Archive for the ‘Link Building’ Category

Ctrl F it: Making Google Work for You

January 16th, 2013 posted by Michele 12:08PM | View Full Story

It’s no secret that humans are skimmers. Every high school student knows of Sparknotes and anytime research happens, the ‘Ctrl F’ function is certainly used. This quick skimming makes us more efficient and maximizes what we can do in a day…what if you could do the same for your clients?

Turns out, you can. With Google Alerts and Google Analytics Intelligence Alerts, you can essentially have Google skim the web and your client’s analytics so that your time is maximized and your internet marketing is awesome.

Google Alerts

Google Alerts are easy to set up and are a way to receive notifications about what’s happening online that may influence your client positively or negatively. Based on the info you put in to the alert setup, Google will mine the web for searches that match what you’re looking for and send you an email with the findings.

My top Google Alerts are:

brand name
backlinks
local news
industry news

To set these up, simply log in to your gmail and go to http://www.google.com/alerts. You’ll see

For nearly all my alerts, I keep the the last four boxes the same.

For ‘Results type,’ I want to know Everything.

For ‘How often’ I vary between the Once a day option and the As it Happens option; pick whichever one works best for you time management and workflow.

For ‘How many,’ I started my alerts with the All Results option but this can quickly get overwhelming. If you are getting too many notifications, selecting the option of Only the Best Results will still provide a plethora of knowledge.

Brand name alerts – these let you monitor when your client’s name is mentioned on the web. Use your client’s brand name as the ‘Search query.’ This is great when it comes to reaching out for link building, industry partnerships or staying on top of your client’s online brand appearance.

Backlinks alerts – these keep you on top of your client’s link profile on the web. Set these up by entering link:www.yourclientswebsite.com in the ‘Search query’ box.

Local news alerts – these alerts are great for local clients and can help you capitalize on timely, local happenings to benefit your client. Set these up by adding location:yourtargetlocation in the ‘Search query’ box along with any keywords for your client’s industry. You’ll also want to set the ‘Result Type’ to News.
Industry news alerts – these won’t work for all clients but if your client is in a competitive industry, these alerts work to let you know what’s new and going on with that industry. Add one of your keywords or products to the ‘Search query’ box, set the ‘Result Type’ to news and you’ll be alerted of the news for that keyword or product.

The industry news alert is also a great way to help your client become an industry leader in a topic by reading and commenting on relevant blog posts. If you’re looking to get your client more involved with his industry’s online community, set this alert to have a question in the ‘Search query’ box; this will notify you when new discussions that are relevant to your client’s industry begin so you can contribute with helpful knowledge and facts.

Google Analytics Intelligence Alerts

I love these alerts! They are extremely useful for staying on top of all your client’s Google Analytics on a daily basis.

My top alerts in GA are:

Unusually high traffic
Unusually low traffic
Dead site
Dead PPC

Set these up by logging in to your Google Analytics account, go to the Admin tab then select ‘Custom Alert’s

Next, you’re going to want to decide when you want to be alerted. For my favorites I have:

Unusual high traffic and Unusual low traffic tracking ‘All Traffic’ to alert me when ‘Visits’ increase or decrease, respectively, by more than 20-50% when compared to the same day in the previous week. You can pick the percentage as you become more familiar with a client and also determine which timescale comparison makes the most sense for that site. The ‘Condition’ drop down gives you more options than just percentage changes too. This is a great way to track large traffic spikes or drops as they happen so you can analyze what caused the major change.

Dead site alerts me when ‘Visits’ of ‘All Traffic’ are less than 1, literally if the site is dead.

Dead PPC applies only to PPC traffic when visits are less than 1. For this, follow the screenshot below to capture all forms of paid traffic and use ^(cpc|ppc|cpm|cpv|cpa|cpp)$ as the input for ‘Value’:

Once you have the alerts that you like set up, you can apply them across profiles in your account. For example, my ‘Dead PPC’ alert is assigned to all my clients running PPC. You’ll get a daily email near the end of the day with the results of which profiles matched the alert conditions.

I hope that helps make your analyzing quicker and allows you to do more with less time by making Google do the majority of the hunting and alerting for you!

