www.seomoz.org blog the noob guide to link building

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The Noob Guide to Link BuildingMay 8th, 2012 - Posted by iPullRank to Link Building

The author's po sts are entirely his o r her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflec t

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The Noob Guide to O nline Marketing is arguab ly the greatest single pos t of all time. If you don’t agree,

well, it’s at least my favorite. Oli Gardner (of Unbounce) displayed a playful writing style mixed with pixel

perfect graphic design, and a GPS of a roadmap to take your site from mile marker zero to one

hundred in six months. It’s nothing short of amazing.

While savvy content marketers realiz e that many o f Oli’s tactics will naturally a ttract links, fledgling link

builders go t to the 63 rd page and were still wondering what to do . With this companion piece, it is my

goa l to grab the ba ton from Oli and o utline a six- month link building action plan for your brand or client’s

new web property. Even if the website isn’t brand spanking new, that’s fine, what I really mean is that this

is the link building plan for the less savvy looking to do dive into off page o ptimization. Marketers with

long existing sites and more link building experience will be better served downloading the Complete

Six-month Off Page SEO Gameplan from iAcquire.

Facebook social plugin

1 10 Tools for Creating Infograp hics

and Visualizations

2 The SEO of Respon sive Web Design

3 Beyond Link Building - Using Links

and Content to Hit Business Goals

4 Using Google Analytics to Power an

Effective Q&A Strategy

5 96 Qu ick SEO Wins - What Can You

Do With an Hour?

Popular Posts

Month , 3 Months , Year , Ever

Post s by Category

The SEO Process

Measuring & Testing SEO

SEO Research & Trends

Online Ma rketing

Business Development

SEO Community

SEOmoz Resources

Featured Content

SEO Industry Survey

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http://www.seomoz.org/seo-industry-survey








http://www.seomoz.org/blog/popular/past-x-days

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/popular/past-365-days



http://www.seomoz.org/blog/96-quick-seo-wins-what-can-you-do-with-an-hour

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/using-google-analytics-to-power-an-effective-qa-strategy

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/beyond-link-building-using-links-and-content-to-hit-business-goals

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/seo-of-responsive-web-design

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/10-tools-for-creating-infographics-visualizations

http://www.iacquire.com/resources/link-building-guides

http://www.unbounce.com/



Following this guide in concert with Oli’s you will identify your audience, build a list of prospec ts, plan

and execute four successful pieces of content and convince influencers to crea te content for your site.

Since we last spoke I left Publicis Modem to be come the Director of Inbound Marketing at iAcquire

which is a technology-focused off page seo agency. I encourage you to read the “Quantifying Outreach”

study that I released at LinkLove London wherein I examined nearly 300 k outreach emails from both our

own iRank platform and Buzz stream’s CRM software. The study will help you op timize your outreachemailing tactics and understand why treating people like people rather than prospects is a far more

effective tactic than sending form letters.

For those keep ing score a t home this falls under both the Content Strategy/Development and Social

Strategy p hases of the New SEO Process.

For many, link building is a numbers game and it quickly becomes clear why those people would rather

put their resources into black hat tactics. Those marketers a re too impa tient to properly build links

Search Engine Ranking Factors

Google Algorithm Change History

Beginners Guide To SEO

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http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo

http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo

http://www.seomoz.org/google-algorithm-change

http://www.seomoz.org/google-algorithm-change

http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors

http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors

http://www.seomoz.org/seo-industry-survey

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-new-seo-process-quit-being-kanye

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/throw-away-your-form-letters-or-5-principles-to-better-outreach-link-building

http://www.buzzstream.com/

http://www.iacquire.com/resources/quantifying-outreach/

http://www.iacquire.com/

http://www.iacquire.com/resources/link-building-guides



because link building is a process wherein you are convincing people who don’t know you to take a real

world action that benefits you. To do that at scale requires a budget, grea t understanding of people, a

large outreach team and a commitment to creating content that peop le will actually be co mpelled to link

to or embed into their sites. In other words, you either have to make friends o r make news.

In this age of 2pac Holograms, stop motion action figure vide os, and augmented reality utilities how do

you compete? While that type of content is awesome, it represents the type of big swings that may not

be in yo ur wheelhouse or releva nt to your brand/client so often peo ple wonder how to build links in their

otherwise boring niche.

Naturally, there are ways to manually submit your site to millions of forums, blo g co mments, and

directories, but those links are generally very low quality and have been the focus of algo rithm updates

such as Pe nguin. That is not to say that these tactics don’t work, but just as you should diversify your

traffic sources beyo nd just Search, you will want to d iversify your link building tactics to build a varied

and natural link portfolio.

Sites with unnatural link profiles crea te a foo tprint that is ea sy to identify from a 10,0 00 foot view and o f

course Google has that perspective. Don’t put yourself on their radar by engaging in spammy tactics.

Anchor Text Distribution

This metric, which is the number of times an anchor in your backlink p rofile occurs, is be st measured

using tools like Open Site Explorer, Maje sticSEO, Ahrefs, etc., is very important. An ex-Goo gler told

me at SMX Australia to always be sure the highest occurring anchor text for a site is

branded otherwise you may trigger an algorithmic filter or penalty.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxQZuo6pFUw&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxlxXHOYwmo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGbrFmPBV0Y



Link Equity

The va lue of the links you build to your site is not a trivial thing. Links are the lifeblood of Search

campa igns and therefore the foundation on which every site that is v isible in the Search Engine Results

Pages (SERPs) must be built.

These numbers will not be an exact determination of what you will need to accomp lish as there is a

sliding sca le o f worth for links, b ut this crude exp lanation will make it clear to higher ups what needs to

be done and why.

1. Use the aforementioned b acklink profiling tools to determine how many links your competitors

have and how many links you have. Whether you only use one tool or a ll tools, make sure

that you stay consistent. Backlink profile tools a ll measure a different portion of the web a nd

none of them are as comprehensive as Google so it’s important to use the same source(s) to

capture a snapshot for every s ite.

2. Calculate Share of Voice.

Share of voice is a traditional adve rtising term that basically means of the percentage o f

opportunity that a given brand occupies. If there are 10 T V advertising slots for a g iven TV

show and a company ran ads that filled five of those slots for that show, they have a 50%

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Share of Voice.

For the keyword [ham sandwich] the site HamSandwichMusic.Com has the highest So V

because it’s in the #1 position. The keyword [ham sandwich] has a local search volume of

33,100 which means the largest amount of traffic you can ge t from that keyword (according to

industry standards) is 18.2% which is 6024.2 visits. So if my traffic for that keyword monthly is

only 500 visits, I have a n 8.3% SoV for [ham sandwich].

3. Determine the number of links required for you to beat your competitors. That is to say if the

first position has 100 links and you have five, make the case that it will take you 96 links to

get the share of vo ice that your top competitor has. Again, this is not exactly indicative o f

what it will take to bea t your competitor because you may surpass them with less links that

are higher quality or it may require more links and competitors will continue to build links, but

to build an easily understood case use share of voice.

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Tools

The sp ecific tools required for each month are called out in this guide however there are tools that may

be used at any p oint for a va riety of reasons. Every tool mentioned in this guide is free or at least has a

free tier and/or a free trial that will allow you at least start working.

Rapportive – This Gmail Plugin is for identifying what users social p rofiles are connected to

their email address. This is key because reaching out to people via social media first is far

more effective than emailing them first.

Boomerang – This Gmail plugin allows you to schedule and automatically follow up on

emails.

Microsof t Excel – This spreadsheet application is in invaluable for collecting, slicing and

dicing data. Get to know it well with Distilled’s Excel Guide to SEO.

SEOmoz Toolbar – The SEOmoz toolbar is a must-have for a variety of reasons, but in the

case of building links you can find out whether a site mee ts your SEO metric requirements as

you go.

Scraper fo r Chrome – Stop copy and pasting data one piece at a time, use this plugin to

quickly scrape data off a page and port it right to Google Docs.

Google Refine – The d ata you collect will often be wonky or at lea st not in the format that

you want it to be in and for some things Excel just doesn’t cut it. This tool by G oog le helps

you clean it up.

SpyOnWeb – Using this tool you can quickly figure out what domain names or IPs share the

same space and what sites have the same AdSense ID. In other words you can use

SpyOnWeb to identify whether your prospect is a part of a link farm.

