Link Prospecting: Step Away From The Search Engine

Takeaways

• Why you should step away from the search engine

• Other places to find prospects

• How you can do this more efficiently

Spend more of your time

• doing things where you can make a difference

• that need the personal touch,

• planning, researching, delivering great campaigns,

• building relationships

What’s wrong with search engines ?

not to scale

sites found with

advanced search

queries

I <3 lists

alltop.com

ebuzzing

blogmetrics.org technorati.com bloglovin.com

ebuzzing.co.uk blogcatalog.com konector.com dmoz.org

cision.com lookbook.nu foodies100.co.uk hibs100.co.uk

Copy & PasteDonkey’s years & RSI

Alltop.com

Right click headings > Select “scrape similar” > Save as google doc.

Chrome Scraper Extension

Blogmetrics.org

Scrape similar > change xpath: //div[*]/table/tbody/tr[*]/td[2]/a > scrape > save as google doc

More than one page?

No details on page?

OutWit Hub & Bloglovin FTW!

Outwit Hub & Bloglovin Tutorial

Curated lists = social proof

• top / best [keyword] blogs to follow 2014

• “list of [keyword] bloggers”

• “top [keyword] blogs” etc…

Linkclump chrome extension

• Hotkeys > drag > paste

We’re still not done with lists

• Blogrolls

• “list of blogs I love” and “Places I’ve been featured / interviewed / guest posted” style pages

• Linkclump works well for all of these

I also <3 comments

Comments

• Commenters on articles that have covered your stuff or a similar topic

• Collect and review those with sites.

• Linkclump or Scraper extension works on majority of formats.

• Blogger.com, Disqus powered trickier

Disqus

• Name links to disqusprofile

• Profiles include site & social details

• And other sites they’ve commented on!

Blogger.com powered

• name links to blogger profile or redirects to g+

I also <3 linkys

Common linky tools

• misterlinky.net – linkclump does a nice job as does scraper with xpath tweaks

• inlinkz.com & linkytools.com - hop through redirect. Scraper and linkclump don’t work, Outwit Hub does.

From an e-mail list

Gmail & rapportive chrome extension

Fullcontact Person API

Fullcontact API & Excel

What you need: e-mail addresses, FullContact API key, the Excel Template

social

twitter

Followerwonk

[keyword] blog > more options > “http” in URL field > download

Twitter chats & hashtags

• #bbloggers – beauty bloggers, #fbloggers – fashion , #pbloggers – parenting, #lbloggers – lifestyle

Loads more hashtags: http://blog.tweetchat.com/calendar/

Twitter Archiving Google Spreadsheet

http://mashe.hawksey.info/2013/02/twitter-archive-tagsv5/

#brightonseo

Who’s tweeting about #brightonSEO?

Let’s find out more about them

Top 100 Tweeters

Where are they?

What do they talk about?

advertising bbc radio 1 blogging brighton

business christmas east midlands facebook google

infographics london manchester marketing microsoft

windows music public relations ricky gervais search

engine marketing seo social

media software sussex twitter web analytics wordpress

What else did it find?

MySpace 1 Occupation 50

Age 2

Other: Vimeo,

Foursquare etc 50

Skype / gtalk 3 LinkedIn 53

Flickr 3 General Location 88

YouTube 8 Klout 92

Google+ 17 Bio 94

Facebook 33 Name 95

Gender 36 Photo 95

Company 50 Website 95

Twitter has lists too

But no native way to search for them!

Twitter List Explorer Google Doc

So we made one:

• Search for lists & collect member details

Will be released shortly

Google+

Google+ Communities

Search “[keyword] blog” > Click on group > Scroll down to members > Click see all > Visit profiles & collect URL data

Facebook

Facebook Groups

Graph search

Events

Pages

A Problem with Facebook

• 50% profiles we tested didn’t display website details anywhere!

• Is email outreach the best way?

• Facebook advertising to individual ids.

Getting their info off Facebook

Step 1: Scraper or Linkclump Chrome Extension

Groups members page > scroll to show all members > scrape similar on last member > swap numbers with * in expath > scrape

Method also works for

Events & Graph search

Step 2: Facebook Graph API & SeoTools for Excel

=JsonPathOnUrl("https://graph.facebook.com/username","id")

What about Pages?

• Can’t get all fans, but Facesniper will get engaged ones.

Google news

Google News

• If you have something topical to promote – find people who are already talking about the topic

http://press.customerdevlabs.com/

Spy on your competitors

Which sites linked to a few competitors?

• Moz competitive link finder & Majestic Clique Hunter

Great, but based

on historical data

Which sites linked to a few competitors?

• Link intersect excel template by @mihaiaperghis

• Last 6 – 12 months backlink data from ahrefs or Majesticseo.

What are they up to lately

• Open Site Explorer Fresh links – no api yet

• Majestic Seo fresh links - has api

• Ahrefs - sort by date - has api

What are they up to lately

• Monitorbacklinks.com handy if you don’t have a developer

What’s their best performing content?

But what does best performing mean?

Used to check for top linked pages.

What’s their best performing content?

Now find social performance more helpful

Reverse engineer badges

Bloggers love badges

• Check where they link to

• Pull a link report & review

• Ongoing: monitor fresh links

Spy on similar themed assets

Find similar themed stuff & borrow their success

• Buzzsumo again

Look for similar themed infographics*

• Paddy Moogan’s infographic search engine

*yes even if you’re not doing an infographic

Look for similar themed infographics*

*yes even if you’re not doing an infographic

• Search on visual.ly

Find who linked

Use backlink tools to all of its URLs

Find who linked

• reverse image search to find some the tools missed

Before I go…

Remember

• Not about spamming people

• It’s about being more efficient

• Spend less time collecting and more validating and on the stuff you shouldn't outsource or automate.

Thanks!

Find links to all tools, files, templates and tutorials at http//www.webdurance.co.uk/brightonseo-slides/

Find me on twitter @carolynlyn