Tags: custom alerts, google alerts, google analtyics intelligence alerts
Posted in Analytics, Google, Link Building, Pay Per Click, SEO 2 Comments »

2 Comments

10 Examples of Great Link Bait and How They Succeeded

December 12th, 2012 posted by Adrienne Wolter 12:08PM | View Full Story

In a time when content is king, you could say that link bait is emperor. Link bait is any piece of content that is specifically designed to get people to share it across social channels and link to it on their own blogs or websites. Common qualities of successful link bait are usefulness, timeliness, visuals, or humor. Well-designed and distributed link bait can dramatically boost your website’s traffic, social presence, and interaction.

Today we’re going to look at ten successful examples of link bait; the first five from the world of internet marketing, and then five that are of interest to a broader audience, proof that link bait can be very successful outside of the marketing realm.

The Beginner’s Guide to SEO

Social Shares: 1564 likes, 2599 tweets, 528 +1s
Linking Domains: 2405

Though being published by SEOmoz gave this example a bit of a leg up on the competition, The Beginner’s Guide to SEO is still a great example of link bait that has been wildly successful. It is the first organic result for many Google searches such as “seo for beginners” and strives to be THE resource for anyone starting out with SEO. Many other guides (including others that I will list) link to it. It is successful not just because it is on the SEOmoz website, but also because it is all-encompassing (breaking different categories into individual chapters), illustrates its points with images and is evergreen – it is frequently updated to represent changes in the industry.

The Noob Guide to Online Marketing

Social Shares: 393 likes, 2665 tweets, 131 +1s
Linking Domains: 287

Okay, one more example from SEOmoz, then we’ll look elsewhere. Originally a guest post for the YouMoz blog, this enormous post is a clear piece of link bait. It features not only one of the largest infographics ever (15 million pixels!), but also a six month internet marketing course and links to further resources. To top it off, everything is presented in simple formatting and lists, with bold graphics and links to further tools. All of these things make it an attractive resource that inspires readers to share the knowledge.

Copyblogger’s Codex of Online Marketing

Social Shares: 56 likes, 687 tweets, 90 +1s
Linking Domains: 110

For this guide, Copyblogger took 52 posts they already had and compiled them into a readily-linkable free course on content marketing that covers all bases. If you want to learn about content marketing, this is where you should go to start. It is successful link bait because it’s a great resource, gives beginners a solid foundation, and is just a ton of information all gathered into one convenient place.

Link Building Strategies: The Complete List

Social Shares: 292 likes, 1412 tweets, 659 +1s
Linking Domains: 228

This post is one of Point Blank SEO’s most popular articles. It is the “complete” list of link building strategies, with dozens of different ideas explained in detail. With such an all-encompassing guide, who would bother trying to compete? Why recreate the wheel? Just link to this, instead. It is successful link bait because it lists a huge number of ideas, is sortable and provides resources for many of the ideas. On top of all that, when it was first posted there was a contest to come up with more ideas, inspiring visiting SEOs to contribute further strategies in the comments.

SEO Guide to Creating Viral Linkbait and Infographics

Social Shares: 129 likes, 967 tweets, 342 +1s
Linking Domains: 205

What link bait list would be complete without a post about link bait? This massive guide features an A to Z list of link bait tactics, several videos, a downloadable PDF workbook, and advice for researching, creating and distributing viral link bait. It’s another one of those “ultimate guide” type resources that continue earning links long after their original publication.

Is Nate Silver a Witch?

Social Shares: 17722 likes, 5614 tweets, 166 +1s
Linking Domains: 116

Microsites are often link bait by definition, completely focused on one subject or call to action. This example asks if Nate Silver is a witch, and answers in huge letters (since the election): PROBABLY. It succeeds for its conciseness, timeliness, and humor.

100 Ways to Conserve Water

Social Shares: 2331 likes, 1211 tweets, 12 +1s
Linking Domains: 596

Water Use It Wisely compiled this list of 112 ways to conserve water. The website is visually appealing with its blue and beige color scheme. The list itself is enormous, but each tip is just one or two lines in length – they are brief, simple to understand, and easy to apply. No wonder it has been shared so widely!

