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Defining Social Media

Let’s list off the types of social sites before we get too far because I don’t feel all are created equal:

• Social Bookmarking Sites — Sites like Delicious, Blinklist, and Diigo.
• Content Popularity/Voting Sites — These include places like Sphinn, Digg, Mixx, and Tip’d.
• Sharing Sites/Communities — Facebook and MySpace are prime examples here.
• Hot News Sites — Like Digg, but focuses on news items like Newsvine or Yahoo! Buzz
• Microblogging – Plurk and Twitter, Tumblr, etc.
• Music/Video Sharing — Last.fm, Blip.fm, YouTube, Viddler, and so on.
• Blogs — SEOmoz, Mashable, TechCrunch, etc
• Forums — Huomah Dojo, WebMasterWorld, etc

In short, I define social media sites as any online location that allows users to share and interact with each other while sharing or creating content.

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Why You Shouldn’t Be Using Social Networking Sites For Link Building

To be really blunt, with the exception of properly managed blogs, I find them worthless for many reasons. Time and the return on the investment is the biggest thing. You’ll spend more time playing around submitting a link to all these places than you will gain in link worth. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t encourage this or submit your site yourself if it’s an important post, but it shouldn’t be a main linking method.

Why do I say this? One of the biggest determining factors of link value is the number of links on a page. The more outgoing links there are, the less link juice there is to go around and the weaker each of the links will be overall. In my opinion, this makes highly sought after ‘dofollow’ links irrelevant. After all, if there isn’t much juice to go around, it isn’t going to matter much whether it’s transferred or not. I have the same opinion of directories, article marketing, and mass press release distribution, but that’s a post all on its own.

Authority is another element. Are social sites like this considered to trustworthy and authoritative? Well, anyone can submit links to them, so I can’t see them having any sort of authoritative value. How it reflects on your or your client’s site should also be considered. If you’re spamming every available social network daily with tons of links back to your site, eventually people are going to know your site for that and those social links will lose their marketing value. Besides, these types of links show up so rarely in the SERPs, they aren’t that valuable in that regard anyway.

Lastly, consider the decomposition of the link itself. While I have no way to prove it, it makes sense that these would degrade fairly quickly because there is little content or value there to maintain it. You’d be much better using content or some other method to build links to a website.

Where the Value Of Social Networks Is Really At

I truly believe social media has a huge benefit for many businesses, but it isn’t the link building tool many people seem to think it is. It has marketing value. Social networks help:

• make sales
• build brands
• interact with customers
• improve personal connections
• provide customer service
• expand the site’s reach
• and many more benefits not possible with any other medium.

These sites do generate links, however. It’s just not the immediate link most people associate with social networks. As I mentioned, these sites have more marketing value than actual link value. So, as the link gets seen by more and more people it creates a buzz around the content and encourages others to link to you.

This is where the value is: secondary links. And I am willing to bet these links would have more value than those added to various social media sites and not require the time spent submitting links to tons of sites.

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Diversification is important for more than just maintaining your sanity too. It stops you from making a huge mistake. Consider, for example, if Google outright ignored links from directories. Would your site’s rankings survive? What if Google said they no longer counted links from article marketing and press releases?

I’m not saying they are or aren’t counting them right now or how much weight these types of links carry. That, my friends, is a debate for a different day. My point is to get you to consider what your link profile looks like and whatsort of audience they’re reaching.

There are several different types of links to consider:

• Generic Link Building – These include the straight link generation with very little to no content involved. Directories and social profiles are a good example.
• Content Link Generation – This type of link building involves mass written content and often involves distribution. Article marketing, press releases, advertorials, blogs, and reviews, for example.
• Social Media Link Building – To be perfectly honest, I see these as being more about traffic than actual links, but I’ll included it here regardless. These involve social bookmarking sites, Twitter, Facebook, and other similar formats.
• Alternative Media Link Generation – This is the creation of videos, podcasts, widgets, and apps, all of which link back to your main website.
• Audience Generated Links – Online quizzes, contests, and link bait all fall into this category. These tactics encourage others to share your content and link back to you for various reasons.
• Content and Media Placement – Instead of buying thousands of dollars worth of links, this type of link building involves a much higher investment into the actual content. This content is then placed on authority sites in an effort to gain permanent, high quality links.
• Link Networking and Feeder Sites – Creating networks of different sites that all link back to your main site.

How you choose to use these methods and what ratios you choose are totally up to you and should depend specifically on your audience. After all, if you’re going to build links, you may as well generate some interest and traffic with it, right?

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Here is a collection of some more excellent hints, tips, and guides for quality link building:

Setting Up, Techniques and Tips

How to Set Up a Link Building Campaign for a Web Site or a Blog

Ask Kalena tells Excel fanatics how to track links using a series of worksheets. While this might not be the best for everyone, I think it gives us a great starting point and the system can be easily manipulated to match your particular tastes and needs.

Ask the Link Builder — SMX East 2009

Again, this content is a bit older, but I think the ideas and tips covered here are worth a read, even if you’ve already seen it. BruceClay also covered this topic, but has a slightly different version than Marketing Pilgrim you might find interesting. (I’m pretty sure there was an ‘Ask the Link Builder’ session at SMX 2010, but didn’t happen to see it online. If it is around somewhere, I’d be more than happy to add the link here, and would be interested to see it.)

