Business Management Consultant - Stuntdubl Search and Marketing Consulting

In seven plus years working as a seo consultant, I’ve learned that there’s only a few things that separate good consultants and agencies from great ones. One of the most important elements to greatness is being able to set realistic expectations and achieve them for satisfied customers over the longterm. In a marketplace that represents markets that are shifting like quicksand with a gaggle of dynamic inter-connected variables to search ranking, this becomes nearly mission impossible. One of the most unique skills that I’ve come to realize great SEO folks possess is the ability to analyze a link profile and set these realistic expectations for long term rankings based on a nearly psychic level of analyzing backlink profiles. Everyone has a unique toolset to get the job done, but disseminating the information into an actionable plan and commissioning resources within budgetary confines to make the project feasible are the most important aspects to this unique skillset of conducting search engine optimization at a high level.

This Thursday, December 17th, 2009, at Noon Pacific time, I’ll be doing a free live webinar to perform competitive backlink analysis on a variety of sites to demonstrate some of this skillset that I have discovered to be one of the unique traits consistent in the best SEO folks I know. I’ll share tools, and more importantly, discuss the critical variables that determine just how valuable individual links are to a site’s rankings.

Join me for some competitive link analysis at MarketMotive, and help spread the word to any site owners who are trying to gather a better understanding of why their site ranks the way it does in search engines, and how to improve upon these rankings with a better gameplan for improving their backlink profile in comparison to their competitors.

Some of the subjects we’ll cover:

1. Identifying key indicators for the difficult of ranking for your phrases (opposition score)
2. Assessing and categorizing the types of links on any site (using 12 link types).
3. Assessing and categorizing your own link profile versus competitors
4. Identifing common links between competitors
5. Finding the strategic alliances and unnatural link patterns of your competitors
6. Building a list for link development opportunities
7. Training your team to “think links” with other marketing initiatives

Most calls for MarketMotive are members only, but we’re starting up another SEO Master Certification program in a few weeks, and want to give people a look how MM trains folks to be better at search engine optimization through our interactive program which includes over 50 videos and presentations on the most important aspects of SEO developed over the past 3 years.

Link development is tough. Not everyone can create amazing linkbait, as easy as the experts make it sound. It’s not an easy proposition to get people to link to your website if you’re a local realtor, mortgage broker, or holistic doctor for that matter. It is POSSIBLE though with the right approach to actually solicit and develop links that will help your search engine rankings. From LOTS of trial and error, here’s the process I’ve developed for training link developers to become true link ninjas that will hunt and pursue links that actually make a site rank high for targeted terms.

The updated "How to Train a Link Developer for 2009 Guide"

Teach them why links are important and the basic criteria for establishing their value

1. Overall value of the link theme (use cost per click as a rough metric)
2. Total links
3. Total unique linking domains (find with linkharvester)
4. Anchor text and surrounding text variables
5. Placement on page
6. Check Age (Archive.org)
7. More link value factors

Explain the contradiction of pagerank mattering

1. It is a quick indicator to dismiss low value websites
2. Toolbar pagerank is for entertainment purposes only, and can be spoofed
3. Finding high pagerank (or global link popularity) sites is a great starting point to finding authority links

Show them how to find good starting points
(and WHY this is important)

1. google directory (sorted by PR)
2. keyword combination tool
3. creative queries (soloseo link tool)
4. Competitor backlinks

Explain how to find contact information

1. Page search for name or webmaster
2. Whois.sc or other whois tool
3. Phone number search
4. People search

Explain how to search source code and within the browser to find things quickly on a page

1. Firefox - control+U to view source
2. Control+F to find text
3. Find text on the actual page
4. Open tabs with shift+click or other methods
5. Mouse gestures FF plugin

Explain the 12 different types of links

1. Order of importance
2. How to get each
3. How much time to spend on each type
4. Links is to SEO’s what Snow is to Eskimos.

