screw link building - it is called relationship building - on a budget
DESCRIPTION
Jo Turnbull's presentation at SES NYC March 2013 on Relationship building on a budget.TRANSCRIPT
New York | March 25–28New York | March 25–28
Screw Link Building – It is called Relationship Building On a BudgetPresenter Jo Turnbull
#SESNY#SESNY
New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
The Beginning of SEO Jo
• Worked client side
• Moved agency September 2009
• i-level then MEC
• Organizer Search London
• Freelance
• Blogger at State of Search
• Business Director at iProspect Sydney, Australia
All from Relationship Building
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New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Case Studies
• Will use 3 case studies to demonstrate the importance of relationship building over link building:
1) Search London
2) SEO Jo Blogs
3) Client case studies
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New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Why build a relationship vs a link?
• Low cost for you/client
• Long term
• Beneficial to you and the client
• Quality link building is about relationship building
• Stay current with shifting market dynamics
• Don’t be left behind – Google updates
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New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
How to build relationships
• Honest and open
• Attend events
• Take the long term view
• Do something different – stand out
• Ask why?
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New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Case Study 1. Search London• Search London, took over ownership October 2010 when
organizer stepped down – 200 members
• Goal - to grow the event – not just for links
• Wanted to know more people in search
• Was it going to be a success or not?
• How do I get people to attend?
• Lots of competition – London
• Links not as important as Relationship Building
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1. Search London – Why?
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January 2012
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January 2013
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Search London - members
•Jan 2012 – 592 members
•5 meetups 2012
•January 2013 – 1100 members
•Increase 86%
•As of March 2013 – 1230 members
All of this through Relationship Building
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New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Search London - How• Strong domain - www.meetup.com - attracts new members• Good speakers – don’t be afraid to ask
– Finlay Clark from Google first meetup January 2011– Lisa Myers – CEO and Founder of Verve Search– Paddy Moogan – Author of Linkbuildingbook.com– Kelvin Newman – Brighton SEO– Judith Lewis – Head of Search at Beyond, Blogger at SEOChicks– Richard Baxter – CEO and Founder of SEOGadget
• Catchy titles each presentation– Search in 2011– Link building post panda– Schema markup– The value of SEO and social
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New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Search London - How
• Guest post – SEOGadget
• Interact with others at the event
• Don’t spam people– send an email announcing event, reminder and post event
• Central venue– Easy to get to, easy to find, not weather dependant
• Use Twitter #SearchLondon and encourage others– Updates, remaining tickets left
• Film presentations for later
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New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Search London - Results
• New Search London website (BETA)– www.searchconferences.com
– Will feature meetups in Sydney
• Google’s Pierre Far asked to speak at the meetup
• First day time event – Google Campus March 20th
• Now Search London has nearly 1,230 members in 2 years (from 200 October 2010)
• Search London organizing team
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So what? Could I have built this from links?
• Invited to guest post – Linkdex, Blueglass
• Client confidence
• Personal brand has increased in industry
• People want to sponsor the event
• Latest conference in front of entrepreneurs
• More links to SEO Jo Blogs and referrals
• Cost = $60 every 6 months and cost venue hire through sponsorship
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New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Case Studies
• Will use 3 case studies to demonstrate the importance of relationship building over link building:
1) Search London
2) SEO Jo Blogs3) Client case studies
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Case Study 2. SEO Jo Blogs - 2012• Work freelance in Perth, Australia• Ran 5 meetups• Attended 2 Brighton SEOs• SMX London and SMX NYC• LinkLove• SearchLove• UK Search Awards
All of this from Relationship Building
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New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
How to get started
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Be Honest and Approachable• Don’t be afraid of using your contacts
• Find a good blog in your field
• Use Rapportive to find email address – plugin for gmail
• Use Followerwonk
• Follow people on Twitter and @tweet them
• Engage in the community – be sociable and share tweets
• Is there a public Facebook group?
• Personalize the email
• Short version of the email (no one likes long emails)
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New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Attend relevant events
• Many events eg meetup.com, trade shows, new product launches
• Travel bloggers/food bloggers/mommy bloggers • Approach with interest in the event• Speak to other bloggers• Speak to the press
Could you build these relationships just from link building?
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New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Attend Relevant meetups
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New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Think about the long term
• Don’t just be looking for that one link• It is ok to have more than one guest per different blog• Become a regular contributor• Great blog – State of Search, SEOmoz, Search Engine Land• Encourage others to guest post on your site• Interview others on your site - Search Predictions 2013
Could you have the same results from link building?
