searchengineland.com » How To: Links

21 Link Builders Share Advanced Link Building Queries

Garrett French — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:31:04 +0000

Advanced link building queries, for the link builders who use them extensively, remain a closely guarded secret. It’s easy to understand why. For one, they want to protect a valued link source from getting flooded with link requests from the general link-seeking public. Secondly, there are some choice opportunities out there that would lose their value if the entire SEO community happened to learn about them.

Another complication with discussing and sharing link building queries is that they’re often tailored towards the linkable and shareable assets of a particular organization. Further, two businesses within the same vertical may have widely different linkable assets, and therefore will need to seek different link targets, which requires different queries.

Despite their link-protecting reticence and the complexity of communication, the 21 link builders I surveyed delivered a highly-valuable array of advanced link building queries. Thank you to all who participated!

Framing the process

In my questions, I asked link builders to respond within this framework:

Linkable Asset. Definition: what’s “linkable” varies from vertical to vertical. Cash is almost always a linkable asset, as are available jobs, events, expertise for interviews and many other forms of great content.
Link Target. Definition: what types of sites, pages, and people seek this linkable asset?
Link Prospecting Query. Definition: what queries uncover great targets for your linkable assets?

This framework couldn’t possibly suit every link builders’ style and expertise. I mention it because you’ll see it in some cases below.

Last notes before digging in – I missed getting queries from some great link builders due to time constraints imposed by my late start (apologies to those I missed!). If you want more sample queries from link builders please say so in the comments (and/or add your own) so I can build the case for a follow-up article. And in closing, I’d like to extend a thank you to the SEO Dojo for their warm welcome and link query suggestions.

Link building queries from 21 link builders

Query #1

Ken McGaffin, Keywords and SEO Blogger for Wordtracker Academy:

Here is a mini case-study on our Firefox plug-in ‘SEO Blogger’ which shows how we create linkable assets, queries and approach people for link building.

The link building project

‘SEO Blogger’ Firefox plug in from Wordtracker

At Wordtracker, we wanted to target anyone who published a blog and we were especially interested in business bloggers. We did a reasonable amount of research on the project and it kicked off with doing queries on Google.

We were interesting in identifying sites that had published articles on ‘business blogging’ or advised people how to blog. We identified our prospects using “intitle” queries on Google.

At the last count, this piece of work netted us over 1,000 links in just a few months.

The queries we used were quite simple but they produced an excellent list of target sites.

Here are the queries I used:

intitle:”business blogging”
intitle:”business blogs”
intitle:”blogging tips”

For each query, I’ll look at the first 100 results and then look to compile a list of what I think are the top 50 or so. I concentrate on the top 50 because it’s cost effective. If I get editorial coverage and links from among the top 50, then I know hundreds will follow their example.

You’ve got to have superb content and publicize it through multiple channels. That’s where we put in the bulk of our efforts. For ‘SEO Blogger’ we had a 7-step process:

Created a top notch, free plug-in.
We created a section on our Academy specifically to offer free blogging articles as well as a blogging download.
We also commissioned an e-book from Chris Garrett, “Blogging for Business” that would generate revenue.
About 4 days before launch, we contacted our top 50 researched targets, gave them some copy and invited them to be the first to try our new plugin – we asked them to write about it or tweet it if they found it useful. We gave people a strict embargo.
We wrote a series of customized press releases that went to the press list we’ve built up over the years. Note that we suggested how to link to us in all our communications.
This is the most important step – we responded to questions and queries almost immediately. That meant assigning people to take on that task. I’m convinced our quick responses helped build trust and relationships.
Finally, on release, we tweeted about the launch. Many of the bloggers journalists who we had contacted also tweeted at the same time. The results were fantastic – the synergy we got from these multiple channels is always what I’m after.

In summary, I think you need to have a commitment to create great, free stuff in order to tap into these link targets.

Query #2

Shaun Anderson, of Hobo SEO Company in Scotland.

One of the simplest ways I use to build links for any business is finding colleges and universities who link degree students and alumni to to job opportunities, and promote their student discount partners online. I consider links from very real sites like these as authority building links.

Obviously the first thing to do is get used to publishing your job vacancies and any offers on your site, and then telling potential linking partners about them. TIP: never take these jobs offline either – just mention “Role Filled” and strike out the text.

Target Asset = Job Vacancy / Internships For (with your important keywords of course)
Key Link prospects = Universities and colleges, alumni sites
Link prospecting queries (in Google) = jobs degree site:.ac.uk, careers opportunities site:.ac.uk, careers advice site:.ac.uk, jobs degree site:.edu, careers degree site:.edu, careers advice site:.edu + variations
View this example page typical of what you might find.

Another variation of this query occurs with colleges and universities who publish links to sites that offer their alumni special student discounts (so effectively, all you need is a student discount for products or services). This is useful even for small businesses in a very tight catchment area.

Target Asset = Student Discount For (with your important keywords of course)
Key Link prospects = Universities and colleges, alumni sites
Link prospecting queries (in Google) = student discount partners site:.ac.uk, student discount partners site:.edu + variations
View this example page typical of what you might find.

Of course, in every case you need to dig around the site in question but offering a student discount to all colleges and universities and building a list of marketing communications offers at unis and colleges and contacting them asking for a link in their newsletter (which many have) in return for a student discount is going to be more rewarding than sending out 1000 unsolicited spam link request emails. TIP – don’t be cheap. The better your offer for students, the better chance you’ll get a link.

Ultimately these kinds of educational links are a win win – they are not hurting either site, and students get a good deal too. If you have good content on your site, you can just go right on and ask them to link to it if they already have a habit of linking out to similar sites to yours, or even send them articles about “How to get a job in {keyword} services” for their careers newsletter or resource section.

Query #3

Eric Ward, content link builder since 1994

Understanding how to use what Google will give you via advanced syntax queries is one of those private strategies where I don’t tell my exact approach, I only sort of hint at it. The specific queries I use are typically client/subject specific.

That said, I could share some vertical/marginally useful ones, say, if the content I am building links for is PBS’ content on volcanoes.

Then, an example target site would be this one.

And, I would have found that target site via a Google query string like this: [volcano learn diagram useful demonstration other links].

Now, this is a beautiful example, and it’s a real example, and it resulted in a topical link obtained, but…most folks who are building links are not doing so on behalf of PBS content about a vertical like “volcanoes”. So, while my example may look nice, and it worked for me because my clients are content creators like PBS, most folks will see my example and crucify me/it as being “unrealistic” for their purposes, since their content is not as “linkworthy” as PBS’s.

Query #4

Wiep Knol, newly of Linkbuilding.nl

Here’s a list of a few queries that I often use or have used in the past to find interesting websites. I left the most obvious ones out, because I assume that most people already know and use these.

Content targeted:

{keyword} “guest blogger” OR “guest post” OR “guest article” OR “guest column”
{keyword} “become a contributor” OR “contribute to this site”
{keyword} “write for us” OR “write for me”
{keyword} inurl:category/guest

You can refine these queries by using {keyword location} in stead of {keyword}, or by switching to just {location}.

Resource/ research targeted:

{keyword} “top * [tools/ articles/ websites/ etc.]” -> refine search to ~1 year ago. Contact anybody who shows up and ask if you can help with the 2009/ 20** edition of the article
{keyword} research -> see explanation above
{keyword} {location} resources OR “useful sites” OR links
{keyword} {USP} intitle:resources -> Use ‘green’, ‘cheapest’ etc as USP
.edu targeted: {keyword} site:.edu “planned research” OR “upcoming project” -> might return upcoming research/ project/ whatever that can be useful (both for info and for links)

To find specific types of websites:

{keyword} “Powered by phpBB” OR “powered by vBulletin”
{keyword} “Blog powered by TypePad” OR “powered by Wordpress”

Additionally, one thing that always works very well for me is asking the client what the most important industry related websites and blogs are, and which ones his or her favorite are. Then I do some searching in the LinkedIn connections and Twitter followers of the client and some of his colleagues, and look for connections with these websites. If I find a match, explain to my client how he can use that connection and turn it into a link. This not only results in links to the client website on highly relevant websites that he likes (=a happy client), but it also makes sure that he is building connections that will be useful in the future as well (= life time value).