Link Building Techniques and Tips

Over on David Naylor’s blog, Paul Carpenter left a great post on link building, but I particularly like it’s focus on quality content (surprise, surprise ). These points aren’t deep secrets of professional link builders, but I think they’re vital for good link building and helping to build your site’s authority. Definitely a huge bonus! (David also has 10 Link Building Tips that are worth checking out while you’re there.)

Link Building With Content Ideas

In this post, Link Spiel’s Debra Mastaler gives a really good example of how to come up with content that should do well in terms of encouraging linking. It also gives some good ideas on how to promote and use that content for link generation. A lot can be taken out of this article for those who are willing to apply the lessons covered here.

Link Building — How To Build Quality Links For Free

This time, it’s the Wordstream Team with some interesting thoughts on link generation. And while I could care less about PageRank, it does a really good job of covering the basics as well as some great links on the topic of PageRank that are worth checking out.

A Big Bunch of Link Building Ideas

The link queen, Debra Mastaler, covered a number of Twitter tools and techniques you’ll be able to incorporate into your existing strategy and help you get the most bang for your buck. (Again, if you’re looking for more info on link building, her blog Link Spiel is definitely worth wandering through. Wiep Knol’s Wiep.net is another fantastic link building blog I find myself returning to rather frequently. My favorites are the ‘Link Building This Month’ posts because he usually finds some I’ve missed.)

Link Bait and Getting the Most Linking Power From Your Content

The Anatomy Of Linkbait

Jordan Kasteler takes a look at the finer points of link bait over at Website Magazine. This has some absolute ‘must’ do’s for good content and the social sphere. If you’re planning any sort of major link baiting strategies, you’ll definitely want to have a look.

21 Tips to Earn Links and Tweets to Your Blog Post

Rand composed a post outlining a bit of his link bait strategy in this SEOmoz post. While I don’t necessarily agree with all of it, nor is that all there is to it, I think it’s a great post for beginners and webmasters who aren’t super familiar with the concept.

Determining the Value Of Links

Link Worth — What’s Yours Worth

Tim Nash tackles the complex world of link worth, including a number of factors he feels determine the amount of power each one has. It will definitely get you thinking about your own link strategy and content placement programs.

A Guide To Qualifying Link Prospects For Relevance, Value, and Potentiality

Garrett French also looked at the value of links when he visited Search Engine Land, but in a slightly different manner. He has a link in this article to another link building worksheet you may find helpful.

Link Builder’s Guide to Historical Ranking Factors

While we’re on the topic of link quality, head over to David Harry’s blog and check out his guide to historical ranking factors. It may just inspire you to improve your linking strategy!

10 Factors That Determine the Value of Inbound Links

David Wallace took a stab at defining the value of various links over at SearchRank. Again, I’m not sure if I agree with everything he covered here, but I definitely think the ideas he brings up here are worth some consideration and thought. (David Snyder’s thoughts on link value can be found here at Search Engine Journal.)

Link Value Factors

Wiep spent some time chatting and questioning a number of the industry’s biggest and brightest on their link building beliefs. You’ll find the download link for the results of that research on the bottom of the page.

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Video Link Building and General Link Building Worksheets

12 ‘DoFollow’ Video Sharing Sites to Distribute Videos and Build Links

Ann Smarty put together a great list of video sharing sites over at Search Engine Journal. And while it was written over a year ago, I find it’s a really convenient page, particularly if you don’t normally focus on videos and video SEO. (By the way, if you’re interested in learning more about video SEO, you’ll want to sneak over to Reel SEO. I found them through Joseph Morin, and I’ve yet to be disappointed.)

Ontolo’s Downloads

These guys have a great collection of tools, worksheets, and research that will make you a much better link builder. This includes their Link Building Outreach Worksheets as well as their Link Qualification Worksheet.

SEO Content Inventory Worksheets — One of my favorite patent geeks, Bill Slawski released an excellent Excel sheet and article on content inventory. I loved it, and I think you will too.

Helpful Link Building Tools

Majestic SEO — Let you gather link data, backlink history, and have a bulk backlink checker, but they also have a neighborhood checker that’s pretty cool.

Raven SEO — The dark boys at Raven have put together a great set of tools that make it easy to watch and manage your website as well as identify adjustments your current campaigns may need. Their collection includes a contact and competitor manager, keyword research and manager, design and quality analyzer, link manager, website directory, content management system and a whole heap of other stuff you’re going to love.

Bad Neighborhood Tool — Created by Michael VanDeMar, it…well…scans your site and flags possible issues.

Linkbait Generator — You give it a subject, and it comes up with link bait titles. Not really sure about this one. I’ve never actually used any of the titles it’s created, but I did find it worked well for coming up with ideas. Something to try if you’re stuck.

Backlink Watch — These guys let you get a good quick look at your backlinks. I like the additional information they provide here. Of course, there is the Back Link Analyzer software from SEOBook as well.

Debra Mastaler and Wiep Knol also created some great lists of link building tools you may find helpful.

There ya go! By the time you get through this list, you’ll be a link building master. What about you? Do you have any favorite links for link building?

Are you ready for it? Ok, here it is:

We’re no longer normal. We forget how to think like a user! A real customer!

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We’re Barking Up the Wrong Tree

When I first got a computer after a substantial period without one, the online world had changed from the little chat room/Geocities/Yahoo world I had left a few years prior. The ‘me’ of today would have definitely been laughing at myself of yesteryear for sure.

