Guilty (in a good way) By Link Association

An article in our local newspaper caught my eye today; it was a short piece on how the public relations folks in a neighboring County were going to offer a variety of new programming on their school and government cable channels. It also pointed out how the school system was using YouTube to host its video's and had plans to add more.

My link spidey senses got all tingly as the ideas whirled in my head; I immediately started thinking about the opportunities I could take advantage of on local access cable. I headed over to the County site to see how and where to submit video content and found this on the Production Request page:

All York County Government and York County School Division offices, departments, agencies, governing bodies, boards and commissions are eligible to submit requests for programs, public announcements for cablecast or internal use, and/or requests for program production services to the Division of Video Services. Other individuals or groups are not eligible unless sponsored by an eligible user.

Ok so maybe not the dot-gov-link-gold-mine I had first envisioned but no matter, this still may have link building potential for both direct and residual links.

If your business caters to local government or the school division, look for sponsored programs and special events where local business people are called upon to donate goods and services. Video tape your products being used at the event and work with your government contact to have the tape included on the local cable channel. (remember, you have to be sponsored by a "eligible user"). Be sure to include contact information at the end of the video.

You can also send the same video to your local television stations for rebroadcast on weekends when news stories are slow and they're looking for content. Never hurts to try!

If your school system or local government has a YouTube channel, start a dialogue and leave comments. There's no link popularity to be gained but you'll build plenty of community popularity as well as credibility.

Associating your business through in-direct links on local cable channels might not generate a measure of green through your toolbar, but it may help grow the green in your wallet! Pop over to your local cable station and see if there's an opportunity to submit links either directly or through a sponsorship. You'll be guilty by association in a good way no matter what you do!

Get In Touch With Your Inner Link Self

We don't talk much about surveys when we discuss link building, probably because a lot of webmasters feel their keyword lists should suffice as research when they're trolling for links.
But really - your keyword lists don't tell you about people's loyalties or personal preferences which is what you need to know before engaging in the more promotional link building.

From my experience, people like to have packaged solutions, they want specific tactics and the sites to use them on. I think that's why directory submissions are so popular and the center of so many link discussions. People can wrap their heads around the whole process because it's a no-brainer.

Find directory, qualify, pay for submission, submit. Bam, one-way link in place. Easy peezy.

I like easy too but know from doing SEO that easy doesn't boost your site in the serps. That easy normally begets links that don't pass strong link popularity and that easy ends up making you work harder down the road.

Which sucks. That's where the research in the beginning really pays off. Talking to people, doing surveys, buying trend reports etc - all those things help you get in touch with your customer base and eventually in touch with your inner link self.

I say this all the time ad-nauseom but it's true: if you were doing business on Main Street you wouldn't just take out a yellow page advertisment and be done with it. You'd find out from:

• friends



• family



• the Chamber of Commerce



• Better Business Bureau



• your industry association



• trend reports



• local newspapers



• SCORE



• SBA (Small Business Admin)



• resources like ConsumerWorld.com



• Federal Citizen Information Center (in Pueblo CO)



• SURVEYS YOU CONDUCT

... and so on where the people likely to buy your products frequent, trends in their demographic, what publications they read, etc. Then you'd go and advertise there as well.

Talk to the people who buy your stuff. Talk to friends and family and figure out what they're doing online. We live in a SEO centric world and don't search or think like the average consumer. Don't assume your customers think like you do, or search like you do because they DON'T.
Find out where your customers go and do everything you can to place ads in those locations. Keep talking to them, keep asking questions, keep in touch. You'll build exposure, gain trust and accrue links if you do.
photo found on AzureInspired

Friends And Photos From SMBU

Here's a bunch of photos from the last Small Business Marketing Unleashed conference in Columbus Ohio. It was a great show and I enjoyed being part of it.


This is Diane Aull (Torka) and I at the COSI charity dinner the night before the conference started.



Rachel Phillips of Search Engine Guide and Diana Adams from Pole Position Marketing.
















Matt McGee and I













Christine Churchill in one of her sessions talking about keywords.









Rachel Phillips, Irma and David Wallace who all apparantely coordinated wardrobes.

















Robert Clough and Jennifer Laycock of Search Engine Guide. Along with Rachel and Vickie Evans (Jen's mom) they did a great job putting this conference together :)







Michael Stebbins and Matt McGee. Mouths open and in awe of something witty I said. (cough)









Stoney deGeyter being Stoney.

Notice his photo is larger than the rest. That's because I wanted everyone to see his new long hair-do and because I took these photos from his Flickr account without asking.








Chris, Heather Lloyd-Martin and myself at dinner the first night.

One of the best parts of being at these shows is seeing your buds. Heather was the first person I made contact with in this business, it was sometime in either 2000 or 2001. (neither of us can remember).

I met Chris (along with Jill) in Dec 2002 at my first SES in Dallas. I had been working for Jill for almost a year at that point but had never met her in person. That was the last time for Dallas, the show moved to Chicago the next year.

Seems like yesterday :)

Here's the rest of the photos: SMBU Flickr and Stoney's set. Enjoy.

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/

Sir, Would You Like Fries With Those Links?

Recently in several SEO forums I noticed a number of threads discussing ways to find and build "economical" links. The forum participants wanted to know how they could initiate "safe" reciprocal linking as well as "fast" submissions to free article directories. They reasoned these tactics were worth doing because both linking methods were "economical" and "easy" to use.

I understand some linking techniques can be expensive, tedious to implement and extremely time consuming, but tying your online business success to linking tactics deemed "easy", "fast" and "cheap" seems counter-productive. If you limit your linking to low-cost tactics or look at the practice as "link building" instead of "marketing for links" you're almost guaranteed to fail.

