What is your absolute best, most actionable SEO tip?
I received 45 responses, and I’ve categorized them into 8 areas of SEO:
Each tip also has a custom tweet button attached to it so feel free to share your favorite tips with your followers. Now, let’s dive in…
Content Marketing
Every year, search engines raise the bar for what constitutes high-quality content, and if you don’t adjust accordingly, you and your site will be left behind. This section is full of SEO tips that will help you create compelling content to dazzle your audience and the search engines.
1. Here’s The Secret To Content Marketing Success: Research, Execute, Analyze & Scale
I follow a very simple process in SEO and content development: research, execute,analyze and scale.
Content is king in the online marketing space for a very valid reason – because it’s the simplest way to determine relevance and expertise.
SEO is very challenging, because it’s all about beating other websites’ content. And in order to be more visible in search results you need to make your content:
- More comprehensive, informative and actionable.
- More helpful, appealing and trustworthy (for transactional, product/sales and category pages).
So to win in search, I usually focus on
creating evergreen content assets that answer the most frequently searched queries in the niche I am (or a client is) competing in.
Research:
My research phase involves 3 major components:
- Determining the demand for the content I’m planning to create (keyword research and social listening).
- Identifying competitors’ similar content and noting the areas that their content lack (or areas where I can take advantage of to make my content far more unique and valuable – such as including my own insights or including more data).
- Making a list of people or organizations who’re genuinely interested about the topic area of the content I’m planning to create (for outreach and relationship building).
Execute:
Analyze:
Analyzing your content (why is or isn’t it ranking) once it’s up is very important. Measure your content assets’ usage data and engagement rate (bounce rate, visit duration and page visits) to determine aspects of the content that you can improve on.
Knowing why your content is working (in terms of social, link attraction, lead generation and branding) can help you tremendously in coming up with better approaches for your content development in the future.
Always re-optimize your already existing content – using these data.
Scale:
I believe this is the most important piece of advice I can give from this whole process.
Getting your evergreen content assets ranked highly on search results is one of the best ways to really scale your SEO campaign, because:
- When you’re ranking for informational keywords, other people who are doing research about the topic may use your content as a reference – which makes iteasier for your page(s) to earn links over time.
- Since the content isn’t time-sensitive, it’ll still be shared on social networks by people over time – making the content discovery cycle almost never-ending.
There are several ways to scale SEO through your existing content assets:
- Promote them through your newer content or through the content you distribute on other websites (guest blogs, columns, interviews, slide presentations, etc.), so you can strengthen your content assets’ ranking power (and drive constant traffic to them).
- Make your content assets rank for other keyword variations (that have high engagement rates) based on your Analytics data – because they are already seen as very relevant to those search queries. You can also check out thiscomprehensive guide on implementing this type of keyword audit and content re-optimization.
For more scale, implement these actions on all of your site’s important landing pages.
2. Write More Completely – Examine A Topic In Depth & Anticipate Your Reader’s Needs
Cyrus Shepard is the Senior Content Astronaut at Moz, where he helps lead content strategy and content production. He also blogs about SEO on Above the Fold. You can find Cyrus on Twitter and Google+.
The most actionable SEO tip I know, and one I use every week is this…
Write more completely.
It’s the easiest, no brainier activity you can use to rank higher and deeper for more long-tail keywords. You can explain it to anyone, and they don’t even have to be an SEO. Aside from creating better content, there are some very real SEO benefits to be gained:
1. The richer you can make your page contextually, the more material you provide to search engines to understand what the page is about. This also gives you more long-tail opportunities.
- Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?
- Does the article describe both sides of a story?
- Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
- Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
- Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?
3. Several studies,
including this one on Moz, have shown a relationship between article length and the number of links a page earns. People tend to link to more in-depth resources.
By writing more completely, I don’t simply mean write more words on the page. I mean examine your topic in depth. Explore the issues you’re creating content about. Be empathetic to the reader and try to anticipate their needs. Write with authority and examine both sides of the issues.