I didn’t really use Google much, and when I did, I essentially knew nothing beyond how to type in the box and click ’search’. Paid ads and organic results didn’t look any different to me, and I didn’t use any of the fancy-pancy search functions like blog or news search. Most of the time, I found cool stuff by jumping from one site to another through links and ads. I didn’t use RSS, I didn’t use email and I definitely wasn’t using social networks.

It sounds odd, but it still happens way more than you think. My dear loving family, for example, doesn’t really use that ‘Google’ thing. This means, if they can’t type the address, it isn’t shared via email, or they don’t fall onto it through another site, they’ll never find it. They aren’t the exception to the rule either. Large portions of society don’t have or use the Internet daily. Shocking, I know!

Granted, this doesn’t hold true in every instance. If you’re working for a business that sells printers, routers, and other computer accessories, chances are your audience is going to be fairly good with computers and the Internet. If you’re working on a site for a local coffee shop, however, likely not. So, if you’re getting links and citations from directories, social networks, and other more technical means, you might want to reconsider your strategy.

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How To Give Local SEO That Extra Bit of Push

First, recognize that it’s easy to forget exactly how different we are from real people (ha!). I often don’t realize just how much I’ve learned and changed since I got sucked into this business, and I’m willing to bet you’re the same.

Find out how people in the real world are finding sites. Go to an Internet cafe or library and nonchalantly watch the less familiar users. Talk to friends and family about how they discover sites. Have the business owner talk to his customers. And for cripe sakes, use your imagination!

Talk to other local websites about posting some content, going together on some type of deal, and see about getting listed on other local business websites. Don’t be afraid to offer a little space and bandwidth to local charities or events as well. You can toss up a page for them quite easily in exchange for some link love and it reflects well on the business to boot. Connecting with the community has numerous benefits for the local business owner outside of just boosting traffic.

Let’s pretend, shall we?

We’re working on a site for a local bakery and lunch room. We’ve done Yelp and all the regular spots, but we’re needing an extra boost. So, here’s where I’d be looking for links and citations:

• Local hospital — they’re having a fundraiser, we spread the news, they offer up a link
• Grocery store — we drop a piece on planning birthday parties for diabetics
• Party planning store — we talk them into a citation/recommendation
• Tourist information booth — they love having tons of information on the local area, so we send them some! Like helping them put together a free ebook interested visitors can download. Of course links and information for the business will be inside.
• Radio station — we talk to the local biz owner and they agree to play the station in the store in exchange for a great link/ad
• Local Facebook pages
• Hotel /restaurant/lounge — They’ve got a little newsletter that’s going fairly decently, so we’ll help them put it together every month.
• Real customers — Make sure the business owner is promoting its website in store and offline as well as sites such as Yelp, Google Local Listings, and FourSquare. Promoting customer reviews is huge and even helps encourage customers to talk about the business elsewhere.
• Make pages and features local businesses would make use of: an interactive map filled with local info and hot spots, a list of upcoming events , interesting local information and odd stories collected from locals, track deals offered by area businesses. These ideas require you to do some work and give out some links, but others will happily link to them and send people directly to the site.

Many times, you don’t have to do more than just ask for a link or citation and you’ll get one. It’s often a matter of showing the other business owner they can benefit from working together. However, don’t be afraid to offer up a little something either. Being cheap isn’t going to get you anywhere.

What sorts of things do you do to get the most from your local SEO campaigns?

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I guess that’s what’s interesting about this type of content. Even though we know why it’s created, we often can’t resist sharing it with someone, discussing it, linking back, and giving the writer exactly what he or she wanted.

Others have a serious dislike for link bait and viral content, and honestly, I can’t see why. The only time I have a problem with link bait or viral content is when it doesn’t fulfill the promise made in the title.

Well, I shouldn’t say that. Some get irritated when they fall for it (also known as the ‘why didn’t I think of that’ syndrome), but it doesn’t generally affect the reader in a negative way. If anything, it should irritate you and make you think about the topic.

That being said, there is a dark side to viral content and link bait.

Viral Content Gone Wrong

Viral content can be priceless when it attracts the right crowd and drives the buzz in the right direction, but what happens when it goes wrong? While this often happens with controversial issues, sometimes even innocent viral content can have unexpected negative effects.

Say, for example, that you create an innocent blog post promoting a contest for a local charity. It goes well at the start and begins to generate a number of donations and a fair bit of excitement around the cause.

Now, imagine for a moment that a member from a particular religion, country, sex, or ethnic group reads the piece and gets offended by a particular angle to the contest, the subject matter, or maybe something to do with the charity itself. The next thing you know, a little bit of viral content becomes a PR nightmare for your company. After all, this type of reputation glitch doesn’t disappear easily or quickly.

While this will certainly increase the buzz surrounding the contest and the charity, it might not work to your advantage. And unless you’re quick thinking and have the resources to fight it, things could get pretty nasty and someone (likely you) is going to get into trouble.

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Viral Misfires

If you’ve created controversial link bait, the backlash from your ‘target’ should be fully expected. But what happens when content attracts the wrong crowd all together? Now, the ‘link is a link’ crowd isn’t going to care. Much. But what happens when it just happens to grab a lot of scraper links when the site really needs a few good authority links? What happens if it just generates some crappy links and barely any traffic at all?

Failed Viral Content or Link Bait

Any SEO who has been pushing to get a client site going understands the pure frustration of this, particularly if they’ve put a fair bit of time into the creation and planning of the content. Clients often don’t understand that audiences are very fickle.

