 22nd
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Link Building
End to large updates
“That last big update is still rolling out — though really there won’t be a particularly distinct end-point to the activity, since Penguin is shifting to more continuous updates. The idea is to keep optimizing as we go now.”
Are all links good?
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Link Building
Types of SEO:
White HatGrey HatBlack Hat
Bad Links/‘spamming’
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Link Building
Poorly Executed Blog Networks
Don’t – Pay to contribute content to poorly executed blog networks
Example – You pay www.jobsinkent.wordpress to add an article you have written on to their blog
Guest blogging and other forms of contributing content to legitimate sites is a much whiter tactic, but consider that a strategy that relies heavily on low-quality guest blogging looks a lot like blog network spam
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Link Building
Article Marketing
Don’t – Write articles for the purpose of adding keywords, and send it out to numerous article distribution websites
Example – An article is written about the recruitment sector and is then posted to ezinearticles.com, articlesbase.com & many others
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Link Building
Single Post Blogs
Ironically named "Web 2.0 Blogs" by some spam peddlers, these two-page blogs on Tumblr and Wordpress sub-domains never see the light of day. After setting up the free content hub with an article or two, the site is then "infused" with link juice, generally from social bookmarking links
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Link Building
(Paid) Site-Wide Links
Site-wide footer links used to be all the rage. Google crippled their link-juice-passing power because most footer links pointing to external sites are either Google Bombs or paid links. Where else would you put a site-wide link that you don't want your users to click?
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Link Building
Paid Links
There will never be a foolproof way to detect every paid link. That said it's easier than you think to leave a footprint when you do it in bulk. If one buyer that you have no relationship to buys links recklessly, the scrutiny can trickle down through the sites they're buying from and eventually back to you.
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Link Building
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Link Building
Link WheelsDon’t – Build a number of links to one domain, which will increase the authority – which will then link to another.
Example – Website
Website
Website
Website
Website
Website
Website
Website
Your Site
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Link Building
Press Release Syndication
High-quality syndication and wire services possess a few unattractive attributes for spammers: there are editorial guidelines, costs, and even fact checking. Low-quality syndication services will send almost anything through to any site that will take it. You'll end up with a bunch of links, but not many that get indexed, and even fewer that get counted.
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Link Building
Directories
The summary is that Google wants to devalue links from directories with no true standards. Here's a Matt Cutts video on the topic. Directory links often suffer from a high out/in linking ratio, but those worth getting are those that are actually used for local businesses (think Yelp) and any trafficked industry directories.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Pu1YWcIh04&feature=player_embedded
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Link Building
Social Bookmarking
Links from the majority of social bookmarking sites carry no value. Pointing a dozen of them at a page might not even be enough to get the page crawled.
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/50-social-bookmarking-sites-importance-of-user-generated-tags-votes-and-links/
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Link Building
Forums
Don’t – Find relevant forums and add random comments just for the purpose of adding text links
Example –
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Link Building
Profile SpamIt would be difficult for Google to take any harsh action on profiles, as there is a legitimate reason for reserving massive numbers of profiles to prevent squatters and imitators from using a brand name. What will hurt you is when your profile name and/or anchor text doesn't match your site or brand name.
Example –
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Link Building
Bait-and-switch
Don’t – Get a page indexed and ranked and then change the page entirely
Example - Clicking on a result in the SERP takes the user to a page that is completely different from the keywords used for searching and the description provided
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Link Building
Spam Blogs
Don’t – Blog using software that generates garbled text with keyword phrases for the sole purpose of getting visitors to click on ads.
Example – Caffeinating the Mountain Dew with MSG is a summer treat
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Link Building
Blog Spam or Comment Spam
Don’t – Automatically post links as comments on blogs to increase the number of inbound links.
Example – “Great Post! |kjl;djfgdfgm;jglp;d;”
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Link Building
Trackback Spam
Don’t – Abuse trackbacks with links to unrelated links on blogs
Example – [….] randomised keyword phrases related keyword more random keywords […]
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Link Building
Link Farms
Don’t – Seek links from or links to sites with unrelated or low quality content in an attempt to improve visibility in the SERPs
Example – A long list of unrelated links
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Link Building
Social Networking Spam
Don’t – Target demographics on social networking site and message people with advertisements
Example – “Visit example.com to see pics of me and my friends”
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Link Building
Fake Micro sites
Don’t – Build micro sites just for the purpose of building links to your website
Example – Creating a website on insulation and then linking it to your original website
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Link Building
Buying Authoritative Sites
Don’t – Buying websites that have a high page rank and SEO juice and building a backlink or redirecting to your website
Example – Buying a website on recruitment and then linking it to your original website
Link Building
If a link is easy to get, then it might not be worth having
Other ‘spamming’
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Link Building
Cloaking
Don’t – Present search engines with one set of content and site visitors with another, tricking visitors from search engines into experiencing a page of substantially different content
Example - A user searches for “happy octopus”, clicks on a search result which appears to be about sea creature psychology, and is greeted with pornography
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Link Building
Doorway or Gateway Pages
Don’t – Haphazardly stuff pages with keyword phrases with the primary goal of achieving a high ranking and then automatically redirect visitors to a separate page
Example - A page, filled with keyword phrases but little coherent content, that uses Javascript or a meta refresh tag to redirect visitors to a separate and potentially unrelated page
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Link Building
Unrelated Keywords
Don’t – Add irrelevant keywords to the copy for extra page hits
Example - Kanye West would use our Dyson vacuum cleaners if he owned cats
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Link Building
Keyword Stuffing
Don’t – Repeat keywords to the extent that it reads like gibberish in a sentence or image alt text
Example - “Picture frame picture frames pictures pictures pictures”
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Link Building
Tiny Text, Hidden Text & Hidden Links
Don’t – Pull illegible text at the bottom of the page, make the text the same colour as the background, or format text or images that are visually undetectable.