Query #5

Ann Smarty, SEO Consultant, SEOSmarty.com

target asset = new low-calorie chocolate product
key link prospects = mommy bloggers
link prospecting queries = [pr welcome], [submit * review], [pr friendly], [pr contact], [pr info], [get * reviewed], [allintitle:get * reviewed], [reviews inurl:submit]

target asset = a contest by fitness equipment store
key link prospects = bloggers who cover web contests with a link back to the host
link prospecting queries = [intitle:submit intitle:contest], [allintitle:submit * contest], [blog contests], [submit * giveaway]

Also from Ann: Link Building Search Queries Collection How to Use Google Wildcard Operator for Link Building and Baiting

Query #6

Debra Mastaler of Alliance-Link, link building services and training

We begin all custom campaigns by sending surveys to the client’s customer base, which cuts our prospecting time in half and pinpoints the sites and/or types of businesses we need to look for. From there, it’s a simple matter of doing basic research to match sites with our client’s demographic. I depend less on queries for this and more on tools like Quantcast and Compete. If I do need to query, I use all four engines (Google, Ask, Yahoo and Bing) plus DMOZ, Hoovers, Lexis Nexis and local directories. My goal is to find businesses with street and algorithmic credibility to pitch my promotions and content to.

Query #7

Melanie Nathan, consultant for Canadian SEO

Footprints: A footprint is simply common text than can be searched for thereby revealing all the places that use the same text.

For example, a Google search for [Allowed HTML tags:] will bring back all the sites and blogs that allow you to use custom anchor text when commenting.

If you happen to come across an authoritative site that allows you to automatically post content with dofollow links (for example, a classified ad), take note of the form they’re using as footprints left by the form software are easily trackable and can allow you to find other sites that are using the same form.

Some examples of common footprints:

Dofollow blog comments:

Corresponding Footprint search: ["Notify me of follow-up comments?"+"Submit the word you see below:"]

Result: Over 60,000 new prospects (ie. sites that use the same dofollow form software)

Dofollow classified ads:

Corresponding Footprint search: ["drupal classified ads courtesy of exodus development, INC"]

Result: Over 40,000 other sites that use the same dofollow classified ad software.

Take it a step further with “drupal classified ads courtesy of exodus development, INC”+health and you’ve narrowed it down to only the sites that mention (for example) health.

Keep in mind that these are just 2 very basic examples. Get creative and you’ll be surprised at what you might uncover.

Disclaimer: I am in NO way suggesting that you spam these types of sites. However, if you’re going to spend the time interacting and engaging with other sites and blogs in your industry (for reals!), I AM suggesting that you maximize your efforts by making sure to interact on sites which will offer the most benefit to your organic goals.

Query #8

Wil Reynolds of the ThinkSeer SEO Agency

Linkable Asset: A prize (product or service of course ;)
Link Target: The target is charity web sites where we can give something away and be listed as an in kind donor
Queries: ["in kind donations" list], ["in kind donors" list]

Query #9

Tom Demers of WordStream, the keyword management software company responsible for The Free Keyword Tool.

A couple of things I’m frequently promoting are videos and free tools or widgets. Here I’ll use some pretty generic queries like:

target asset = Video Content
link prospecting queries = intitle:[{target keyword} videos], intitle:[{target keyword} clips]

target asset = Free tool/widget
link prospecting queries = intitle:[{target keyword} tools], intitle:[free {target keyword} tools], intitle:[list of free {target keyword} tools], intitle:[list of {target keyword} tools]

Then I’ll use SEO for Firefox to export the data and de-dupe and triage the link prospects based on PageRank.

Beyond just pulling down places linking out, you can also identify a few sites that are on multiple lists. From there, pull down their backlink profiles and sort by page rank (using SEO for Firefox) or find sites that are linking to them multiple times using the Hostname Occurrence Counter. At the end of the process I usually have a nice list of potential link profiles.

Query #10

Gab Goldenberg of SEORoi.com

For queries, I try to find less commercial sites based on insider jargon, insider topics or thinking about communities. So if you are kindergarten related, I’d look up jargon related to parenting or issues like whether you should carry your kid in a sling or if strollers are better. This works better for B2C than B2B, since I can’t see professionals being up for selling links on their sites, vs the general public. I could be wrong though.

For prospects, I target bloggers, members of the said communities.

Building links to B2C sites that can have a related community. It’s harder when you’re selling stuff like toothpaste or ordinary drugstore items without associated communities.

The upside to this is that if you have the budget, you can saturate the key sites in the community with these paid links and build a brand. In which case, you can thumb your nose at Google because you’ll eventually build direct traffic as a key source as well as referral traffic, reduce their ability to penalize you, etc. I wrote somewhere about my friend Rachel who surfs Wikipedia for entertainment. That’s where you want to get to. Where people bypass Google to get to you directly. It’s ironic, but the best SEO will get you to the point you don’t need search traffic any more.

Check out Gab’s 101-tip guide to buying text links.

Query #11

Arnie Kuenn of Vertical Measures link building service.

Here are a few for you that I have saved in a our database of queries we use for link building:

“keyword phrase” sponsor charity
“public library” “useful links” keyword phrase site:.gov
“useful keyword phrase sites” library –clientwebsite site:.edu
“helpful keyword phrase sites” library –clientwebsite site:.edu
“favorite keyword phrase sites” library –clientwebsite site:.edu
“best keyword phrase” site:.edu OR site:.org
keyword phrase resources public library site:.us
keyword phrase site:.edu

Query #12

Members of the Huomah SEO Dojo, SEO Training for Search Warriors.

Many thanks to the fine community at the SEO Dojo for their contributions to this article!

member: fedem of http://www.buyandwalk.com/

linkdomain:competitor1.com; linkdomain:competitor2.com; -linkdomain:mysite.com

This will give you a landscape of which sites are linking to 2 or 3 of your competitors but not your site. This increase the chances of finding partners willing to link to your site.

Query #13

Ken Lyons of WordStream.

I use search operators to find personal email addresses for link outreach. some of my favorites:

site:[companywebsite.com] + [name] + email
site:[companywebsite.com] + [name] + contact
site:[personalblog.com] + [name] + email
site:[personalblog.com] + [name] + contact

From 12 Ways to Find Anyone’s Personal Email Address

Query #14

Craig Parker of Soula.com

Social Media Based queries are obviously useful for commenting and scoping out competition so: site:{SN} {keyword}

Where SN (social network) is digg.com, delicious.com or twitter.com etc. and {keyword} is one of your keywords or brands/competitor brands.

The other one I find quite useful is narrowing down themed directories so:

{keyword} + “add a site”
{keyword} + “submit url”

Obviously there are literally loads of combinations of these utilizing different words for directory i.e. “suggest url” or “submit listing”

You can also combine it with the intitle or inurl command for extra fun! Again throw in different words for directory like “list” and you can make lots of combinations on this.

{keyword} + “intitle:directory”
{keyword} + “inurl:directory”

They are basic ones but can be often overlooked by those not used to this stuff.

Query #15

Jon Santillan of SEO Dubai

I used search operators to find potential links for my link building campaign using footprinted Scripts. This varies from directory, blog commenting, forum, social media directories and competitors.

Target Asset = Red Widget
Strategy – A combination of standard text or content that usually can see in a website
Ex: Directory = inurl:submit.php intext:Powered by “Directory Name” intext: red widget
Blog Commenting = intext:red widget intext:blog comments powered by “Comment Plugin”
Social Media = intext:”Submit A New Story” intitle:Register intext: “Name of Social Media Script”
Forum = inurl:forum intext:red widget

My favorite: Competitors Footprints. Following competitors Backlinks is the most exciting one, you can use link:competitorsdomain.com and check a potential link partner. By following competitors footprints, you can sometimes see the strategy of their link building, for example, if they are using Directory, Blog Commenting, Social Media or Forum. If by any chance you got the name of a Directory Script, Social media script, plug commenting plugin that is not in your list, you can add that in your arsenal.

Once you have figured out the competitors pattern how they are building their backlinks plus your link building strategy I think that will be easier for you.

In my opinion, combining different search operators and website content pattern is one of most effective link building strategy you just need to be more creative to combine and try different combination.

Query #16

Navin Poeran

I’m using advanced queries in combination with Google alerts, to receive mails, whenever there is somewhere i can drop a link.

I just create a new alert with: OR -mysite.com inurl:links

Query #17

Andy Murd of MMMeeja.

I use this query in Google Image Search to find the little “U Comment – I Follow” logo:

“MY KEYPHRASE” inurl:ifollow*.gif

For deep links to your blog posts, you can add “CommentLuv Enabled” to find the popular Wordpress plugin.

I make RSS feeds from link-building searches so my feed reader nags me to post a few comments per day.