Sometimes, articles you expect to take off and spend a lot of time on start to collect dust almost the instant you click publish. Then, the client is phoning and breathing down your neck because they’re not getting traffic or links and they spent a fair bit of money to create the content.

The next time, you publish something you scraped together in a hurry and it goes crazy. Suddenly, you’re dealing with comments and maintenance on a day when you hadn’t planned on it and really don’t have time. Did I mention the client is calling and freaking out because they’re getting traffic they weren’t expecting? (Believe me, it happens!)

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Pushing All the Right Buttons

Viral content and link bait is very much like a puppet show in text. The writer (the puppet master) knows just how to pull the strings to make the puppets (the targeted readers) to do what he wants. While this is generally harmless and often is nothing negative in the least, someone who is very good at it almost makes the situation eerie. I mean, when you think about it, it’s really no different than some of the greatest speakers in the world. The amount of power they have over others is almost scary.

Now, I’m sure I’m not the only one who has witnessed or experienced content strategies go bad. Have you had viral content or link bait go horribly wrong?

A new resource in the link builders toolbox

In SEO links are the golden commodity that make or break a campaign. Not only are inbound links critical in ranking, but who you LINK TO can also be a serious consideration. Google has said many times that you really can’t be hurt by who links to you, but you can be damaged for linking to bad neighbourhoods.

One area that can certainly get a website flagged is by serving up malware or other nastiness. Most often this is done by hackers/crackers that have accessed the site and installed malicious scripting on the server. But how does one know if a potential link target has had issues in the past?

Enter the Google diagnostic tool

There is a handy little too at Google for checking the recent history on domains which is well worth using when link building (link exchanges, link drops) as well as checking websites you may be linking out to within your content or blog posts. It is a simple query; http://google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=site-reference.com  (replace the end part with the domain you’re investigating)

What does an infected website look like? Here’s one example; http://google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=news.com.au

It can happen to anyone

And yes, I mean anyone… look at a search for Google.com – or eBay - and Joomla (as recent as yesterday) – you get the idea. While these sites seem to be good at catching it, there have been attempts.

How reliable is the application? It’s hard to say at this point as it’s only reporting problems that Google has seen; they don’t seem to be testing entire websites. What is important is that you remember that malicious actions can have an affect on your site’s presence in search engines. Be vigilant.

This only takes a few moments and can be invaluable to the search optimizer. Add this little toy to your toolbox and take the time to check out those sites you’re considering linking to from now on…. Better safe than sorry. I’d also suggest checking your own site every month as well to ensure you haven’t been compromised. All in all.. and groovy new tool in the box.

L8TR

(thanks to Jim Stewart for the tip )

When we left off earlier this week, article marketing best practices were the topic of the day. I like to think of it as content distribution more than anything. Deciding which articles are to be marketed for each target is a big part of the game.

1. Media/News outlets
2. Industry Blogs
3. Social Networks
4. Associations
5. Supplier Sites
6. Vertical non-competitor

No easy way here, hopefully you already know the major players in your market. Track them down, establish what types of articles are common, the general demographic and set about crafting a piece that had a high likelihood of appealing to their senses.

It could be argued that we’re now crossing into blogging terms such as ‘guest posting’ or ‘content marketing’ but ultimately we have an article and we’re using it for marketing purposes… so let’s not mess with semantics. Ok?

Now some directions to get you going….

News Media – If we were in the ‘Antique lighting’ niche we could try some things like; Interior design news Or Interior design news, submit- Play with some related market keywords and start making a list of sites to assess and short-list some for targeting.

Blogs – there are more than a few places to seek out worthy industry blogs to potentially guest post on… try these; Google Blog Search -Technorati -  Bloglines - MyBlogLog – BlogMarks – Blog Hop – Blogmarks – BlogPulse – IceRocket - Kinja - TailRank – Live Journal – BlogMemes

Social Networks – find the networks and social media sites in your niche to find top influencers and top sites being published. Start to make some contacts and opportunities to guest post. Here is a Big list of Social Media sites - or search out niche ones.

Associations – once more you need to find international, national and local associations that are related to your market and see if they have any white papers, articles or blogs that you might be able to target content at. Google is your friend.

Supplier sites – not only do your suppliers love you for promoting their products, they also are in a need for content and this can be a win-win situation. Have a look at some of your supplier’s websites for ways to get your content (and name) out there.

Vertical non-competitor – beyond the above mentioned tactics, there are often related niches to yours (verticals) that are not direct competitors. We can also look at these sites as places to hopefully publish our articles. No stone un-turned right?

The approach and pitch you use when looking to place articles will vary. The main thing is to be respectful, humble and have one helluva a targeted piece that they want to publish. Remember, one well placed article can build a lot of link love for the not only target site, but from author links it will also flow to you.

Article Repositories

Now we’re into the back end of the strategy. I say that because as we discussed last time with article marketing strategy, the articles we don’t think are of a high enough quality get relegated here. That is not to say total crap, but just not the A List material.

That is not to say there aren’t benefits as some articles can actually get some reasonable distribution and even a few half decent backlinks if yer lucky. These are no where near as valuable as the above targeting methods, but some cumulative effects are possible.

