Who Knew Martha Stewart Was A Link Building Role Model?

If you’re planning to attend Search Marketing Expo East 2008 in New York October 6-8th, stop by one of the linking sessions and say hello.

I'll be on three panels; Link Building Bootcamp, External Linking Tactics and Tools Glorious Tools where I'll be doing what else... link tools!

If you still need to register I’d be more than happy to share my SMX Speakers’ discount which is $150 off the all-access pass. Whoo hoo!! Just holler!

That's right, a clear no link required freebie. No request for a link, no requirement for anchor text. Just a promo code for $150 bucks. Unlike our friends at Martha Stewart.com, we're not asking for a thing in order to get the freebie.

Isn't that great? Yeah we know the freebie isn't coming out of our pockets but we didn't have to mention it now did we.

I mean, answering all that email and sending out the promo code will take a ton of time but hey, that's ok with us! Even though time is money we're going to smile smile smile and email along because we're hoping our karma attracts lots of quality inbound links to this blog.

Aren't we the best? Time to go and play on twitter, see you around SMX East!

Cover Your Link Ass et

There's been a couple of articles written on what to look for when hiring a link builder, one was done by my good friend Justilien Gaspard and the other by Sugarrae. Both give excellent practical advice to follow if you're hiring someone/firm to do your link work....

The rest of this article has been moved to the new link building blog on Alliance-Link. It can be found here  https://www.alliance-link.com/link-building-blog/

All Hail The Dot co.uk Link - Or Not?

I talked with Dixon Jones from Receptional yesterday, Dixon lives "across the pond" and is someone I chat with frequently about link building and life in general.

It's always interesting to hear what fellow linkers are noticing and watching, especially those from other countries. There are subtle differences in linking tactics and approach based on cultural customs and engine variations so I'm always looking to pick up a tip or get input on things when they fall outside my native comfort zone.

I pinged Dixon to get his opinion on using dot com's versus country TLD's and because I thought his answer had a lot of great info in it and might benefit someone else, asked him for permission to reprint our conversation. He said OK so here goes...

debra: ....do you think it's better/more advantageous for a business in the UK to use a dot com? Or use a dot co.uk? How's that affect link building?

Dixon: When I read that question first, I thought you asked what was more "adventurous" rather than what was more "advantageous" - which is interesting, because the two words probably give me different thoughts.

Debra: Yeah well, sorry, my spelling sucks and I probably typed "adventurous" instead of "advantageous". Or maybe my subconscious is trying to tell me something. ;)- So what you think, dot com or dot co.uk?

Dixon: The absolute safe thing (SEOwise) for a UK company with a UK client base to do is to use a .co.uk domain hosted on a UK based webserver - then they should 301 redirect the .com domain to the .co.uk. However - this isn't my preferred approach - more about my preference later.

debra: How much later? I have to go get the kids from school soon.

Dixon: Later as in two seconds while I type this. I can't go but so fast.

debra: Ah. Sorry. Again.

Dixon: There are some really important pre-requisites here. The first is that you shouldn't even start if you do not own the .com domain AND the .co.uk. use a domain where you can control both if you can. If you do not, then there is a very real risk that the other TLD is taken and used in a similar way confusing your customers and the very least and having someone profiteering off of your brand at the very worst.

There are many .co.uk domains available where the .com is taken, and there is a tendency to jump on these. Before buying one, check that the .com owner is established in a different business and certainly not likely to be mistaken for you. Sometimes things happen the other way around. When I started out, I bought dixonjones.com ... but I was a poor man, and the .co.uk was cheaper. Unfortunately, dixonjones.co.uk was taken. Now there is a company of several hundred architects presumably kicking themselves for not buying the .com. (If they had at least thanked me for redirecting their misguided emails for 8 years I might care, but not even a Christmas card so far)

debra: Well that's pretty rude of them. Want me to point some links at them and....

Dixon: No no no. Anyway... The real key for Google last time I looked was where the server is hosted - not the domain name itself. I suspect that this may be changing over time, but the "adventurous" route is not to 301 the .co.uk to the .com, but rather to use the .com HOSTED ON A UK SERVER (very important) and then 301 the .co.uk onto it. This gives you a much better grounding on which to go global. Because let's face it - adventurous is nothing if not about expanding in the future.

debra: All that redirecting and being adventurous makes my head hurt.

