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The Past, Present, and Future of Link Building
What is Link Building?
- In the early days of Google, they needed a way to decide which websites were most related to a search term.
- Webmasters, marketers, and Tech Savvy business owners saw the potential for using the newly created technology as a method of generating leads for their business or that of their customers.
- At first, there were two ways to improve how highly your website appears in the search results. On page SEO and link building.
- On page SEO as you may know involves modifying content, technical, and website functionality factors.
- Link building is the process of getting other sites to point to your website and in essence, issue a vote of confidence in your website. The site (s) linking to yours share a portion of the trust and authority they have with your site and in return, your site becomes more trusted in the eyes of Google. ‘
-This results in higher rankings for the terms your site is about…. In a perfect world that is.
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Are Links Going to Stop Being Counted?
Directly from Matt Cutts, head of the Google Webspam Team in response to:
Do you have a version of Google that Does Not Count Links?
“We don't have a version like that that is exposed to the public, but we have run experiments like that internally, and the quality looks much much worse. It turns out that backlinks, even though there's some noise and certainly a lot of spam, for the most part are still a really really big win in terms of quality of search results. So we've played around with the idea of turning off backlink relevance and at least for now backlink relevance still really helps in terms of making sure that we return the best, most relevant, most topical search results.”
Long story short, links are going to be important for quite a while to come.
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Is Link Building a “ Safe” Strategy?In the past two years Google has released over 40 major updates to their algorithm and nearly 2,000 minor revisions to those algos.
Between 2012 and today, numerous link building methods have become ineffective or harmful.
This means that even if you used the “best practices” in 2011, your website may have been destroyed over the past few years.
Large scale guest posting is one recent example of a strategy going from boom to bust
Does all this mean link building is not a safe practice?
No!
- Editorial links from relevant and authority websites have always been a golden ticket to long term rankings.
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Editorial Links? How Do I Get Those?
In a perfect world, you would just write great content on your website and magically Google and your target audience would know about, visit, share, and link to your content, sending you to the top of page 1 of Google.
Here in the real world, it does not work like that, at least not at first.
Between the late 90s and 2011 SEO was more about tricks and software than it was about marketing.
In order to have great SEO results in 2014 and into the future, you have to combine technical knowledge with marketing, content marketing, and public relations if you want to land editorial links. This process is often referred to as outreach link building.
If you are terrified at the thought of outreach link building, Relax, there are some other options.
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What are some Other Effective Link Building Methods?
“White Hat” Link Building
- Organizational Links
-Supplier Outreach
- Partnering with and cross promoting related companies/services
- Naturally Generated Links – This includes links earned through social promotion, etc.
-Guest Posts on Relevant Authority websites – The key to this is quality
- Developing niche related, quality blogs and websites
- Social Media Driven Link Building/Generation
- Niche directory submission and local citation building
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Linking Methods with a shorter Life Span“Gray and Black Hat” Link Building
-Private Blog Networks – This method still works but Google is on the offensive against PBNs
- Link Buying/Renting – If you buy links from a public vendor, be prepared to get busted
- Automated Link Building – Still working but high penalty risk
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Which Method is for You?
If you are looking for a long term growth strategy and have a legitimate company you are trying to build, you want to stick with white hat SEO.
If you have an affiliate site and are looking for quick income, venturing to the grey/black hat side of the spectrum may prove to be a quick and profitable way to generate search traffic to your site. If you choose to use these tactics, do not be surprised when your website does get penalized.
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Hey! What about social media link building?Glad you asked!
The impact of social media on SEO and as a link building strategy has been heavily debated for the past year or two.
Thankfully, some pretty definitive information has been made available to the public through a couple of very good case studies.
In order to cut through the myths, here are the findings of a couple of case studies about social media.
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Facebook’s SEO Impact-In December 2013, Stone Temple Consulting Published the results of a case study on correlation between SEO rankings and Facebook.
- To the surprise of many, it was discovered that only about 58% of Facebook posts where even indexed in Google within a few weeks of posting.
-This number peaked at around 70% three months from the post date and then decreased throughout the study, back down to 50% after a year.