I am once more not a fan of huge mass submissions as quality is the game. And to b honest I am unsure if I’d go deeper than the top 10 – but here’s a list that should suit the most dedicated among you;

http://sbinformation.about.com/ R7 http://www.selfgrowth.com/ R7 http://www.acmearticles.com/ R6 http://www.advisor.com/ R6 http://www.articlecity.com/ R6 http://www.articledashboard.com/ R6 http://biz-whiz.com/ R6 http://www.blogwidow.com/ R6 http://www.chiff.com/ R6 http://www.digital-women.com/ R6 http://www.easyarticles.com/ R6 http://www.goarticles.com/ R6 http://www.powerhomebiz.com/ R6 http://www.weeno.com/ R6 http://ezinearticles.com/ R6

http://www.ezinefinder.com/ R5 http://www.homebiztools.com/ R5  http://www.howtoadvice.com/ R5 http://www.jogena.com/ R5 http://www.linkgrinder.com/ R5 http://www.mailbiz.com/ R5 http://www.mainstreetmom.com/ R5 http://www.maxebook.com/ R5 http://www.tigrafix.com/ R5 http://www.tips.com.my/ R5 http://www.webs-best-directory.com/ R5 http://www.workoninternet.com/ R5 http://www.writingcareer.com/ R5

http://www.articlesexpress.com/ R5 http://www.articlesoup.com/ R5 http://www.articlesymposium.com/ R5  http://www.bigarticles.com/ R5 http://www.businesshighlight.org/ R5

http://www.aboveallcontent.com/ R5 http://www.article99.com/ R5 http://www.articlealley.com/ R5 http://www.articledash.com/ R5 http://www.business-opportunity.biz/ R5

Now remember that we want to target the Author Bio links on each submission… yea it sucks, but read more about; Article Marketing Done Right

That’s it for today… have a great weekend.

More reading for you;

Editorial Link Building with Article Marketing – Ask Kalena
Article Marketing: How To Be an Article Marketer Like No Other! – Marketing Pilgrim
Article marketing the right way – BlgoStorm
How to market articles without using repositories – Search Engine Journal
Cheaters Guide to great headlines – Copy Blogger
Hot to write a killer ‘How to’ article – Copy Blogger
Headline titles that work – Copy Blogger
5 Sure fire headline formulas that work - Pronet

At least this is the mind set one needs when approaching it. You see, ultimately one must go beyond links. Think about the actual value of the placement as far as potential traffic, branding and reach. You will find that when you do so, that the links are of better quality and the benefits greater.

As we learned last week with our guide to directory submissions, quality supersedes quantity. When it comes to article marketing we seek to get as much value as possible. This means that we don’t simply toss off a bunch of copies of the article to repositories far and wide. You need to look at what makes the most sense strategically and plan from there.

Content is content

Now, the first thing we are going to need is a writer. If you have someone in-house that is already creating content, marketing materials or managing the blog, we’re in business. If you find yourself creatively challenged then looking at bringing in a professional writer as a sock puppet staffer is also an option. Much like content for the website, cutting corners will ultimately weaken the program.

You seek to create content that would be of a quality high enough that you would publish it on your own site. Not some knock off garbage piece that is 400 words long and devoid of value. That is not going to get us what we want… and at worst is negative branding.

You are seeking to build authority, become ubiquitous in the market and hopefully get some links that do more than please search engines.. we actually get some traffic ;0)

Finding the targets

Next we want to establish some targets for content placement. Remember, article marketing is more than mere repository overload. We can generally look at a few locales for potential promotion;

1. Article repositories – the most common form of article marketing.
2. Industry media outlets – most markets will have media/news portals
3. Guest blogging – on first and second tier industry blogs
4. Supplier websites – create how-to articles, FAQ etc…
5. Vertical markets – websites of related non-competitors.

Basically you need to get inventive and look for those that might appreciate some free content. Some of these relationships may not happen over night; cultivation is often required. But an article is often nothing more than content…with accreditation to you. This is how the path should be travelled.

Article repositories should really only be used for posts that you feel are weaker than others and aren’t suited for higher level branding. But even these should be of at least an average quality as any distribution is still a representation of you and your enterprise.

Crafting the article

Now that we have some varied targets we can set about trying to establish some demographics for the audience. Whenever possible, don’t be shy and simply talk to the editors of your target site and ask about the people and topics that fly well. Most times they can give some great qualitative feedback which helps when crafting the tone and language of the article.

I won’t get into the nuts and bolts of targeting as that is more of the writing element and beyond the scope of this post (look at this later in the week). But what is important is that the article is set up to succeed.

Getting the links

The best links to have are what are known as editorial links; these are links within the actual content themselves. This is something that should be used sparingly and don’t fill up the article with a ton of them from one end to the other. Each post should have 1-2 nicely targeted, but relevant, links to your site.

This is also extra important with distribution via article repositories as it ensure that is someone reprints it without the author bio (no! say it ain’t so?!) that you still get a few back links from it.

If we’re targeting a specific location with our article, we’re sure to get a link in the author bio and latitude for a few editorial links within the post as well (to relevant content on your site).

Targeting Considerations

Just as we did with the directory submissions, we want to vary link text as much as possible. This means a unique author bio for each and every article repository and diversity in link texts for our other distribution channels.

What link texts should you be using? That all depends on the strength of the potential link location (re-print from repositories? Or one-off on an authority site?). Try and use your core target terms for the stronger sites and work your secondary terms with the larger distribution channels.

Also remember to incorporate targeted titles for the post and include words from your lists of semantically related support terms.