3. Write Attention-Grabbing Headlines & Create Eye-Catching, High-Quality Images
SEO strategy can be juiced up just by spending time writing attention-grabbing headlines and creating eye-catching, high-quality images.
Online marketers need to develop content like Steve Jobs. He upped the ante when he created headlines and visuals that kept people on the edge of their seats.
Jobs created an experience – told a story – with words and pictures.
He used sensory words to help people experience a topic. We need to do the same!
Magazine-Like Headlines
Steve Jobs wrote like a good SEO, but I imagine he never would have admitted that. Here are a couple of his headlines you may have memorized:
- “Today Apple reinvents the phone!”
- “The new iTunes store. All songs are DRM-free.”
So put on your Steve Jobs hat and write headlines with these components:
- 1 Big Idea – Generate curiosity.
- Specific – Use phrases most important to content and audience.
- Attention Grabbing – Give them a reason to read more. Promise powerful benefits!
- <= 140 characters – Make your headlines tweetable!
- “So what?” – Answer this question, and you’ll increase CTR and sharability!
High-Quality Images
You’ve heard that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” The following should get you to think a bit more about our ADD approach to reading the Web and the value of images.
Mel Carson, author of
Pioneers of Digital, said:
A picture tells a story 40 times faster than the written word!
Where do you look first after seeing a page’s headline? Most of us look at the image, which often determines if we are going to stay to read or if we are going to share that page on social.
Bigger is better? Yes, in this case!
It appears that larger images tell even more of a story, or at least they capture our attention better. Just take a look at some of our major news sites, like ABC News. Their images are not small 200×100 clip-art graphics!
Facebook changed the game on September 16, 2013 by requiring
larger images for their
Open Graph protocol to include larger images when we share on our timelines:
- Recommended image size for the og:image is now 1200×627 pixels.
- Minimum size is 560×292 pixels.
As you can see, the author of this ABC News post also demonstrated a good example of a “magazine-like headline.” (Study what journalists are doing to get some good tips for SEO headlines!)
OK, enough said. I’ll let those pictures speak for themselves!
Bottom line… The best content that’s good for SEO and social media is copy written and developed like Steve Jobs spoke.
Show, don’t just tell!
Yes, it’s time to step up your headlines and your photography!
4. Use The Power Of Repeated Publishing To Rank For Competitive Keywords
For a highly competitive keyword, don’t just produce a piece of “viral” content and hope it does well.
Use the power of repeated publishing to ensure that you’re constantly creating opportunities to promote, market, and earn links/shares.
For example, each year at Moz, we produce our
ranking factors document comparing the industry’s opinions against correlation data. Since it’s updated annually, it has an opportunity to earn links and shares every time.
The first few years, it ranked on page 1, but by the third release, it consistently scored the top position for a number of competitive keyword phrases. Given Google’s love for freshness, and people’s desire to consume and share the most recent information, this strategy makes everyone happy.
If you’re ever considering a “viral content” type piece to earn rankings, strongly consider how you can make it update-able on a regular basis, so you’re not just relying on that first push.
5. Leverage Your Clients’ Offline Assets To Make Them Online Authorities
Creating content that engages visitors, entices them to act and builds a brand can be a real challenge for online marketers, especially when clients have never been asked to share their expertise or experience in a way that helps them become an authority in their competitive online marketplace.
While Google powers ahead with growing Knowledge Graph data and connecting “people, places and things” to understand subject-matter expert “entities,” we need to help clients connect that information, become “go-to brands” across multiple platforms and prove why they’re the best in their field.
So here’s the challenge: how do we help clients transfer their unique, juicy pot of knowledge online?
Here’s the step by step process I use…
1) Educate the client about:
- How “search” is changing – from on-page keywords to semantic query relevancy
- The importance of becoming a topic “authority”
- The time investment needed by them to help me achieve this
This step helps the client understand the “why.”
2) Find out what they want to achieve:
- Business goals and objectives – it’s hard to hit a non-existent target!
- Content goals and objectives – what actions do they want their visitors to take?
- Realistic expectations of what can and can’t be achieved in their timeframe.