Link Detective – This link classification tool quickly lets you determine what types of links

you or your competitor has. Take a CSV from Open Site Explorer and throw it into the system

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http://www.linkdetective.com/

http://www.spyonweb.com/

http://code.google.com/p/google-refine/

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mbigbapnjcgaffohmbkdlecaccepngjd

http://www.seomoz.org/seo-toolbar

http://www.distilled.net/excel-for-seo/

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mdanidgdpmkimeiiojknlnekblgmpdll

http://rapportive.com/install



and find out the makeup of a link profile.

Link Indices – A link index gives you the links that are linking to a g iven pag e or site. This is

invaluable intel for tracking p rogress a nd identifying opportunities and de ficiencies. Each of

the following link indices has its own strengths and weaknesses, so give them all a try and

determine which one fits your needs the best just like Branko Rihtman did :

Open Site Explorer

MajesticSEO

Ahrefs

MONTH ONE – PLANNING AND QUICK HITS

This month in the Noob G uide to Online Marketing Guide you are se tting up your online presence and

the tools to measure it. Simultaneously, you should be planning out your link building campa ign.

PLANNING

Oli’s guide talks about launching an editorial calendar at Month Two, b ut I suggest you start thinking

about when you’re rolling your content out before you start anything. You should of course be thinkingabout what’s hitting the blog when, but content takes time and careful planning to create and then launch.

When planning your link building yo u should do what it takes to differentiate yourself and your content

beca use you a re competing with the whole web . Making your content stand out will make building links

substantially easie r.

With that in mind you will be launching the following content:

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http://www.ahrefs.com/

http://www.majesticseo.com/

http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/

http://www.rankabove.com/news/seo-research/backlink-data-provider-all/



Egobait (Month Two) – This is content that includes and flatters your key influencers to in turn

encourage them to participate by linking to or sharing your digital assets.

Data Visualizat ion (Month Three) – Everyone’s go - to version of this is an infographic, b ut

consider other ways of visualizing the data such as a book ( Storybird), a timeline (dipity) or a

videographic if possible. In month three yo u will be launching your own.

E-Book and Guest Post (Month Four) – By the time the fourth month rolls around, the key

influencers in your space should know about you or your client and what you b ring to the

table. At this point an e- book is grea t way to so lidify you or your client’s thought leadership.

Much like this guide and Oli’s, you will be coupling that e-book with a blog post on an

influential site in your space to be sure that it is seen.

The content should have a centralized theme that links back to your business goals, but you

want it to be different enough so that your growing audience will want to share all of it.

Audience/Influencer Personas – Understand who your target aud ience is by creating

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http://www.dipity.com/

http://www.storybird.com/



personas. Personas are general representations of your audience. Typically you should

create four personas for the whole site campaign and while you can make as you like, four

are more easily managed.

These personas don’t have to be particularly in-depth (for example we don’t need to

determine their need states ) nor valida ted through measurement, they just have to help you

create a mental model for content ideation, prospecting and outreach. While a more indepth

form of this falls under the O pportunity Disco very model, for the purposes of link building a

basic understanding of who is potentially out there is a ll that is required. This will make it

easie r to associa te concepts and keywords with one segment of the audience rather than

another and then ultimately allow you to tailor outreach specifically to that segment in order to

scale the messages.

Social Listening – Use tools like Topsy, Social Mention, Amplicate and Google

Discussion Search to identify user segments based on keyword searches and usage.

Starting from basic keyword se arches that you have id entified in the Adwords Keyword

Tool identify who is contributing to that conversation. In cases where the conversation

is pa rticularly spammy, download the tweets and c lean them up using Google Refine.

Facebook Ad Creator – The Facebook Ad Creator is to audience resea rch what theGoogle Adwords Keyword Tool is to Keyword Research. It is an invaluable tool to

understand the inventory of peo ple that fit a very p recise de mographic. This tool will

be the validation required for the personas you are b uilding. If you hypothesize from

social listening that there is a user se gment out there between 30 and 40 and is

interested in sea rch engine optimization, you can then take that to the Facebook Ad

Creator and see how valid that is. The only limitation is that you can’t examine the

interests together using “AND.” You can only use examine the inventory using “OR.”

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http://www.facebook.com/ads/create/

http://code.google.com/p/google-refine/

http://www.amplicate.com/

http://www.socialmention.com/

http://www.topsy.com/

http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/mapping-keyword-usage-to-the-consumer-purchase-process



Prospecting – Finding pe ople who will be interested in your content has neve r been easier.

Now that you have identified the type of people that you want links from and split them into

targets and influencers you have a fairly precise idea of what they are into. Break these into

defining keywords and run searches in:

FollowerWonk

Zerply

About.Me

You can also prospect specifically for sites within Google by using a variety of search queries.

Additionally, there are prospecting tools such a s Citation Labs and Ontolo, but these require paid

subscriptions.

Keep track of these users by persona type so you can later segment your outreach and create

more directly tailored form letters — if that is your thing. If you’re prospecting specifically by site

you can also keep track o f those sites b y the segment that those sites target.

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http://www.ontolo.com/

http://www.citationlabs.com/

http://searchengineland.com/21-link-builders-share-advanced-link-building-queries-29848

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/nonintuitive-search-queries-resources-for-link-building

http://cdn.seomoz.org/img/upload/fb-ad-creator.png



Original Content Ideation – Even with an incredible Creative team amaz ing content is not

scalab le. Even Don Draper’s team had far more misses than makes, b ut what Sterling

Cooper didn’t have is Social Media.

GoFish – This is a tool that I built to perform real-time keyword research in order to

help identify co- relevant ideas that are alread y occurring on Twitter and gives you a

list of users that have tweeted those keywords. I gave an example in my “Targeting

Humans” talk where I put in the ke yword “Michael Jackson” and it identified the

keywords “ Jackson trial” a nd “south park” as o ccurring together very often. A contentidea with a built-in audience would be “The Michael Jackson Doctor Trial” played out

with South Park characters. More information on how this tool works can be found in my

“Using Social Media to Get Ahead of Search Demand ” post.

Facebook Ad Creator – You might be surprised to see this tool twice. In addition to

being great for segment inventory it’s also great for inferring content ideas that will

resonate with those peop le. For examp le if we found that target segment of XXX is

interested in [A].[B],[C] can we can infer that they would be interested in a

__________________. This is the same idea as with GoFish, but it allo ws for more

evergreen concepts.

Pre-Contacting – At this point you have your ideas and a strong lis t of prospects. Strike up

a co nversation and tell them about the content you’re working on. Ask them for feedback due

to their expertise or interest in the subject matter. Update them regularly along the way to

make sure they a re still onboard so when the content launches you will have a warm rapport

with these people. Keep track o f who was interested in yo ur spreadsheet.

QUICK HITS

The following quick hits can be d one at any p oint in any month. Many of them are one- offs, others will

benefit from continued enga gement. They are p laced here so that you can ge t wins and show

movement to the powers that be in o rder to get continued b uy-in for your link building campaigns.

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http://www.facebook.com/ads/create/

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/using-social-media-to-get-ahead-of-search-demand

http://www.slideshare.net/ipullrank/targeting-humans-by-michael-king

http://ipullrank.com/tools/gofish/



Ask fo r Links in Mailing List Sig nups – Encourage users to link to your website when

sending out the confirmation email for your mailing asking them or including embed code .

Profile Links – Many Web 2.0 profiles allow you to implement a “DoFollow” link or links that

pass link equity. When claiming yo ur brand on social networks be sure to include links from

your profile.

Facebook Fan Page

Twitter

YouTube

Google+ Profile

Directory Submission – Directory submissions are generally considered the lowest form of

link building and generally won’t help you move the needle. That said you can easily identify

directories with keyword sea rches plus directory type e.g. “3d tv rss directory.” Again, you can

show numbers with these, but they are generally not worth your time.

RSS Directories

Niche Directories

Paid Directories

Article Directories

Blog Directories

Design G alleries

Better Business Bureau – The BBB has a site with an incredibly high domain authority, it’s

a widely trusted site in both the eyes of the search engines and the consumer. Getting linked

from this site is fairly easy and very valuab le.

Chamber of Commerce – Similar to the BBB, the local chambe r of commerce prov ides the

same type of value and ease for obtaining links.

