the fundamentals of link building - adam audette

Link Building Fundamentals

Presented by Adam Audette

www.AudetteMedia.com

A Brief History

★ MMG offered SEO and link building in 1996

★ “Webmaster’s Guide to Search Engines”

★ Link Building Pre-Google

• Bill Hunt & Jeremy Sanchez, Global Strategies/Ogilvy

• Derrick Wheeler, Microsoft

• Detlev Johnson, SearchReturn

• Marshall Simmonds & Adam Sherk, NYT & Define Search

• Andre Jensen, Consultant

Other Bend OR Search Marketers

• Paul Owen, MarketLeap/Acxiom Digital

A Brief History

★ Some engines DID rank by link popularity

Source: archive.org 1996 SearchEngineWatch.com/features

Link Building Yesterday

★ Nofollow? didn’t exist

★ All about traffic

★ Mostly non-commercial

★ Easy but confused

★ Naive and innocent

Link Building Yesterday

Link Building Today

★ Competitive

★ Expensive

★ Paranoia

★ Almost Infinite

★ Many links worth little

★ It’s Hard!

★ Can be Daunting

Link Building Today

What is a Quality Link?

★ Difficult to obtain

★ Contains a human element

★ Has (perceived) credibility

★ Comes from an authority source

★ Requires an investment

★ Contextual

★ Relevant

11

Link Building Chaos

Focus on Your Market

Focus on Your Market

Market X

Market X

Channels of Discussion

Blogs Forums

Social Media

DirectoriesResource Sites

Advocacy Sites

Influencers

News Sites

Email Lists

Market X

Hubs

Authority Sites

Organizations

Link Sources

High Authority Sites

Key Influencers & Advanced Social Media

PR & Basic Social Media, Partnerships

Niche Directories, Article Sites, etc

Blogs, Forums, Profiles, Email Lists

General Directories, Organizations, Classifieds

Hard

Easy

Build Links Strategically

★ Link Development Triangle

★ Create Content for specific link targets

★ Quality Resources Build Links

★ Quality Resources Ease Solicitation

★ There aren’t any Shortcuts

★ Quality Trumps Quantity

★ Your Neighborhood Matters

★ ... but you have to reach out first!

Conclusions

★ Use the Best Tools Available

★ Links Reflect Relevance, Contribution

• SEO for Firefox: tools.seobook.com

• Juicy Link Finder: seomoz.org/tools

• Hub finder: LinkHounds.com

• Other Tools - ask me

• Google Alerts: google.com/alerts➡ "key phrase" [library] [resources] [links] [sites] site:[.us] [.edu] [.gov] [.mil]

★ Focus on Quality, not Quantity

★ Content is still King

Thank you!

Contact me:

Adam Audetteadam@audettemedia.comwww.AudetteMedia.com