Understanding (and agreeing on) these items will make a project run much smoother.
3) Ask open-ended questions, listen and document (or link to) the following:
- History & Background, USP, Staff Accomplishments, Geographical Reach, Awards, Accreditations, Industry Associates, Product and Service Portfolio, Specialties, Sales Process & Approach, Projects, Existing Strategic Partnerships, Testimonials, Case Studies, Community / Charity Work
- Target customer profile and specific personas
- Customer feedback via surveys, questionnaires, reviews and social sentiment
These items categorise the “who, what and why” of a client’s business model.
4) Find out what’s hot and in demand in their industry by investigating:
- Google Trends & Insights
- Trade association news
- Industry white papers, guides and surveys
- Industry news, events and press releases
- Social trends (over multiple platforms)
- Staff – directors, operations managers, salespeople, marketers, customer services and engineers
Listen to what the market is saying – insight exists everywhere.
5) Armed with industry analysis, ask:
- How can my client become an authority in their online marketplace?
- What do they do that adds tremendous value to their clients?
- What innovation do they include in their products and services?
- How do they go about satisfying their clients in creative ways?
- How does their story relate to their target customers?
- What challenges have they overcome that need to be shared?
- What type of content would potential customers find helpful?
- What are they doing to win market share from their competitors?
This step dictates the content that needs creating, fast!
6) When creating content, ask:
- Am I using words that resonate with the target audience?
- Are there clear and definitive “calls to action” throughout?
- Is the content helpful; does it solve a problem?
- Does it show subject-matter expertise?
- Does this content stand up on its own merit?
- Can I link to authoritative resources that back-up facts or opinions?
- Would another website link to it?
- Is this content truly unique and impossible to duplicate?
These questions keep you focused on what’s really important.
By following these steps, not only can you create content that attracts visitors and social shares, you’ll also prove that your client really knows their onions!
Bonus Tip: Create a spreadsheet showing ALL your clients’ social account details: social media platform link, username and password. This ensures housekeeping is in place, ready for content outreach and promotion!
6. Test Absolutely Everything & Truly Invest In Content
Geoff Kenyon is a senior consultant at Distilled. When he’s not working with clients, he’s working on his own projects, mountain biking, or exploring new places. You can find Geoff on Twitter and Google+.
I have two tips, I like to share. First, test everything. This sounds simple and not that useful, but testing is one of the most beneficial ways to spend your time.
Tactics have varying effects on different sites, some knobs get turned up over time, others get turned down. You need to figure out what works for you and your site, don’t take someone’s word for it. Or you might find out something new.
Second, invest in content. Anyone can put content in a page, but it is extremely valuable to really invest in it. Good content takes time – time to come up with a strategy and plan, time to create, and time to edit.
While this doesn’t scale well, it does pay
massive dividends. On top of that, users actually like and read the content, and engage with your brand.
This is why companies like
REI and
Paula’s Choice are taking the time to publish really great content in education centers.
Bridgestone has put effort into revamping
brand pages and incorporating content into them. Similarly, ModCloth is well known for the amount of effort they put into their
product descriptions.
7. Hire Established Bloggers In Your Industry To Write A Few Posts A Month
I’m going to go to the content side of things, since people have been struggling with it lately. Everyone keeps saying, “Just create great content,” but obviously it’s not that simple.
If you know you need a content strategy, but don’t have the means to properly execute it, try hiring well established bloggers in a relevant industry to write a couple posts a month.
This is an easy way to instantly get exposure in front of a related audience. It’s also less expensive and less of a hassle than hiring a bunch of writers full time.
Before you hire a writer, be sure to read these excellent resources:
8. Create Content To Provide Value & Solve Problems
Moosa Hemani is an SEO Consultant at SEtalks.com, where he offers services like guest blogging, link building, and on-page optimization. You can find Moosa on Twitter and Google+.
The most actionable SEO tip I can offer to anyone in the digital marketing profession is to create content not for building links or getting better rankings but because you think the content will offer value to the targeted audience or your content can offer solutions to the problem they are already facing.