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http://www.bbb.org/



Join the Conversation – Typically this is called “link dropping,” but that is only in cases

where peop le p lace links without joining in the conversation contextually. If you are adding to

the conversation (as seen on SEOmoz posts) this is a v iable tactic for link building.

Message Boards/Blogs – Find these with keyword searches in Google’s discussion

search and Social Mention.

Quora

LinkedIn

Yahoo Answers

MONTH TWO – EGOBAIT

This month in the Noob G uide to Online Marketing Guide you are building yo ur social media followings

and soon you will be expected to seed users. That’s much easier said than done, but one of the best

ways to do that is by getting your influencers to put your content in front of their users. The best way to

accomplish this is by launching ego bait which is content made to flatter, include or get the attention of

spec ific users while also p roviding utility to your audience,

Crowd Sourced Posts – Reach out to influencers and ask them what they think about

current events. This makes them feel important and a llows them to voice their opinion on

topics without having to write a full post themselves and truthfully allows you to create content

with little effort.

Best of Lists – Curate a list of the greatest content, writers, things in yo ur space and g ive

props to your target influencers. Another way to quickly make content that will make the

rounds and their audience will start to engage with you.

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http://answers.yahoo.com/

http://www.linkedin.com/

http://www.quora.com/



Interviews – Have a Q&A session with a popular thought leade r over the phone using

Google Voice and you will quickly have a transcript of your interview and yo ur influencer will

have p iece o f content they are p roud to share and link to.

Awards/Badges – Gillian Muessig

said it best “no one gave us the

authority to launch the Web 2.0

awards, but we did and people stilltry to enter them to this day.”

Launch your own awards in your

space and send the people you

want to link to you badges that they

can use to link back to you. You

can take this even further by

launching a n unbranded microsite

and then tricking you competitors

into linking to you.

X-Factor – There’s a n infinite

amount of ways to flatter people.

Without picking up a copy of the Art

of Seduction I’m sure yo u can

creatively figure out how to get

influencers to come out to p lay.

Here’s an example from a Credit

Card Finder site in Australia where

they created a comic book series

starring the top financial bloggers intheir space.

This is a g reat opportunity to

revitalize a dormant content idea that never quite took off. Do yo u have c reative content that

fell to the wayside because the characters never took a life of their own? Take your

influencers and breathe new life into an o ld idea by mak ing them the stars.

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http://www.creditcardfinder.com.au/blog/pf-comics

http://www.seomoz.org/web2.0



MONTH THREE – LAUNCHING DATA VISUALIZATION

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The infographic is large ly misunderstood as a pie ce o f automatically viral content. The reality is that the

infographic has been done to death so unless you have an active built-in community yours requires a

substantial launch plan and push. The Noob Guide to O nline Marketing Guide places the launch of an

infographic a t Month Six, but to get the most mileag e out of it as a noob, I’m placing d ata visualiza tion

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at Month Three. Feel free to launch an additional infographic a t Month Six.

In 2012, data visualization should be presented as a Maximum Viable Product. A great example of such

is an Australian site in the life insurance space called Life Insurance Finder who launched a very

impressive and successful piece of link bait called “What Happens Online When You Die .”

Don’t just build the infographic, b uild a da ta visualiza tion experience that exhausts the ava ilable d igital

asse ts. Create a video counterpart to that infographic, and highlight the so urce data to b uild a higher

barrier to entry for those that will look to steal your success. Even right now you’re thinking that’s a lot of work; well think of how competitors will feel o nce that work is finished. Za ppos has ove r 30,00 0 vide os

for its products; it is very d ifficult to co mpete with Zappo s in vide o se arch beca use they go t there first.

Be the Zappos of the topic you visualize.

Simply put, some people want infographics, some people want a page and some people want a video

and the performance of the “What Happens When You Die Online” campaign is very indicative of that.

Here are the numbers:

Page – 258 Links, 86 Root Domains, 172 Facebook Shares, 145 Tweets, 51 +1s

Video – 81,072 views, 2071 Facebook Shares, 69 links, 10 Root Domains, 2601 Tweets, 61

+1s

Infographic – 86 Links, 28 Root Domains, 31 Facebook Shares, 99 Tweets, 16 +1s

Make it easy to link to you, g ive the people what they want.

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http://www.lifeinsurancefinder.com.au/infographics/what-happens-online-when-you-die/



TACTICS

Seed t o Your Influencers – You have pre- contacted influencers for this ve ry reason. Spell

out their involvement in your content so they are compelled to link to it, share it and o therwise

endorse it.

Reach out t o your Targets – The list of prospects you’ve created have been waiting for

this moment. Idea lly, you will reach out to them first in social media and then esca late to email.

Conta ct Those Already Linking to You – Pull your existing links using a link index tool

and then inform all of the relevant people that already link to you that you have launched a

new piece o f incredible content.

Leverage Your Mailing List – At this po int your mailing list should be full of peo ple that want

to find out about your content. Inform them of your new content and include the relevant

embed code to make it easy for users to link to you.

Add to the Conversation – Head back to the forums, blogs, message boards and Q&A

sites and contextually add to the on-going conversation and when it makes sense add a linkto your content.

MONTH FOUR – RELEASE AN EBOOK AND GUEST POST

By now you and/o r your team have written the most incredible e -book your niche has ever se en with the

best grap hic design and interesting if not new insights on your subject. Luckily, you’ve saved some

room for your new influential budd ies to g et a p iece of the action and enough tangential or cutting room

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floor content to sp read it around and ge t the mos t mileage out of it.

TACTICS

Exclusive Releas e – Align with an influential site in your space that gets a lot of traffic and

offer your E-Book as an exclusive download.

Guest Post – A good guest posting opp ortunity typically se rves two purposes. First, you a re

writing co ntent for a third- party website wherein you can d rop as many exa ct match anchor

text links as you like. Secondly, you have an opportunity to leverage the eyeballs of users

that frequent the site.

Foreword – Invite a key influencer to write the foreword of the book so their name can be

attached to your promotions in social med ia and on o ther influential websites.

Quotes – Reach out to thought leade rs in the sp ace for quotes, similar to the pre- contacting

done in the first month asking thought leaders for quotes keep s them aware of the process

that you are making a book and once the book arrives you can easily reach out to those

influencers and request a link or promotional suppo rt.

Reviews – Reach out to bloggers that specifically write bo ok reviews in your space. Simply

search for “[keyword] b ook review.” For example , if I were to write an SEO e-book I would

certainly reach out to this gentleman, Ian Lurie, since he has reviewed an boo k about SEO in

the past.

(I just egobaited Ian here. Now when I tweet about it I can put "featuring @portenint" in the

tweet)

PDFmyURL.com





MONTH FIVE – HOST A BLOG CONTEST

In Month Six Oli suggests holding a contest in social media. I’m going to move that up one month in

order to co uple it with the event you will be throwing in Month Six. I’m also going to take another page

out of Oli’s book and suggest this be a blogging contest.

The concept is quite simple:

Reach out to influencers in your space that are awesome writers

Convince them to write their best work

Offer awesome prizes

Decide the winners based on social metrics

You may be few thousand dollars lighter from the prizes you pay out, but you also have a ton of great

content from thought leaders in your space which then turns into more linkable assets. You also have a

ton of social shares that put your content in front of those influencers’ followers in social media.

Does it work? Well Unbounce ran the same contest and here’s the leaderboard:

PDFmyURL.com





The posts led to a combined 20,000 unique visitors during the respective two week scoring periods of

each post and twenty one po sts that continue to drive substantial traffic and links for Unbounce.

TACTICS

PDFmyURL.com





At this point the content on your site will be rob ust enough to make linking to you easy and worthwhile.

The following tactics will allow you to co ntinually identify contextual prospects and g rease the wheels for

any ongo ing outreach link building:

Set up Go ogle Alerts – Use your brand name, the names of people involved in the

business and target keywords as the queries that you are targeting in Goog le Alerts. If

someone has mentioned you and not linked to you, quickly ask them for a link.

I f t t t – Set up automatic alerts using If That T hen This for when the brand, keywords o r gues tpost URLs are mentioned in social med ia. Reach out to those people and encourage them to

link to you.