War Casualties

Social Shares: 9871 likes, 955 tweets, 16 +1s
Linking Domains: 176

War Casualties shows two interactive maps of the casualties of the War on Terror: on the right is a map of where the deaths occurred abroad and the left side contains a map of the soldiers’ hometowns. Its stark black and white maps get the message across; as it loads, it drops the points of interest on the map one at a time, giving you a strong impression of the magnitude of the growing death toll. It is good link bait because of its simple nature and interactive features. It is a very accurate visualization of the toll of war on our country, so it is surely widely cited.

“1945–1998” by Isao Hashimoto

Social Shares: 1274 likes, 7627 tweets, 45 +1s
Linking Domains: 330

This video, by the artist Isao Hashimoto and created for CTBTO (the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization), maps out in time-lapse all 2053 nuclear test explosions between 1945 and 1998. Though it is now several years out-of-date, many still link to it because it gives such a global picture of nuclear testing. As link bait it succeeds because the information is useful and difficult to find all in one place, and the video is somewhat hypnotic (showing a month per second, counting up the number of tests per country).

National Public Toilet Map

Social Shares: 912 likes, 243 tweets, 10 +1s
Linking Domains: 733

Though this is a map intended for Australians (I tried to find one for the US, but there is no similar project here that seems to be as complete – hint, hint), it is great link bait because it is useful to anyone with a bladder (read: everyone). It taps into Google Maps’ API in order to create an interactive map that pinpoints the exact location of public restrooms across the country.

Tags: linkbait
Posted in Link Building 7 Comments »

7 Comments

4 Eternal Truths about SEO

July 12th, 2012 posted by Quincy 12:08PM | View Full Story

In an industry where change is the only reliable constant, it’s nice to know there are a few things we can rely on…

1. The Human Audience Will Always Be The Most Important

This seems like a no brainer, but anyone with experience in search engine optimization (SEO) knows that sometimes it’s easy to forget this major detail once you’ve launched yourself head first into a campaign. But don’t forget. Don’t lose focus. Always remember that your targeted audience is composed of actual humans, not the search engines you’re trying to rank highly in—and this will NEVER change.

The Good News: More than likely the work you’re doing to rank high in the search engines will also be beneficial marketing for your audience.

2. Links Will Always Play a Part in the Rankings

Computers are awesome, but let’s be honest—how is a computer supposed to determine what website is the most authoritative on a specific topic? The answer is links. If websites were people, inbound links would be like votes for Homecoming King and Queen. Search engines see these links and determine the most “popular” websites for the SERPs. While this aspect of SEO is definitely evolving at a rapid pace, it’s around to stay for a long time.

The Good News: Search engines are becoming better at determining whether a link is spam or not. So for those who work hard to create quality links, it’s a win-win situation.

3. You Can’t Optimize Website Content, If the Text Doesn’t Exist.

Even though the web is constantly evolving, text is still a part of every search—even when the search is for a picture or video. It seems like a given, then, that quality content will always be an important factor in determining rankings. Don’t try to ignore it. If you want your site to perform well, do your homework and create quality content, because I can guarantee the search engines are reading it.

The Good News: Why on earth would you want to have bad content on your website? That just seems silly, since your target audience will be reading it, too. This is one of those instances where what you’re doing to rank well in the search engines will also be beneficial to your audience.

4. You will never REALLY know exactly how Google works.

Surprise, surprise! Do you really expect this to ever change? Google averages one algorithm change a day, making the world of SEO that much more fascinating. And just for fun, Google will come out with exciting, new updates to change the game up a little. Panda. Penguin. You know what I’m talking about.

The Good News: You don’t want to know Google’s exact algorithm, because I can guarantee that if you do, so do all of your competitors. If everyone knew exactly what to do to rank #1, websites would become so manipulated that search engines would quickly become useless to the users.

So there you have it. There are a few things we can count on to always be true, even in an industry that thrives on constant change. What are your thoughts on these “eternal” truths—agree or disagree? Leave a comment with your thoughts!

Posted in General, Google, Internet, Link Building, Marketing, Search Engine, Search Engine Optimization, SEO 6 Comments »

6 Comments

I Get By With A Little Help from My Memes

May 24th, 2012 posted by Shane Jones 12:08PM | View Full Story

As the world of internet marketing gets increasingly competitive, those who are in the field grow ever more creative with new tactics and outreach. One of the more recent attempts of content Marketing is definitely here to stay. But that doesn’t mean it always has to come in the most educated form. SEO Evangelists like Rand Fishkin are always touting the importance of inbound marketing – creating amazing blog posts packed with information and how-to’s or infographics full of stats and facts that will make us all more educated. But I prefer a good laugh. And whether you feel the same way or not, you may still be interested in how Meme Marketing can be both fun and valuable.