(Inserted: Dixon ignores me here and keeps typing)

Another reason for needing both TLDs is that people in the UK certainly do assume a url and type it in. They are as likely to make a mistake using .com instead of .co.uk as they are the other way around.

debra: Yeah, using the dot com is easier and less typing. Glad to know people are lazy everywhere not just here in Virginia.

debra: So how do you determine where a site is hosted? Have a tool for this lazy person?

Dixon: If anyone needs to know where a site is hosted, there are a few tools - one is at http://geobytes.com/IpLocator.htm. You first need to ping the domain (which I do from the DOS/CMD window) "ping http://www.domain.com/" to get the IP number of the site. And for the record, Geobytes isn't mine.

###

Good information as usual, thanks for the input Dixon.

It's Prime Time To Get A Video Link

I've been following the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike since an old high school friend is a member. She's been writing for a popular police drama for a number of years now so I set my alert services to bring back tidbits on the strike and her writing group in particular.

This morning I got an alert from the Center for Media Research with a survey recap from the Online Testing Exchange with some interesting numbers as they relate to the way people will watch TV (or not) as the strike goes on.

Seems 44% of the people surveyed stated they'll continue to watch their favorite show even if they're repeats and 26% said they'd probably watch more reality TV since those types of shows aren't likely to be affected by the strike. (I love you Simon!)

But the most interesting number IMO was this one:

16% said they'll watch more original content on the Internet as a way to keep themselves entertained during the strike.

The OTX only surveyed 3100 people for this opinion poll but still...... 496 of them said they'll go online for original content. The fact they KNOW to go online means they're already aware it's there and will just do more of it. Don't let the statistic fool you, that little drop in the bucket represents a huge possibility if you think about the millions of people with Internet access.

If you've thought about creating a video now might be the time to get it going. With universal search the topic du jour and the writers strike possibly re-channeling people online, you stand a pretty good chance of being seen -- and linked to.

Get A Free Link By Doing Someone Else's Work

The nice people at the Business Seek Directory have come up with a smart way to police their directory and spread a little linkcheer at the same time.

Find a Dead Link Offer:

Find a dead link on BusinessSeek.biz in your own category or any other category or article and we will provide you with a Sponsored Listing for a six month period free of charge.

Not a bad deal for a couple minutes work, I'll take the bait.

Thanks BusinessSeek and hat tip eKstreme

.EDU Links and the Maytag Repairman.

I live about 25 minutes outside of Richmond and travel up there a good bit to shop and work. When I read today that Richmond native Clay Jackson had been picked to be Maytag's company spokesperson (translation - the new MayTag Repairman) - I thought YEAH! Local man makes good. Cool.

I poked around the website MayTag used to launch and chronicle the search and hiring of their new repairman and was struck by its overall marketing and link potential. It was that employment blog that led me to think about jobs and job training which led to thinking about schools which of course made me think about edu links.

Whether you're a virtual or bricks & mortar company, offering information on your website about the job training programs you offer can attract people and links. Include detailed information on the training classes you're offering, job training requirements and any Federal and State regulations there might be to cover all the bases on your particular industry. Training is a hot topic and often cited as a resource when journalists are covering stories on the employment outlook in your niche. Make your site the resource they turn to when they're looking for factual and trend information.

Job training programs and their outlines are also eagerly sought after by high schools, community colleges, vocational schools, universities and teachers in general.

You'll need to be pro-active in contacting these opportunities as they typically don't have the time or resources to seek you out. Follow an online introduction with an offline brochure for added credibility and include references to any local students currently employed by your firm.

Once you think about how you can use your job training programs to secure quality links, it's easy to expand and develop programs for job fairs and your basic job opportunities as well. Job fair information is always welcome at places like your state and local employment commissions, Veteran Affairs offices, Chamber of Commerce and industry associations. While you may not always net a clean link from these government entities (although sometimes you will!), you'll definitely get a lot of eyeballs.

Getting Clean Links From NoFollow Lemons

I was just as dismayed as the next link builder when places like the Wikipedia, del.icio.us and YouTube decided to turn all their outbound links pink by adding nofollows. I had spent a good deal of time getting some of them placed and thought – oh well, there goes the neighborhood.

But! After thinking about it a bit I decided if I couldn’t get the juice from the link I’d focus on getting the link to the juice.

As a link builder it’s my job to find the best sites to secure links from. I’m after topically relevant, reputation heavy, growth oriented sites that host my demographic. Basically – popular sites in a given niche. If I find those top sites are using nofollow I'll still utter a curse word or two but it won't stop me from going after the link.

