Content Marketing » Link Building

How to Qualify Your Link Prospects…

Garrett French — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:30:37 +0000

Finding link prospects isn’t the hardest part of link building… Qualifying your link prospects is. Read this article: A Guide To Qualifying Link Prospects For Relevance, Value & Potentiality and download the Ontolo link qualification worksheet >>

This article was fun to write: it provides useful, unique information, it clearly illustrates a core proficiency of my link prospecting company and includes a downloadable worksheet for link building! Ben and I will work at putting prizes inside of all of our publications :)

This is my first publication in the prestigious Search Engine Land, and I’m very proud to be amongst the ranks of my link building heroes.

20 Link Building KPIs + 55 Link Opportunity Qualifiers + Link Prospect Segmentation

Garrett French — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 21:30:30 +0000

My link building strategy work continues with Ontolo, the large scale link building company I joined as co-founder. My work for the last few weeks has focused on the earlier stages of link building campaigns – setting goals and KPIs and qualifying massive sets of link prospect urls (think in the 100-250k range).

Though we work at a massive scale, any link builder will find useful concepts and strategies to apply on any scale of link building project.

3 Goals and 20 KPIs for Large Scale Link Building Campaigns
Setting clear goals enables you to focus your efforts on influencing search rank, your market’s media (including social), or both. Consider these link building goals as you go about setting your own…

55 Link Opportunity Qualifiers Within Large Scale Link Prospect Data Sets
Once you have identified your goals and KPIs and created your list of 100-250,000 targeted, rank-influencing link prospects (we crawl to build our large scale link prospect lists) you must further analyze them to identify those that will help you meet your link building goals. Remember, the criteria you set for qualifying link prospects must follow from your goals…

Use Link Prospect Segmentation to Create Content, Conversations and High Rankings
The data produced by large-scale link building research can provide invaluable content strategy insight. By identifying and targeting agenda-based segments within your link prospect list you can drastically improve your link acquisition rates. Further, you set the stage for long term conversation-based relationships with these segments that provide value far beyond influencing the search rankings…

So get the Ontolo blog rss feed already ;)

The 22 Best Link Building Posts of 2008

Garrett French — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 15:39:07 +0000

It was VERY exciting to check my stats this morning and see that I’m getting traffic from a SEMMY NOMINATION for this article I wrote: A Guide to Getting Maximum Link Value from Your Content back in May.

There are 21 other contenders in the link building category, and some writers (Rand Fishkin, Rae Hoffman, the esteemed Wiep Knol) received multiple content nominations. Now that I’m writing regularly about large scale link building tactics for Ontolo I hope I’ll have 6-8 articles nominated in 2010 ;)

The judges for the link building category, Aaron Wall and Tamar Weinberg, will whittle the list down to 5-6 link building finalists and then the voting begins…

If you’d like an overview of the best writing in the SEM space check out ALL the article nominations at Semmys.org.

Also… how many link building and marketing tactics can you see Matt McGee using in his Semmys project? Pretty nifty stuff there Mr. McGee… Do YOUR clients’ markets have a Semmys equivalent? Mine will soon ;D

See all 22 of the best link building posts of 2008 >>

Link Acquisition Tips + Finding Links that Influence Rankings AND Purchase Decisions

Garrett French — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 15:18:45 +0000

Part of my work as co-founder at Ontolo is crystalizing the tactics that Ben Wills and I use during our large-scale link building efforts. I’m doing this in weekly posts at the Ontolo blog. Here are some recent posts that will pretty much blow your mind ;)

8 Purchase Influence Indicators for Links that Influence Rankings AND Purchase Decisions
When qualifying link prospects you inevitably find a segment of people who influence purchase decisions as well as the search engine rankings. Their ability to sway opinions – and search rankings – within your market makes them a highly valuable link target.

12 Powerful Offers that Build Links in Your Link Acquisition Phase
This list of 12 link exchange offers provides a starting point for strategically aligning your offers with the segments you’ll find in your link prospect list. It’s ordered by our assessment of resource expenditure, from least to greatest.