This post will explain exactly what Memetic Marketing is and how you can leverage it to improve your online brand and drastically increase the web traffic to your site.

What Is A Meme?

The term meme was coined by author, Richard Dawkins, in 1976, and is one that has been used loosely over the years. It’s thought of as a new phenomenon by most users of the internet, but the concept of memes has actually been around for centuries.

By definition a meme is simply an idea that spreads from person to person within a culture. An internet meme is one that is only propagated through the World Wide Web.

Internet users may think of memes as just a series of clever images with funny captions, but they can be a phrase, an image or symbol that represents an idea. We recognize the
Dos Equis’ Most Interesting Man Meme instantly, but Memes can exist in other forms. For instance, the term “Got Milk?” was used at the forefront of many a joke throughout the 90s. In fact, it’s even made it as its own Internet meme!

Why Memes Work

Since the inception of meme marketing, creative marketers have recognized the power of memes as a way to produce a buzz around a particular brand. This technique has progressed onto the internet as online marketers found ways to utilize them as linkbait. But why are they so successful? There are three specific reasons:

1.Memes are inherently social. They cause individuals to interact and react. They appeal to an emotional stimulus. People constantly want to share them.

2. Memes are addictive. Individuals have a hard time ignoring them. You constantly hear references being made to them in conversation and they harvest desire in viewers to create their own.

3. Memes match social trends. They reflect and prey upon the trends and fads of today, allowing for a marketing campaign to shape the current moods of the public.

How to be Successful

Creating a meme about your own company for marketing can provide a ton of benefit, but a poorly thought out effort can also do damage. Here are a few things to keep in mind when creating your own meme marketing strategy:

Connect and Relate to Your Audience

Get to know your audience because in order for a meme to be successful, you must appeal to a smaller audience willing to spread the word and share your meme. By engaging your audience more, the memes you create are much more likely to be socially friendly and will improve the sharing rate and popularity of the meme.

Follow the Conversation

Keep track of the various life stages of your meme. Notice the changes in discussion by those who share your meme and you will be able to make your meme marketing strategy stand the test of time. It’s essential that the idea behind your meme goes beyond exposure and that readers understand the purpose of it. For example, the “Got Milk?” campaign wasn’t created to be the brunt of many jokes or to be made into t-shirts. It was created by the California Milk Processor Board to promote the consumption of milk.

You will also learn who the strongest advocates of your meme are. Target them, expand on their effort, and embrace their passion — you’ll see future benefit from it.

Strive to Be Unique and Creative

The beauty of memes is that you can republish various forms of a meme and at a very low cost. But the difficulty lies in the ability to cut through the clutter and stand out among the rest. This is significantly harder if you are recycling older memes. Strive to be creative, clever and witty throughout your marketing strategy. Keep in mind that due to these recycled memes previous acceptance, you must adapt your strategy to blend with its community so that you do not receive backlash.

Using Communities to Your Advantage

Here is where the real benefits of meme marketing kick in for your website.

Building a Brand

If you create a meme that is successful enough, individuals will recognize your brand. Meme marketing also has the power to make a dull brand seem exciting. Check out Wonderful Pistachios depiction of the Honey Badger.

Increasing Web Traffic

With meme marketing, community acceptance is everything. So it’s no surprise that websites can gain exposure and drastically increase traffic through the use of online community networks. Make sure you use all of your resources to ensure that your content can be seen by many and shared conveniently. Place your content on niche sites, and actively participate in the discussion surrounding them in order to bring focus back to the things that you have posted. Meme marketing has seen the most success through the online communities of Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest, 4chan, Fark, Cliché, Something Awful, Funny or Die and Boxnutt.

Proof Of Success:

In my own practices of meme marketing, I published a post consisting solely of memes on my soccer blog, and then shared it with the Reddit community. In just over three hours, this post on my small blog received 608 views. A typical post only gets about 80 viewers a day. This clear jump in traffic can mean only one thing, online marketing memes are #winning!

