LINK BUILDING
STRATEGIES THAT MOVE
THE NEEDLE
Arnie Kuenn, CEO, Vertical Measures
@ArnieK #MnSummit
About Your Presenter
• Vertical Measures is a 45 person search,
social & content marketing agency in
Phoenix, AZ
• Instructor for the Content Marketing
Institute & Online Marketing Institute
• Columnist for Marketing Land, Chief
Content Officer & LinkedIn
• Wrote the content marketing book
Accelerate!
@ArnieK #MnSummit
What I’ll Cover
• Most common SEO mistakes we see
• Recovering from a penalty
• Are links still important?
• What doesn’t work
• What does work
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@ArnieK #MnSummit
Most Common Problems We Find?
• Unintentional duplicate content
• Duplicate title and meta tags
• Blocked pages or entire site
• Over optimization of anchor text in
backlinks and footer
@ArnieK #MnSummit
@ArnieK #MnSummit
Another example…• After 5 months of intense content marketing and no results.
– Identified a penalty back in August of 2012
– Duplicate content issue: same text snippet shows up on 259 pages
– There is wide use of duplicate or near-duplicate content in titles and page content
– A big issue: 100% of their image content and 45% of their HTML/text content is hosted externally (not under the domain).
– Lots of spammy anchor text in their backlink profile
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@ArnieK #MnSummit
How to Tell if You’ve Been Affected
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Webmaster Tools - Message
v
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Recovery is possible
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Manual Penalty Recovery
• Removing Links Is Highest Priority
• Be Thorough in Your Link Pruning (Machete time)
• Be Patient & Detailed - Auditing Links Takes Time
• Create a Detailed Disavow File (consider domain level)
• Admit Your Sin, Detail Your Penance, Promise to Never
Do It Again
@ArnieK #MnSummit
@ArnieK #MnSummit
Are Links Still Important?
Recent quotes from the infamous Matt Cutts:
• “…backlinks…are a really, really big win in terms of quality for
search results”
• “…backlink relevance still really, really helps in making sure we
return the best, most relevant, most topical set of search results.”
• “…without links, it is really hard for Google to determine the
quality of the page.”
• “...backlinks still have many, many years left in them ... over time
backlinks will become a little less important ... we will continue to
use links in order to assess the basic reputation of pages and
websites.”
@ArnieK #MnSummit
Are Links Still Important?
Recent quotes from the infamous Matt Cutts:
• “…backlinks…are a really, really big win in terms of quality for
search results”
• “…backlink relevance still really, really helps in making sure we
return the best, most relevant, most topical set of search results.”
• “…without links, it is really hard for Google to determine the
quality of the page.”
• “...backlinks still have many, many years left in them ... over time
backlinks will become a little less important ... we will continue to
use links in order to assess the basic reputation of pages and
websites.”
@ArnieK #MnSummit
What Doesn’t Work Anymore?
• Anything you have to pay for
• Anything you think you can scale
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The Result?
• Link Building got a LOT harder
• Which means it is much more expensive (in
dollars or hours)
• The days of paying a webmaster to link to
your product or services pages are over
@ArnieK #MnSummit
So What Does Work Today?
• Internal Links
• Brand Mentions
• Link Outreach
• Link Attraction
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Internal Links
• Internal links are what make up your website’s navigation.
− Important for usability and visibility
− Internal links tell search engines and your website visitors
what your site is about
− Proper internal linking structure is done for your users
• Use, but don’t abuse, internal text links within content
• Keep footers clean and include a link to sitemap
@ArnieK #MnSummit
Great article on the patent implications here:
http://moz.com/blog/panda-patent-brand-mentions
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Link Outreach
• Hard work, more like a sales job than SEO
• We do this every single day for our clients and have
great success
• We get .edu, .gov, .org links every day
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Link Outreach - What are the Keys?
• Have something worth linking to
• Have something worth linking to
• Have something worth linking to!• Expertise in advanced search commands
• Well crafted outreach emails
• A sales attitude
– link outreach is filled with rejection
– We pay bonuses
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Advanced Search Commands
• INURL:Links
• SITE:ORG
• ALLINTITLE:Resource
• “Association”
• Society OR Association
• -wikipedia.org
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Work On Perfecting Your Emails
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• Find the right contact – take your time
• Consider social media 1st: follow, subscribe, wait and
then contact
• Avoid using the word “link”
• Include all the details – the pitch is everything
• Brainstorm with your team: Turn No’s into Yes’s Meeting
• Follow up
• Test, test, test!
