How do you bounce back after the hard hits Google delivered with Penguin and Panda? The severe penalties for unnatural linking and webspam tactics did yield one positive result - encouraging SEO’s to employ meaningful marketing strategies when link building. In his talk at the SEOmoz Meetup at the Search Church on May 10, 2012, Wil Reynolds suggested some Real Company actions for link building, creative ways to use old tools, and the power of persuasion in executing these strategies.
http://youtu.be/nMADOLcArUs
RCS
We’re all familiar the use of directories, and they can be fine for link building. But using them over and over again isn’t real company sh*t. Real marketing value comes from listening to what the target consumer is searching for and building content around those queries. Essentially, we should strive to become the go-to resource for clients in the industry. Strategies that create content which have customers coming back for more are efforts that drive long-term value and transform your SEO tactics into RCS.
New Ways to Use Old Tools
Think like your community. Wil uses a great example about expecting mothers, definitely a demographic craving valuable resources. What are they thinking about? Babies. What are they looking for? Advice on caring for those babies. Use Ubersuggest to spark ideas around subjects people are already craving content for.
- TagCrowd -
Find the trends in your followers. It’s not always intuitive to discover what your brand’s fans are otherwise engaged with. Who could have confidently suggested that there was a correlation between motorcycle gear purchasers and professional photography? By filtering purchasers through TagCrowd, that insight prompted Wil to create a photo contest for those customers. Suggesting contests like this, or content based on these insights, becomes a lot more convincing to upper level decision-makers when there is informed research behind it.
Make natural connections. Search Twitter users to find “Journalist for”, “Writer for”, “Editor of” all the relevant publications in your industry. Even better, pull your followers, your competitors followers and analyze their bios! *Remember abbreviations for publications. Wil makes a great point, you wouldn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to connect with a HuffPo editor in your neighborhood because you didn’t consider their jargon.
The Importance of Persuasion
Talk Numbers. Approach your team with proof that your SEO strategy will deliver on actual revenue growth for the brand. Ubersuggest results will help convince your team that these are the topics our community is actually searching. Demonstrate how a few hours of informative outreach or development can create long-lasting links and valuable conversions. Educating the team on strategies to combat the effects of Google updates will bring others onboard for the task or at the very least, re-instill some trust in SEO efforts.
Ultimately, link building must be creative now. This is a good thing! This is Real Company Sh*t! Use old tools in new ways, do the stuff that real companies are doing, and use proof to persuade your team to get on board with legit SEO. Quality strategies like these will help arm us for the next Google zoo creature assessing links.
Next video: Annie Cushing - Web Scraping for Code-ophobes
The presentations was recorded and streamed live during the event by our friends