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New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Do something different• Make sure you stand out
• Wanted to be a blogger for State of Search
• Already many UK based bloggers
• Wanted to combine travel and work
• First State of Search Euro Roadshow
• US Roadshow
• Soon to be Australia Roadshow
• Result = Blogger for State of Search
• Cost = No additional outside of pre-planned travel
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Results
• Now regular blogger State of Search – European Best Search Blog 2012
• Post on Brighton SEO was one of the top 3 read posts September 2012.
• Met 16 SEOs all over Europe
• Met 6 SEOs from the US
• Invited to attend the UK Search Awards
• Job in Sydney iProspect, Australia
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Traffic to SEOJoBlogs.com saw a peak in traffic on the day of the event.Could this have been achieved without establishing those relationships?
New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Case Studies
• Will use 3 case studies to demonstrate the importance of relationship building over link building:
1) Search London
2) SEO Jo Blogs
3) Client case studies
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New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Case Study 3. Vacation rentals• Holiday apartments in Europe
• The client has a blog that has not been updated
• Sole KPI – increase in rankings
• Only off site work allowed
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Do something different – for your clients• Engaged in blogger outreach
• Reciprocal blogging
• Relationship with the bloggers
• Good blogs via meetups/search events
• Updated the client blog weekly with photos of new cities visited
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Results• Increase in number of referring sites to client’s site
• More natural link profile
• Increase in rankings for key terms – one from 10 to 5 in 6 weeks
• Brought forward fresh way of thinking
• Now the agency is engaging in blogger outreach
• Built up relationship with blog sites
• Formed travel site Globaltravelhunter.com
• Cost =$ 300
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New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
• Take every opportunity
• Client moved to new location in a new shopping mall
• “Melville Jewellers” in Western Australia
• www.melvillejewellers.com.au
• Decided to have “official launch party”
• Leaflets, advertisement in local paper
• Prize draw – collect customer details
• Result = doubled sales for the day
• Cost = $1,000 promotion
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Case Study 3. Retail client
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Do something different – for your clients
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• Loyal customer 13 years wins star prize
• Continue to receive increased number of customers
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Building relationships takes effort
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Work on what you can do for your clients• Brainstorm ideas for content
• Buzz monitoring tools – buzz numbers, Brandwatch, Radian6
• What are people saying about the brand?– Positive, negative, neutral
• Topsy (what is trending)
• Google Instant Search – don’t click enter
• Google Insights/Trends
• Be prepared to address negative mentions
• The BodyForm Rant of Truth in response to negative comment from “Richard”
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New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Find good blogs
• List of travel blogs
• Advanced search queries– travel blogs inurl:guest-post
– travel blogs “write for us”
• Check out the blogs on the 10th page and work backwards
• Engage with blog communities– MyBlogGuest
– BloggerLinkUp
– Make contacts with who you know already
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New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
How to check the blogs are genuine
• Social media profiles established
• Contact us page
• Do they have Google Authorship?
• Look to see if there other sites on same IP address
• Send a test email – do they respond?
• SEOmoz – PA and DA, number of backlinks
• Searchmetrics – how visible are they in the SERPs and how long?
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New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Personalize email• Find the contact’s name and address it in the email• Mention if there has been communication before
– Did they follow you back on Twitter?
– Did your colleague introduce you both?
• Compliment them on the blog• Explain why you want to write • Suggest a couple of topics • Get their buy in
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New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Interaction with the clients
• Agree on the content theme with client
• Adhere to brand guidelines and sign off post title
• Share the blogs with the client
• Personalize the emails
• Why should these bloggers want your content?
• Remember – stick to a budget
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When the post is live
• Tweet
• Don’t be afraid to promote
• Share internally
• Share with friends
• Stay in touch with the blogger
• Share the blogger’s posts interesting for you
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New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Long term• Don’t just look for the sponsored post
• Build up relationship with the blog owner
• Check out the past posts on the blog
• Can the blogger help run a competition?– Look for comments on competition
– Who enters the competition? - more potential bloggers
• Don’t give up
• Email follow up, no more than twice
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Do something different – Competition
• Prize = visit 25 world wide destinations in 6 months
• All expenses paid
• Winner blogs
• Paid US $50,000 after 6 month period
• Applications close on 31st March
• http://www.mydestination.com/bbb/competition
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Do something different – Sponsor an event• London Bloggers Meetup – over 1,200 members
• January 2010 O2 stopped being the only UK operator to offer the iPhone
• iPhone on Vodafone UK
• Great opportunity to win free iPhone
• 75 Bloggers + attended
• Vodafone ranked number 2 after O2
• Cost = bar tab in London ($2,500) + iPhone
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New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Summary
1) Honest and approachable
2) Attend events
3) Take the long term view with a business/client
4) Do something different
5) Why would they want to work with you?
•Building the relationship between the client and the blogger
•Stick to a budget
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New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Thank you - NYCAsk the Turn“bull” some questions
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