Link Request Rejections: 6 Ways to Grow from No
During the acquisition phase of your link building project you will receive many rejections. Because the majority of your rejections will occur through non-response, it’s vital that you grow any written “no” you receive by email into an opportunity to educate yourself. These written rejections represent an opportunity for you to improve your site’s content, your future link building efforts and to better connect yourself to your media space influencers.

3 New Link Building Request Strategy Posts

Garrett French — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 23:02:48 +0000

…at the Ontolo blog…

I wrote these based on my work in large-scale link building with Ben Wills, who I’ve joined as a co-founder at Ontolo.

12 Ways to Maximize Your Link Acquisition Efforts

5 Questions that Increase Your Link Request Conversions

Your Link Request Email is Unsolicited Criticism

I’ll be writing at the Ontolo blog regularly regarding large-scale link building strategies.

Also, please take the Link Building Style quiz >> It’s working now. Please tell me your stye :D

Extending, Communicating, or Reinforcing Identity: a Thought on Quiz Marketing

Garrett French — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 21:20:28 +0000

I’ve been talking quiz marketing with Ben Wills of Ontolo. Here’s what he said today that really perked up my ears: “I think that an angle to consider is how the quiz can extend, communicate, or reinforce the person’s identity.”

What this thought did for me was crystalize how I think I’ll write quizzes in the future. First it will be to outline “identities” within a market segment. Secondly to find ways that the quiz’s results, as Ben puts it, “extend, communicate or reinforce the person’s identity.”

This is something I’d been working towards, and grasped intuitively, but Ben’s putting it so plainly helped me to reframe my approach. At least abstractly… the abstract often goes out the window when it comes time for the reality of Making Something Work ;)

His point is solid though – if the quiz results don’t resonate in some way with an aspect of the taker’s identity (or desired identity) then there’s no way in hell they’ll be posting their results anywhere. Also… we need to build in badge markup for different sites (MySpace, Facebook, forums, etc…).

>> Update: Jeremy Luebke of Xeru Internet Marketing asked for an example… here’s what I mustered up.

My quiz-making process before Ben’s email:
Think of a fun quiz idea that might get woodworkers to take the quiz (one of my main categories is woodworking).

My first quiz was “what power tool are you…” A personality quiz that didn’t get much traction. Why? Too many questions + the woodworking demographic didn’t seem compelled to identify with their power tools like I thought they would. Especially not from the angle of the Briggs-Meyers personality test I based it on.

My second quiz was “are you a cheapskate woodworker?” Being a cheapskate is a good thing in some market segments, and there’s a “waste-not want-not” mentality that’s strong with most woodworkers. This has gotten a bit more consistent interest. Ben’s email helped me understand rationally what had been kicking around in my subconscious…

My thinking after Ben’s email:
AHA! What are other aspects of my woodworking segment’s “collective personality?” What do woodworkers typically strive for in their work (and therefore their identities…). How do I create quizzes in which the results/badges will give them a totem to show/prove that they are indeed this good aspect?

It’s almost like… how can I reinforce to members of my market segment that they are indeed what they think they are? And then, how can I help them communicate this to others? Finally, the extension part… am I helping them discover some hidden, unknown aspect of themselves?

I spend a great deal of time in woodworking forums, and an increasing amount of time on other woodworking blogs, so I will be reading more closely now in hopes of better grasping what shapes their personalities.

From a link-building perspective my hope is that they are so enamored of the result they got that they are willing to post it. The one “in-the-wild” posting we’ve had for the cheapskate quiz was from a woodworker who got the “Cheapskate” result. There were 3 results total, including “Frugal” and “Quick-Spend”.

Previously I’d thought that I needed to “flatter” the quiz takers with the results. That’s not enough though, and Ben’s email helped me jump that track. Though, as I mentioned earlier, all this is conjecture + theory and that often goes out the window the minute pen hits paper (or fingers hit keyboard, whatever ;).

>>Update 2:
I realize that one aspect of my quiz-writing philosophy has gone largely unwritten… You must create quizzes + results badges within the context of your market. Erm, that means stuff like this eco disaster survival quiz building links for mobile coupons is a no no in my book. I’m not as likely to build links as quickly, nor as widely, but the upside is that I’m creating engaging content for my target demographic.

We're not the only ones…

Garrett French — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:49:22 +0000

…using quizzes to build links.

