March 2012

What is it good for?Link Building

Annabel Hodges - @searchpanda

(Huh)

Ok I lied! But…

• Are we getting the right kinds of links?

• Should we always be focusing on links?

• How and where should we be focusing our efforts?

(And I did get that song in your head, right?)

Interval… who am I anyway?

• I work at OMD

• I now work almost exclusively on large brands and multinational sites but come from a small agency background

• Budget often gets split between all types of marketing from above the line to PPC

• And brands are often too restricted to have the freedom to experiment

• This can make for interesting link building challenges

Build links but will they come?

Ranking position Type of SERP

Keyword research Conversion intention

Link build Long-term link impact

Sometimes the products don’t dominate…

Or geography is more important than brand…

Rankings are not everything…

Links are great.

Number 1 position is awesome.

High quality traffic is

best.

Here’s a thought…

• Send out free samples, don’t immediately request links – it’s PR not link building

• Set up free ‘bloggers evening’ for top food blogs - it’s exposure not link building

• Offer discounts/offers to those who contribute to updates of your product on review sites – it’s crowd sourcing not link building

• Submit & optimise Google Places listing (works in conjunction with review sites) – it’s citations not link building

Build links but will they come?

Ranking position Type of SERP

Keyword research Conversion intention

Link build Long-term link impact

High traffic doesn’t mean high conversion

BUY? MAKE?

SELL? READY MIX?

1m searches/month in UK

And let’s not forget…

But you can make the most of your conversion points

Here’s another thought…

• Less can be more for both traffic and links. Setting niche achievable keyword targets could provide greater ROI than high traffic, high competition

• Don’t abandon erroneous high ranking pages. They could bring in more than you expect.

• Brand is usually more important than rank!

Build links but will they come?

Ranking position Type of SERP

Keyword research Conversion intention

Link build Long-term link impact

Where can we get our links from?

Partnerships

Link bait campaigns

Manual Link Sourcing

Guest Blogs

Free and paid directories

Article marketing

Rented Links

Sometimes reality ain’t pretty

Copycat techniques are pretty obvious guys

Here’s a final thought…

• It’s not hard to buy cheap, crappy links.

• Paid for links may work in the short-term but will they damage your brand?

• Lazy link building techniques will get found out.

• Lazy link building/buying links won’t help build a brand. How about killing two birds with one stone?

Channel 4 Education Sites: A Case Study

Distributing the content far and wide

Building relationships and getting social

Building Resource Landing Pages for link building

Leads to SERPs domination for both students and teachers

Be less obvious

Give someone that warm and fuzzy feeling

Stay social

Play nice, link out

“I wouldn’t recommend closing comments in an attempt to “hoard” your PageRank.

In the same way that Google trusts sites less when they link to spammy sites or

bad neighborhoods, parts of our system encourage links to good sites.”

Matt Cutts

@searchpandaQuestions?

Annabel Hodges