Using Tip Jars For Links

I read a Sphinn today titled "Seth Godin Wants to Cheat Advertisers With Fake Clicks" and thought - yikes! Suggesting people click on adsense as a reward is stupid for lots of reasons but especially stupid on a link building level.

Clicking adsense might get the blogger a little money (or no money if he gets banned) but he/she will never know it's coming from YOU.

But hitting a tip jar ensures the blogger knows exactly who the donation is coming from. If you're interested in guest blogging or having the blogger review your products, donating to his/her tip jar is a great way to get attention to your cause.

Forget clicking the adsense, drop a tip. It might get you a link.

I'll Take Links And 11 Gold Medals Please

I read about Morgan Freeman being involved in an auto accident last week and his subsequent surgery so I was pretty surprised to hear him congratulate Michael Phelps on his record number of gold medals in the commercial below. Did the man do the voice over from his hospital bed? Highly unlikely which means VISA taped this spot when Mr. Freeman did his other commercials knowing there was a very good chance Michael Phelps was going to blow everyone out of the water and make Olympic Gold History.

This VISA spot will forever be branded as the commercial vehicle associated with Michael Phelp's Olympic accomplishment, it launched the congratulations heard around the world! There's no price tag for that. Smart smart Visa, thinking ahead pays off.

Do you do any link building planning?

Planning as in mapping out link locations you want to get into and opportunities you can prepare for knowing something specific is coming up?

I know most of us aren't VISA and don't have the resources to hire the likes of Morgan Freeman, but the concept behind the promotion can be adapted to almost any industry. Anticipate an event, look for a content angle, create it and pounce when the moment is right.

A lot of successful "linkbait" is launched on the heels of breaking news or changes. We can't anticipate the future but we can plan around upcoming events, holidays, elections etc and write for them NOW. That way when the time comes you're ready and there before the competition.

The commercial isn't genius, but it's definitely pure gold for VISA. :)

An SEO Kindness Is Link Remembered

A man named Joshua Spickler left a comment on my post Google Wants To Know About Incompetent SEO's (just below this one)

Here's what it said:

I really wish you posted more often. I find your blog to be one of the lesser known gems out there in the SEO blogging community. August 05, 2008

I'm not going to respond in comments, doing it here instead:

Joshua - that is probably the nicest thing anyone has EVER said to me in the 8 years I've been in this business. Your comment is way better than all the compliments I get on my wonderful, trend-setting, killer long hair or fabulous fashion style.

If there is one thing I could manufacture it wouldn't be money, bigger boobs or a smaller waistline, it would definitely be time.

Between kids, clients, my own sites, husband, my friends, two sets of aging parents, the yard, dog, two cats and all the volunteer activities I'm involved with at the kids school, kid's sports teams, and the nursing home there's just not enough hours in the day.

There's also another reason I don't post much. I really really really REALLY hate regurgitation for the sake of "me too-itis" or to read stuff that's obviously been written as a result of someone else's ideas and testing. There's no way in hell people can test and report on everything they write and I get that, but to write about issues and pass off as fact when they've never tested them is... well... stooooopid. (IMO)

There isn't much fact based information in this business because the engines don't let us see it. But there's even less original thought material shared. There's a lot of people who write about SEO and don't practice it. To me that's nuts, SEO is a technical and marketing discipline so you have to know and experience how it works to be able to share it with some voice of authority.

If you come back and say "well people don't want to share all their secrets" I'd get that and totally agree. But there's also a way to share without having to give away the farm. Sometimes it's better to weigh in on discussions with an observation or opinion than to write (or rewrite) a post on a topic that's been discussed to death. People need to get over themselves and join in on other people's conversations instead of boring us to death with yet ANOTHER link building post.

(insert sound of gagging here)

Sorry to over dramatize your comment with my responsive rant. But a simple thank didn't see appropriate AND I got another post of it so....

Thank you Joshua from Just Joshing You. From the bottom of my over-weight, badly dressed, sometimes abrasive but well intentioned heart. :) A kindness is link remembered.

Ok, the link building takeaway here in addition to all the feel-good stuff? When you get involved in other people's blogs, leave positive comments or just support another business in general by mentioning them, there's a very good chance they're going to return the favor and link to you. Like I did with Joshua. :)

I'm not going to tell you how to act, that's your business. The people who preach "be nice, treat everyone fairly" get on my nerves, not because I don't agree with being "nice", but because I dislike anyone telling me how to act. I'm almost 50 (next month people!!) so I understand I'm responsible for my actions.

Here's a linking fact learned from years of experience: people tend to link to positive, news worthy items where they're mentioned or highlighted. Drivel doesn't usually attract links. So link out, the karma will come back to you in links.

And have a nice day.

Google Wants To Know About Incompetent SEO's.

Google recently changed it's "What's An SEO" page, they blogged about it on the official blog June 30. On July 1, Googler John Mu posted this in GoogleGroups,

Suppose a webmaster were to come to you and ask for advice on finding someone who can help optimize his site for search engines. How would you recommend that they get started? Where should they look for SEOs? Which questions should they ask? How could they recognize competent (or incompetent) SEOs?

Bold mine.

The last line caused my eyebrows to go up a bit. "Incompetent" as opposed to unethical, that surprised me. Dictionary.com defines "incompetent" as "not competent; lacking qualification or ability; incapable". Interesting, although I guess you could make a long-winded case the two are interrelated.

None of the people responding to John Mu's post focused on "incompetent" SEO's - but just about everyone used the word "snakeoil" in their comments. Again - interesting.

Anyone else wonder why a company who names spam control tools after certain members of the SEO community solicits feedback on incompetent SEO's?

Enough about Google, I want to end the week on a positive note.

Wiep sent me new baby pictures of his son Liam - here's my fav. Enjoy his bright face and the weekend.