Example - “This is a short sentence full of illegible grey text”
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Link Building
Duplicate Content or Mirror Site
Don’t – Copy a substantial amount of content from another website, with or without permission.
Example – A website reprints an authoritative article found elsewhere to increase the number of visitors
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Link Building
Spam Ping
Don’t – Notify ping servers of new content several times per minute to give the illusion that content is new
Example –
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Link Building
Cybersquatting or Domain Squatting
Don’t – Register a domain with a trademarked word with the intent to profit off of the association
Example – juliaroberts.com was originally registered by Russell Boyd. It was later handed over to Julia Roberts after it was determined in court that Boyd registered and used the domain name in bad faith
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Link Building
Typosquatting or URL Hijacking
Don’t – Register a domain name that is a misspelled version of a popular website or a competitor in an attempt to mislead visitors.
Example – Whitehouse.com may confuse users who intend to visit whitehouse.gov
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Link Building
Google Bowling
Don’t – Deliberately build spammy links or websites for your competitors so they get hit
Example – We build links for porn websites or link farms and direct them to a competitor
Exercise: Put spam into Penguin and Panda penalties
Good Links
Link Building
Relevant & Contextual
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Link Building
Find what your competitors are doing
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Link Building
Local Directories
http://www.targetlocal.co.uk/uk-business-citation-list/
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Link Building
Review websites (Glassdoor)
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Link Building
http://www.modernmarketingpartners.com/top-20-free-infographic-directories-and-submission-tips/
Infographic sharing sites
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Link Building
http://piktochart.com/https://infogr.am/
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Link Building
Social sharing sites
Don’t buy fake followers
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Link Building
Create an information hub people where will naturally want to link to you
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Link Building
Guest posts/blogging
http://www.effectivebusinessideas.com/blogs-that-accept-guest-posts/
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Link Building
Find industry blogs
Exercise: Try and find some industry blogs/sites relevant to your website
Outreach
Link Building
Good Outreach = Good Relationships
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Link Building
As a contributor in the content marketing world, your goal should be to help others—because you know what a great gift that can be. As you become someone who’s known for that sort of behavior, others will recognize it and return the favor—and sometimes that can happen as quickly as after one email.
While it’s tempting to think that the goal of outreach is promotion, it’s not. One-off promotional bumps are good, but a lasting relationship that produces continual promotion is a hell of a lot better.
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Link Building
Never turn up to a party empty handed…. You will stop getting invited.
Have something to go with:
•Article•Video•Infographic•Stats•Information
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Link Building
Have something to go with:
Proprietary Data: If you have valuable content that nobody else has, then you immediately have value to someone else. Whether you’ve conducted a study, or analyzed some groundbreaking trends that can be published on someone else’s platform, proprietary data is a great way to break the ice.
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Link Building
Have something to go with:
Complementary Resources: If you can add value by bringing a something to the table that fleshes out someone else’s work, you can make yourself very appealing very quickly. Find people who are in like circles that makes lack some of the same resources that you do. Offer to complement their work, and they’ll be eternally grateful.
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Link Building
Have something to go with:
Unique Expertise: Everybody loves an expert opinion. If you’re an influencer or expert in your field who can offer and exclusive look or quote, people are going to jump all over that.
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Link Building
Have something to go with:
An Offer to Contribute: Sort of a hat-in-hand approach that says, “I’m willing to help where you need it.” People can appreciate having someone who’s simply looking out. From a guest blog to a shout out, every contribution counts.
Who should you contact?
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Link Building - Buzzsumo
http://buzzsumo.com/
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You may be able to get your message out to 10,000 people, but that person may not carry the same weight of influence with their following as someone with 1,000 followers.
Usually, the smaller the network, the more their followers trust them.
So while that doesn’t mean you should automatically trust someone who has a low number of followers, you may be surprised at how much influence they actually carry.
Quick Tips
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Link Building
Initiate contact before sending the email
Make your email about them –People want to receive “me-mail”, not “you-mail”.