…. And those are the basics of a successful article marketing program. Next time we’ll get a list of top repositories and tips for finding target sites.

Cya then…

While there are thousands of directories out there, I decided to list the more important (powerful) ones that you can look at; we’ll start with the paid…. I will list some of the ‘FREE’ ones following this list. The reason we look at paid directories is that search engines tend to value them more (as they do with human edited). It is always advisable to have some of these in a balanced link profile.

Top Paid Directories

http://Dir.Yahoo.com ($299 per year
)http://Ezilon.com/ (free / $69)

http://DirJournal.com/ ($59.95 / $99.95)

http://JoeAnt.com/ ($39.99)

http://Directory.v7n.com ($49.95)

Second tier paid directories

http://Elib.org/ (60 Euro -150 Euro)
http://Gimpsy.com/ ($40)

http://Romow.com/ ($45 / $90)

http://Botw.org/ ($80 /yr or $240)
http://HomeSalez.com/Directory/ ($50 /yr)

http://Iwebtool.com/directory/ ($10 /yr)

http://AvivaDirectory.com/ ($50 – $75 /yr)

http://BlazeMp.com/dir/ (bid min $50)

http://Skaffe.com/ ($50)

http://CityStar.com/ ($30)

http://Dmegs.com/ (free – $10 /yr)

http://Enquira.com/ ($30)

http://Kahuki.com/ ($20- $49.95 /yr)

http://MaxLinks.org/ ($13 / $50)

http://ProlinkDirectory.com/ (free – $9 for 3 months)

http://LoboLinks.com/ $23 / $37 /yr)
http://www.goguides.org ($70 one time fee)

Other paid directories

http://MyGreenCorner.com/ (free – $25 /yr)
http://Rakcha.com ($30)

http://WebWorldIndex.com/ ($25)

http://Zorg-Directory.com/ ($15 – $60)

http://AuthorityDirectory.com ($5 – $20 /yr)

http://Global-WebLinks.com/ (free – $40 /yr)

http://Idk.in/ ($15 – $50 /yr)

http://Index-It.net/ ($25)

http://AllInfoDir.com/ ($27 – $70)

http://AnthonyParsons.com/ ($10 – $30)

http://Emillie.net/ ($25 – $40 /yr)

http://Cascandra.com/ ($12 – $30 /yr)

http://OnlineWide.com/ ($35 / $70 /yr)

http://Ventedoy.com/ (bid; min $5)

http://Abilogic.com/ ($10 / $40 /yr)

http://Browse8.com/ ($35)

http://MassiveLinks.com/ ($25 / $60)

Vertical paid directories

http://123kidzarea.com/ (n/a) – Kids

http://FamilyFriendlySites.com/ ($9.95 / $49.95 per year) – family

http://Business.com/ ($300 /yr) – Biz

http://UkSmallBusinessDirectory.co.uk/ (50 -100 pounds) – UK Biz

http://BusinessSeek.biz/ ($10 / $20 /yr) – Biz

http://Ebusiness-Directory.com/ (unknown) – Biz

Free Directories

Ok, since these are the freebies…. I have listed them by PageRank as of the time of writing. Not that PR is the greatest judge of value, but it is a metric worth being a starting point for the moment.

Here are some to get you started;

http://dmoz.org – PR9

http://www.lii.org/ – PR7

http://2rss.com – PR6
http://Bizweb.com – PR6
http://Greenstalk.com – PR6
http://www.ezilon.com/ – PR6
http://www.buzzle.com/ – PR6
http://www.accoona.com/ – PR6
http://www.surfsafely.com/ – PR6

http://BestCatalog.net – PR5
http://aigam.com – PR5
http://Chiff.com – PR5
http://IllumiRate.com – PR5
http://Re-Quest.net – PR5
http://Clickey.com – PR5
http://turnpike.net/directory.html – PR5
http://Re-quest.net – PR5
http://prolinkdirectory.com – PR5
http://cgbee.com – PR5
http://www.turnpike.net/directory.html – PR5
http://www.info-listings.com/ – PR5
http://www.geniusfind.com/ – PR5
http://www.information.com/ – PR5
http://www.information.com/ – PR5
http://www.spheri.com/d/ – PR5
http://searchsight.com/ – PR5

http://www.searchwiz.com/ – PR4
http://www.skoobe.biz/ – PR4

http://MavicaNet.com – PR4
http://Earthstation9.com – PR4
http://ExactSeek.com – PR4
http://Jayde.com – PR4
http://Gimpsy.com – PR4
http://Haaba.com – PR4
http://Web-Beacon.com – PR4
http://Emfind.com – PR4
http://Websavvy.cc – PR4
http://cantufind.com – PR4
http://Webs-Best-Directory.com – PR4
http://charolabap.com – PR4
http://www.netinsert.com/ – PR4

http://WebWorldIndex.com – PR3
http://Americasbest.com – PR3
http://SoMuch.com – PR3
http://iMarvel.com – PR3
http://CyberWebSearch.com – PR3
http://Yeandi.com – PR3
http://SmartLinks.org – PR3
http://www.mygreencorner.com/ -PR3
http://www.businessseek.biz/ – PR3
http://www.abilogic.com/ – PR3