Outreach Best Practices
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Unlinked Brand Mentions
FreshWebExplorer.Moz.com
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Example #1 – Brand Mentions
Tactic
Positive Brand Mention w/o Link
DA 84 PR 7
Live in 2 1/2 Weeks
http://bit.ly/BrandMentions
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GOV’s and EDU’s link out if it makes sense!!
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• Events
• Sponsors
• Interviews
• Student Resources
• Career Resources
• Curriculum Resources
• Alumni Bios
• Historical References
• Boards/Certifications
• Local Government
• Chamber of Commerce
• Electronic Records
• Related Links
• Safety Resources
• Education Resources
• Nutrition Information
• Hero Spotlights
• Veterans
• Non-profits
• Eco-friendly
• Business Directory
• Utilities
• Free Resources
• Travel and Tourism
• Associations
• School/Job/Residence Transfer Information
• Community Involvement
Common Reasons EDU & GOV’s Link Out
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Example #2 – directory listing
Tactic
EDU Links Page
DA 64 PR 6
Live in 1 hour
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What resource and list pages exist in your industry?
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Example #3 – Resource ListsTactic
Resource Page
INURL:LINKS
DA 91 PR 5
March 18 Requested
April 24th LIVE
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Email On 6/20/14
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Other Good Methods
• Write for other blogs or sites (PR)
• Where you have relationships (suppliers & partners)
• Directories (local, industry, etc.)
• The best links:
– Are from trusted sites
– Determined editorially
@ArnieK #MnSummit
Because most of our clients are not the NYY, we strongly
suggest playing MONEYBALL (or Link Attraction)
1 in 4 at bats = hit (a success)
1 in 36 at bats = home run (a big success)
1 in 1,691 at bats = grand slam (viral success)
Getting Links Can Be Fun…
@ArnieK #MnSummit
(
In order to play link MONEYBALL, you need to come up with
hundreds of ideas so you can create fresh, highly converting,
useful content on a frequent basis. AND ATTRACT THOSE LINKS.
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@ArnieK #MnSummit
List All Content Ideas In A Spreadsheet
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VerticalMeasures.com/calendar
Put Together An Editorial Calendar
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@ArnieK #MnSummit
Resource Pages
38 links to this page111 links to this page
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Infographics
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Free Guides, Case Studies & White Papers
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Free Guides, Case Studies & White Papers
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Free Guides, Case Studies & White Papers
Lead generator
Link attractor
Long life span
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@ArnieK #MnSummit
@ArnieK #MnSummit
@ArnieK #MnSummit
@ArnieK #MnSummit
• Yale’s traffic has grown from 40,000 visitors to
150,000 annually
• Leads have grown from 800 to 2,300 monthly!
• Revenue is up by 40% since starting their content
marketing program.
• And according their president Steve Sheinkopf:
“Profitability is up way more than that, because
we eliminated other marketing expenses.”
The Results…
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@ArnieK #MnSummit
@ArnieK #MnSummit
Courtesy of The Sales Lion
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5 MONTHS
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5 MONTHS
4.5 MONTHS
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5 MONTHS
4.5 MONTHS
6.5 MONTHS
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Achieving Success is a Continuous Process
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The Value of Link Attraction?
• Just Discovered Moz.com in last 60 Days
– Stone Temple – 76 links
– Vertical Measures - 166 links
– TopRank - 208 links
– Wordstream – 394 links
– Moz - 920 links
@ArnieK #MnSummit
Shameless Plug
We offer the best content marketing workshops in the
industry and can bring them to you.
@ArnieK #MnSummit
More Traffic. More Leads. More Business.
www.VerticalMeasures.com
Tweet:
@ArnieK’s content marketing book
@AccelerateBook – is FREE on Amazon
Kindle – Today only! #MnSummit
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Other Suggested Tweets:
• @ArnieK may have just given the best link building
preso I have ever seen. #MnSummit
• OMG #ArnieK just made link building fun again!
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• I am having an amazing day so far at #MnSearch!