LinkStant – Find out when someone is linking to you as they a re writing their post and ask

for updated anchor text.

Image Search – Google’s image search allows you to search for sites that have embedded

your infographic a nd request that they cite their source by linking to you.

Video Search – Sometimes people re-upload videos to YouTube and that causes the viewsto be split between them. Search for those vide os o n YouTube and then search for the URL in

Google to find sites that have embedded your video and request that they switch videos and

link to you.

Once the competition is over, revisit your badge strategy by sending all entrants a badge and

encouraging them to link back to their post.

PDFmyURL.com



http://www.linkstant.com/

http://www.ifttt.com/



MONTH SIX – THROW AN EVENT

You may have heard that the bes t way to get someone to link to you is to buy them a beer; throwing an

event is the sca led version of that. Throwing a successful event naturally generates a lot of fanfare,

promotion and chatter that will also lead to links.

First, you must decide what type of event you want to put on:

Meetup

Conference

Party

Dinner

TACTICS

Ask People You Know To Link To You – The people that you specifically invite to your event should

be the type o f peop le that you want to link to you. Show them a good time and e ncourage them to write

about your event after the fact.

Press Releases - These have been abused by SEOs on PRWeb and Businesswire for

content launches and link building but they a re most effective in the ca se o f launching an

event.

Reach Out Directly to Journalists – Find journalists with the keyword se arches “columnist

for [publication]” and “ writes for [publication].”Invite these p eop le out and show them a great

time.

Handwritten Notes – Follow up after the event is over with handwritten notes so potential

linkers remember you and yo ur hospitality.

FINAL QUICK HITS

The SEER Method - Fo r your grand sendoff use the SEER Interactive method; pull your full list

of followers using SimplyMeasured and pull your comp lete back link profile with MajesticSEO,

expa nd any shortened URLs and d o VLOOKUPs to determine what users are following you,

but not linking to you and reach out to them.

PDFmyURL.com



http://www.simplymeasured.com/

http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/using-twitter-and-backlinks-to-build-links



Do you like this post?

127 Thumbs Up, 11 Thumbs Do wn

Tweet

284

Get your social on

Kamal Aujla | May 8th, 2012

112 Comments + Add Comment+ Add Comment+ Post Analytics+ Post Analytics

Find Who Shared Your Stuff – Similarly, using Topsy, pull the profiles for all the people that

shared yo ur URLs and p erform a VLOOKUP to see what users shared your content but didn’t

link to you and reach out to them.

CONGRATS!

Presumably, you’ve made it through not one, but two g uides on how to successfully launch a new web

property and ultimately get visibility not just in the SERPs but amongst key influencers in your vertical. Ihope now that link building do esn’t seem quite as daunting as it once did and I wish you great success!

Remember there are two solid ways to build links: Make News or Make Friends.

Which one are you prepared to do?

About iPullRank — Michael King is a software and web d evelo per turned SEO since 2006 . He is currently the

Director o f Inbo und Marketing at iAcquire . He's also a international touring rappe r . Follow him on twitter @ipullrank

or his new blog- The Be st Practice

343

Like

PDFmyURL.com




http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-noob-guide-to-link-building#new-comment

http://www.ipullrank.com/

http://www.twitter.com/ipullrank

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjuTpb23pyU

http://www.iacquiretweets.com/



2 9 ReplyReply

Thanks for the great review.Well I definitely liked reading it,I have rooted all over the

internet loo king for interesting ideas, i think your Post is well informed.

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2 0 ReplyReply

Marcus - Control Alt Elite SEO Melbourne | May 9th, 2012

It's definitely got s om e cracker ideas, and I even read between the lines to make m y

own new ideas....

a Rand Fishkin hologram!

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1 1 ReplyReply

Max Minzer | May 8th, 2012

So many great ideas... Thank you, Michael!

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moosahemani | May 8th, 2012

A-M- Z-I- N-G ! Mike this is too long, too interesting and a m ust read po st for everyo ne in

the SEO industry, especially the 6 m onth link building plan was mo re then just great!

Lots and lo ts of ideas are coo king in my mind at the mom ent… but one thing I learn from

PDFmyURL.com





http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-noob-guide-to-link-building#jtc179923

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-noob-guide-to-link-building#reply












3 2 ReplyReply

the post is that viral content is not enough but it can even waste your precious time if

you canno t market it properly… so before yo u even think about investing your time

writing an E-Book o r Infographics try to build strong relationship wi th bloggers,

influencers and content creators in yo ur niche so that your piece o f content can grab as

many eye balls as possible (and links).

Great Post!

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1 0 ReplyReply

The Search Guy | May 8th, 2012

Amaz ing po st Michael, I dont think you ve m iss ed anything, covered the who le link

building from s tart till end, I downlo aded the one PDF(which is s ame as this po st) but for

the other one there is a clock ticking at 16min no w and is s aying that the 6 mo nths link

building plan is coming soon, so waiting for its release!

Loved the pos t overall, usually its hard to cover everything in just one po st but you really

did justice to the topic! Quite a go od effort indeed.

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1 0 ReplyReply

cygnismedia | May 8th, 2012

Will defintiley read this post and com ment but here i want to ask o ne thing to SEOm oz

how they post duplicate content i think Mike already mention that link in his po st:

http://www.iacquire.com/pdf/noob-guide-to-link-building.pdf

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http://www.iacquire.com/pdf/noob-guide-to-link-building.pdf











2 0 ReplyReply

The S earch Guy | May 9th, 2012

That's a valid point, they are duplicated, its in PDF as well as in the SEOMoz blo g and

both as indexed as well! Let's s ee what SEOMoz staff has to say about it, may be we

are missing some po int!

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1 0 ReplyReply

Asif Dilshad | May 9th, 2012

They are experienced so I don’t think they made a mistake like that I agreed

with Asad we are mis sing s om ething that moZ s taff sho uld clear!

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1 0 ReplyReply

Rameez Ramzan | May 11th, 2012

According to Go ogle duplicate content is no t goo d for webs ite but why

SEOmoz staff added this in their blog and how Go ogle indexed.

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iPullRank | May 9th, 2012

I wasn't aware that making a post that is exceptionally lo ng available as a PDF was a

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1 0 ReplyReply

bad thing for users. In fact I assum ed it was helpful so that's part of why we took the

extra step to make it available. Similar to what Oli did with the original po st .

In efforts to not upset the com munity we will exclude the file in robo ts.txt

-Mike

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2 0 ReplyReply

thefke | May 9th, 2012

Really Great post Michael!

I damn like these graphic interruptors ;) It´s really nice to s ee, that you covered nearly

every piece of getting to kno w Linkbuilding.

I would add tumblr as a additional po ss ibility to gain go od links - maybe in the list of

web2.0 profiles - we s houldnt mis s this link oppo rtunity :)

Edited by thefke on May 9 th, 2012 at 12:02 am

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Hey Thomas,

Glad you enjoyed it. I stuck with the sho rt list of profiles as they were the ones that

Oli specifically called out. I also imagine he wo uld have called out Goo gle+ if he had

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http://try.unbounce.com/noob-guide-pdf/



1 0 ReplyReply

written the pos t today so I added that as well. For a longer lis t of profiles that will give

you free links check out Jaso n Acidre's pos t .

-Mike

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1 0 ReplyReply

bradkrussell | May 9th, 2012

Thanks Mike - great po st. Very informative just like yo ur presentations at SMX Sydney

recently (plus jam packed full of handy tools ). I'm in the process of training a few staff

members in-ho use and will definitely use this guide as a reference!

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1 0 ReplyReply


Hey Brad,

Glad you found it useful, my man. I'd love to know ho w it works out for you as a

teaching aid.

-Mike

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SeoHop | May 10th, 2012

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http://www.seomoz.org/users/pro




http://kaiserthesage.com/free-links/



1 0 ReplyReply

Hey mike hope all is well at your new spot. So i was thinking in regards to an

ego bait idea.. Lets say i have a karate school as a client and i said to all the

business owners in m y city if you put this link on yo ur wesbsite linking to the

karate scho ol every time we have an event we will raffle off which business

will gets a free spo nso rship at the karate event. I know this idea would wo rk.

However the real question is if G wo uld consider this buying links? There is

no financial transaction here, but no one wants to end up like overstock

.com If you can tweet me about this @seo hop i will get it faster on there.

