SEO and Social Media

Link building can be tricky.  Sometimes it’s hard to figure out where to jump in.  There are enough obtuse options and strategies to make an SEO cry tears of pain.  If you’re not employing a vendor to handle it, the bottom line is that link building is time consuming – no matter how you approach it.  There are tools that help you determine find the friendly links and good link partners through different ‘guesstimation’ algos, but if you’re not using them you need to come up with your own plan of attack.  A less efficient way to find links is to Google sites with related themes and content and try to negotiate links with them manually.  This manual part of link building does give you a lot of SEO control over the link partners and what the link looks like (ie, the keywords in anchor text, supplemental text near the link, input in the kind of link it is, etc.).  However, I like to optimize this approach with a few tricks.

Set Your Goals and Research Your Keywords

Before starting any link campaign you should have an idea of what you’re trying to accomplish.  Let’s say we’re trying to optimize a deep ecommerce page selling Star Wars audio books.  Let’s suppose the goal is to get this page to rank for some highly converting keywords.  Before I try to get links to this page, I’ll do some preliminary keyword research and figure out the top 5 keywords that make the sale.  I might round up these keywords through my analytics (sales data from natural search, paid search, and internal site search), and correlate them with keywords that Google, Keyword Discovery or WordTracker suggests.  I also do some poking around in social networks for alternative phrases that come straight from the mouths of the people (tools like Blogpulse, WhosTalkin, Twitterfall, TweetVolume,  connect you with conversations using your keywords and can sometimes give you alternatives or inspiration to build your own).  I check out semantic search engines for relationships I didn’t think of (Quintura is a good one because it’s visual interface makes it quick).  You might even find some options from the Link Diagnosis tool I’ll be talking about next.

Finding Link Partners and getting a Friendly Link

Next, if I’m focused on link building for SEO, I want to create a collection of sites to try to get links from.  I’ll do this by thinking about my competitors.  I could go to Yahoo and do the “link operator” (simply go to yahoo and type link:www.competitorsite.com into the search box, then take a look at the backlinks Yahoo returns), but I’ve become fond of a free tool called LinkDiagnosis.com.   By entering an SEO competitor into this tool, I’ll get insight into their backlinks.  If the website is linking to my competitor, maybe they’ll link to me too!  Note: Link Diagnosis works better if you install the Firefox extension they offer.  More insight to the links including PageRank, anchor text of every backlink, and more.  It’s a good tool.

Which Sites Do Not Have NoFollow?

Link Diagnosis gives me a lot of link building insight, but it also does something I really like.  Of course we want to get potential link partners, but we also want those partners to have NoFollows so they can pass PageRank.  By clicking the “good” slice in the Link Types pie, you’ll get a list of just the websites that link out using without using NoFollow.  Sometimes they’re blogs with comment boards, sometimes they’re social networks, sometimes they might be directories you never heard about, sometimes they’re small sites where reaching the webmaster won’t be too difficult.  Sweet!  Plus, with the FireFox extension, you can even see them ranked by PageRank to help you decide on which links to try to obtain first.

Popularity: 100% [?]

Here’s an easy SEO tactic.  It’s one of those, “Hmm- why didn’t I think of this before” type of moments for most people when I share it.  It’s easy, but it’ll have more branding power than actual “algorithm influencing” power.

So we know that getting links is mucho importanto.  But think about this – if you’re signing up for anything social these days, you’re creating a “profile page”.  These profile pages are nothing more than websites to search engines, and they compete on their own in the SERPs.  Links back to your partner site not only count, but the better your profile is optimized to be relevant to your partner, the MORE that link counts.  Since your profile page could theoretically now get served more often for targeted queries (because of good SEO), you’re casting a larger net in search engine land!  Your new listing can accompany your main listings, and give a little more branding and mind share.  Remember, a high presence in search engines semi-conciously tells people that you’re important because the great Google says so.

You just need to watch for results.  You want to make sure your profile page doesn’t trump a BETTER landing page, like one on your actual domain.  The profile pages won’t do much for your SEO goals, unless your only goal is getting any kind of SERP exposure.

Let’s say you have a progressive client, and have a Twitter account that you’re running them (or Facebook, or any blogging platform, etc.) – or maybe this is something you want to do for yourself and your LinkedIn page.  Optimizing their profile page, and targeting the kind of audience that best suits you, may really help get you more interest and traffic out of the SERPs.  Get some good keyword research going, and spread your profile around through links, comments and signatures.  With SEO, sometimes the little things go a long way.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Getting links to your site is mucho importanto; not necessarily because of the traffic it will bring, but the SEO link value you’ll earn. It’s true – negotiating links can be a manual, arduous process, but you can save time if you approach it smartly. When reaching out to a webmaster, you want to make sure you are clear in your intention of providing information about the existence of your site, and not to ‘grease the webmaster’s palm’ or buy your way onto their page. Do it ethically – provide other relevant websites with knowledge of your value, and let the webmasters decide if you are a good fit for their site. This good intention is in line with search engines’ interests.

Here’s the Top 5 checklist I use when chasing down links.

• Look for relevant sites to get links from, because these will make the most impact. In getting links, think “Quality, not quantity”. Check niche directories, your competitors’ backlinks, and even searches on keywords related to your website (many times websites that get served are not direct competition – getting links from other keyword related sites can have a big impact).
• Use the Google toolbar PR rating as an indicator of page value. Although this is not the updated often, it is still a relatively directional data point.
• Create a spreadsheet of sites you reached out to, and their response (if any). If they offered to post a link, note where the link is located. This spreadsheet may save you from duplicating your efforts or repeating yourself to uninterested parties. If the only way to negotiate a link is to do it reciprocally, this spreadsheet can also help you make sure your link partner is keeping up with their end of the bargain (provided you revisit this spreadsheet routinely).
• Don’t be afraid to provide a “thank you” gift for the webmaster. A coupon or a gift from your site might create a stronger connection between you and the webmaster, and entice them to consider linking to you longer. Note: I do not recommend doing this as a bribe – do it in good faith, and only after the link has been created. Obviously I can’t convince you to be a pure ‘white hat SEO’, but bribing or buying links can have negative side effects in the slim chance you’re caught.
• Offer to post some of their content on your site, or create your own unique content about their site or service (think reviews, interviews, opinions, pictures, etc.). This will often get you a link, especially if the site you’re referring to is smaller or in the social network space. Who doesn’t like to point out where they’ve been mentioned?

Popularity: 4% [?]