Explain how to write contact emails (see pickup tips below for more)

1. Explain how to write converting titles to improve open rate
2. Explain how to write an link request

Write some descriptions and anchor text

1. Explain getting content for article links
2. Explain writing titles and description
3. Explain varying anchor text
4. Explain current keyword strategy
5. Co-citation techniques

Demonstrate how to negotiate

1. anchor text or alt text
2. type of link
3. rates
4. term
5. exclusivity

Explain how to tell if a webmaster is cheating or if a site sucks

1. Non-cached pages
2. Linkfarm pages
3. Sneaky redirects
4. Robots.txt
5. Nofollow
6. Buried links pages

Let them go out and get some links

1. Setup a paypal account with limited access
2. Setup a one time credit card with a limited amount
3. Have them verify purchases

Allow tool use for link development

1. Link Harvester
2. Linkscape
3. Hubfinder
4. Local Rank tool in SEObook community
5. Majestic SEO
6. Link Management tools (like Raven SEO Tools, or BuzzStream)
7. FF Quick Searches
8. Other tools?

Explain how to mine a competitors backlinks

1. Linkscape
2. Link Harvester
3. Yahoo Site Explorer
4. Quirk Search Status plugin for FF
5. Hubfinder (in SEObook community, and a few legacy versions)

Start a persona for your website

1. Real or psuedonym (real are much more credible)
2. Be consistent across websites (and interlink within reason)
3. Have picture and bios
4. Make sure you own your brand (in addition to generic personas)- Secure with KnowEm

Explain they are a brand advocate, and their actions represent the company

1. Similar to business development
2. Establish phone etiquette
3. Establish email and IM etiquette rules

How Link Building for SEO is Like Picking Up a Girl

Approach **

1. Learn to get a response (of any type) from a target
2. Use Twitter, IM, Email, Facebook, or any other communication method
3. Overcome approach anxiety and approach sites early and often

Transition

1. Discuss webmastering
2. Discuss content of a similar nature
3. Mention the website you are associated with

Attraction

1. Demonstrate value as a webmaster
2. Demonstrate value as a web user
3. Demonstrate value to the webmaster’s users

Qualification

1. Allow the opportunity to have a webmaster help you in return (ask intelligent questions)
2. Find attractive opportunities to work together (perhaps brainstorming ideas or content trading)

Comfort

1. Discussing opportunities to work together through trading links
2. Discussing advertising opportunities

Seduction

1. Discussing anchor text and surrounding text
2. Discussing ad placement and terms

Relationship

1. Discussing the duration of the contract
2. Discussing renewal terms of the contract
3. Discussing mutual arrangements of the contract
4. Make sure there are no lies (nofollow, robots.txt, javascript redirects)

**Numbered points are from the "Emotional Progression Model"

For more on information on SEO and link development training, check out MarketMotive, or let me know if you need something more custom.

Inspiration:

• Emotional Progression Model
• Original Link Development Training Post
• Link Popularity is like high school popularity

Additional Resources:

• @NinjaJen’s version of Art of getting a link and picking up women
• Advanced Linkbuilding in 2009 from Christoph
• Linkbuilding A-Z
• Big bunch of link dev ideas
• 11 Link Experts Speak Out
• Old Link Hunting tips

Anything I missed? Great Tips? Great Tools? Great Links about Links? Leave ‘em in the comments.

The fine folks over at Text Link Ads, have out done themselves again offering new services from both ReviewMe, and the mothership. ReviewMe now offers a service that gives more control to the advertiser while still giving the blogger 100% control over what review offers they accept. TLA is now offering post level text link ads, which should be a very nice addition as well. These are a fine addition to the SEO arsenal - just don’t blow your feet off;)

*Disclosure: this was not a paid post. I just think Patrick, Jay, and Bill are cool guys.