Thanks

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2 0 ReplyReply

The Search Guy | May 9th, 2012

And I waited for one whole hour at this page for 6 m onths linkbu ilding plan PDF:

http://www.iacquire.com/resources/link-building-guides /

and the clock was ticking, and now its all o ver and there is no do wnload link or o ption or

anything. So there is j ust one PDF given in the site you ve refferred to, the second do es

not exist there.

but then again at the end you ve mentioned "Presumably, you’ve m ade it through

not one, but t wo guides on how to successfully launch a new web propert y

and ultim ately get visibility not just in t he SERPs but amongst key

influencers in your vert ical."

I dont know whats actually going on here, can you please give the links to each o f the

"PDFs" that you ve mentioned in the pos t above, I ve already waited for one who le hour

and then there was nothing in there after the wait.

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http://www.iacquire.com/resources/link-building-guides/








1 0 ReplyReply

duncan274 | May 9th, 2012

Not sure if I am mis sing so mething but I can only send to find the noo b guide as well

(probably all I need anyway)

Oh on ano ther note did you just sum up the state of linkbuilding in less than a

paragrapgh

"Those m arketers are too im patient to properly build links because link building is a

process wherein you are convincing people who don’t know you to take a real world

action that benefits yo u. To do that at scale requires a budget, great understanding of

people, a large o utreach team and a co mmitment to creating content that people will

actually be com pelled to link to o r embed into their sites."

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Hey Asad,

I appreciate yo ur concern.

When I said "yo u've made it through not one but two guides ..." I was talking about

this guide and Oli Gardner's Noo b Guide to Online Marketing.

So in efforts to be com pletely transparent, since it seems that you feel yo u have been

PDFmyURL.com



http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-noob-guide-to-online-marketing-with-giant-infographic-11928









4 0 ReplyReply

bamboozled with the second guide download, here's the deal.

These guides are o bviously a hefty undertaking and I have been off and on planes for

the past week from NYC to Australia to Phoenix. I gave 6 s ix talks in Australia, had

client meetings and a variety of other conference events to attend.

So basi cally I misjudged how m uch bandwidth I had and how lo ng it would take me to

finish these guides. That is com pletely my fault and my fault alone. I agreed to a

deadline with Jen Lopez several weeks ago and if it meant losing sleep to get it

done, I wanted to get it done. So I go t it done.

Now I also have commitments to m y new job. This week is o ur all-hands meeting

here in Phoenix and there are a variety of team building events I have to be a large

role in. This is m y first time meeting with our full 80 -perso n team here and last night

while we were at a company outing I was there with our desi gn guy with our

computers o pen making sure this got done while everyone was partying around us.

Again, it's m y fault for bad time management, but I made a com mitment and I wanted

to honor it.

I had hoped to finish the 2nd guide in time, but it just wasn't pos sible and as a

creative marketer under a deadline I used it as an o pportunity to engage as many

people as po ss ible while buying myself enough time to finish it so we threw up the

countdown and encouraged you to follo w us o n Twitter.

There was an iss ue with the time zo nes o n the server so it expired prematurely. We

are loo king to be live with it by 10PM PST this evening.

I'm so rry for any confusio n I've caused and it was never a question of me having

ulterior motives. It was an iss ue of me not having enough time.

-Mike

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1 0 ReplyReply

Asif Dilshad | May 9th, 2012

As us ual detailed , clean and a Great Pos t…. Goo d Work!

I have downloaded o ne but won’t be able to downlo ad 6 m onth guide! I think we have to

wait for six months to download this guide (joke)!

Edited by Asif Dilshad on May 9th, 2012 a t 12:27 am

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4 0 ReplyReply

randfish | May 9th, 2012

Really remarkable Mike. Thank you s o m uch for contributing this. Will be sending to

hundreds of peo ple over the next few months/years, I'm sure :-)

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debdulaldey | May 9th, 2012

It is strange that Rand is advocating for natural way of acquiring link building and is

very much against the concept of Link Building in the form o f som e spamm y

techniques like Link Exchange, Directory submiss ion. And see how this po st says

almost nothing against –

RSS Directories

Niche Directories

Paid Directories

Article Directories

Blog Directories

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1 7 ReplyReply

Design Galleries

Loo king for a clarification.

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1 0 ReplyReply

just in_ i | May 9th, 2012

It does state that directory subm iss ion is virutally worthless.

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2 0 ReplyReply

Adrian Vende r | May 9th, 2012

a) Mike does warn against the lessened wo rth of directories.

b) Getting links from directories is not spam my if the directories themselves

are not spam my. Even Matt Cutts clarified that links from directories are

okay if the directories dis play so me level of editorial po licy and quality

standards. THAT would class ify the PHP-spun free-for-all directories as

spammy.

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gfiorelli1 | May 9th, 2012

Hi Deb,

you're do ubts are legit, but - even though everything now s eems pus hing us

away from those link building o pportunities - we mus t try to be objective

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5 0 ReplyReply

(and calm).

Per se RSS Directories, Niche Directories... are not bad. Bad is the perverted

use of them.

For instance, if you search wisely and with quality in mind, you can find

amazing Ni che Directories, which really add value to the us ers abo ut topics

that are less known o r extremely specific. Those directories have a real

function, which is not pass ing PR and o ffering an easy way to have an exact

matching anchor text.

The same we can s ay for all the other kind of directories yo u listed (i.e.:

there are Design G alleries s ites which are everything but spam s ites).

More over, the secret is in the balance. If a site should have a link profile

completely composed by links from directories, then it would not look

completely natural. When you are creating your link profile, you s hould

always try to diversify the nature of the backlinks. In this link building mix,

goo d directories - as the ones yo u can find in this page curated by SEOmoz,

still may play an impo rtant role.

Oh... yes, if you see "s ubmit your site and your SEO will im prove" written big

above the fold o f the directory site... well, that is o bviously a site to es cape

from asap.

Edited by gfiorelli1 on Ma y 9th, 2012 at 7:18 am

Permalink


Well said Gianluca.

And, yeah Deb, I did explici tly say it here:

Directory submissions are generally considered t he

PDFmyURL.com







http://www.seomoz.org/directories



2 0 ReplyReply

lowest f orm of link building and generally won’t help you

move the needle . That said you can easily identify directories

with keyword searches plus directory type e.g. “3d tv rss directory.”

Again, you can show numbe rs wit h the se, but t hey are

generally not wort h your tim e.

Sorry for any confusio n, I will work on m aking myself more clear

in my writing.

-Mike

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1 1 ReplyReply


Thanks for the explanation :) actually, what I have inferred from

Goo gle's latest series of update is that they are dead against thatloo ks like Link Building . so when you are submitting directories,

so cial boo kmarking sites just for the sake of getting some link

back, it is jus t wastage of time .

However, I myself do boo kmark of my sites in designbump and

the likes ( 4 or 5 istes) for my personal s ites because believe me

they do drive traffic and It is not attempt to game SERP. Goo gle

knows which sites are spam otherwise they would have scrapped

their Domz project .. at least this is what I believe..

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I think we need to differentiate between goo d boo kmarking sites

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2 0 ReplyReply

that do drive so me traffic, like Digg does from the bad o nes.

So, it is entirely up to yo u to fol low this practice. I will do anything

to get visitors ( no t links) in the ligitimate. I myself submit links of

my personal s ites in two or three great bookmarking sites and

believe me they do offer me s ignificant number of traffic and I am

not going to sacrifice that not even for Go ogle ..

I will do whatever it will take a website to gain po pularity in virtual

and if this goes against Goo gle guidelines, I am dead against

Google :)

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2 0 ReplyReply

ChrisBridgett | May 9th, 2012

Number #1 tip for link building - create content of this quality! Good job!

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1 0 ReplyReply

anjonr | May 9th, 2012

Whoa! What an aweso me training tool m an. Love this: There are two ways to build links

Make News or Make Friends. So true.

P.S. I've always liked what you do wi th graphics in you po sts they really take them to the

next level.

Edited by anjo nr on Ma y 9th, 2012 at 1:15 am

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4 0 ReplyReply

gfiorelli1 | May 9th, 2012

Disclaimer: this co mment is related to few tweets Mike shared yesterday during the

process of writing this post.