Query #18

David Harry (The Gypsy) of the Huomah SEO Blog

When reverse engineering link profiles, we use stuff like:

[linkdomain:huomah.com site:.com "SEO Blog"]
linkdomain: – searches for links to Huomah.com
Site; – tells it to look for results from ‘.com’ extensions.
“SEO Blog” searches the KWs on the page (or hopefully in the anchor text)

[linkdomain:example.com site:.edu "keyword"]
[linkdomain:example.com site:.gov " keyword"]

Or maybe if we’re looking for relevant pages, we can track the TITLE

[linkdomain:huomah.com -huomah.com intitle:SEO]

Page URLs are strong also, so we might do something like:

[linkdomain:huomah.com -huomah.com inurl:"search engine optimization"]

We also can use a variety of low level link trolling with dorks related to:

[add-links, last-updated 2000 inurl:.edu]

Query #19

Julie Joyce, of the link development firm Link Fish Media

“You can find particularly interesting sites geared towards a very specific interest, by using an organic thought process in which you have no major agenda. This all sounds very New Age but it has led us to some of our best inbound links.

I’ll give you an example for this one, since it’s the only method that isn’t exactly what it sounds like. When working for a site that sells punk rock concert videos, we may search for “punk videos” to start with, then we’ll see a long-tailed search phrase somewhere down in the SERPs on page 3, so we’ll then type that phrase in, then click on the first result, see something on the site’s homepage that triggers an idea, and we’ll end up on a fan site that is devoted to the music of Stiff Little Fingers.

We see that this site seeks to list all online stores that happen to sell Stiff Little Fingers items, and our client has one of these sites. Therefore, it’s a great place to get a link, and it was a somewhat random method of discovery. It’s also relevant but we still go about it in a slightly more haphazard way.”

Excerpted from: 6 Discovery Methods For Finding Ideal Linking Partners

Query #20

Brian Gilley of SocialSEO.com

Drupal Powered Websites (most allow comments links and/or dofollow)

Targeting Drupal sites with the keyword phrase “home mortgages” with comments turned on and that allow HTML links to be added and are almost always followed.

Want to get more specific and search for the keyword in the title. Try the “intitle:” search operator on for size.

Want to get freaky with it and go the broad route and not including Drupal websites or any specific CMS platform? Just search for sites allowing the HTML tag, which usually means a followed link and brings up endless possibilities.

See more tips from Mr. Gilley on how to find backlinks with search queries.

Query #21

Brian Chappell, Search/Social Marketer

Finding people who will want to share your content (…including linking to it…) can be much simpler if you know how to search quickly through the major social networks.

Linkedin: [site:linkedin.com inurl:in “social media expert”]
Bebo: [site:.bebo.com inurl:profile inurl:bebo “social media expert”]
CafeMom: [site:www.cafemom.com inurl:cafemom.com/home/ “stay at home mom”]
Facebook: [site:facebook.com/people “led zeppelin”]
Flickr: [site:flickr.com/people “@gmail”]
Twitter: [site:twitter.com -inurl:statuses -inurl:status “social media expert”]
MySpace: [site:profile.myspace.com inurl:myspace inurl:fuseaction “go to nc state”]
YouTube: [site:youtube.com/user “social media expert”]

From: How to Target Users within Social Networks

Additional link query resources:

Two Link Prospecting Query building tools:

10 Articles on Advanced Queries for Link Building

How To Research, Create And Distribute Highly-Linkable Content

Garrett French — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 18:27:45 +0000

Without an ordered approach, careful research and custom tools, it can be difficult for link builders, writers and content strategists to know what content will attract links in a target market.

Here, we’ll provide a process and tools for developing and distributing linkable content, based on the content that has proven to attract links in your target keyword space. You should be able to answer these questions using the accompanying tools for your market:

What content topics receive the most links?
What are the attributes of the most-linked content?
Who is the “linking audience” of your keyword space?
Who links the most frequently to content in your keyword space?
What are the attributes of mid-linkable content?
What reoccurring topics and themes suggest possible content directions?
What content is missing (eg: top 10 or 100 lists, resource collections)?
Who links to topics similar to content you’ve already created?

Now that you know what you’re looking for, it’s time to begin the linkable content research phase. In this article, we investigate the link building content space using two keywords: [link building] and [link building blog]. Though we’re pretty familiar with the space, we’re going to approach it as if we were not.

Here are the tools we recommend for this exercise:

The Linkable Content Analysis Worksheet (3rd Download)
URL Occurrence Counter Tool + SERP Dominators Analysis Guide
The Link Qualification Worksheet + Guide
Yahoo Site Explorer (YSE)
SEO for Firefox

Process for gathering linkable content data for analysis

Read through the process first and then follow along from home with your Linkable Content Analysis Worksheet.

Step 1. Identify the top information sources in your keyword space

First, you must identify which content is considered most valuable in your target keyword space. Our [link building] example is fairly simple because so many people have written so much about it. If you’re in a less-discussed content space, you may need to look at more keywords, or perhaps look at more informational keyword phrases [how to + target keywords].

Google search: [link building] Google search: [link building blog]

You could also use the URL and Hostname Occurrence Counter Tool on the SERPs of resource oriented queries for finding more of your top info sources. Further, we’ve used the blogrolls of highly-prominent bloggers as a starting point for analysis of unfamiliar spaces. The goal here is to find your industry’s most prominent, important and trusted resources.

Step 2. Extract resources from the Top 20 results

Next, you’ll need to extract non-salesy resource URLs and hostnames from the top 20 results. You’re looking for how-to resources, thought pieces, entertainment pieces – anything that’s ranking and doesn’t have a “buy now” button on it (unless of course, you’re investigating highly-linkable product pages).

Capture both sub-pages and hostname results from the resources you find. Any sub-page titles and URLs can go right in your worksheet. Use SEO for Firefox to find and record inbound link count to these pages into sheet 2, the Highly-Linked Content sheet.

For each of these sub-pages (and only the sub pages, we don’t want site-wide inbound links here) export the inbound links as detected by Yahoo. Paste these inbound links into the “link tank” sheet of the Linkable Content Worksheet (sheet 4).

Also, be sure to copy and paste out the hostname of the sub-pages that appear. For example, the URL for Aaron Wall’s How to Build Links Fast: 101 Tips & Strategies (#1 for [link building]) looks like this: http://www.seobook.com/archives/001792.shtml. You’d want to record that URL on sheet 2, and the hostname, www.seobook.com onto sheet 3.

Copy the hostnames into sheet 3 – they need more processing.

Step 3. Identifying linkable content from the top resource domains

Take your top hostnames and explore them with Yahoo Site Explorer (YSE). In our experience, YSE shows pages from sites *roughly* in the order of the number of links that they have acquired. In a new tab, open up 10 or 15 pages that appear high in the list and that have promising titles.

For example, here’s Debra Mastaler’s old blog in YSE. The second page listed is her classic Help! I’m New, I Need Links, What Can I Do? post. Using the SEO Toolbar, we can see clearly that this particular page has 260 inbound links. This article is clearly a giant of the link building content space and so title, URL and inbound link count all went into our work sheet. Next, we export the 260 inbound linkers to her article and paste them into sheet 4 – many of these links are from people who appreciate high quality content, and we want to get to know them better.

From the first page of YSE for Ms. Mastaler’s blog, we can see a number of articles – to keep this exercise manageable by hand, we only selected the top 10 or so. For more thorough linkable content analysis, you could go to 20, 30, or even export the top 1000 results into a TSV file if you’ve got the tools, time and talent to handle that much data.

To reiterate: copy title, URL and inbound link count into sheet 2 of the Linkable Content Analysis Work Sheet. Copy inbound links (only inbound links) to that URL, excluding the domain itself – into sheet 4, the link tank.

Repeat hostname analysis with YSE until you’ve worked through your list of hostnames (from sheet 3) that appeared in the top 20 results for your keywords.

Linkable content analysis and strategy creation

Once you’ve gathered your highly-linked content and the pages that link to it in the Linkable Content Analysis Worksheet, you can begin the work of identifying your linking audience and charting out your content creation strategy.

What topics receive the most links?

When you sort your Linkable Content Analysis Worksheet based on number of inbound links, you’ll easily determine the “big head” of linkable content. We put 58 pages into our Linkable Content Analysis Worksheet based on the two searches above, along with the processes outlined. The top 5 most-linked content breaks down like this:

101 Link Building Tips to Market Your Website (2760 IBL)
Link Building Wiki (864 IBL)
Link Value Factors (608 IBL)
Link Building Strategies: 69 Solid Tactics For 2009 (408 IBL)
Five Link Building Strategies that Work (362 IBL)

(Congrats, Wiep…you showed up twice!)

Now, even if we were new to the industry, we’d know some of the most-linkable documents within its keyword space.

What are attributes of the highest-linkable content?