I like to buy links. In fact, I love to buy links. As powerful and relevant as possible. The more they are such, the more they will help search engine rankings. Search engine rankings help sales. I love to buy sales even more than I like to buy links. I love to scale this process too. I am a capitalist. Capitalist theory may have it’s downfalls, but overall it has served our country pretty well. I think a case could be made for just about any link on the web being purchased in one way or another. You can read my thoughts on not being a link communist here.

About two years ago, I formed an opinion on buying links that is contradictory to that of search engineers at Google. I obviously have a vested interest in doing so. The above is my disclaimer. I like to make money buying (and sometimes selling) links. Engineers make their employer money by keeping search results relevant. That is two perspectives. The third (4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th) perspective is the Visitor, Owner, Consumer, or Partner. They are what I truly try to justify my biased perspective off of because they are the most important. I think the FUD is really only doing detriment to them in the long run, and creating unwarranted confusion to those who have legitimate needs to purchasing links in various forms.

Maintaining perspective is the important part of the link buying debate. Staying informed, and being able to defend your case should the issue ever arise, and knowing that there are no hats, only goals in this business.

Article link buying

Perspective: SEO

1. Quantity - I write a press release which takes time to write or resources to have written. Hopefully it is worthwhile news. The anchor text linking back to the articles sometimes helps as a link. Submission services take money.

2. Quality - I spend a LOT of time writing a superior article to have it published and have links put in. I send it to someone, and they review it and publish on their site with relevant links. I value my time as money.

Perspective: Engineer

Anyone can publish a crappy article. Some are relevant and well written, but they will get aggregated to higher quality sites if they are high quality press releases that are truly citation worthy. These links probably should be severely dampened in terms of their quality score.

Perspective: Visitor, Owner, Consumer, Partner

It’s probably good to publish any relevant articles I have, but I’m concerned with the value of doing so, because it is difficult and time consuming to write good articles uniquely for a lot of different sites.

Directory link buying

Perspective: SEO

Yea, okay - the engineers are right on this one - it was only for the rankings. Yahoo directory and two or three others is probably as much as we want.

Perspective: Engineer

Muahahaha. We’ve eradicated 99% of directory link popularity since update Florida.

Perspective: Visitor, Owner, Consumer, Partner

I know a bunch of great directories we can get links. I have a list of awesome places we can submit!

Press Release link buying

Perspective: SEO

These aren’t going to help a whole lot, but every little bit helps. We might as well pay the extra money to get our link embedded in the release, as the anchor text could help a bit.

Perspective: Engineer

Any press release sites probably shouldn’t pass a lot of link weight because anyone can buy them.

Perspective: Visitor, Owner, Consumer, Partner

Will the links even count if we put them in a press release?

Partner link buying

Perspective: SEO

I’ll buy some links from their sites, and sell them some from mine in trade if the partner is a good fit through non-reciprocated (or some reciprocated) sites.

Perspective: Engineer

We know all your partners. Have you seen touchgraph? Our data is WAY better.

Perspective: Visitor, Owner, Consumer, Partner

Is this a link scheme that will get me banned? I’d ask someone at google, but all I ever get is canned responses.

Affiliate link buying

Perspective: SEO

I don’t really want to piss off the affiliates, but a few extra links where it doesn’t is kinda nice.

Perspective: Engineer

Not enough people have figured this out yet anyways to tell if 301’s are really working for affiliate urls.

Perspective: Visitor, Owner, Consumer, Partner

Our affiliate program is either really important, or hasn’t yet been started.

Paid link buying

Perspective: SEO

I’ll buy some links for my clients where it is relevant.

Perspective: Engineer

No comment. Send in your spam reports.

Perspective: Visitor, Owner, Consumer, Partner

Is this a link scheme that will get me banned? I’d ask someone at google, but all I ever get is canned responses.

Viral link buying

Perspective: SEO

Good content is expensive - we’d better make sure we can promote it effectively.

Perspective: Engineer

Please send in your linkbaiting reports.

Perspective: Visitor, Owner, Consumer, Partner

Is this a link scheme that will get me banned? I’d ask someone at google, but all I ever get is canned responses.