If you come up with a content piece that really hits the marketing target, all the links, branding, social and rankings that can bring more business to you will come along with it.
And don’t forget: creating content is only half the battle. You need a solid marketing plan to grab your audience’s attention.
9. Digitize Old Print Materials For New Content Ideas & Curation Opportunities
Gianluca Fiorelli is a Strategic SEO & Web Marketing Consultant operating in the Italian SEO market, and he also operates internationally, offering International SEO Consulting with IloveSEO.net. You can find Gianluca on Twitter and Google+.
So… my tip is related to content creation in very technical B2B niches or niches that – as incredible as it may sound – do not have a large presence on the Web.
One of the problems these niches have is finding content to curate and finding inspiration to create new or better content to publish on their own sites and, from there, promoting that content.
The solution can be found in old classic paper B2B magazines.
In fact, believe or not, thousands of magazines are still published in these niches (e.g., dental or hardware engineering), and they don’t have an online version and, even more important, the clients know them very well and know the people publishing them and their journalists.
At the same time, these clients usually have tons of internal documents and promotional content on paper, which they never realize could be repurposed as digital content.
So, my tip involves digitizing all that content and creating a private not indexed WordPress blog where it will be archived and used as a database for technical writing inspiration, discovering contacts to create relationships, images, technical charts, data you can use to craft rich content (infographics, video-infographics, etc.) and, obviously, doing great curation both on the client site and in social media.
Ah, and this database can be – from a keyword search point of view – a fantastic resource for discovering semantically similar niches. Even simple visualizations like word clouds of the “posts” could be very enlightening.
Be aware that, even though this is something I suggest strongly for the industries I cited above, this tactic can also be useful for more popular niches such as tourism. In many niches, you can still find paper only press magazines/books/guides that can seriously help you find new ideas.
Keyword Research
In marketing, you can’t reach your audience if you don’t speak their language. Keyword research is the process of learning the words and phrases your audience uses to search for your products and services. These next SEO tips will help you improve that process.
10. Calculate The Expected ROI For Your Keywords
When I create a keyword research project for a client, beyond search volume, competition and rankings data, I look at the expected ROI (return on investment) of each keyword.
I ask the client for two things: 1) their website’s average conversion rate and 2) their average sale/client value. I ask for a site-wide average of both at the very least, but if there’s different rates/values for different products/services areas then even better.
Then I put it together as a calculation:
((Monthly Search Volume * Expected CTR % if #1) * Avg. Conversion Rate %) * Avg. Sale Value £ = Expected Monthly ROI £
So a recent example is from a client whose main keyword gets 4,400 searches per month in the UK (on [exact match]).
The expected CTR (click-through rate) if the client were to occupy the #1 position in Google.co.uk would be 18.2% (going by
Slingshot SEO’s CTR case study), and they told me their conversion rate is 1% and their average sale is £150.
Put that all together and you get this:
((4,400 * 18.2%) * 1%) * £150 = £1,201.20
This approach is great for a number of reasons:
- It helps to justify any future SEO work. In the example above, just one keyword (the head term of just one product they’re selling) could earn them £1,200 per month, if they were #1 and so long as the search volume, conversion rate and average sale data all stay consistent. Imagine how much it would total when you also include mid-range terms, the long-tail and other product areas combined!
- It can help to show them the bigger picture and therefore influence other sales/marketing areas: for example, if my client can improve their website’s UX to increase the conversion rate to 2%, they could potentially double their earnings.
- For those two reasons, it can be used to say to a client: “I think you need to improve your site’s conversion rate if you want to see a decent return from SEO,” or in an extreme case where the numbers just aren’t good enough: “maybe SEO wouldn’t be effective for you…” (gasp!)
When I pass this on to a client, instead of sending it to them as a PDF, I leave it as an Excel spreadsheet – that way they can play around with the figures, e.g. if they don’t agree that a #1 position would be 18.2% (as some people argue that it may be higher or lower) or if their average sale value changes.
It makes for a less pretty/sexy document, but it’s a much more useful and functional document – I know what I’d rather have if I were in the client’s shoes!