What exactly makes these 5 articles the most-linked articles within the keyword space of [link building] and [link building blog]? That’s the question of a good linkable-content strategist! While we have our own ideas based on our experience in link building and SEO content in general, here are some things you could measure if you were new to a space:

Core topic
Number of words
Reading level of content
Embedded media (images, video, podcast, etc…)
Outbound links on the page? Are they reciprocal?
Scope/thoroughness of content
Information structure (top 10 list, “ultimate guide,” info aggregation, etc…)
Apparent target audience
Apparent target audience skill level (basic or advanced?)
What stage of the buy cycle does it target?

Look for patterns that might be significant for your space. For example, when it comes to link building content, it appears that having large numbers in the title may incite links. These large numbers (101 and 69) further indicate that the linking audience for this content prefers thorough coverage, and a quick read shows this to be true. A quick comparison of word count for each of the top-linked pages shows an average of over 4000 words per article, with 2000-3000 being the most represented. That’s a lot of words for one article.

We would not recommend that everyone begin writing content pages that are 3000 words long. But we would recommend that everyone check out the attributes of highly-linkable content in their keyword space (including but not limited to word count) and consider that as a starting point.

Who is the “linking audience” of your keyword space?

By now, sheet 4 of your Link Qualification Worksheet should contain a powerful audience of inbound linkers – people who link to specific, high value sub-pages and not just the home page. Begin looking for opportunities to build relationships with the owners/operators of these sites. Ideally, they become a vital part of how you distribute your content and build links.

Your opportunities may look like:

Guest posts (note: this article is a “guest post” on SEL)
Blogroll link requests, blogroll link exchanges
Add to RSS for comment conversation participation
Contributions to existing resource pages
Contributions to email newsletter
Distribution through Twitter, StumbleUpon, Digg, Etc…

For more thorough link prospect qualification, follow the process outlined in “Qualifying Link Prospects for Relevance, Value and Potentiality.”

Who links the most frequently to content in your keyword space?

Conduct a host name co-occurrence analysis of your inbound linking URLs from sheet 4 using the Hostname Occurrence Tool. Paste your results into sheet 5.

The sites that occur the most frequently are the sites that link out most often to highly linkable content. Those with a higher value as measured by the Link Qualification Worksheet and that demonstrate a high propensity for linking typically represent the most important sites for establishing a relationship. Sites that link frequently but don’t display a high value metric may be sources of quick and easy links that may not convey much search influence.

What are attributes of mid-linkable content?

Now remember, not all of your content needs to be a grand slam, or even a home run. Base hits are great. In our quick survey, we found 58 highly-linked URLs. By grouping and evaluating the mid-level players, it’s possible to identify a “linkable-enough” level of content, as well as a “core linking audience.”

Consider this: the top 5 most-linked articles will have links from sites not typically interested in link building. The sites linking to the top 5 will be less likely to link to other link building resources especially if they are more narrowly focused. The sites linking to articles with more moderate levels of inbound links are likely to represent a “core linking audience” of link building.

Our inquiry into 10 mid-linkable link building resources with 100 links or less showed Wiep.net and Search Engine Land, along with a high frequency of bookmarking and social sharing sites at the top, so not super fruitful unless you’re looking for social sharing and bookmarking sites.

What reoccurring topics and themes suggest possible content directions?

By spending some time with your Linkable Content Analysis Worksheet you can begin to tease out some potential article topics. What’s wonderful is that a) part of your research for the article is already done for you and b) once the article is done you’ll know exactly which sites to approach to share your new content and request links.

Based on our quick survey data, we identified a few topic trends, or reoccurring topics and themes. You can do this simply by looking at the titles. A more thorough dig would mean reading and categorizing all the highly-linked content in your space. We highly advise this.

Here are some examples of reoccurring topics we could now use for creating adjunct content, trump content, follow up commentary, etcetera.

Link bait

Linkbait, Linkbait, Linkbait (170 IBL)
Link Baiting: Which Hook Attracts the Right Fish? (125 IBL)
Link Bait Kool-Aid? (61 IBL)

Directory analysis

Is That Directory Worth Submitting To? (67 IBL)
Hi I’m Debra And I’m A Directory Addict. (65 IBL)

Assessing Site Linkability

What Makes a Web Site Link-Worthy? (95 IBL)
Dude, Your Site Is Boring No Links For You (84 IBL)

When you pick the topic of your next article, create a Link Qualification Worksheet and add in all the pages linking to the resources that you use and cite. Further, let’s say we wrote an article on link bait. We could start with collecting inbound links to the link bait articles we found above, but then conduct some searches on [link bait] and [link bait guide] and gather backlinks to any high-ranking subpages. This article would look something like: 17 Ways to Accelerate Links to Your Link Bait (and Other Highly Linkable Content).

What content is missing?

Finding “missing link” content is easier if you have a good editorial sense and/or you know a space well. If you’re starting with content expertise in the woodworking space and want to create highly-linkable content in, say, the link building space, perhaps you’d begin with an article on link building tips for woodworking magazines (or forums, blogs, etc.).

If the content/keyword space you are investigating lacks massive numbers (100 ways; 1,000 tips…) then perhaps this could be a good direction too. Also, check if anyone has extensively aggregated the top resources in your space. Now that you’ve done all this research, you’re pretty well positioned to do so. Keep your eyes open and work to aggregate or trump what’s proven to attract links elsewhere in the space.

Ideally, the unique, informative content you’re creating also helps to sell a product or service your company offers. Can your content differentiate along the lines of your products and services? We think so.

Who links to topics similar to content you’ve already created?

If you’ve already created a body of content, look for article or content titles that suggest some similarity to yours. Visit the pages and see for yourself. Can your content compete on linkability? Further, does your content provide good counterpoint, or fill in missing material or viewpoints? If you think so, begin commenting, emailing or even calling linkers to simliar content and let them know that there’s more to the story.

Finally, for distribution, reach out to the sites that link frequently to top content in your space. Wiep puts outreach very nicely in The Perfect Link Request Email Template.

What’s missing from this article is a broader look at content marketing and how informative content can help you reach business goals. This article could compliment the research process for any content strategists seeking to add value to their content by making it more linkable and distributable by a target audience.

The Link Builder’s Guide To Analyzing SERP Dominators For Link Opportunities

Garrett French — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:01:06 +0000

In our article on link prospect qualification, we downplayed the difficulty of finding link prospects. Here’s why: the time you spend finding a link prospect pales in comparison to the time it takes to analyze that prospect for its relevance to your keywords, its overall value to your link building goals and the potential it will convert into a link.

However, because it takes so long to qualify link prospects, we decided to create a tool and a worksheet for “pre-qualifying” link prospects based on the sites that occur most frequently in the search engine results pages for a given set of keywords – SERPs Dominators. This article walks you through the tools, processes and strategies for identifying the most powerful players in your keyword space, and then analyzing their link sources and link building tactics.

Who are SERPs dominators?

SERPs Dominators are the sites and individual URLs that appear most frequently in the SERPs for your target, most-profitable keywords (you know which ones these are, right?). In aggregate, analyzing hostname and URL SERPs occurrence can reveal a great deal about an industry. We also use the term SERPs Dominators below to describe the sites that rank frequently in the top 10 of the SERPs.

Why do SERPs Dominators matter to link builders?

First and foremost, they are also your SERPs competitors – if you’re building links to impact your presence in the search engines, for the same target keywords, then they matter. Secondly, because they appear frequently in the SERPs, these pages exert influence on the segment of your market that uses search engines. By selectively examining backlinks of your SERPs Dominators you can quickly and efficiently identify many of the links that most influence your SERP. In “5 Reasons Why Rankings Are A Poor Measure Of Success” Jill Whalen outlines why the SERPs can be misleading indicators of success, and a tricky place to derive actionable data. We believe that, in aggregate, the SERPs can reveal quite a bit, especially if the keywords you target are proven to bring in visitors who convert.

Further, many of the SERPs Dominators themselves will be great targets for link requests, guest post/article pitches, social profile creation, comment campaigns, etc depending on the site type and whether its an ally or a competitor.

What tools do you need for SERPs Dominator analysis?

Identifying your SERPs dominators is simple… Here’s what you need.

SEO for Firefox. With SEO for Firefox installed and operational you can download to CSV files the top 100 URLs in the SERPs for your keywords. This is the data required for this particular form of analysis.
The SERPs Dominator Analysis Worksheet. This worksheet makes it easy to track, sort and analyze the hostname and URL frequency of your SERPs.
Hostname and URL Frequency Counter Tool. This tool counts the occurrence frequency of hostnames and URLs within the SERPs, and outputs data you can copy and paste into the SERPs Dominator Analysis Workbook for further processing.
SEOBook Toolbar. The toolbar enables you to quickly drill down into exportable backlink data.
Yahoo Site Explorer. Yahoo Site Explorer not only enables you to export backlinks, but it orders a site’s pages in a general order of their importance (according to our anecdotal explorations – we haven’t conducted tests).
The Link Qualification Worksheet. Once you have gathered link prospects you must undertake the link qualification process. Read the Link Qualification Guide and then download the Link Qualification Worksheet.