My question is - if paid links are going to be discounted - where will the link juice come from?

Overall perspective on link purchase:

Perspective: SEO

Links help my rankings. Rankings help my sales, and the sales of my clients. We need to develop strategies for more effective links.

Perspective: Engineer

People are always trying to find the short road to rankings. We frown on our search results being manipulated in any way, and want to stop it wherever possible.

Perspective: Visitor, Owner, Consumer, Partner

We need traffic and sales. We want relevant results when we search.

 

Conclusion:

Every link has an inherent cost - whether it be time, money, or a combination - most links are sponsored in one fashion or another.

Google can certainly discover your links and discount them, but they hopefully also respect the effort it takes to purchase effective text link advertising. Labeling purchased links as "grey area" makes the job of engineers a bit easier, by buying time until the algorithm is more effective by becoming dependent on other factors. Links has long been a MAJOR factor in rankings - and making the most of links is the job of a good SEO.

You should purchase RELEVANT on-topic links. If you can NEARLY justify the purchase for clickthrough, it’s probably well worth taking a leap of faith on the link passing link popularity. As a visitor, owner, consumer, or partner - your site NEEDS links, and the handful of links from friends and relatives just isn’t going to cut it.

More on the paid link debate:

• Matt stirs the pot on the paid links debate.
• Michael on why Google wants to tell you how to run your website.
• Google want you to report paid links at threadwatch
• Why Google shouldn’t penalize me - SugarRae

Public aside to Matt and the world’s greatest spam fighters:

With all the great things you guys do for webmasters, this is truly a disservice. They look to you for clarification, and having the average webmaster expect they can rank at all without paying in some form for some links is sending them on a fool’s errand. With the highest level of respect, I really think this is a debate/ problem which will work itself out through the marketplace - and NOT with the help of the FTC. I hope you will continue to consider the nature and philosophy behind paid links without resorting to creating this level of fear, uncertainty, and doubt with web publishers.

Rae had a great idea for a “round robin” of link development questions to a great bunch that does quite a bit of it. I’m still reading through it all, since no one got to see one another’s answer’s until it was posted.Eric Ward, of URL Wire, Rand Fishkin - The wizard of Moz, Roger Montti, the VP of Verticals at the world’s coolest directory - Best of the web, and of course Rae Hoffman of Sugarrae and SEO Class. I tried to find favorite parts, but seemed to enjoy most all of the 6600 words of it, and would be a disservice if you didn’t read the entire article anyhow.

If you can’t figure things out with Andy’s guide to linkbaiting, then you’re probably not gonna catch on. Notice it is not a guide - it is an ULTIMATE guide. The only thing I would argue in the article is that his link baiting service is probably 2nd best. Just to be fair - check out Brian P’s linkbaiters vs. linkninjas post too.

Linkbaiting is all about the bait. In the same way that you can’t catch a giant tuna with a bag of doritos - you’re not going to get the attention of important bloggers, journalists, or other folks with some garbage content or news. Do YOU really like reading press releases anymore? Wouldn’t you rather spend that time reading something fun, entertaining, insightful, interesting, or informational? Let’s take a look at the different hooks available to linkbaiters (or viral marketer’s if you prefer that school of thought), and hope that you can find an angle to approach link acquisition for YOUR business.

In the original post that coined the term linkbaiting, Nick Wilson mentions 5 linkbaiting “hooks”:

• News hook
• Contrary Hook
• Attack Hook
• Resource Hook
• Humour Hook

I’d like to add a few new hooks to Mr. Wilson’s fine original observations - the "ego hook", and the "incentive hook", which I’ll gladly review and exemplify below. The common thread with linkbaiting is that you MUST be remarkable ala Seth Godin’s Purple Cow - if you can’t bait with stuff that people will talk about, then go back to link begging. Make that top 10 list a top 100 list. Spend a few extra hours on research. Go the extra mile on something extraordinary, instead of just something good.

Introduction - A note on titles, target audience, and school of thought.