For even more information about calculating the ROI of keywords, read these outstanding resources:
11. Create More Targeted Landing Pages Using Product Attribute Keywords
I started to approach this strategy in my
latest advanced ecommerce post, but it’s essentially using keyword data to create “pseudo sub-categories” focused on product attributes.
For example, if there’s search volume around blue alligator shoes, or leather alligator shoes, and you carry those products, but don’t have top-level, dedicated landing pages with those URL’s, you create them and populate them with the individual products that match that attribute criteria.
Only a few sites are doing this (and they’re killing it) whereas most ecommerce sites leave product attributes like size, color, style, features, etc. all on the product pages.
12. Prioritize Your SEO Activities Based On Keyword Potential, Competitiveness & ROI
Imagine you have an online store with 10,000 products. Since the days of quick and nasty link acquisition and content spinning are now over, the only way to have these pages compete in organic search is to add value and earn links naturally.
This is generally not a problem when you have 5-10 pages, but scaling up to thousands of high-quality content pages can be costly and take a long time. You should still do it, for if you never start the task, you’ll never complete it either.
So the answer is obvious, really.
You’ll need to prioritise your activities by considering potential, immediacy and ROI of pages, products and search terms in question.
Let’s consider some of the parameters and metrics available to us:
- Search Phrase(s) and corresponding URL
- Monthly Search Volume
- Impressions
- Clicks
- CTR (%)
- Average Position
- Product Retail Price
- Product Cost Price
- Shipping Cost
- Profit Margin
Impact of location, language, device, search history and social connectivity on search results can be quite complex. Since there is no such thing as an absolute position in Google it’s OK to use averages on a non-granular level.
For example, average position for one of your phrases may be 4.1 with all the personalisation elements factored in.
Your next step is to download search query data from Google Webmaster Tools and work out your average CTR for each position in organic search.
Knowing that keywords ranking on the position close to #1 have a CTR of 40% will mean that you can start predicting what would happen if something that’s ranking near position 2 moves one position up.
Note: Individual search terms may fluctuate based on the nature of the search results (e.g. rich snippets, news, image and video results). This deviation from the website norm may be something you can adjust on a phrase level.
For example, if a term “yellow running shoes” has a CTR of 10% on an average position of 2.3 while the rest of the site has a CTR of 20% on that position, this means applying the site average of 40% CTR for the spot #1 will not make sense. An adjustment will need to be made for the phrase deviation from the site averages.
Once you have a table of projected traffic based on keyword movement you can apply dollar values to the same report by factoring in each product’s conversion rate and value (or even profit margin if you wish).
Going advanced
If you don’t want to take any chances with the accuracy of this report, you’ll need to consider one more thing. How competitive is the term I’m about to attack?
If you’re selling books and the result above you is Amazon, do you really stand a chance? A good way to generate a keyword competitiveness metric is to work with MajesticSEO data; they even have an API which you can use to apply to your report.
What I tend to do is combine the phrase potential score (how many extra clicks will I get if I move up) with the phrase difficulty metric (
Flow Metrics) to create a single score which I can use to sort the entire report.
Now I have a table which I can sort in order of priority and start working on content, functionality and presentation of pages that promise quick ROI.
I personally use this phrase research methodology so often that
we built a tool which takes care of most of the work. Naturally, human review is required in the final stages to determine what the best phrases/pages are in terms or targeting, ROI and common sense.
Pro tip: Once you’ve exhausted all your ranking phrases (Google Webmaster Tools report), you can also inject all the non-ranking phrases from other research tools such as Google’s Keyword Planner while applying the CTR averages and modeling outcomes based on potential position.
13. Use Long Tail Pro For More Efficient & More Effective Keyword Research
After thinking about it, the one single thing that’s been most impactful for me has been really learning how to do keyword research. Once I really figured that out, I was able to drastically decrease the amount of link building I needed to do, and substantially increase my SERP batting average.
It’s really all about knowing your limits and abilities. Being able to successfully link build is great, and necessary – but even being a very solid link builder is still really unlikely to rank you for “credit cards.”