"ipullrank: Don't worry Gianluca... Jen will have a lot to say if my post isn't in the queue in

4 hours and 10 minutes"

"jennita: Mike, it's actually on your calendar to be due in an hour :P "

"ipullrank: Oh! I switched time zones... I'm 3,602 words in "

Few hours later the pos t was put in the queue, editorially reviewed and published.

I admire you also for this, Mike, you extraordinary talent in writing and creating content

apparently so eas ily. I would have needed days to prepare a post like this.

So... keep the great work! and I don't want to hear yo u tweeting that blogging is no funanymore... or I snap your face whenever you are :D.

Edited by gfiorelli1 on Ma y 9th, 2012 at 7:00 am

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JonRaubenheimer | May 9th, 2012

Great post Mike,

Very insightful, very practical, great for a No ob liek me;-)

Cheers

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1 0 ReplyReply

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1 0 ReplyReply

St uart McHenry | May 9th, 2012

There is definitely a goo d amo unt of information here that I will be incorpo rating into m y

training of new hires.

It was also nice to see the stats Page Vs Infograph and how the % split was o n attacking

links.

*thumbs up*

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1 0 ReplyReply

Set h Baum | May 9th, 2012

Jus t wanted to echo the thanks - I'm a no ob and while a lo t of this on first read (who am Ikidding - o n second read too ) went over my head I got a ton from it and thank you for

taking the time to put it out there.

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1 0 ReplyReply

Fernando Veloso | May 9th, 2012

Nicely done Mike!

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3 0 ReplyReply

Paul Gailey Alburquerque | May 9th, 2012

jus t brilliant and no t a mono chrom e anima l in sight!

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1 0 ReplyReply

samerhadi | May 9th, 2012

Awesom e pos t Mike, mus t've taken you weeks to write this! Lo oks like the perfect link

building guide for beginners has been created. Also goo d to use as a reference!

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aleand | May 9th, 2012

Great post Mike,

At month 2 you mentio ned do ing video graphics and I just wanted to give everybo dy a tip.

Make it using prezi and then record with whatever recorder you prefer, Since Prezi is

about "zooming" instead of regular slides it gives your videographic so much "more".

It's also great for creating a clear path in your infographic so that the users focus o n

what you want them to and when.

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2 0 ReplyReply

Cheers and "thumbs up"

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1 0 ReplyReply


Hey Alexander,

That's a goo d call. I never thought o f using Prezi for this, but you' re right all the

functionality is right there.

-Mike

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PaulMartin | May 9th, 2012

Great post Mike.

One point I'd like to chip in o n though is the Share of Voice .

This is an utterly useless m etric; it's just meaningless and gives absolutely no insight

into anything.

Doing it at a site level to give a share of voice of a busines s in any given marketplace is

rubbish as the resulting percentage will differ as and when products are added o r

removed. It's also imposs ible to compare apples-with-apples as no two companies

ever sell the same product range (or very rarely) and so yo u cannot claim to have a

higher share of voice than a com petitor.

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4 2 ReplyReply

At a keyword level, as yo u talk about here, is equally misleading. The resulting m etric

would be better presented as potential traffic. Much mo re meaningful.

Basically, share of voice is a m etric used in o ther industries that CEO's and bo ard

members of com panies try to apply to search marketing in order to try and get a handle

on what it is that is success . There are a millio n and o ne better, more pro ductive and

infinitely more meaningful ways o f delivering that information.

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3 0 ReplyReply

Adrian Vende r | May 9th, 2012

This is j ust sem antics. Share of Voice is essentially alluding to potential traffic, so

there's no real conflict there on the resulting metric.

And you' re right about CEOs and board mem bers that THEY are ones that focus on

the term Share of Voice. And since they are the o nes that you have to co nvince to

even signoff on any resources spent on link building, speak their language so yo u

can better make yo ur case.

Permalink


I don't think it's just s emantics; a Share of Voice percentage and a tangible

number s howing potential traffic, are different entities.

A Share of Voice percentage ultimately gives no meaning to anything.

I could say that I am 70 % mo re awesom e than Chuck Norris. But if my

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t i ifi t d bi i f th th t ti ti i













3 0 ReplyReply

metrics were specific to me and bias in m y favour, then the statistic is

useless.

If you can educate the board mem bers into what exactly SEO is, along with

tangible reasons fo r the work and the outcom es it will have in terms o f

finances (or even traffic levels at a basic level), then this will put yo u in a

much better place than trying to fit square pegs into round ho les with a

woolly Share of Voice metric.

It seems that Share of Voice is us ed by mos t in a vain attempt to try and say

they are better/more visible than a com petitor because they have a greater

Share of Voice .

Pointless.

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1 0 ReplyReply


Hey Paul,

Thank you for your ins ight.

To your comments I pose a simple question: Which is of these scenarios is more

likely to happen and have a positive outcom e?

1. A busy CEO sits through an intro to SEO presentation, retains and

understands SEO enough after said presentation to make educated and

informed decisions about an additional SEO proposal.

2. A busy CEO sits through an SEO propos al that is written using terminolo gy

that he already knows and understands and can decide right then and there

whether or no t he wants to mo ve on it.

-Mike

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2 0 ReplyReply


Hi Mike,

If you are pitching for busines s o r to retain business , then the very last thing

you should be using is a woolly Share of Voice figure. This is an even wo rseapplication of it!

I'd much rather sit in front of a CEO and s ay for £xxx investment we will get

you £xxx return, giving you an ROI o f £xxx. We will do this by increasing your

non- brand sales by xxx and this will be achived by the implementing the

following techniques and attacking the following areas...

That is all a CEO is bothered about when it comes to decision m aking. The

bottom l ine. Money.

They won't care if they have a 2.5% share of voice or a 6.1% share of

voice as what does that mean to them and their business ? Nothing.

Presenting share of voice gives them no information to m ake an informed

decision o n. Presenting them with financials and ROI will enable them to s ay

yes there and then.

Edited by PaulMa rtin on May 9th, 2012 at 1:29 pm

Permalink


Paul,

I addressed that with this

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image http://cdn seomo z org/img/upload/garys tip justifying












1 0 ReplyReply

image. http://cdn.seomo z.org/img/upload/garys-tip-justifying-

share-of-voice.jpg

Sorry it was unclear.

-Mike

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4 0 ReplyReply

Jenni @ Heart Inte rnet | May 9th, 2012

It's a nice guide and well put together, but there are a co uple of things:

The directory section - it's very much gloss ed over with the attitude that it's a waste o f

time. There are oppo rtunities there, especially for people new to link building, which arequick wins and sho uldn't be ignored, particularly if com petitors have the same links.

There are so me very goo d directories out there that pass go od juice (like aboutus.org),

it's just a case of not subm itting to the lower spamm y ones. SEOmo z has that great list

of the top directories which wo uld be a us eful addition at that point. On a related note, I

disagree with your view o n galleries. They are extremely goo d for juice - far fewer

submissions and pages than text directories, domains and pages almost always have

goo d PR and Moz sco res, sites are usually only a click or two from the hom epage with

limited/no category divisio n, and only quality sites are accepted.

The social m edia profile link section - I wo uld add the point that you need to m ake sure

you get the page indexed, because not everyone links to profiles from their site, and if

you are linking to your s ocial pro files from yo ur site, give them a no follo w. I did think the

positioning of the comments was slightly misleading, because you mention that a lot of

so cial networks give dofollo w links, and then proceed to list things like Faceboo k and

Twitter which don't.

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Paul Gailey Alburquerque | May 9th, 2012

Mike, with reference to your ham s andwich SoV part and " you may surpass them with

less links that are higher quality " how do you suggest to emphasise this point because

the nuance of the power of a quality link maybe lost on a m isguided pursuit of volume o f

links by s om e. In som e verticals, po st Penguin, the ability to leap rank with quality links is

phenomenal.

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wojkwasi | May 9th, 2012

Wowsers! What a great pos t :) I like how Mike's broken it down i nto a 6 m onth campaign

- will be definitely passing this aro und to clients, peers & even thos e who have nfi what it

is we do!

I had the privilege of seeing Mike do so me presentations at SMX Sydney last week. He is

extremely knowledgeable, energetic & a bo rn entertainer. I was als o lucky enough to

interview him & found him to be even coo ler than his avatar :) Stay tuned for that!