Created By UGIF mobile coupons

Though with my cheapskate woodworker quiz I keep the quiz subject in line with the subject of the links. I’m not sure what kind of engaging quiz I would write for mobile coupons…

I found these guys via blog comment spam by the way ;) Pretty slick comment spam, really:

What Are your Chances of Survival In a Nuclear War?

Lately with Iran developing nukes, Ive been worrying about the apocalypse. Anyway, I took this test and apparently, Ive only got a 20% survival rate!

Click here to take your Apocalypse Survival Test…

Pretty sweet, huh?

Quiz Marketing for GarrettShirts.com

Garrett French — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 22:26:41 +0000

I don’t have any link building results to show yet… Just quiz results ;P

“What Super Berry Bun Bun Are You?”

My Result

buny beper

Check out the buny beper t shirt!

You are buny beper! You are enthusiastic and energetic and you focus on getting things DONE. You value the intellectual input of buny pupu, as well as the good will that buny beru brings to projects. Buny bubu is too distractible for you and you avoid buny susu because that sadness just slows you down.

What Super Berry Bun Bun Are You?

This badge is the culmination of my interest in using quizzes for engagement and targeted link building efforts. Quiz Commander, the quiz-building software I designed and nursed through development is in (very) limited beta. If you’re interested in trying it out for yourself or a client send me an email: gfrench@gmail.com.

Other quiz marketing posts:
Personality Quiz Marketing for Links, Leads and Consultative Sales
Some Thoughts on How to Write Personality Quizzes for Link Building

A Guide to Getting Maximum Link Value from Your Content

Garrett French — Fri, 16 May 2008 23:59:53 +0000

(image via P/\UL)

So. You’re a business marketer who’ll spend 30% of your marketing budget on content this year. To maximize your returns and dominate the search engines for your most valuable keywords you must build links to all this content – by requesting links, distributing your content and adding your links manually to relevant sites.

This how-to article details key strategies, tools and resources for maximizing the link value of your content. Here’s an overview so you can skip to the part that interests you:

1) Requesting Direct Links to Your Content
1a) Research Potential Content Linkers
1b) Prioritize Potential Linkers by Site Type, Influence and Link Value
1c) Write and Send Custom Emails – Call When Appropriate

2) Getting Links by Distributing Your Content
2a) Editorial Contact and Negotiations
2b) Self-Publishing Sites
2c) Article Mass Distribution Software/Service

3) Trade Resource Links with Related Industry Sites
4) Relevant Blog/Forum/Answer Site Comment Distribution
5) Building Links with Your Email Newsletter
6) Social Media Site Distribution
7) A Content-Promoting Press Release
8) Publish Your Content in Different Media
9) Useful Resources For Getting Max Link Value from Your Content

1) Requesting Direct Links to Your Content
When you’re requesting direct links you typically don’t intend to republish any of your content on the sites you contact. For some clients I request links to longer, more involved pieces and republish other shorter articles for links back.

1a) Research Potential Content Linkers
For professional link builders the research process involves creating massive lists of pages that link to your competitors – think lists starting in the 10s of thousands and up. Using predetermined co-citation criteria they then rule out sites that aren’t going to be worth the time for personalized outreach.

Your process can be as in depth as the one Eric Ward describes in an interview with Sugar Rae (scroll down towards the bottom… he has a 19 point list). Your research process can be as simple as searching for your keywords and checking the backlinks on the top ten or twenty pages ranking there. My process falls somewhere in between. I describe my hub-finding research process and suggest some tools here. I will be writing more extensively about the research process in the future.

1b) Prioritize Potential Linkers by Site Type, Influence and Link Value
You’ll find a wide variety of pages once you’ve separated the wheat from the chaff. Some of these will be resource pages on related industry sites, some will be blog pages, some may be trade pub sites. How you prioritize your targets will depend on your goals. If you’re looking for higher traffic volumes you won’t care so much if a given page’s links are not followed. Further, if you’re the writer yourself you may reach out with ideas for collaboration with folks from your blogger pool. This will get you further than just asking for a link.