Still want more directories? Then try these…

http://info.vilesilencer.com/main.php?rock=seo-friendly-a.php

http://www.onewaytextlink.com/links.php?type=free

http://www.directorycritic.com

Verticals

It is always a good idea to search out specific vertical directories for your given niche/market. I will add some as I come across them, but you really should search out some yourself as part of the directory submission plan with your programs. I have listed a few with links to more lists;0)

Kids http://kids.yahoo.com/submissions/suggest_site – PR7

Canada http://SuperPages.ca – PR6
http://Canadopedia.com – PR6
http://ProudlyCanadian.net – PR5
http://www.canlinks.net/ – PR5

Health
http://Patient.co.uk – PR6
http://PsychNet-UK.com – PR6

Products
http://BooksMusicVideo.com – PR6
http://www.epooch.com/ – PR3

And here are some industry specific niche directories lists ;

http://info.vilesilencer.com/main.php?rock=niche.php

http://www.directorycritic.com/niche-directories.html

Blog Directories

If you have a blog on your site, then submitting to various directories is also a great idea. Here is a fairly comprehensive list to get you going;

http://www.2rss.com/index.php

http://www.addyourblog.com/submit.php

http://www.blogbunch.com/suggest/

http://www.blogcatalog.com/blogs/submit_blog.html

http://www.blog-collector.com

http://www.blog-directory.org/

http://www.bloggernow.com

http://www.blogexplosion.com/directory/

http://www.blogflux.com/add.php

http://www.bloggapedia.com/

http://www.bloglines.com

http://www.blogpulse.com/submit.html

http://www.blog-search.com/blog-submission.html

http://www.blogscholar.com/

http://boingboing.net/suggest.html

http://www.contentsmatter.com/add.php

http://www.feedage.com/submit.php

http://www.feedboy.com/addfeed.html?catid=

http://www.feedsfarm.com/a.html

http://www.gobignetwork.com/entrepreneur-blogs/

http://www.icerocket.com/c?p=addblog

http://www.newsgator.com/ngs/subscriber/Folksonomy.aspx

http://www.plazoo.com/en/addrss.asp

http://www.pressradar.com/suggest

http://www.readablog.com/AddFeed.aspx

http://www.search4rss.com

http://smallbusiness.com/wiki/Weblog_directory_company_blogs

http://strategicboard.com/?s=h:addblog

http://www.tailrank.com/import

http://www.technorati.com/ping.html

http://www.today.com/submit-blog

http://www.wingee.com/

http://add.yahoo.com/fast/help/us/my/cgi_rss_submission

Paid Blog Directories

http://Bloggeries.com

http://BlogAnnounce.info

http://Blogtagstic.com

http://www.all-blogs.net/submit.php

http://www.avivadirectory.com/submit.php

http://www.blogbib.com/submit.php

http://blogs.botw.org/helpcenter/submitblog.aspx

http://www.romow.com/submit.php

http://www.iblogbusiness.com/add.html

http://portal.eatonweb.com/add.php

http://www.postami.com/rss.finder/submit_feed.php

http://blogsforsmallbusiness.com/directory/add.html

http://www.wilsdomain.com/blogs/wilsdomain9b.php?op=newsubmit

And there you have it… plenty to keep you busy for quite a while; be sure to have a structured approach to you submission strategy and read yesterday’s post; Using directories of link building – Next week we’ll be looking at more foundational link building with Article Marketing tactics and resources.

Until next time… play safe!!

If you’ve ever considered directories for link building (or traffic) – what is your plan of attack? While using directories in your SEO efforts is not exactly a huge factor, it can be done wrong. Yeah, I know… how tough could it be right? Well, there are some things to consider… and we’ll be looking at them today.

I was recently working on a new edition of my e-book which will be focused on the fine art of link building. This got me thinking about publishing some posts on some of the basics; and so the next few posts will be geared towards just that – foundational link building.

All directories are not created equal

For starters, one should never simply go running about dropping submissions to every directory is site… Nope, that ain’t gonna cut it. You should first be hitting some of the more well known general directories and not some list of 2000 crap locales. For me, any link building activity needs to also have the potential for actual traffic. This is why targeting is an important aspect – though serious traffic is generally not likely.

Then you would be looking for directories in your niche. Topically related directories can be more effective and build relevance (as far as links are concerned). Finding market related (vertical) directories can be done a few ways such as using some Google Dorks (search operators) – we could try; electronics, directory, add / submit — or if we’re geo-targeting add a TLD operator; electronics, directory, add / submit site:.com.au

You get the idea; replace ‘electronics’ with your KW/Phrase and play with some searches. This is one good way for finding niche directories that Google has at least indexed which is a start. (To get you started, I shall list a whack of trusted directories in tomorrow’s post).

Or there are lists to find some niche directories to assess;

Vilesilencer Niche Directory list

Directory Critic – Niche Directories

Notice I said ‘assess’? It is important to evaluate a given directory to establish if it’s a target worth having. What I mean is that we want to ensure we’re not wasting time with a submission. Some of the common factors we can look at are;

1. Indexation – what is the sites indexation on the major engines (Google, Yahoo, Live)?
2. Domain Age – older domains tend to have more trust from search engines.
3. Require reciprocal link? Quality directories do not.
4. PageRank – not the greatest measure, but a minor metric in the mix.
5. Backlinks – are there many backlinks? What quality are they?
6. Domain information – has it been moved many times? Ownership changes?

By looking at some of these factors we can begin to get a feel for which directories are worth targeting and which ones aren’t. Be sure to take the time involved for ensuring submission is not a waste of time.