The importance of good titles cannot be underestimated. For folks take linkbaiting seriously take titlebaiting seriously as well, and understand that a great title is half the battle of a successful linkbait campaign. I suggest several reads and references to CopyBlogger’s headline formulas from his magnetic headlines series. Studying direct marketing headlines, as well as sales letters by Dan Kennedy will probably help as well. Create your own headline swipe file. Please don’t forget to include some quality anchor text if possible, since the goal is to have it linked to often, the title will be used as the link in many cases. Understanding your audience is critical to knowing what will succeed as well, but if you can’t figure that out, I would suggest you search for a different career path.

Linkbaiting IS NOT Viral Marketing

Linkbaiting and Viral Marketing have a lot in common, but I’m gonna let you in on a little secret - they’re NOT the same. The goal of viral marketing is exposure and branding. The goal of linkbaiting is links! The process may be very similar but the measurement of success is quite different. Exposure is great, branding is grand - but without successfully obtaining a quantity and quality of backlinks from a campaign linkbait is a failure. We MEASURE with technorati and yahoo, and an understanding of link value. The indirect value of these links for search rankings and targeted traffic from search engines is what linkbaiters crave. For more on the disconnects between marketing and SEO please see the stunt train seo marketing manifesto

Linkbaiting Hooks Revisited - with NEW Additions!

THE NEWS HOOK

Fast, up to date news on breaking topics with expert commentary on the topic.

Pros of this hook: It’s generally pretty easy to aggregate news and offer commentary. Doing so frequently and with dedication will establish you as an expert.

Cons of this hook: It can be quite time consuming and redundant. You can’t reinvent CNN without getting Doc Brown to help you invent time travel first. If you go too broad you won’t succeed. If you go too niche, you will have a hard time finding a substantial audience.

Ideas for this hook: Go niche. Don’t start another SEO news blog. Jen did it with contextual, Brian Mark is becoming the Oneboxer. Pick a small piece of growing real estate, and make it big by covering every piece of relevant news and nothing else (except your value add commentary). Be the first to report anything.

Examples of the resource hook in action:

• Search Engine Land
• Search Engine Journal
• Search Engine Roundtable

 

THE CONTRARY HOOK

The contrary hook is generally in the spirit of traditional debate in a public forum. Smart folks can achieve success with the contrary hook debating with friends or associates without taking it to the level of the attack hook

Pros of this hook: People who respect your opinion, but disagree with you are very likely to link to you. People who find the debate interesting or insightful are likely to link to you.

Cons of this hook: You had better be right, or you’re going to take a public thrashing. Check your facts, or you’re going to get whipped like a red-headed stepchild, and have some serious reputation management issues to deal with.

Ideas for this hook: Read throughout your blogosphere, and make sure to have an opinion on everything. Take someone’s post, and become the counterpoint. It generally turns out better if you approach it in a respectful fashion - otherwise you risk running into attack hook territory.

Examples of the contrary hook in action:

Top 10 reasons PPC is better than SEO vs.
Top 11 reasons SEO is better than PPC

11 Rising Barriers To Entry for Small Businesses on the Web vs.
Barriers…or Opportunities?

Nofollow - the leper of blogging vs.
5 Reasons I like the nofollow tag

 

THE ATTACK HOOK

Pros of this hook:Lots of links are given from controversy. The cliche "there’s no such thing as bad press" can certainly be applied to links as well - there’s no such thing as a bad link (okay - for this discussion anyhow wiseguys)

Cons of this hook:It’s not generally fun to make enemies - I don’t really want to sleep with one eye open for some extra links (unless it’s a helluva LOT of links:)

Ideas for this hook: Generally dishonoring some type of closely held belief system works pretty well. You’re on your own here - If you really want to piss people off - I’m sure you can find a way - just make sure you have some good anchor text in your title if you’re gonna sell your soul.