SERPs Dominator data gathering for link builders: Step-by-Step

Here’s a suggested process for identifying your SERPs dominators so that you can conduct deeper analysis related to link building.

Step 1) Keyword selection and keyword set size

When picking keywords for SERPs Dominator analysis – especially since you plan to use this information for link building – it’s vital that you choose the commercial and/or most-competitive keywords that are most relevant to your business. Picking the keyword set size – whether it’s 3 or 3,000 will depend on your goals and the number of words commercially and thematically relevant to your industry.

In this example, we’ll look at “camping gear” related queries.

Choose 3 “Tip of the Iceberg” keywords. If you’re in a hurry or you’re only interested in a narrow slice of the SERPs then select around 3 of your “highest-level” keywords. For a site that sells camping gear, this could look like:

camping gear
camping equipment
camping supplies

Expanding to 10 keywords is approximately 20% of the iceberg. For a deeper, more thorough investigation of a larger keyword grouping, try looking at around 10 keywords. Here are 10 closely-related keywords with high search volume in the camping equipment keyword space:

camping gear
camping hiking gear
camping tent
camping equipment
camping hiking equipment
camping supplies
camping accessories
camping stove
camping shop
camping store

Ideally, you’re bunching up your keywords and getting tight, highly-related groupings. While 10 is an arbitrary number, it’s a decent target and a size that’s easily manageable by hand over the course of an afternoon.

Building up to 250 keywords (or more) almost covers the whole iceberg. To understand an entire industry, you may need to expand your investigations even deeper, into the hundreds of keywords, and in some cases into the thousands of keywords or more. If you anticipate your research having to go this wide, we would recommend creating discrete keyword groupings so that you get meaningful, highly actionable data sets.

To follow from the camping store example, we could begin including specific product searches, brand searches as well as longer tail 3 and 4 keyword searches based on [camping equipment]. We highly recommend that you get a feel for the process with 3-10 keyword groups before diving into a 250 keyword analysis.

For a comprehensive view of all the link opportunities available to you however, you will need to investigate “the Whole Iceberg…”

Step 2) Search a keyword with SEO for Firefox engaged

If you’re following along from home, then you have already downloaded and installed SEO for Firefox. Now when you conduct searches you should see more information for each search you do.

Click the small little “100″ text link beneath the search box.

Then click CSV, which exports a text file that can be easily turned into a spreadsheet.

Step 3) Populate the “Raw 100s” sheet

The first sheet of the SERPs Dominators Worksheet is for what we call the Raw 100s. This is the sheet where you hold the top 100 results for the keywords you’re analyzing. By hand, this method works well for smaller scale keyword sets in the 10-25 range. At larger scale, it starts to get unwieldy and requires automation, or at least macros.

You will be referring back regularly to the Raw 100s as you conduct your SERPs Dominator Analysis, so keep it neat!

Once you have pulled the top 100 rankings for the keyword set in which you’d like to increase your rankings you can begin analysis.

Slice and dice your data to find link opportunities

Once you have gathered all your top 100s for the keywords you’d like to analyze, you can begin using the Hostname and URL Frequency Counter Tool to reveal the SERPs Monsters (top 3s), Dominators (top 10s), Players (top 20s) and Participants (top 100s).

In the analysis section below, we concentrate our analysis demonstration on a single SERPs Monster: REI.com. We omit much of this analysis for the top 10s, 20s, and 100s. Please use the analysis framework for REI as a guide for any other site you’d like to investigate from a competitive link building example.

Step 4) Identifying SERPs Monsters by hostname frequency across keyword set

The SERPs Monsters for a given set of keywords are those sites that appear over and over again in the top 3. These sites control the most important, above-the-fold results for your keyword set. These sites also get the majority of the search traffic. These sites have demonstrated to the search engines that they will satisfy the searchers’ intent.

For our [camping gear] keyword set above, I went through my Raw 100s list and copied out the top 3 results for each search into the “Scratch Pad” sheet for temporary storage. Then I copied and pasted this list of 30 URLs into the Hostname and URL Frequency Counter Tool to reveal the SERPs Monsters for these terms.

Here are the top occurring hostnames for our 10 keyword [camping equipment] set in the top 3 results:

www.rei.com: 9 Occurrences in the Top 3 SERPs
www.campingworld.com: 5
www.coleman.com: 3
www.cabelas.com 3
www.campmor.com 2
www.consumersearch.com 2
www.google.com 1
www.camping4less.com 1
www.backcountry.com 1
www.hikingandbackpacking.com 1
www.familytentcamping.com 1
www.usoutdoorstore.com 1

Step 5) Pull backlinks from top performing competitors

The SERPs Monsters, especially in such a competitive space like camping equipment, have done the long work of proving to their market and to the search engines that they are highly relevant to [camping equipment] searches. Their backlinks are often in the multiple hundreds of thousands or even millions, in the case of REI.

Export their backlinks using Yahoo Site Explorer (YSE). Search for the site: [www.rei.com] then click the “Inlinks” tab. Set the first drop down to “Except from this domain” and set the second drop down to “Entire Site.” Then click the “TSV” link to export the first 1000 inbound linking sites.

These can go into your link qualification worksheet for further processing.

Investigate the highly-linked pages

It’s important during link building analysis to identify highly-linked pages on frequently occurring sites. Do this using Yahoo Site Explorer. YSE defaults to an analysis of the pages on a website. We make the assumption that YSE displays pages in order of their importance, most likely based on quality and quantity of inbound links.

Since YSE limits backlink exports to 1000, it often makes sense to investigate highly-linked pages that are related to the pages you’re building links for. Many times they are under 1000 and will give you a more granular look at what types of sites are interested in linking to your specific pages.

Example: Here’s REI in Yahoo Site Explorer >>

Many of REI’s highly ranking pages in YSE are there – we assume – because of links from the REI.com domain. Digging down through the list begins to reveal some interesting pages with lots and lots of links from off the REI site.

#10 in YSE) Dome Tent Product Page: http://www.rei.com/product/728308 300+ inlinks from outside domains

Linkability analysis

Why did REI’s product page for their Half Dome tent attract 348 links? It’s obviously a popular product, but are there any other on-page reasons that this page attracts links? Link builders for a camping equipment site should take special interest in this page if they’re working to build links to their dome tent pages.

Further, the attention that this page has earned should get content link builders’ wheels turning. How about a dome tent comparison page? How about purchasing that REI tent and taking it apart, seam-by-seam to show how it’s made? How about setting it on fire and making a video of it? You now have 300+ high quality link prospects for dome tent related content.

Example: #11 in YSE – http://www.rei.com/stewardship 500+ inlinks from outside domains

Linkability analysis

Stewardship attracts links. Each linker is a prospect for a camping equipment site’s stewardship program. Create a stewardship and then start with REI’s 500 backlinks as a link prospect list. Look for other similar programs on other sites and pull their inlinks as prospects for your own stewardship program.

Example: #13 in YSE – LED Headlamp http://www.rei.com/product/751757 150+ inlinks from outside domains

Linkability analysis

Many of the inlinks come from blog reviews. Has REI done anything to encourage its shoppers to write reviews of products they sell and link to their product pages? Could you? Again, like the dome tent above, is there anything special about this product page? If you want to drill down further into linkability then do a search for this product [Petzl Tikka Plus LED Headlamp] and compare other product pages. What gives REI’s page the linkability advantage?

Example: #15 in YSE - http://www.rei.com/bikeyourdrive 3000+ inlinks from outside domains

Linkability analysis In a similar vein to stewardship, note this passion-oriented and highly-linkable content created by REI to inspire people to bike to work.

Note the “Savings Calculator” for determining the money and emissions impact of riding your bike to work instead of driving. Also notice the basic how-to videos with instruction on riding in traffic, fitting helmets and basic roadside repairs. This is a lot of content to create, but see how well it helps to drive people to sales with the product navigation on the left? And for 3000+ links it’s certainly something to consider.

Though off topic for strictly [camping equipment] searches, consider how you could create similar content related to the products you’d like to sell more of…

Other opportunities for link building

Keep an eye out for other link building opportunities as you dig into the most frequently-occurring SERPs Monsters. For example, some of the top [camping equipment] sites have forum sections. We’re not suggesting that you go and drop links in your competitions’ forums, but it could make sense for you to feel out the community by reading through the threads and determining whether or not they would be receptive to your linkable content and ongoing contributions of expertise.