I would also suggest looking at some of the many paid directories out there as search engines tend to value these higher and the links tend to be of greater value. Either way, always look to establish some value to the asset.

Submission strategies make the difference

Now that we have a list of directories we are interested in (and associated values) it is time to get busy with the submission process. Now, this isn’t as simple as creating a Title and Description for the listing and hammering away. What we want to consider is link text diversity and timing.

Timing, in that link profiles will degrade over time and as such we want a nice steady stream of links. This means I would work on the process a few times per week over a 6 month period to ensure we get timed velocity. Each market will be different, so spend some time monitoring top competitors link profile growth rates before starting your own campaigns. For more read up on; historical ranking factors for link builders.

Also, we want to have diversity in the Title text (usually the link) and the description. You will have to take your keyword research and look at which target terms are most in need of links at the time of submission. These are often the core money terms, but often there will be the need for targeting lesser terms that are underperforming.

You would want to use some variants of semantic phrasings to further balance out the diversity of link texts in your profile. To that end I would suggest reading; Using keyword research to diversify link profiles.

By controlling the rate of submissions and the diversity of the listing titles and texts, you will be able to get the most from the exercise.

The lazy man’s submission services

And yes, there are submissions services out there… most simply don’t seem to have enough of a clue for me to get behind them. There are so many factors to be considered (such as we’ve outlined here) that one can’t reproduce it on a larger scale effectively. Because there needs to be diversity across multiple keywords and semantic concepts, it would be an expensive undertaking for most providers.

They offer maybe 2-3 varied titles and descriptions across hundreds of directories. Furthermore, because they don’t let us at the lists (business intelligence.. bah) we cannot ensure that we are actually hitting the cream of the crop. Also not a good thing. And what about timing? Will they be able to understand each niche/market well enough not to over do it? – Problematic on many levels.

And that’s the basics

Can you see what I was saying about doing it wrong? The difference between SEO geeks and the rest of the peeps – is in the strategy. Even from the most basic levels of foundational link building there is every opportunity to do it wrong…or at least not as well as you could. And this is the basics my friends…

Tomorrow I shall post lists of some of my fav directory resources… be sure to come back then…

Here’s the Discussion on the SR forums

Related reading elsewhere;

The power of directories - Search Engine People

The wisdom and folly of directory link building – SEO Moz

Link building and determining link quality - Search Engine Journal

The role of directories in link building - SEO Moz

Niche Marketing and link building resources – Search Engine Journal

A guide to one-way link building – SEO Theory

Archana asks; “Which type of linking is the best?”

There is no single answer to this, which is a common occurrence with SEO. You see search engines are not merely made up of a single algorithm which we can set our sites on to figure out. Quite the contrary; think of it as layers of an onion.

There is a core mechanism to which other methods and approaches are added. Each time a search engineer adds another layer it becomes exponentially more difficult to sort out. Then consider that each layer in that onion has a set of parameters that can be adjusted to create a slightly different outcome (search results). Much to the chagrin of your local SEO, none of us know exactly how it works.

Now, that being said, we do understand some aspects relating to inbound links and how they are (potentially) treated. Each website or more specifically, each page; has what we like to refer to as a link profile. This simply means the totality of the back-links and the potential value each may hold. Simply having more back links than a competitor is not the end-game here. Quality is often more important than quantity.

The basic types of links are;

1. Reciprocal Links – links pointing to your site and you link back to them.
2. One way links – links pointing to your site without reciprocation.

Now, each search engine will have their own feelings as to what is valued and how. A basic page segmentation approach give us the following in order of value (mine not a given engine);

1. Editorial; links that are in the actual content of the page.
2. Side Panel; a link from the side panel of a given web page.
3. Header; a link to your site from the header section of a web page
4. Footer; a link that comes from the bottom navigation of a page
5. Site-wide; links that are predominant throughout the site (a forum sig for example)

the Value of a Back Link

Now we can add on factors that affect a given link. Each link has a weighted value depending on the search engine and how they deal with link valuations. As a general rule some of the following come into play;

1. Age of the link (how long it has been around)
2. Topic and/or Title of the page the link is on
3. Relevance of the content of the page
4. Freshness of the page (has the page it is on been updated)
5. Number of links on the page (some ranking systems pass a ratio of accrued value)
6. Trust (is the link from a trusted page or a suspect domain)

Link Profiles – to expand the concepts a search engine also looks at the entire portfolio of incoming links to create what we call a ‘Link Profile’ – with this larger global view of your backlinks they can valuate it and even apply temporal metrics such as;

1. when links appear or disappear,
2. the rate at which links appear or disappear over time,
3. how many links appear or disappear during a given time period,
4. whether there is trend toward appearance of new links versus disappearance of existing links to the document, etc.

By doing this they can assess trends and potential attempts to game the search engine by artificially inflating one’s profile. Temporal factors are also important in assessing the current popularity of a site on a chronological scale.

And so which is best? I would say a topical/relevant, one-way link that is in the content (editorial) from an Authority site in you nice (market segment) – those are the best. In the end it is more about creating a logical and balanced link profile – more on that in the coming days.

For now some more reading;

Link Building Ideas for 2008 – Reliable SEO

  Visualizing a balanced Link Profile – News.com

  Link analysis done right – SEO Theory

  Link profile building tips – SEO Design Solutions

  Difference between a Natural and an Un-Natural Link Profile – Internet Marketing Journal