Just for fun…Here’s a WebpageFX Meme…

Tags: meme, meme marketing, traffic, web traffic
Posted in General, Link Building, Marketing 1 Comment »

1 Comment

An SEO Love Affair with Content Marketing

February 15th, 2012 posted by Shane Jones 12:08PM | View Full Story

Considering the spirit of love floating around with this week’s Valentine’s Day festivities, and perhaps just a hint of animosity many of us single people feel this time of year, I began to ponder where my emotions lie. To no surprise, I ended up thinking of SEO. And it made me realize my own budding love worth celebrating on this oh-so-special day: my love affair with content marketing. Unfortunately for me, I’m not the only one fighting for this love. The whole SEO community seems to have recently realized their newfound love for this marketing strategy. Here’s why…

Content Marketing’s Love Lasts

As a link builder, I’m all too familiar with the concept of link rot. In fact, 6% of the web’s links are broken. Quite frankly, I’m surprised it’s not more than that. But a great deal of link rot is relatable to the quality and type of links built by SEOs. Poor quality links tend to go away quickly.

In the SEO world, content has become the greatest divider between the amateurs and professionals. Content marketing is becoming the center of inbound marketing strategy and a tool for all facets of a campaign including branding, search, social and more. It’s the most sustainable long-term strategy in inbound marketing and it likewise helps boost other factors such as customer loyalty (retention) and conversion.

A content strategy (blogs, case studies, webinars, podcasts, infographics, etc.) allows a brand to illustrate its personality and culture, establish a presence as an expert on given topics, address the needs of viewers and capitalize on the latest trends and biggest news stories. All of these help create an intimate, genuine connection with their followers that is otherwise hard to achieve.

These followers are going to play a big role in your content campaign as well! Links surrounded by quality content will gain more attention and inherently attract more social sharing. All of those tweets, emails and shares become very valuable and drive a ton of traffic.

Why Content Makes A Difference via Google’s Algorithm

Content strategy isn’t just some newfound discovery, shattering the world of SEO as we know it. Google started out with search exclusively focused as a content based index that would allow you to search via a single keyword. Since that inception, Google has introduced new signals related to content and keywords that provide for even more accurate search results. But while Google employs these for better results, it seems to have distracted SEOs from the realization that content is still king. Instead, SEOs obsess over building massive amounts of low quality links even though they can rot away in a matter of months.

While Google does love content, there is still a gap of understanding that the search engine hasn’t bridged: understanding the meaning behind the words. They provide excellent query responses based on keywords in a phrase or the site’s authority for those topics, but ultimately, they lack understanding. In a Mashable Interview, Google software engineer, Amit Singhal, confesses Google’s search can only “cross their fingers and hope someone on the web has written about these things or topics” and hopefully that content contains the keywords and authority required to populate in the SERPs.

For example, while Google may find relevant results for the terms “Star Wars”, it doesn’t necessarily understand that Star Wars is a movie series, released on a certain date, by a certain director. It only realizes that it is different from the terms ‘Star’ and ‘Wars.’

These Times They Are A Changing

To make up for this lack of understanding search queries, Google, always the innovator, wants to revolutionize our expectations of search, taking results beyond keywords and links, into a realm of intelligence and meaning. Google aims to categorize content on the web and associate it with relative attributes, just as your brain naturally does. When these changes occur, Google search will understand what each object is and what you should know about that entity.

In order for Google to carry out these aspirations in having its search engine think just like the human brain, it appears they will have to adventure into the engineering world of artificial intelligence. This doesn’t imply that robots dressed as Arnold Schwarzenegger will attempt to take over our world, but it does mean we have a lot to look forward to. The first steps towards helping Google build what it refers to as the “Knowledge Graph” is through high quality content marketing.

So now that Valentine’s Day is over and all the romance has dropped from our lives again, maybe it’s time to focus on the love that will last — the love between an SEO and Content Marketing. It may lack a little luster, but I’m sure things will pick up if the Terminator does decide to make a comeback with the Google brand on its chest.

Tags: blogging, content marketing, link building, seo
Posted in General, Google, Link Building, Marketing 4 Comments »

4 Comments