Generic emails won’t cut it – bloggers get a lot of emails, yours needs to stand out.
Personalize your email – as a minimum you need to include the name of whom you’re contacting.
Personalize your subject line – adding the name in the subject line can work well.
Keep your emails succinct – droning on and on doesn’t help anyone.
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Link Building
Include an incentive – highlight what you can do for them.
Make your emails persuasive
Avoid mentioning SEO or link building – this is a serious red flag.
Keep your email relevant – emailing a travel blogger and mentioning poker won’t help.
Don’t send too many follow ups or get too pushy – being pushy or sending too many follow ups will usually result in hurting your reputation and being ignored.
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Link Building
http://blog.contentmarketer.io/outreach-emails/
https://moz.com/blog/outreach-letters-for-link-building-real-examples-14902
https://moz.com/blog/what-separates-a-good-outreach-email-from-a-great-one-whiteboard-friday
http://www.buzzstream.com/blog/the-3-ps-of-great-outreach-emails-personalized-positioned-and-persuasive.html
http://www.bloggingwizard.com/effective-blogger-outreach/
Get in touch
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Link Building
From there, it’s simply a matter of getting your foot in the door.
Use Social Media to compliment, shout-out, and give credit for influencers’ great work.
Start with a LinkedIn message, or an email. If you can’t find that information, then it’s as simple as a mention on Twitter or tag on Facebook. It might take a little more effort to get their attention that way—depending on their following. Perseverance is the key.
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Link Building
If you want meaningful relationships, you need to reach out long before there’s a need.
Never reach out expecting something straight away, you wouldn’t do that face-to-face, so why do it online?
Build relationships well before you need to start building links
Help to be helpful, the rest will come in due time.
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Link Building
You aren’t necessarily going to form a relationship after your first cold email. You need to maintain contact, reach out over a long period of time, and keep on top of each individual relationship.
The key is to stay on top of your outreach efforts, so that you’re not barraging people with emails, and also not leaving them in a pile beneath your inbox.
Majestic SEO
Types of Links
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Link Building
Follow Versus No Follow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6n5Kkxpr8w
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Link Building
Follow Versus No Follow
Trust & Citation Flow
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With the extinction of Google PageRank, the secondary metrics matters a lot. Metrics like Domain authority, Trust flow, and citation flow are becoming the ranking factors in Google.
The sites like Moz and MajesticSEO are great at ranking and determining the authority of the sites or blogs. You can’t just easily trick these metrics, like that of Google PageRank.
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Link Building
Citation Flow = Quantity
A metric designed to predict how influential a link in a site might be, by considering the links pointing to it. It does not bother about the quality of links. If there are more domains pointing to a blog post, then the more influential it is.
Influential means:The capacity of your site or blog, to have an impact on the readers of your blog or those who are interested in your niche.
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Link Building
Trust Flow = Quality
A metric designed to decide how trustworthy the link is. Based on the quality of backlinks pointing to the site.
If there are authoritative, trustworthy backlinks to a site, then the greater is the trust flow.
The trust flow of almost every site or link is less than the citation flow. Why?
In simple words, there is less chance of getting all high-quality backlinks. Hence, trust flow cannot overtake citation in most of the times.
Link Building
Trust flow to be at least half of your citation flow
Link Building
Rank= relevant + authority + trust
Anchor Text
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Link Building
• Brand Name - The brand name is the anchor text, e.g. Giant Bicycles
• Branded - The brand was included in the anchor text (these did not include anchors that were the brand name), e.g. this cool company, Razoo
• Keyword Branded - The anchor text combined a keyword (exact/phrase/partial match) and the Brand Name, e.g. a ton of motorcycle helmets at Dennis Kirk
• Exact Match - The anchor text exactly matches a keyword, e.g. Downhill Bike
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Link Building
• Phrase - The anchor text contained a keyword phrase or partial match anchor text, e.g. the monthly mountain bike magazine I get
• Random - The anchor text does not contain the brand or any keywords (or partial keywords), e.g.this website
• URL - There were no actual anchors, it was just a URL, e.g. http://www.malibuboats.com
Link Building
7:3 ratio of non-targeted: targeted
anchor text
(targeted anchor text refers to exact match anchors and phrase while non targeted anchor text is everything else)
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Targeted Vs Non-Targeted
Exact matchPhrase
Brand NameBrandedKeyword BrandedRandomURL
3:7
Which page to link to?
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The most relevant page for that article/keyword/website
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket – don’t just link to the root domain, sub-domain, etc
Pigeon
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Link Building
Think about localised link building
• Local directories• Local Blogs• Local charities/causes/communities• Google+ pages• Create a community resource• Build local relationships• Link to branch pages on website
https://moz.com/blog/11-ways-local-businesses-can-get-links
https://moz.com/blog/5-link-building-tactics-to-improve-your-local-rankings
Removing bad links
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Link Building
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=393nmCYFRtA
Thank you