Examples of the attack hook in action:

• Shoemoney is pretty damn good at the attack hook
• Soy makes you gay
• Dave Pasternack on SEO
• Aaron Wall gets sued for blogging
• Political bloggers are exceptionally good at the attack hook (perhaps without even knowing it)

 

THE RESOURCE HOOK

This is my favorite hook. There are plenty of ways you can truly be a resource. In any industry there is a lot of opportunity for conducting ground breaking research, aggregating important information, filtering important information, increasing productivity, creating widgets, creating tools, and a variety of other things that can establish you as an expert and attract a whole bunch of links at the same time.

Pros of this hook- You can build something useful that you will be referenced for often.

Cons of this hook-
- It can be very time consuming and monotonous aggregating information into a single source.
Someone may figure out a better way to do it
whil you are in the process. Gaining critical mass and acceptance as the expert may be difficult. It can take a lot of work to do something truly resourceful.

Ideas for this hook: Eric Enge agreed to conduct research based on Rand’s idea for creating a web analytics comparison - and is currently working on it. You can bet it will be one of the most well linked marketing documents of 2007. Eric also did a nice job creating a SEO search, based on Google custom search, which is a great way to approach the resource hook.
Write an extensive guide to anything, and spend some time on the research, and delivery format of your research. There’s opportunity for this everywhere.

Examples of the resource hook in action:

• Web 2.0 awards
• Must read search marketing blogs
• Mr. Ploppy’s tools

 

THE HUMOR HOOK

Write something funny about your industry or the people in it.

Pros of this hook: It’s fun to be the class clown. Everybody needs a good laugh now and then. A little self deprecation is great to show people you don’t really take yourself too seriously.

Cons of this hook: Sometimes a hard sell with higher ups. The likelihood to have a sense of humor is inversely proportional to the size of a company. Everyone may not share your sense of humor.

Ideas for this hook:

• Poke fun at yourself or your company
• Poke fun at the industry
• Jokes about industry slang
• Jokes about common problems in the industry

Examples of the humor hook in action:

• Top 21 signs you need a break from SEO
• 107 t-shirts for geeks that don’t suck
• Web 2.0 company generator
• Top 10 servers in movies
• SEO jokes

 

NEW! THE EGO HOOK

Everyone loves to talk about themself or read about themself. I think the old saying goes “the sweetest word in any language is the sound of your own name”. I certainly like hearing when people say nice things about me. Offering people significant exposure to express their ideas (IE - giving them a soapbox where people might listen) is a common component of the ego hook. Letting people talk about themselves, their ideas, or their company with your assistance.

Pros of this hook: You can sometimes get links and exposure from big bloggers. Everyone likes to talk about themselves.

Cons of this hook: Some folks have been baited one too many times, and may just ignore you. Nobody really likes a brown noser.

Ideas for this hook: Awards, interviews, sucking up.

Examples of this hook:

• Blog tag - Everyone enjoys talking a bit about themselves, thus the reason this meme spread so well. *Note Michael jumped on the resource hook by aggregating all the information in a single place - nice work.
• Any interview I’ve ever done
• Drinkbait

 

NEW! THE INCENTIVE HOOK

Pros of this hook: If you give people a motive to talk about you they likely will. Contests have worked for ages.

Cons of this hook: Getting the idea past the legal team. Bloggers sometimes don’t like to be bought (or so they say). Folks on the web are pretty good at sniffing out ulterior motives, and then it turns into trouble.

Ideas for this hook: Scholarships, contests, awards

Examples of this hook:

• SEO scholarship by Andy Beal
• Blogging scholarship
• Reviewme

Closing Notes

• EDIT. EDIT. EDIT.
• Categorize your content into readable well chunked content that folks that skim can read and decide to re-read.
• I can assure you that not very much great bait is written in just a few hours.
• Descriptive pictures certainly help to emphasize the points made in your content.
• TIME your launch effectively with social media submissions

More baity goodness:

• Aaron
• Brian
• Andy
• MLB’s

Shameless self promotion: linkbaiting service