1c) Write and Send Custom Emails – Call When Appropriate
You should be contacting these folks because you think they could genuinely improve the experience their visitors have by linking to your content. Though it doesn’t take more than a minute or two to add a link and update a page, you’re still potentially adding a little mini project to their day… an interrupt. Make your task for them a no-brainer by crafting a solid (and VERY short) story about why you think their visitors will really appreciate the link you’re sending. Visit the Made to Stick site for ideas… Seth Godin’s site should help too in writing your outreach emails.

2) Getting Links by Distributing Your Content
In addition to requesting links to your content from other sites you can often give your content away to great advantage. Consider republishing or syndicating your content to sites highly relevant to your area of focus, sites whose pages rank for the terms you would like to rank for, and sites you know to be popular.

2a) Editorial Contact and Negotiations
When it comes to content distribution the best case scenario is republication on editorial-regulated information sites. The best of these sort of sites are popular and respected niche trade sites. Think SearchEngineLand and SearchEngineJournal for the search and search marketing industry. This definitely takes time and requires establishing relationships with editors. Often too you will have to write original pieces that you don’t distribute widely or at all. Often times it’s the better opportunities that require more exclusivity.

Look outside just the niche trade pubs though. About.com has an enormous family of niche verticals that often accept content if you approach the editor as you would a colleague. The iEntry network (my alma mater) has many, many vertical sites that they need regular content for too.

2b) Self-Publishing Sites
There are a number of sites out these days that let you – or anyone – submit content at will. The best of these sites have editors. Work.com is a great example of this sort of site. AllBusiness.com too may provide you with a good publishing opportunity if your writing is solid and you’re experienced enough in your niche (you will have to contact the editor of the area you’d like to publish in).

Quite a ways down the spectrum we have Associated Content, a generalist content site. Their profile pages grow to become worth taking time to submit content. Squidoo is another site with low to no barrier to entry, though it appears they’re nofollowing the bejeekers out of links on some of their pages right now (some not). If there are highly ranked Squidoo pages for your terms then it might be worth checking out.

Other self publishing sites that may or may not fit your needs are a few of the better ranking article directory sites. EzineArticles is probably the best. Find others at the directory of article directories.

2c) Article Mass Distribution Software/Service
Article mass distribution software and services is about putting your link on as many different sites as possible. They will all be low quality links. This is not valuable to everyone, but if you create shorter, more generic articles pieced together from larger works and you’re looking for a quick boost to incoming links these could be beneficial services. I sometimes use Article Marketer.

3) Trade Resource Links with Related Industry Sites
The offer to trade resource links shows that you think a given site has value… and that you have a channel (blog or resources page) for reciprocating the link relationship. If both of you have email newsletters trading resource/content mentions could be another great way to generate interest and buzz around your expertise. Don’t send out mass emails and only trade links with quality, contextually related sites that add value to the experience that visitors have on your site.

Ben Wills asks potential link partners if they would like to be added to his resource directory. He does this instead of just adding them and sending an email to let them know. Because they have to actually respond in person to confirm that they’d like a link he knows that his request for a link back to specific content will actually get read.

You may find too – especially if you’re publishing regularly – that link trading becomes an ongoing and unspoken agreement between you and other industry bloggers. The more you link out the more links you will get back.

4) Relevant Blog/Forum/Answer Site Comment Distribution
Adding relevant commentary and links in answer to questions on blogs, forums and answer sites can be a great way to help spread your expertise. Tread carefully here though… In some forums there’s an established pecking order and outsiders who make suggestions may get severely challenged (I’ve had some experience in this…). The same goes for blog posts to a lesser extent. In all cases you must focus on answering specifics from the original post and make sure that your link is HIGHLY useful and HIGHLY on target. Often times you will find that links here are no-followed. This is no-problem if you’re tracking traffic that comes from them and can determine value that way.

I would recommend reading Lessons in Branded Content Creation Through Community Participation and replace the word “Content” with “Comment” ;)

Also see A Roundup of Q&A Sites for more options for answering questions.

5) Building Links with Your Email Newsletter
Does your newsletter has regular readers and a steady open and click through rate? There may be some link building opportunity for you with your email newsletter. Especially if your readers happen to be bloggers or have the ability to create links. Creating link incentives can include stuff like sending free tshirts, interviewing the linkerati, and creating an award or contest for your readers. Be sure that you make it easy for folks to link to you with copy-and-pasteable text.

