Link Building Strategies for 2010

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

Rand Fishkin – December 2009

 Content in this Webinar

• The Goals of Link Building

• The 8 Kinds of Link Building
SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE
• Matching the Right Strategies w/ Diverse Goals
• Tools & Processes to Ease Link Acquisition
• Link Building Shortcuts to Take and to Avoid
• 40 Minute Live Q+A
 What Goals Can Link Building
SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE
Help Us Achieve?
 Bolster Individual Rankings

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

 Improve a Domain’s Ability to Rank Pages

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

 Achieve More Complete Indexation

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

 Drive Traffic & Branding Awareness

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

 Send Converting Traffic

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

Image Credit: websiteoptimization.com

 The 8 Basic Kinds of Link Building
SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE
 #1 - Manual Link Submissions/Requests

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

#2 - Competitive Link Research/Acquisition

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

 #3 - Links via Embedded Content

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

 #4 - Linkbait & Viral Campaigns

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

 #5 - Content, Technology & API Licensing

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

 #6 - Partnerships, Exchanges & Trades

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

 #7 - Paid Links

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

 #8 - Link Reclamation

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

Matching the Right Link Building Strategies
SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE
to Your Organization’s SEO Goals
 Links for Individual Rankings

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

 Links for Domain “Authority”

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

 Links for Indexation

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

 Links for Traffic & Branding

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

 Links for Conversion

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

 Using Tools & Processes to Ease the
SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE
Challenges of Link Building
 Tools for Competitive Link Research

• Yahoo! Site Explorer & Link Commands

• Linkscape + Link Intersect
SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE
• Top Pages
• Google Blog Search
 Yahoo! Site Explorer

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

Directionally indicative
within ~50%

Not necessarily followed & in

a somewhat random order
 Yahoo! Link Commands

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

Less “accurate” than

Site Explorer

Lots of cool, useful modifiers

available
 Yahoo! Link Commands

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

Full list available in PRO Guide to Advanced Search Operators:

www.seomoz.org/article/the-professionals-guide-to-advanced-search-operators
 Linkscape You want this tab!

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

Good for comparison
against other pages
and vs. PageRank

Highest correlation
with rankings success
 Linkscape
Important distinction –
some subdomains are
treated as entirely
different entities
SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

Best predictor of domain’s

ability to rank pages
(watch for new “domain
authority” metric soon)
 Link Intersect

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

Link Intersect uses the same principle – sites

w/ links in common that don’t point to you.
 Top Pages

Find which pages are

earning links (your
own & competitors)
SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

404s? Reclaim them!

 Google Blog Search
Results fluctuate 50-
1000% daily (pay them
little heed)

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

More useful to find

interesting/quality sites
that provide links
 Metrics for Evaluating a Link’s Value

• Numeric (Objective) Metrics

• Subjective Metrics
SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE
• Attainability and Effort
 Numeric Metrics for Link Valuation

• # of Linking Root Domains to URL

• # of Linking Root Domains to Domain
• Homepage
SLIDE PageRank vs. Domain mozRank
MASTER – COVERPAGE

• URL PageRank vs. URL mozRank

• # of Links to the Page (Yahoo!, GG Blogsearch, Linkscape)
• Twitter mentions (Backtweets.com)
 Numeric Metrics (Backtweets)

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Results count

(in a weird location)
 Subjective Metrics for Link Valuation
• Brand name reach/recognition
• Quality of other links on page/site (Bing - Linkfromdomain)
• Attainability and Effort
SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

Jumping through Hoops (via WKA on Flickr)

 Scalable Link Acquisition Processes

• Written Process + Checklist

• Tools + Metrics for Quick Analysis
SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE
• Training & Incenting Link Builders
• Building & Refining a Link Acquisition Funnel
 Written Process/Checklist
• Run through the link building process yourself
• Document every step thoroughly
• Pass it on to others (w/ some training time)
SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

Checklist (via adesigna on Flickr)

 Tools for Quick Analysis

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

Get usable metrics
quickly as you surf
 Tools for Quick Analysis

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

 Training & Incenting Link Builders
• Do link building together
• Create consistent metrics
• Reward like a sales team
• Record reasons why links
SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE
didn’t happen (like objections
to sales) and work on these
(things like design quality,
affiliations, language, etc. will
come up)

Training Camp (via Gil Searcy on Flickr)

 Building a Link Acquisition Funnel

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Visit Link-Targeted Content

Grab Link Code

Link to the Site

 Link Building Shortcuts to Take
SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE
(and those to avoid)
 Get Your Community Building Links

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

 Direct Anchor Text & Target URLs

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

Auto-select-all for
easy copy to clipboard
 Recognize Helpful Links

Links to multiple high-

ranking competitors

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Strong domain metrics

Strong URL metrics

Well-known brand
 ID Strategies Engines May Devalue

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

 ID Strategies Engines May Devalue

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

 Learn from the “Best-Linked” Sites & Pages

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

 Learn from the “Best-Linked” Sites & Pages

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

 Q+A
Use the chat window and direct question to “All Participants.”

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

For more information, visit us at www.seomoz.org

All Content and Intellectual Property is under Copyright Protection, SEOmoz 1996-2008
 Next SEOmoz PRO Webinar (proposed):
Thursday, January 21st 11:00am Pacific (2pm Eastern)
Subject: SEO Metrics, Analytics & KPIs

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

For more information, visit us at www.seomoz.org

All Content and Intellectual Property is under Copyright Protection, SEOmoz 1996-2008