-The sample group consisted of authority accounts too, the indexation rate for standard accounts is likely much lower
- The bottom line, content that is not indexed cannot and will not directly effect your rankings.
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Twitter’s SEO ImpactStone Temple followed the FB study with a similar Twitter study .Here is what they found.
As with FB, Not Indexed = Not Impacting SEO
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Google + SEO ImpactSince Google has a direct feed from Google + is it safe to assume the indexation rate and influence is much higher than Twitter and Facebook?
-Back in 2013 Stone Temple, Moz, and a few others teamed up to research how G+ influences SEO
- They found that +1s did not impact search rankings consistently
- From the information, it was uncovered that some do-follow links could be gained from G+ profiles though. One example is when you +1 a page
- If you understand the basic theory of link building you can see the potential for G+ to be used as a link building platform
- I did some research and here is what I found: http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/search/archive/2014/04/08/google-optimization-and-link-building-strategies.aspx
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Social Media’s SEO ValueIf social media is not a direct ranking factor; does that mean it is useless for SEO?
NO!
-If you remember, outreach link building, natural link generation, and social link building are all on the list of effective link building tactics.
- When you post new content you need to promote it or you are not going to get very far.
- Social media allows you to build a following of people who are interested in your industry
- If your focus is only quality followers and not just numbers, your profiles will nearly automate the promotion process of new content
- Publish Content -> Share with Interested Audience -> They share and link to your site.
Pretty Simple Right? Now Just Go Build a Large and Targeted Following!
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Now for a Quick Recap-Link Building is a vote of confidence for your website. The more expertise the “voter” has in your niche, the more beneficial the vote will be.
-Link building is not going to go away anytime soon. The key to effectively building links is to focus on quality and relevance.
-Outreach link building and Niche Publishing are some of the safest methods you can use.
-PBNs and Link Buying are fast wins but with that, you get an increased risk of penalty.
- When you are planning your linking strategy, consider your end goals and tolerance for risk.
- Social media may not yet directly affect SEO but when used correctly, it can be a great resource for generating natural links and driving traffic directly to your site.
- Quality, Quality, Quality!
STELLARSEO.COM | [email protected] | 618-889-1087
Getting Started with Link BuildingIf you are brand new to SEO and link building, you can still get some quality links to your website. Here are a few easy ways:
- Apply for BBB Accreditation -http://www.bbb.org/
- Join Your Local Chamber of Commerce
- Sponsor an Event
- List your site in niche specific directories - Example: http://sellthebride.com/
- Donate to a TRUSTED Website that Lists Donors
Example: http://www.tripsforkids.org/national/sponsors.htm
- Sign up for HARO and respond to queries -http://www.helpareporter.com/
STELLARSEO.COM | [email protected] | 618-889-1087
Learn More About Link BuildingIf you use the few methods listed in the last slide, you are off to a great start. If you want to take your knowledge to the next level, here are some resources worth checking out.
- Link Building 2014 – This is a post on my blog covering link building do’s and don’ts. The post is regularly updated and you can sign up to receive those updates. http://stellarseo.com/link-building-2014-guide/
- Website Magazine – I am a regular contributor and reader of WM. They cover almost everything you need to run a business online and they do it well!
- Sell the Bride – This site is ran by Brian Lawrence, noted wedding speaker and website conversion optimization expert. If you are in the bridal business, this site is for you. I am going to be developing guides and resources just for wedding vendors regularly. Here is one example.
BackLinko – Brian Dean runs an excellent blog that offers tips for traffic generation and conversion optimization. If you are not already following him sign up for emails here , you will be happy you did!
STELLARSEO.COM | [email protected] | 618-889-1087
Let’s Connect!So you loved this webinar and you want me to keep you in the loop about new trends, actionable tips, and even the occasional picture of some cute animal.
Awesome!
You can connect with me here:
Google + - https://plus.google.com/+TravisBliffen
Twitter - https://twitter.com/THESEOPROZ
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/StellarSeo
If you have any questions about what we covered today or SEO in general, I would be happy to answer them for you. You can reach me directly by visiting stellarseo.com or email me: [email protected]
STELLARSEO.COM | [email protected] | 618-889-1087
Any Questions?
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Travis Bliffen McKay Allen