As another example, directly from the [camping equipment] SERPs Monsters: check out the presence of ConsumerSearch.com. Consumer Search – owned by NYTimes – is similar to MetaCritic.com. It aggregates and evaluates product reviews. In another vertical, I’ve gotten a link from ConsumerSearch for an unbiased review of a product. Let’s dig into ConsumerSearch a little deeper, and pretend you’ve created a 2 person dome tent comparison page that evaluates all the top dome tents.

First, check out Consumer Search’s sources – the publications from which they gathered their tent review data. Some of these pages have comment potential. Further, you could check to see who’s linking to these tent reviews… they may be good link prospects for your dome-tent comparison content (see Backpack Gear Test). Finally, you could write directly to the ConsumerSearch editors and let them know about your new review or comparison.

Evaluate frequently occurring URLs

Hostname frequency is one thing… but when non-homepage URLs begin appearing frequently – it’s time to really take notice, especially in competitive spaces and with high-level keywords. Within the SERPs Monsters, one non-homepage url from REI occurs three times: http://www.rei.com/category/4500001. Who are that URL’s 178 linkers? Why are they linking? Because this URL occurs frequently it requires further YSE investigation of the nature described above. These could be great linkers for a camping equipment site’s home page.

Reviewing SERPs Dominators by Top 10 hostname frequency

The SERPs Dominators are the hostnames and URLs that appear frequently across the top 10s for your target keywords. They include, obviously, the SERPs Monsters. The difference now is that you have a broader view of the SERPs and more of your competition emerges.

Select the top 10 from each of your keywords in the Raw 100s and paste them into your scratch pad. Once you have assembled all the top tens, copy and paste the whole group into the into the Hostname and URL Frequency Counter Tool.

Here are the results I got for my [camping equipment] data set that had more than one occurrence in the top 10s.

www.rei.com 10 Occurrences in the Top 10 SERPs
www.cabelas.com 8
www.coleman.com 8
maps.google.com 6
www.altrec.com 6
www.amazon.com 5
www.summitcampinggear.com 5
www.campingworld.com 5
www.hiking-gear-and-equipment-used-for-camping.com 4
www.google.com 4
www.camping4less.com 4
www.campmor.com 4
www.backcountry.com 3
www.consumersearch.com 3
www.campingcomfortably.com 2
www.basspro.com 2
www.cascadedesigns.com 2

Comparative SERPs frequency analysis

The benefit of conducting SERPs analysis at different ranking levels is the understanding you can gain through comparison. You’ll notice that Cabelas shot up in top 10 frequency… they are stronger players who could be considered threats to the SERPs Monsters. Coleman sees a sizable increase as well. Notice, too, the appearance of Altrec in the top 10s. They don’t appear in the top 3s and should also be considered a strong rising threat to the SERPs Monsters.

If you analyze the major players in the top 3 SERPs first, your work is halfway done. Conduct similar analysis on Cabelas, Coleman and Altrec. Summitcampinggear.com in particular is one I’d pay close attention to as a link builder because they have solid presence in the top 10s, but not the top 3s. They are either new competitors gaining, or old competitors waning. Either way, they can show you what to do or not to do in terms of link building.

The content site www.hiking-gear-and-equipment-used-for-camping.com appears for the first time in the top 10 frequency analysis. For content-related camping equipment sites, this should be very interesting from a linkability and link building perspective. It’s interesting to see that a site with only 2000 links (compared to REI’s millions…) displays competitive frequency within the top 10s.

Reviewing SERPs Players by Top 20 hostname frequency

The SERPs Players are those sites that appear with frequency in the top 20 results: the first two pages. Top 3 is great, but you (usually) have to dig deeper into the top 20. Looking at the sites that appear with frequency here show you possible up-and-comers, plus may help establish a backlink baseline for climbing into the SERPs.

You will have to sort a bit deeper to get past the top 3s and top 10s to find new sites for analysis.

www.rei.com 12
www.cabelas.com 10
www.coleman.com 10
www.altrec.com 8
www.campingworld.com 7
www.amazon.com 7
maps.google.com 6
www.summitcampinggear.com 6
www.campinggearguide.com 5
www.abc-of-hiking.com 5
www.campmor.com 5
www.hiking-gear-and-equipment-used-for-camping.com 4
www.camping4less.com 4
www.google.com 4
www.backcountry.com 4
www.campingequipmentworld.com 3
www.consumersearch.com 3
www.ultralighttowels.com 3
www.camping-gear-outlet.com 3
www.basspro.com 3
camping-gear-outlet.com 3
campready.com 3

Comparative SERPs frequency analysis

Two sites appear from nowhere: www.campinggearguide.com and www.abc-of-hiking.com, both with 5 occurrences in the top 20s. Both should be investigated to see what up and coming sites are doing to earn presence in the SERPs. In the case of ABC-of-Hiking, notice that it’s a social media site related to camping. This may be a good site to build links through distributing content or even profile creation and content contribution.

Reviewing SERPs Participants byTop 100 hostname frequency

The SERPs Participants are the sites that appear in the top 100. While being #67 for a single search term may not signify much at first, appearing consistently in the top 100s for a themed grouping of keywords can reveal a great deal for link builders.

www.rei.com 16
www.cabelas.com 13
www.altrec.com 12
www.coleman.com 12
www.ems.com 12
www.amazon.com 11
www.trails.com 10
www.campingworld.com 10
www.backcountry.com 10
gorp.away.com 9
www.summitcampinggear.com 9
www.hiking-gear-and-equipment-used-for-camping.com 9
www.google.com 8
www.bizrate.com 8
www.abc-of-hiking.com 8
www.thecampingoutfitter.com 8
www.campready.com 7
www.campmor.com 7
www.basspro.com 7
shopping.msn.com 6
maps.google.com 6
www.usoutdoorstore.com 6
camping.about.com 6

Comparative SERPs frequency analysis

Notice here the strong emergence of pure content sites such as gorp.away.com, www.trails.com, and camping.about.com. Though these sites don’t rank well for the target group of phrases, they are none-the-less highly relevant to [camping equipment]. These are prime targets for value-added commenting, PR outreach to suggest interviews or story ideas, guest post content submission and more. Though these few sites don’t comprise all the content sites you should reach out to in this way, they should certainly be considered high priority content sites for evaluation.

Also see EMS.com. Wow! Where did they come from and what sent them marauding up into the top 100s? The site looks great and they have a highly competitive number of links (34k). They are either ferocious up and comers or have recently gotten dinged. Either way, they warrant close observation by link builders in the [camping equipment] space.

More methods for finding backlink prospects

There’s more than one way to find backlink prospects, and our method above may be too involved for some link building projects. Further, our method only gets comprehensive at very narrow and/or very large scale, meaning you won’t find all your link opportunities until you look at the SERPs for all of your keywords… or for very narrow thematic groupings.

Here are some other resources you may find useful for finding backlink opportunities:

How To Use Long-Tailed Keyphrases in Your Linking Campaign

Julie Joyce — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 10:40:27 +0000

What exactly is the long tail? Individually unimportant, but collectively significant according to Chris Anderson, who coined the term in 2004.

Why is the idea of the long-tailed keyphrase so critical to your link building campaign?

(Besides the obvious reason that is its very definition, of course.) It’s mainly because these keyphrases (which have been quite well tested in both PPC and SEO) tend to be niche enough that they can give you more conversions. When people get very specific, they mean business.

Before I move on, let it be said that when we’re talking about long-tailed phrases, I am not in any way suggesting that you try and bring in traffic for anything that you do not actually have. That would be foolhardy.

Ways to identify long-tail keyword phrases

Analytics software. Whether you use a proper package or you’re wading through logs on your own, you can identify the long-tailed keyword phrases that searchers are using to find you. You can also do basic extrapolation on these if they’re not too numerous (or if they are numerous and you’re just either highly productive or very, very bored), adding relevant modifiers, for example.
Keyword research tools. These abound in both free and paid versions, and I’m not tied down to one or the other most of the time. These can be used to create long-tailed keyphrases by simply entering in a few generic terms, or they can help out with the aforementioned attempt to find decent long-tails by adding some modifiers. They are particularly useful in helping you identify common misspellings, something that makes me shudder, but hey, lots of people can’t spell and they will indeed use misspellings when searching. Google Suggest, while not specifically a keyword research tool, can also give you some amazing ideas for long-tails, and it uses data from the most popular searches, so that’s a win-win situation.
Checking rankings for primary keyphrases. Search for a primary keyphrase and take a good look at the content surrounding the keyphrase in all the SERPs. Just now I searched for “shirt” in Google, and the very first result gave me the content of “new graphic t-shirts.” That’s not a bad long-tail. When I search for “new graphic t-shirts” I see one that says “new limited edition graphic t-shirt.” Neither is that one. Just be careful not to spiral out of control here.
Brainstorming. I have found that Excel is quite a useful tool when trying to come up with good long-tailed phrases. I may be overstating the obvious, and apologies if so, but it’s quite easy to put together a list of generic phrases that you know you want, and a list of adverbs and adjectives, etc. Talk to anyone you can about this, as people who sell the products know them well, as (occasionally, if you’re lucky) do people who designed/coded/maintain the site. Every SEO has dealt with someone who will not listen to reason when it comes to keywords, since there’s always that one guy who is absolutely positive that searchers will search using a phrase that, in reality, mainly just that one guy uses to search. Try these out as long-tails! Maybe there are more people out there like him.