Why? There’s a very high probability the demographic frequenting the site will click through to mine because they trust the host site and assume any link they offer has to be relevant. It also doesn't hurt that I'll use the most alluring anchor text I can think of to further entice people to click. Once they land on your site it's up to you to do everything in your power to capture their information and attention.

With emphasis on their information. If you’re establishing new links, point them to pages with special offers and free giveaways that require registration to download. Give away whitepapers, discount coupons, survey results, newsletter memberships… anything with a perceived value that allows you to capture an email address.

This also works for established links now color coded pink. Change the content on the destination page and include the special offers. Once you have the email address, develop a link incentive and send it back to those people who downloaded your info. They took the first step in showing you they liked what they saw and wanted more info so follow-up with another offer and request to link. People link with sites they like or make them look good so take time to develop an incentive that’s mutually beneficial.

Just because someone found your site through a nofollow link doesn't mean they won't link to you using a clean one. You just need to find out who they are and then do the follow-up.

photo from http://wendyboucher.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2006/09/lemonade0001art006.JPG

Interesting Links.

Some interesting link related tidbits from around Internet Land...





Have a beef with your beer boss?

Use YouTube to get the word out. Personally I think it should be against the law to give a webcam to whiney people. http://www.churchofthecustomer.com/blog/2007/03/miller_brewing_.html
(Sidenote) If they were Anheuser-Busch employees that video would have a link at the end pointing people to a well crafted landing page asking for donations toward their retirement fund. ;)-

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A post on the HR Forum asks - Are there any specific tips on getting edu sites to link to my site?

My buddy Randy Cullom responds: How to get .edu links? Have a site with subject matter that appeals to the education market. Without this connection as a reason for them to link to your site you're basically SOL. As to whether .edu's carry any special weight, we've discussed 'em around here a few times before. The short answer is: No they don't carry any magic link juice. Their magic, if you want to call it that, is they're usually very large, very diverse, usually decent quality sites that attract a lot of links from other diverse, quality sites. In other words, it's not the .edu TLD that carries any extra weight. It's the fact that they're high quality sites, just like you can find in .com's, .net's and every other TLD.
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Google's released a new patent application..

Here's some interesting info on how they may determine the quality score of a blog. Bill Slawski has done his usual great job picking apart the patent application and highlighted some of the more interesting parts, here's a few:

Number of times search terms appear in a blog post.

Places where search terms appear within the document (such as title or the text within the body of the post),

Characteristics of search terms appearing on thepages (such as font, size, color, etc.),

Search terms may be weighted differently from other search term when multiple search terms are present.

Proximity of search terms when multiple search terms are present may influence the IR score, and;

Other techniques for determining the IR score for a document can also be used.

Reading through the criteria I was struck by how similar sounding some is to a previous patent app that made the rounds a while back.

http://www.seobythesea.com/?p=541

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Calling all Nine Inch Nail Lovers...

Talk about thinking outside the box to promote your product! Not sure I want to use anything I found hidden in a restroom but hey - the rest is pretty damn interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Zero_(album)

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A number of new direstories have been added to ISEdb.com. Might find one to add your site to.

http://www.isedb.com/html/Web_Directories/Specialty_Directories/

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The art of *nicheyness*.

http://www.dogster.com/ http://nurselinkup.com/ http://www.momcafe.com and http://www.eons.com
It's no surprise these niche sites are popping up given the success of "general" networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. Since they're still new and relatively small, it would be a good time to build a profile and get involved as well as buy ad space.

Although MomCafe isn't just for breakfast anymore..... "The site has around 100,000 registered users and is expected to do 20 million page views in March, up from 1.8 million in December 2006."

Power to the soccer moms!

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Link Forum

I pop around to the various link marketing related blogs, forums, elance and techie sites a couple times a week to see what's going on in link marketing land. With so many resources to keep up with it's almost gotten as time consuming as link builidng itself!

I've pulled together a number of informative posts, articles and stories from these sources and will continue to do so as I find them. My formatting is a little off so patience as I work on it to be sure everyone gets proper credit for saying their piece. Here's what's up:

http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=45325

"Imagine how much effort has been devoted to generating links.... it would probably pay off the US National Debt."
Debra : LOL...