That’s an extreme example, but it illustrates the point. You need to be able to have a feel for a SERP; know when you can and can’t get into the top spots with the content and linking plans you’re actually capable of executing.
Boiling that down into one actionable tip – I’d have to go with “UseLong Tail Pro.”
It’s been a massive time saver for me in being able to build a narrowed down list of keywords that have the minimum search volume I know I need, a healthy average CPC, and available domains (more on my specific process in
this post).
Even if you’re not going to get into the EMD game, knowing that the com/net/org exact match for a keyword is available is a good tip-off that it isn’t too heavily competed.
Using the calculation feature in the “Platinum” version is also a great addition. You’ll need to do some manual checks at first so that you can match up what competition number is your cut-off point.
I do this on a per site basis. If I know the site I’m working on is a few years old and has a DA of 45, there’s a specific competition score that I don’t go above. If I switch up and start out on a brand new site – there’s a different number for that, too.
Sometimes I’ll make pages for keywords above the cut-off, but they’re knowingly made as longer term, ever-green pages that I don’t expect to pick up until a few months later.
In terms of adding new pages today to make more money this month, there’s specific limits and guidelines in place for each site I have. You need to know what those numbers are so you can stay effective, and realize smaller wins on you way to your long term goals.
This isn’t super shiny and new – but I think it’s so foundational to everything else that we do that it’s what I want to stress. If you screw up your keyword research and pick goals that are out of your league, all you’re going to do is spin your wheels.
Link Building
The link building landscape has changed significantly over the past few years, but despite these changes, your site’s backlink profile still plays a vital role in your organic search rankings. With that in mind, the following SEO tips will help you build better links.
14. Use Google+ Profile Pictures & Google Images To Find Guest Post Opportunities
My favorite area of SEO is most definitely link building. And my absolute best, most actionable SEO tip is about how to find an almost limitless amount of quality guest posting opportunities.
Because if there’s one thing that’s frustrating about guest posting, it’s spending hourssearching in Google for phrases like “keyword” + “write for us” just to find a handful of guest posting opportunities.
This technique solves all that.
What you’re doing is reverse engineering Gravatars using Google reverse image search.
Here’s how:
1. Find someone in your niche that tends to publish a lot of guest posts or posts on authority sites in your niche.
You can find these people by searching the top 10 in Google for competitive keywords and seeing who has Google Authorship set up:
2. Click on the “in ___ Google+ circles” link to access their Google+ Profile.
3. Right click on their head shot and choose “Copy Image Location”:
5. Paste the image URL into the search field. Click “Search by image”:
6. Google will show you all of the places where the person’s image shows up on the web (most of the list will be guest post and interview opportunities for you).
15. Use ScrapeBox To Find AdSense Users & Offer Them Better Advertising Alternatives
My biggest tip has to be for finding webmasters who are busting their guts and making no money online. According to Builtwith.com, there are nearly
7 million websites using AdSense, but I can imagine that is only a fraction of the web.
You will need a copy of
ScrapeBox for this. If you’re an experienced link builder then I am sure you’ve already built up a list of thousands of link opportunities for your sites and/or client sites.
For this tip I’ll be using the
Free Link Checker, but you can pick up a full copy for less than $100.
#1. Load your list of link prospects into a .txt file, and select that file after clicking the “Your Backlinks” button.
#2. Load http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com into a .txt file, and select that file after clicking the “Your Sites” button.
#3. Make sure to select the “Check domain” checkbox.
#4. Hit “Start” and it shouldn’t take too long for ScrapeBox to locate the link on the pages concerned.
#5. Now we want to export all the “Found” results.
#6. Using
SEO Tools for Excel we can pull into our list things such as PageRank or MajesticSEO metrics. If you have a full ScrapeBox license you can lookup PR and Domain Authority quickly within the tool.
Now that we have our list we can contact the webmasters and discuss alternative advertising for clients which will be much more profitable than a few cents per click.