Identify good landing pages for the long tail

How? Two ways:

Find existing content.

Create new content.

*Again, please, please don’t intentionally try and bring people into a page or site that actually is wildly irrelevant. I’ve had this happen to me, and I no longer trust those sites.

Build a few links with long tail words as anchor text

Take a baseline.

Monitor progress.

Adjust as necessary.

To conclude, long-tailed keyphrases tend to exist as afterthoughts, as something such as rankings or traffic that arise from the pursuit of the more traditional generic keyword phrases, but they can jazz up your link building if you’ll just pay a bit of attention and not treat them like the red-headed stepchild. Yes, you’ll get some residual long-tailed rankings and traffic, but you’re missing out on a huge opportunity if you don’t make some sort of concerted effort to capitalize on this phenomenon.

** For more information, SEL has an excellent older article on the long tail of search.

10 Goals For Link Building Campaigns: Moving Beyond “Get More Links”

Garrett French — Wed, 27 May 2009 11:00:42 +0000

“Get more links” is not an effective goal, even if it’s the directive you’ve received from clients or management.

This article proposes ten different link building goals along with prospecting suggestions. Further, you’ll find suggestions for using the Link Qualification Work Sheet we created for the Guide To Qualifying Link Prospects For Relevance, Value & Potentiality to reach your goals as quickly as possible.

The goals:

Broaden/deepen relevant keyword portfolio
Increase targeted referral traffic
Steady high-flux rankings
Increase market awareness
Move from 2nd to 1st page for proven keywords
Own your brand name & top keyword searches
Naturalize your link profile
Get new pages/sites indexed
Show results quickly: build link count by X
Improve geo-specific rankings

Before digging into the link building goals, here are a couple of quick refreshers. Recommended link building tools and related resources follow the article.

A Refresher on “RVP” metrics for link building. The core measurements we use for analyzing link prospects are Relevance, Value and Potentiality (RVP). Relevance (R) is the measurement of a page’s relevance to your keywords, Value (V) is an approximation of the amount of link juice a page is capable of directing to yours and Potential (P) is the likelihood that a particular link prospect will actually “convert” into a link to your site.

Sorting is done in a descending order. Sorting by PRV, for example, sorts by Potentiality, then by Relevance, then by Value, all descending.

Manipulating RVP data in the link qualification work sheet. A quick review of how to sort your link prospects, for users of the Link Qualification Worksheet:

Highlight the rows that you wish to sort
From the File menu, click “Data”
Then choose the “Sort” option
Toggle, in order, which measurement is primary, secondary and tertiary
Click “descending order” for each

In the current version of our work sheet, Relevance corresponds to Column C, Value corresponds to Column D and Potentiality corresponds to Column E. We suggest a number of sorts for each of the goals below. Remember that in every case these sorts are in descending order.

1) Broaden/deepen relevant keyword portfolio

You’ve achieved rankings for a core set of relevant keywords—congratulations! Now it’s time to broaden and deepen your organic keyword portfolio.

Objectives:

Diversify your targeted search audience
Increase long tail organic search engine rankings
Increase revenue/conversions from highly-targeted search engine rankings

Tactics:

Build deep links to existing pages using longer tail anchor text
Create new content pages targeting long tail keywords

Link Prospect Sources:

Backlinks to pages that rank well for your new target phrases
Relevant, ranking content pages
Conversation threads on relevant social media

Find qualified prospects by sorting the Link Qualification Worksheet by RPV and VRP. Sorting your link prospects by RPV lifts prospects that will demonstrate relevance to search engines and have a higher likelihood of converting to links—for longer tail keywords value is not always as important. Sorting by VRP shows you the prospects that will deliver the most “link juice” and relevance for your new targeted phrases. They may take longer to acquire but will cement your new rankings.

2) Increase targeted referral traffic

Sometimes link building is about generating targeted traffic from the linking site rather than search engine rankings.

Objectives:

Grow sales, leads and brand awareness
Join influentials in conversation within social media comment threads

Tactics:

Conduct ongoing content distribution to key media (guest blog posts, etc)
Engage in ongoing conversation contributions in key media comment threads
Develop expertise-based relationship with relevant, influential media

Link Prospect Sources:

Media/resource sites that rank for your keywords
Relevant conversation threads on influential social media

Find qualified prospects by sorting the Link Qualification Worksheet by RVP, VRP and PRV. Sorting by RVP will reveal the articles and blog posts where the most relevant conversations are happening. Sorting by VRP shows you the pages and sites that search engines have decided are the most important within your keyword space. Sorting by PRV shows you the relevant comment threads for joining or starting conversations.

3) Steady high-flux rankings

Due to the eternal quest for relevance conducted by search engines, we will always see fluctuations in search rankings. Pursuing the right links can help to reduce the yo-yo effect.

Objectives:

Steady fluctuating rankings

Tactics:

One-off link bait and distribution
One-off content created for distribution
Niche directory and resource/links page requests

Link Prospect Sources:

Backlinks to pages that rank well for your target phrases
Relevant, ranking content pages
Relevant links/resource pages
Article/content submission opportunities

Find qualified prospects by sorting the Link Qualification Worksheet by VRP and RPV. Sorting by VRP shows you the pages that will confer more link juice to your page, helping search engines interpret your trustworthiness. Sorting by RPV helps you to find highest relevance pages most likely to provide links—high relevance to your target keywords again helps search engines trust that your pages are indeed about what you say they are.

4) Increase market awareness

Sometimes link building is about PR more than search rankings. Sometimes you just need to get the word out and show people where they can learn more about you.

Objectives:

Product/service launch
Distribute company news

Tactics:

One-off link bait + distribution
Content distribution to influential media—guest posts/guest submissions
Conversation participation in influential media

Link prospect sources:

Conversation threads within relevant social media
Influential media/resource sites

Find qualified prospects by sorting the Link Qualification Worksheet by PVR and RVP. Sorting by PVR shows you the prospects with the highest linking potential, followed by the most link juice value (which can in some cases be assumed to confer overall market influence value). Sorting by RVP will show you the sites and pages most likely to have an audience that’s interested in your message or news.

5) Move from 2nd to 1st page for proven keywords

Your second page rankings can provide quick boosts in relevant, valuable traffic. If you rank on the second page for a term that provides even a trickle of traffic, sales or conversions, jump on this opportunity with both feet.

Objectives

Get more traffic from high value keyword hovering on page 2

Tactics:

Niche directory + resource/links page requests
One-off content created for distribution
Comment contributions on keyword relevant media pages

Link prospect sources:

Backlinks to pages that rank well for your target phrases
Relevant, ranking content pages
Relevant links/resource pages
Article/content submission opportunities

Find qualified prospects by sorting the Link Qualification Worksheet by VRP and RVP. Sorting by VRP shows you the pages that will confer the most link juice, which is useful in getting pages up and over that second page hump. Sorting by RVP helps you to find highest relevance pages most likely to provide links—high relevance to your target keywords helps search engines trust that your pages are indeed about what you say they are.

6) Own your brand name & top keyword searches

Sometimes you have to duke it out for competitive and highly-valuable organic rankings. Though it can be costly to get there—and stay there—high rankings for some terms can be necessities in some industries.

Objectives:

Rank for competitive phrases that result in high returns

Tactics:

Ongoing link bait + distribution that targets home page
Ongoing content distribution to key media – guest posts/guest submissions
Ongoing conversation participation in key media
Niche directory + resource/links page requests

Link prospect sources:

Backlinks to pages that rank well for your target phrases
Relevant, ranking content pages
Relevant links/resource pages
Conversation threads on relevant social media

Find qualified prospects by sorting the Link Qualification Worksheet by VRP and RVP. Sorting by VRP shows you the prospects that will increase your target page’s perceived value to the search engines—the more you can get the better for highly competitive spaces. Building links from prospects that appear in the top for RVP sorts will help demonstrate your page’s relevance to those phrases.

