10 Link Building Tips We Love From SMX Panelists Past and Future

Hi Karel!

There are two primary reasons you’d want to do invest in a link building, or “link acquisition” strategy: 1) To drive human traffic to your website from places outside your website, and 2) to increase your rank via increasing your PageRank (I’m sure you know all about the deal with PageRank; if you don’t, here’s an article I wrote about it: http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/what-is-pagerank).

For me, successful link building efforts need to accomplish both number one (drive human traffic) and number two (drive PR). Number one alone isn’t bad, and number two alone isn’t bad, but both together is really what you want if link building is your goal.

So — that said, as long as the Podcast or the Infographic you create is housed inside a landing page that is a part of your website, and as long as the links you build to the podcast/infographic/whatever come from another third-party website, your podcast/inforgraphic/whatever should effectively transfer PageRank and direct traffic to your website without limitation/expiration. In other words — as long as the landing page is live and the link on the third-party site is live, the link (and it’s PR power) shouldn’t have a shelf life. So, a link from an article to an article — or a link from an article to an inforgraphic housed on a landing page — or a link from an article to a podcast housed on a landing page — all of those scenarios are good long-term links.

Now, social media; that’s a whole other story. Links shared in social media send lots and lots of traffic to your website, but they don’t ever pass PR. They (links in social media) also have a very short shelf life (IE: once you scroll past the Tweet that contains the link in your feed, it’s more or less dead and in the past). For this reason, I think striving to get links in social media should really be considered part of a viral marketing strategy, not a “link acquisition” strategy. And, yes, I think links in social media are “more perishable,” without a doubt.

So, “do I think the web is going more towards fresh content and ‘fresh’ linkbuilding?”

I think fresh content –from infographics to how-to articles and podcasts — is always good and I think fresh content housed on HTML landing pages is a central component to a lasting link building strategy that attracts high-quality links. If “fresh link building” = link building that is contingent on fresh content, then — sure! I can get behind that. I definitely don’t think link building works with old, stale content that isn’t worth talking about (re: content that is the opposite of fresh).

Do I think we are “moving toward” what we’ve pegged in this conversation as “fresh link building”? Or, said another way, do I think we are moving toward link building with interactive content like podcasts and infographics? Meh. Really, I think we should already be there. I think every content strategy — and, accordingly, every link building strategy — should include lots of different kinds of content, including Engagement Objects and plain text articles. It’s not really a movement in my mind as much as a 2014 best practice.

What do you think?

Hi, Anne-Marie Ronsen! Glad you’ve got link building on the mind! (We don’t think Google’s going to stop using links as a ranking factor anytime soon.) That said, remember that the links you include in blog comments and on social media sites don’t transfer page rank, so you should consider those links a part of your holistic marketing strategy (they will drive traffic to your website and they can inspire word of mouth marketing), but not a part of your link-building strategy. If you want to work on link building (in order to improve the ranking of your web pages in search engine results pages) you need to create valuable content that inspires other highly relevant (and, ideally, authoritative) websites (and blogs) to add links to your content from their website/blog.

Does that make sense?

That’s a great tip, isn’t it, William! It all really goes back to the number one rule of all content creation — think of your end users needs. Are you sending an email to a high profile author, web owner, or CEO that has hundreds of emails to comb through? Of course they don’t have as much time as you and I might to read a small novella of an email. By the time they get to your email they already have their finger on the delete button; the decision to chop it or continue happens in a fraction of a second so it’s critical you say the exact right sentence first.

(No pressure, right?)

I also love that tip. I think about it not only when I am link building, but also when I am reaching out to seek blog collaborations, interviewing for jobs, or communicating with upper management (the CEO of VP of the company that employs me).

Thanks for reading, Sutopo. Agree — a lot of the time we spend working on link building goes toward automating the checking process, storing the information in a database, and tracking the changes over time. Have you developed any automation/database/trcking tips or tricks that you’ve grown to love? Would love to hear more about your process!

Yes — you’ve got it, Jayne! With every online marketing endeavor it’s all about planning, launching, tracking, listening, auditing, reviewing, tweaking/learning, and launching again. There’s a lot that goes into each step, but none are expendable.

I like your shoe store analogy. Thinking of a brick and mortar store is a great way to wrap your head around the importance of product placement, user experience, stock based on target market and targeted geographic location, etc. Macy’s would never just throw everything in their store like it was a Salvation Army. Why would you just throw things up on your website — or ask for links on other people’s websites — without thinking about placement, layout, content (stock), and user preference? (You wouldn’t.) (Or at least you shouldn’t.)