You can find even more uses for ScrapeBox in the following resources:
16. Use Creative Content To Earn Natural Links & Establish A Competitive Advantage
The advice that I give to any of my clients when we begin an SEO project is to understand their strengths. Finding the strengths of your business or just your website can be a perfect starting point to finding link building opportunities. Not only this, but it can help you build links that can have big conversion potential.
Here’s an example…
One of the key selling points for a client (within the training niche) that I have been working with is the fact that they have worked with some major brands within a niche that they are targeting.
To drive more sales and build links in the process, we approached one of the major companies they had worked with (we will call them Company X, due to an NDA) in order to see if they would be interested in doing a video interview about their experiences with my client.
The marketing director agreed to do a full interview and, after more conversation, Company X as a whole agreed to help promote the full case study that we were putting together on them. My client and I sold it to Company X as a case study focusing on “their journey through the recent changes in the industry” – they were keen to get some free PR, and we were happy to take advantage of their PR routes.
Here’s what we put together:
- A full video interview with the marketing director of Company X.
- An infographic displaying the training process that my client did for Company X.
- A 1,000 word write up (by the client – working closely with our content team) on the journey of Company X, touching loosely on my client’s approach, etc.
- We also had the write up translated into Welsh (Company X are a Welsh company, so it was a nice touch) – if you’re reading this from the US… yes, Wales have their own language.
We then had the content linked to by Company X (who have a .gov domain!), and it was sent out to their enormous mailing list, generating lots of traffic and a load of mentions in industry relevant blogs (after we reached out to them). We weren’t finished here though…
Next, we pulled together a short list of business targets within that niche and got the address details for their main office. We highlighted 5 of our top targets and got to work on how we could get the case study in front of them – we didn’t want to just email them, we wanted to really capture their attention.
Here’s what we did:
- Got a batch of 12 really nice cupcakes made for each of the target companies.
- Each of the cupcakes had a QR code printed on edible rice-paper that, when zapped, took them to a landing page on my client’s website.
- We created a short video of my client’s team baking the cupcakes and signing off with a short message.
- We added the video into the top of the landing page, with a header saying, “We Hope You Enjoyed Your Cakes!” and then below the video was a link to the full case study with the infographic and video interview.
- We got someone dressed as a baker to hand deliver the box of cupcakes into the offices of our targets.
The response was awesome! Not only did we build some great links to the website, but we also created a piece of evergreen content that can be used for marketing (both offline and online) and within sales (for example, within project proposals, etc.). Not only this, but we managed to connect with some of my client’s top targets and really catch their attention.
This is a pretty elaborate example, but if you’re willing to put the work in, the results can be incredible. In my opinion, this is the kind of direction that we, as online marketers, should be moving towards – plus it beats submitting to directories any day!
17. Find Retailer Listing Pages For Ecommerce Linking Opportunities
Jon Cooper is the Founder of Hyperlynx Media, Inc., and he writes about link building on Point Blank SEO. You can find Jon on Twitter andGoogle+.
If you’re in ecommerce and you sell products from many different brands and manufacturers, find all the different “Where to Buy” and “Our Vendors” pages on their websites. They usually link to different retailers and distributors, and I’ve really never had them say, “No” to listing my client.
To make things easy, try and find a few of these pages that already link out to a few different retailers, and find where else those retailers are getting links from. You’ll usually find at the very least a few other opportunities of the same nature from each.
For example, if you are selling medically related products, you can search “Find A Retailer” + “Medical” and find examples like this:
For more ecommerce link building strategies, be sure to read these excellent resources:
18. Use Original Research To Attract Natural Links
I really feel that Google is getting much better at determining whether or not a link istruly earned. An earned link, especially one that actually gets clicked on by people is likely worth a lot more than a self made link.
Now, there are still some people who have ways to convince Google that a self made link is actually a naturally earned one, but, in my opinion, if you can develop the skill of truly attracting natural links then in many types of niches you can do really well.
One thing that I find works really well at attracting natural links is original research.
Find something that people are talking about and then, instead of just rehashing the same stuff that everyone else is writing about, produce something that other people would like to cite.