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http://www.seorefugee.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5011&page=2
"I do not think that directories per se are being devalued by Google merely by the fact of them being directories. Instead what I see is a ton of people attempting to build fly by night directories, inflate their value by renting a few high powered links, and then once they have sold their slots dropping the link rentals. Even though the PR of those directories stays until the next PR update, whatever value they had is of course lost once the links are no longer pointing at them. Since the practice is widespread, it does give the appearance of directories in general losing their value. "

Debra: Agree about the directories not being devalued because of what they ARE. Just by what their silly owners DO.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showpost.php?p=9697&postcount=2 ..."The slick part is getting other people to put your articles with a link to you on their sites. Getting them to do it for free is time consuming and gives you no guarantee of anyone doing it or anyone keeping doing it. It does work, but in my experience not as well or as cheaply as just finding and renting the links you want. Making this the least slickest way I'll post here."

Debra: The slickest way to build links is to have other people do it for you. ;)

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http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help-Indexing/msg/33b3dbdfaba936b1

"Perhaps Google took a second look at your inbound links. 100 links to 50 pages is not enough, especially when most of them are from DMOZ clones or ugly dynamic (forum) URLs. These links don't carry weight. Get more related links from blogs and from within the textual content of related articles on authority sites."

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http://www.highrankings.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=29048&pid=242969&st=0&#entry242969

"Given that over half the sites that get listed in DMOZ were never even submitted, then thats not a record. Over 10 000 sites have been added in the last 4 weeks." (post was made 3/10/07)

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http://www.toptechnews.com/story.xhtml?story_id=031000YVYZEV
"Retailers are taking a page from MySpace. They know that customers, especially the younger and more Net-savvy, want to be heard, and they also want to hear what others like them think. So increasingly, retailers are opening up their Web sites to customers, letting them post product reviews, ratings, and in some cases photos and videos. "
Debra: Good ideas for ecommerce sites who find it difficult to attract links.

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http://www.toptechnews.com/news/Blogger-Turns-Paper-Clip-Into-Home/story.xhtml?story_id=031000YVVFWA
"The deal was still warm when MacDonald was contacted by the Mayor of Kipling, Saskatchewan. The town of 1,100 traded MacDonald a three-bedroom house on Main Street in exchange for the movie role. The town plans on holding an "American Idol"-style competition for the part, with entry fees going to charity. "
Debra: Shouldn't that be "Canuck Idol'? (just for you Ian!)

No Spitting No Scratching

I'm relief pitching for Eric once a month as he takes a much needed break from writing The Link Week column on Search Engine Land and today was my first time up. My topic was more of a safe bunt than strong hit but hey, you gotta start somewhere right?

Anyone who blogs on a regular basis knows how hard it is to come up with fresh ideas and captivating posts that haven't been written to death. I think it's even harder with link building since so many people talk and speculate about it ad nauseum. I don't like reguritation posts and "me too" comments so I try to pop on here when I feel like I have something to contribute other than white noise.

Which apparantely isn't often as I'm also of the opinion that while there are foundational and some advanced tactics, there really aren't a ton of linking techniques outside of what you hear about. The "advanced" stuff usually involves more redirects, clever 3-ways and content scraping/generators. What you give up in 'white hat tedium' you make up for in burn and churn redesign so in the end, it's a wash.

Network Your Way To Links

Bambi Francisco had a column today on the impact Web2.0 is having (or not) on corporate America. Toward the end of the post she made a remark I found encouraging:

At the end of the day, Web 2.0 and social networks are really about networking, communicating and collaborating quickly and efficiently. It's not really changing who we are and how we relate to one another. We all network because we are relational people. (my bold)

How true.

The discussion group and webrings of yesterday have morphed into the social networks and "LinkedIn" type places of today. While the technology has changed, the sense of needing to belong to a community hasn't; we still seek to congregate with others who share the same opinions and have the same ideals.

Use these network and forum sites to your full advantage to help market yourself and collect links. Start by:

- Researching the key players within your network niche for linking and advertising opportunities. Note any publications they're being quoted in and then approach with articles and news materials of your own.

- Listen for trends, watch for growth and be active in ongoing discussions. It's much easier to approach people in the network with business offers if they've heard of you and feel you're credible.

- Ask the forum if they run a newsletter or sister blog and inquire about ad space.

There are networks and forums for just about every industry out there. To get you started, here's a couple of resources that list networks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites

and

http://socialsoftware.weblogsinc.com/2005/02/14/home-of-the-social-
networking-services-meta-list/

and a forum directory:

http://directory.big-boards.com/

Tip: If you don't have a forum in your industry - start one. It will go a long way to making your business an authority in the eyes of your clients, constituents and the media! (translation, it will attract a lot of links ;).

Slashdot / Del.icio.us / Digg