You s hould do a video series Mike!

Edited by wojkwasi on May 9 th, 2012 at 4:42 am

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Etienne Dupuis | May 9th 2012

















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Etienne Dupuis | May 9th, 2012

At first, the title scared me, it sounded cheesy.

I was wrong, great pos t, time was spent I can see it. I love it. Bookm arked it and must

read it all later today. +1

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Mark Ginsberg | May 9th, 2012

This is crazy! Between this po st and Oli's pos t, how are we ever suppo sed to get any

work do ne? Thanks Mike for this - definitely going to be sharing it with everyone I know!

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blu42media | May 9th, 2012

So ... it looks like iAcquire is in Month 4 ;) Who's do wnloading in 5 hours? :)

Great post Mike - very thoro ugh and insightful!

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Nick St amoulis | May 9th, 2012

What a great resource, especially for DIY SEO site o wners. Link building is a lot mo re

complex than mo st site owners realize, but that doesn't mean it can't be done. This is a

pretty aggressive strategy, but sometimes you just have to roll up your sleeves and get it

done.

Edited by Nick Stamoulis on May 9th, 2012 at 6:56 am

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Kar Cheung | May 9th, 2012

Amz ing po st, I'll be usi ng this as m y link building bible from no w on.

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Chenzo | May 9th, 2012

The giveaway factor is s till one o f the oldest and mo st impactful today.

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russvirante | May 9th, 2012

Nice pos t, as always. Another metric worth dropping into the "share of voice"

measurement is the expected click volum e. Given that #1 (plus s itelinks, etc.) is the best

you can do without multiple sites, it can create an unreal expectation given that you can't

be expected to earn mo re than ~30%.

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Jawadk | May 9th, 2012

This is a kind o f post that always makes me go back to the very basics all o ver again. Anyone can get a lot of success in his /her SEO campaigns by foll owing your tips given

away in this post.

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cyberlicious | May 9th, 2012

Do yo ur clients know yo u've been working on this article? Are they ok with how much

time this took you away from doing work for them? Just curious ! ;-) lol

Edited by cyberlicious on May 9th, 2012 at 8:21 am

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A thumbs down?! LOLI really am curious . When you have s o much value to give and

are too busy helping your own clients, how do yo u find time to dangle a peice of

candy from your candy bag to grab the attention o f those o ther potential clients?

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Hey Ben,

As o f right now my ro le in client wo rk at iAcquire is strategic. So I ess entially co me up

with what our team will be do ing and then just delegate. So it's no t an issue o f my

clients losing my out.

-Mike

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Hey Mike,

That is exactly my visio n for the company I am trying to build. To do exactly

what you are doing. I cannot wait for the day we can bring in so me mo re

intelligent people to work with. We're currently at the point where our

resources are stretched, and we are just not ready to hire anyone. Just.

One. More. Solid. Client. ;-)

Great work, and thanks for respo nding!

Ben

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Brent Copstead | May 9th, 2012

PDFmyURL.com

Excellent Pos t! This is exactly what I needed to help so me key team players with link














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y p y p y

building. Thank you.

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ChristinaLundy | May 9th, 2012

Awesom e pos t, Mike! This is s om ething everyone in the SEO indus try shou ld read

whether they're noobs or seas oned veterans.

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rayvensoft | May 9th, 2012

Great read. It had so me great new ideas and helps fine tune som e other things I have

been doing. I have already added it to m y favorites.

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ckilgore | May 9th, 2012

Excellent post Mike (as usual) ... digging the SpyOnWeb site you m entioned and agree

with one o f the above co mments that this is a great read whether or not you are a no ob

or SEO vet. Goo d stuff!

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TargetClick | May 9th, 2012

@iPullRank, Wow! is all I can s ay. Great, Great piece here. Very actionable, as always.

Thanks for the great line up of tools , and explanations o n how you wo uld go abo ut

using those too ls. Too o ften tools are mentioned without examples of execution.

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pixelcreative | May 9th, 2012

Great pos t..I save pdf for detailed reading on it. As a seo company from Turkey, i am

gonna foll ow yo ur shares like that. You almos t detailed any about link building. Though

seo expected to be s oo n performed, needs patience. Take care.

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Aidan McCart hy | May 9th, 2012

Great guide though I'm no t real sure how many no obs wo uld find themselves at this

level (credit cards? life insurance?) mos t start at a level where mentioning wo rds like

'ideation' would attract a swift kick to the co-relevants.

Surely this is for m ore advanced and experienced link builders?

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Think Around Corners | May 9th, 2012

OMFG Michael you Rock it again.

Thank you! How co mprehensive!

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explorionary | May 9th, 2012

No m atter how long yo u've been in the game, how much you think you know, or ho w

success ful you think you've been, this is the kind of content and insights we all need to

come back to. Grateful for the time and energy you put into this po st, Mike. And thanks for

giving us so mething to keep coming back to.

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SEODinosaur | May 9th, 2012

Great post! I'm like the 999 th comment and still the pos t will take longer to s croll thrugh.

However, this po st has great value word fo r word, and for that I thank you!

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Jam es Norquay - Australian SEO | May 9th, 2012

Hi Mike

Saw your presentations at SMX sydney they were good, but the problem so me brands I

work o n face is we have already done m os t of the link building ideas, you just have to re

spin ideas and creative even more crazy link building campaign ideas.

I have seen that comic strip idea from Credit Card Finder in the past too I thought it was

goo d but yeah it never really got huge traction, even thought it was a top idea for that

niche.

I have been to a few events and met that ex-goo gler you also speak of, interesting guy

that is for sure.

But overall agree with all the points yo u have made, overall a fantastic post.

Kind Regards,

James No rquay

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evolvingSEO | May 9th, 2012

Jus t want to say Mike, that I truely appreciate the time and effort you mus t have spent

creating this guide, and no t to mention 2 PDFs to go along with it. I think its an invaluable

resource for anyone at all levels, noobs , or just to make sure you're covering all your

bases - especially for someone like myself who's running solo at the moment; I don't

have a whole lot of human resources to pull from, so these online resources are

essential.

PDFmyURL.com

And it also provides another place fo r aspiring SEOs to actually get REAL info - no t












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so me o f the junk we see o ut there which just proliferates po or SEO practices and thus

the perception of the industry. This is the kind o f stuff we need more o f to keep mo ving

forward!

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Franck Nlem ba | May 9th, 2012

Very Goo d pos t! Like the share o f voice stuff...Wasn't aware of that but i'm go nna use it

now

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| May 9th, 2012

Sorry, how to translate the article to other language?

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Blog Designer | May 9th, 2012

This ia alot to consider and kind of seems overwhelming. But nothing comes easy right?

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http://www.seomoz.org/users/profile/










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aidenmoor | May 10th, 2012

Great Information. Everybody was loo king for so me content that could des cribe what

sho uld be our approach to SEO after Goo gle Penguin update. Unarguably everybody is

agreed on o ne point that the search engine senario has changed a lot in last few months

and it has become mo re challenging, demanding, analytical, content-oriented and user

based. However there was a need fo r a content that could deli ver how these can be

achieved and how to materialize these theories in practice. I think this e-bo ok hascovered almos t all thos e facts.

Som e impo rtant points that I personally feel has become im portant than ever before are:

Anchor text divers ity

Link equity of the network from sites yo u are getting links

Content-oriented SEO approach

Implimentation and incorpo ration of an efective Social Media campaign

Latest updates from Go ogle and o ther search engines have compelled SEO

professi onals to make their campaign mo re user-oriented. Any signal that is com ing

from user o r any third party agency is being given more weight by Goo gle. Now

publishers are left with very little roo m to m anipulate search engine signals.

SEO is no longer conf ined to website o ptim ization but it has been upgraded

to "Digital marketing St rategy" where SEO and link building is small part of

the overall process.

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small business seo | May 10th, 2012

Thanks for sharing such a infermative pos t. I realy like the content 'sharing of voice'. i will

definitly try this.

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Sergio Redondo | May 10th, 2012

I can only s ay one thing: WOW!

Thanks Mike.

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Paul Baguley | May 10th, 2012

Mike you have just dropped a bom b with this pos t. Great stuff.

iAcquire are lucky to have you and so are we all.

This will be shared for many years i bet.