An example is
an article that I wrote a few days after the Penguin 2.0 update. I noticed that no one was publishing stories of recovery. This concerned me.
This was the first Penguin refresh since the release of the disavow tool. I knew that many thousands of sites had used the tool to disavow their bad links and there had to be some sites that were recovering.
I decided to look at data from some of the sites that I had worked on and noticed a few interesting things.
I took screenshots showing what had happened on May 22, 2013 to a number of sites who had previously used the disavow tool. It wasn’t earth shattering content, but it was something that people who were looking for information on Penguin and the disavow tool could talk about.
I didn’t do much promotion of this article other than tweeting about it, but because it was useful, new information, it got the attention of several influential people and received links from many well known sites. It is still getting links today.
How would you use this for a non-SEO related niche? Here is the blueprint that I use:
- Find a topic that is currently hot in your niche.
- Find a way to put together actual factual research about the topic. This could involve gathering census data, using a survey (either a Google survey or a real life one), using Google Trends data or perhaps using one of the resources that Sean Revell wrote about.
- Get your article in front of some influential people. If it truly is helpful, new information, then you should be able to find some people who want to share your content. Twitter connections can be useful as can press releases or direct contact with reporters.
This type of content attracts links that people actually want to click on. They drive traffic, and they also send a good signal to Google that your site is one that gets people talking.
19. Don’t Just Build Links – Deserve Them
My best and most actionable SEO tip is of course something to do with link building since that’s my bread and butter.
If you want a link from a site, first figure out what you can do to deserve it.
It’s easy enough to offer cash for a link, but think about something that is even more valuable to the webmaster (and hopefully less risky, although I’m still a fan of paid links for certain industries).
If you come across a great site that takes 18 seconds to load but is otherwise exactly the type of site you want a link from, see if you can determine why it’s so slow, offer to help fix the problem if you can, or at least point the webmaster to an article that lists the top 10 things that slow a site down.
Make an effort to offer them something for the privilege of opening your email, and you’ll be surprised at how much easier it is to get a link when you are prepared with something unexpected and useful.
Community Building
When you publish content, it is read and shared by people. When your site attracts natural links, they are created by people. These people are your community, and they obviously play a critical role in your success. These SEO tips will help you make that community stronger.
20. Build Relationships With Companies Who Are Doing Great Things & Leverage Their Communities
It takes a really long time to build community. When we first started building the Mack Web community, we had nothing. When we created content, no one shared it (crickets). Comments? What are those?
It took
more than 10 months to get any type of engagement, and then things (slowly) started to happen. We’re eighteen months in and certainly we have some traction, but it’s hard work. Every. Single. Day.
If there was one tip that I could give those who are looking to build a community, it would be this:
Don’t bother.
(totally kidding)
My advice to you is to co-market.
Build relationships with companies who are doing great things and leverage communities that already exist.
How do you find these companies and opportunities?
What’s worked for us is not only reading a ton, but going to conferences, events, and meet ups and listening for the companies that people are talking about and using as examples of companies who are doing great things.
Not the behemoth companies who are already ginormous brands, but companies who are in a growth stage and still working on building something.
These companies don’t even have to be related to your products or services, but they do need to have the same values, be a culture fit, and essentially offer some kind of benefit to your customers and your community.
So start looking for companies you respect. For example, Mack Web has a huge crush on
Wistia. They’re really creative, funny, and awesome people. And they also happen to make a great product.
We started hanging out online (we reached out to their
community manager) and we just recently met in person at a conference for the first time. We hit it off and are working on some cool projects together that are going to help both of our companies get some exposure.
The best part (besides the friendship and the fact that they like to dance) is that both of our communities will benefit from the relationship. The members of the Mack Web community would very much benefit from using Wistia’s product.
And perhaps there are some super hip companies in Wistia’s community who will be inspired to talk to Mack Web about having us help them to build their communities.
This tip isn’t a “scale” thing. It’s a relationship thing. It’s a wanting-to-work-with-cool-people-and-do-great-things, thing. And in the end, everyone benefits.