If you’d like more on this, check out Build Links With Your Email Marketing Campaign.

6) Social Media Site Distribution
First and foremost learn whether there are social media sites for your industry. Search has Sphinn. Content marketing has Junta42. Green news has Hugg. There might just be one lurking out there for your vertical. If there is, create a profile and submit a few stories. Remember to spend some time commenting and voting on the stories of others – until you’ve become well known in your space this will help your contributions get more traction.

Other social media sites could prove useful as well. Start with the sites that Andy Hagans lists in Top 38 Niche Social Media Sites (That Actually Send Traffic). Check out these Stumble Upon marketing ideas too. One more must read for social media marketing – Tools For Engaging In Social Media.

7) A Content-Promoting Press Release
If your content offers significant insight such as a study you commissioned or if your content is ground breaking in its scope you should consider a press release. …a social media press release even ;) Before I write a press release I always read some press release how-to’s.

I have not personally tried any of these sites, but you could consider submitting your press release to a few of these 32 Free Press Release Sites.

8) Publish Your Content in Different Media
Does your company have an email newsletter, a print newsletter, a blog, a wiki, a pod cast or regular video? Reformatting your content can help you maximize its appeal. I’m a regular reader of Michael Katz’s email newsletter. He advises on writing email newsletters. He has recently started including a link to a downloadable audio recording of him reading the newsletter out loud. I’ll add here that it’s not always a great idea to simply port information from one medium to the next. Ideally you base these decisions on demand and/or low risk tests.

And check out Joe Pulizzi’s 42 Ways to Distribute Content for more ideas.

9) Useful Resources For Getting Max Link Value from Your Content
I reread 11 Experts on Link Development Speak Out every couple of months. It’s that good. This is a must-read for link builders.

Lee Odden’s 5 Tips for Content Distribution Networks is over a year old but still holds solid. As Odden puts it, “There are many that believe the key to a successful link building campaign is to create content worth linking to. However, if you create great content and no one knows about it to send a link, then there’s a lot lost on the effort.”

Rand Fishkin wrote a great guide to Identifying the Linkerati.

Master link builders Eric Ward, Debra Mastaler and Rae Hoffman all publish regular link building articles at Search Engine Land.

To expand your thinking about content marketing you should read Joe Pullizi’s content marketing blog and Content Marketing Today.

For some link building research ideas check out my article Building Hub Links: a 5 Point Strategy Guide for Creative SEOs.

And here’s an article I wrote after I learned the hard way about forum participation: The Community Correspondent: a Guide to Creating Link Worthy Content Through Forum Participation.

And, because I haven’t suggested enough reading yet, check out Creating Linkable Content through Group Interviews, Contests and Surveys.

A final note: it’s likely that I will either be regularly updating this post or breaking off chunks of it to write with more depth on specific portions. If you have resources, questions or ideas I’d love to hear them!

As co-founder of Ontolo I offer large scale link building services >>

Eric Ward in Search Marketing Standard Magazine

Garrett French — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 14:04:32 +0000

Because of my increased focus on thoroughly investigating link data of high rankers to find targeted and valuable link partners I’ve been reading as much as possible on other link building tactics. Of course I’ve been reading the work of Eric Ward.

His recent article in the Search Marketing Standard print magazine got my pulse pounding from all of its revelations on the searches that Ward performs to find link partners. If Ward was an affiliate marketer this would be like giving away his most profitable keywords in paid search. These are like gold and I present them to you for edification and for me for remembering them:

1) “public library” “useful links” nutrition site:gov
2) “submit food news”
3) “useful nutrition links”

Of course these are for a site seeking links for nutrition related content, and you could run other variations for these as well. I’d try stuff like: “submit food articles” and “submit nutrition articles.” Plus I’d probably dig into the nutrition-related blog space.

His article, “The Link is Dead, Long Live the Link” suggests that the era of the mass-submitted article, press release and directory submission are less effective and it’s time to start augmenting mass efforts with more niche directed efforts. I couldn’t agree more! Thanks Eric for a timely article (note – it’s in the print edition of Search Marketing Standard).