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Anshul Gautam | May 10th, 2012


















1 0 ReplyReply

Mike, this is jus t aweso me s tuff, a nice marketing perspective which will benefit the brand

from a long term perspective and keep up the rankings even if there are multiple Pandas

and Penguins o ut there.

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Oli Gardner | May 10th, 2012

Badass po st Mike and and a great addition to the noo b guide! Link building is so

necessary yet so mis understood and s oo poo rly performed. I like that you dedicated

such a massive pos t to it.

+10

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jclark | May 10th, 2012

Great article. I'm hoping that The 6 Month Link Building Plan is available so on. It's May

10th! :)

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Dylan Whit man | May 10th, 2012



















1 0 ReplyReply

Can you explain exactly how you can "Find out when someone is linking to you as they

are writing their post and ask for updated anchor text." Using Linkstant?

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Savvy Panda | May 10th, 2012

thanks so much for teh great content. goo d foo d for thought!!! Also loved the graphics

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dgabbard | May 10th, 2012

This is a really comprehensive timeline for someone who is new to SEO and

linkbuilding. It is the kind o f detailed infom ation I wish I would have had when I initially got

started in this busi ness. Even after five years, there are so me great tidbits in here that I

can use. Thanks so much for sharing this compilation.

Edited by KeriMo rgret on May 10th, 2012 at 2:12 pm

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osama hussain | May 10th, 2012

yes bro I like it ... thanks fo r the post i ho pe you will update us regularly

REGARDS

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Osama Hussain




















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Edited by KeriM orgret on May 10th, 2012 at 2:11 pm

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RedKing | May 10th, 2012

Great read! You need to stop giving away so much goo d info. Your helping people

become SEO experts and the competition is hard eno ugh as it is aha!

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Gabe | May 10th, 2012

Jus t forwarded this to all of my DIY Clients! Great breakdown and links to too ls.

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sayaltechnologies | May 11th, 2012

Informatiove Post! This is exactly what I needed to help for link building . Thank you.

Edited by KeriM orgret on May 11th, 2012 at 12:57 pm

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VirginiaC | May 11th, 2012





















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VirginiaC | May 11th, 2012

Wow, what else can i say, the online marketing guide was also the mo st aweso me guide

from las t year! Keep up the goo d work.

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John Chena | May 11th, 2012

It's a great read Mike.

In the ham sandwich example you sho wed the top organic ranked site getting 18.2% o f

the total traffic for that keyword.I presume yo u too k this data from Slingsho t case

study.Com ing to m y question, I wanted to know ho w much traffic does the 1st,2nd and

3rd placed ads get.

Ano ther questio n is when AOL releas ed the organic CTR data way back in 2006 werethere ads placed on top o f the organic results and how many?If it is the same case as

the present day then there shouldn't be that much difference in the present day results,

may be jus t above 5% o f the traffic got hit.This is my presumptio n though,I would like to

hear from others ho pefully from experts who have s een the results from their top ranking

sites.Appreciate if so meo ne share ho w much percentage of traffic they are getting from

their top ranked site.

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NanNex.com | May 11th, 2012

Great post!

I would like to know if this proces s can be expedited in less than 6 mo nths and what

effects wo uld this have o n search engine visibility. Will Big G think you are spamm ing the

PDFmyURL.com

net if mass ive data is s een from a new site in one mo nth’s time?
















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Whitehat-SEO | May 11th, 2012

Youtube is NOFOLLOW since March 2012. The hard lesso n is, spread your eggs in

many baskets.

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Mavenface | May 11th, 2012

This is probably the best po st I've seen on here. Very clear, thoughtful and honest. I take

so me is sue with the idea of "making friends" for the sake of gaining a link and if you

ever came up to m e at a party asking me to write about yo u, I'd treat you as if you were

hitting on my girl. Ha!

I think mos t companies, especially the one's in "bo ring niches" sho uld take the idea of

creating amazingly creative content similar to that in the Life Insurance example. It

seems like we're moving into a creative war online where companies rather than

compete based on how good their service is, compete based on how much much

attention they can garner. Maybe it's always been like this.

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vivek231 | May 11th, 2012

Great ideas indeed but some of them may not be feasible for small business owners or

start ups running SEO campaign o n a budget.

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ctam | May 13th, 2012

I must say that it's jus t an unexpected pos t on link building, well res earched, indepth

analysis. Great Jo b ! And "share of voice" is co mpleltely a new phenomena for m e. After

panda algorithm, link building methods are no t like as it was earlier, so this po st is m uch

helpful.

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eververs | May 13th, 2012

Quite the extensive lis t! What happens pretty much is that you apply one o r mo re

techniques and then see what works fo r you. Use what wo rks for you, and creatively re-

apply that concept. Whatever you do , make sure that you spend yo ur time wisely

(meaning that you do n't hang on to unproven methods and invest too m uch time in old

techniques which don't work anymo re). Get used to do ing it every same day in the weekfor example. Cheers!

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ngocnghechvn | May 13th, 2012




















1 0 ReplyReply

whew, it's takes me s om e times to read and understand all these! But yes, i've go t it all.

Thanks for the amaz ing article, Michael!

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Sebastian22 | May 14th, 2012

This blo g contain the entire ingredient to link build thanks a lo t….for s hare this.

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Billy Akleh | May 14th, 2012

Interesting about getting links indexed using Goo gle+. Usually I just ping my links so I

will test that out.

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Isaac Wendt | May 14th, 2012

Interesting, But i think the post co uld have been s horten into jus step by step, I read the

whole thing and I enjoied it but way to long for me pers onally.

thanks but,

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RichardOrtiz | May 15th, 2012

Great read. Dont know if I would call it a "No ob" guide tho ugh. There is enough great

material here to s atisfy beginners and experts alike. Especially loved how yo u broke

down the campaign into mo nths. Specificity is rare in the seo industry.

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thecommunithink | May 16th, 2012

Woo ow Impress ive presentation , very useful, Thanks so much !

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Safo r web Design | May 18th, 2012

incredible!!... thanks and go od job!

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officelist | May 18th, 2012



















1 0 ReplyReply

Great ideas and clearly explained. So many blo gs o ut there that contradict themselves

which makes it confusing to know what wo rks and what's white/hat/grey. Thanks

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Designbysoap Lt d | May 19th, 2012

AWESOME pos t, no surpris e it's in the top five po pular po sts fo r the month! Thanks fo r

putting in such an incredible effort : )

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Genjo Sanzo | May 19th, 2012

Rather than helping I am mo re confused what link building tactics sho uld one us e no

forum signatures no articles no directories what is left now

I have a small blo g after my name neeshu ho w do I start link building for it.

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Shamim_cpz | May 22nd, 2012

Brilliant and very inform ative post , thanks a lot !

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shaam | May 22nd, 2012

Old strategies does n't give much effect on seo rather we need to concentrate mo re on

Social Media alone

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Daveguy | May 27th, 2012

Go od po st, but looks li ke you left out the part about iAquire buying links. iAquire was

recently deindexed from Go ogle fo r buying links. Not just buying links either, but setting

up multiple busines s alias es and then buying links under different aliases. Read more

about it here: http://llsocial.com/2012/05/search-secrets-prominent-seo-company-

covertly-purchasing-backlinks-for-fortune-1000/

Sorry to hear about yo ur company's mis fortune, but it's a little ironic that you've written

such an extensive post abo ut whitehat link building when you don't even follo w it. Bad.

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Alex-Lab41 | June 26th, 2012

Not sure if the comm ents or the post too k me longer to read!

Great post...lots to wo rk through! :-)

Edited by Alex-Lab41 on June 26th, 2012 at 6:58 am

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http://llsocial.com/2012/05/search-secrets-prominent-seo-company-covertly-purchasing-backlinks-for-fortune-1000/










Whitebo ard+ o n Go ogle's Penguin Update The Real Impact o f the Go ogle SmartPho ne

Crawler (Part 3): Avoiding Mo bile Mis- Indexing

1 0 ReplyReply

PedroM | July 26th, 2012

Awesom e Pos t as always :)

Tks for the sharing :)

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Salman Farooqui | October 26th, 2012

Definitely worth the time reading such a long pos t. Here comes the blow "highest

occurring anchor text for a s ite is branded otherwise yo u may trigger an algorithmic filter

or penalty".

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