7) Naturalize your link profile

Some people buy links. Some people bulk up on links from certain types of content management platforms known for their dofollows. There are many paths to unnatural link profiles…

Objectives:

Ward off potential link buy penalties
Diversify profile to attain longer term rankings

Tactics:

Moderate your link velocity from month to month
Adjust your home page vs. deep link ratio
Vary your anchor text

Link prospect sources:

Varies based on your current profile

Find qualified prospects by sorting the Link Qualification Worksheet by RVP, VRP and PRV.

8) Get new pages/sites indexed

Links can help to get new pages—and new sites—indexed.

Objectives:

Get new pages indexed

Tactics:

Conversation participation in targeted dofollow media
One-off content created for directory distribution

Link prospect sources:

Search for relevant conversation threads on relevant social media
Search for relevant article/content submission opportunities

Find qualified prospects by sorting the Link Qualification Worksheet by PRV. Sorting by PRV in your worksheet reveals the prospects with a high potentiality for converting into links – just what you need to urge those spiders over to your site.

9) Show results quickly: Build link count by X

Sometimes, certain conditions necessitate the rapid accumulation of inbound links.

Objectives:

Stall clients/managers who expect unreasonably quick demonstration of “link building” while your other efforts come to fruition

Tactics:

Conversation participation in targeted media
Directory/niche directory submissions
One-off content created for directory distribution

Link prospect sources:

Conversation threads on relevant social media
Article/content submission opportunities

Find qualified prospects by sorting the Link Qualification Worksheet by PRV. Sorting by PRV in your worksheet shows you the prospects that have demonstrated a high potentiality for converting into links – in certain circumstances these are the only prospects that matter.

10) Improve geo-specific rankings

Even though you may rank for your target keywords in New York, you may not rank at all in Los Angeles. One way to improve your geo-specific rankings is to build links from sites associated with the region you’re targeting.

Objectives:

Improve regional rankings for valuable keywords
Ranking well in one region indicates opportunity to rank well in others

Tactics:

Regional link bait
Regional blog/news site comment participation

Link prospect sources:

Find local blogs, then search [site: + keywords] to find most relevant pages
Find local news sites that allow comments then search [site: + keywords]
Create relevant, strategic content that appeals to local sites
Local directories/review sites

Find qualified prospects by sorting the Link Qualification Worksheet by RVP, VRP and PRV. Go for the faster opportunities revealed by a PRV sort. Acquire these links and wait to see if they have enough impact. If not, go for the RVP links next and then the VRP prospects.

Recommended link research tools

Related link building resources

A Guide To Qualifying Link Prospects For Relevance, Value & Potentiality

Garrett French — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 11:00:50 +0000

The core problem of link building—assuming you’ve maximized your site’s linkability—is not prospecting for sites that may potentially link to yours. The problem lies in rapidly identifying the link prospects whose links will provide the fastest and largest impact on your search marketing goals.

With tools like the SEO Toolbar and SEO for Firefox, every URL from every domain that ranks for your keywords reveals a wealth of inbound linking pages, each of which is a link prospect. Add in opportunities from the link suggest tool, and several .edu site searches and a determined link builder could find thousands, if not tens of thousands of link prospects in less than a day.

Based on our experience in automating link research and link prospect qualification for millions of URLs, we wrote this article—and created a free, downloadable worksheet—to enable motivated link builders to quickly identify the most relevant, valuable and likely-to-link prospects from thousands of potential link opportunities.

The core metrics for link prospect evaluation

When building links to influence search rankings we look at three key metrics for evaluating link prospects: relevance, value and acquisition potentiality.

To illustrate the link prospect metrics of relevance, value and potential we created the following Venn diagram:

Let’s walk through the metrics, how they’re derived and discuss their importance to your link building process.

Measuring link prospect relevance

Relevance in link building is the measurement of a page’s relevance to your keyword(s). Relevance should measure whether the keywords are present or not as well as where they appear on the page or in the tags, as these factors will have shadings of influence on the search-rank impact of a link prospect.

Here are some factors to measure that will indicate a link prospect’s relevance to your target keywords:

Keywords in the Title tag
Keywords in the body of the text
Keywords in H1 tags

As you visit each link prospect, put a “1” in the appropriate column for that page’s relevance to your keywords.

Measuring link prospect value

The value of a link prospect—for the purpose of influencing search rank—lies in the amount of link juice the page is capable of directing to yours. For these purposes, no-followed links have little impact. As a primary measure of value we recommend looking at the PageRank for the hostname as well as PageRank of the specific page. Many hold that the PageRank that Google displays is not an accurate measurement. While this is true, PageRank represents the only page value measurement currently available from a search engine. Further, PageRank makes identifying penalized sites easy. We propose that by combining the measurement of a link prospect’s relevance with its value, one can make faster decisions regarding acquisition priority.

Here are some factors to measure that indicate a link prospect’s value:

PageRank of hostname
PageRank of page
Outbound links followed/no-followed

As you visit each link prospect, put a “1” in the appropriate column for that page’s value to your search marketing goals.

Note: If your link building goals include increasing community involvement and referral traffic from relevant sites then no-followed links should be considered. Read this for more information about measuring the value of no-followed links.

Measuring link prospect acquisition potentiality

Acquisition potentiality is the likelihood that a particular link prospect will actually “convert” into a link for your site. We look at link potentiality based on your ability to add a link to a page yourself and secondarily your ability to impact or influence the page’s creator to add a link.

Here are some factors that indicate a link prospect’s acquisition potentiality:

Is it a competitor?
Ability to submit, add or comment
Relationship with someone at that domain
Publication date
Can you make a valuable addition or correction to the page?

As you visit each link prospect, put a “1” in the appropriate column for that page’s acquisition potentiality. Note: link buyers may not have as much of a need for this metric. Keep the column in the worksheet, though—it could represent likelihood of accepting a reasonable offer.

Using the Link Building Worksheet

We created a spreadsheet – freely available for download – to accompany this article and assist motivated link builders seeking to grow their current capacity for rapidly and effectively qualifying their link opportunities. Not only does this worksheet streamline work flow and keep your team more organized, it comes pre-programmed with equations derived from the ones we use in our automated link prospecting and qualification process.

Download the Link Building Worksheet.

All you or your team has to do is evaluate 9 elements of each link prospect URL and mark a “1” in the appropriate column of the spreadsheet if that element is present. The spreadsheet does the rest for you.

Remember – the link building worksheet works best with large numbers of link prospects. The more you can evaluate the better. We prefer working at a scale of hundreds of thousands of prospects. If you’re working by hand, try and get up into the high hundreds, if not thousands.

In future articles we’ll cover methods of slicing the link prospect data you add to your worksheet as well as advanced link research methods that will ensure that you find only the best opportunities for your link building campaigns.

More link qualification resources

Link prospecting by-hand would be significantly more tedious and difficult without the tools created by Aaron Wall of SEOBook. We highly recommend the SEO Toolbar and SEO for Firefox.

Our Link Building Guide has a section called Link Opportunity Qualifiers Within Large Scale Link Prospect Data Sets that will give you more ideas for add-ons or modifications to your spreadsheet.

Do Links From Expired Domains Count With Google?

Danny Sullivan — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:10:44 +0000

From time-to-time, issues about how domain names can impact Google rankings come up. Is it true that if you buy a name, all the “link equity” that name has gained is lost? Below, a look at this and some related questions.

Several years ago, Google sparked some concerns when it said that buying an established domain name meant that links to that domain before the purchase were effectively lost. In other words, say someone bought a domain today that was registered in 2003 and which had built up hundreds of links over the years. All those links were effectively slapped with an invisible nofollow tag, passing along no credit. But links from after the purchase date would accrue credit.

Why did Google do this, way back then? Many people were buying old domains simply for the links – in some cases, also because they were listed well in the Yahoo Directory, when that was far more important than it is today. Putting the word out that buying domains wouldn’t gain link credit was a way for Google to dash cold water on the tactic.

Since that time, there have been any number of web sites that have had domain names change hands for various reasons, such as through acquisitions. For example, Company A absorbs Company B, which causes the domains owned by Company B to transfer to Company A. Was all that link credit was really lost?

That didn’t seem to be the case, so it’s been on my list to get the current state of how domain transfers impact link credit from Google. And that is? Google’s Matt Cutts told me:

There are some domain transfers ( e.g. genuine purchases of companies) where it can make perfect sense for links to transfer. But at the same time it wouldn’t make sense to transfer the links from an expired or effectively expired domain, for example. Google (and probably all search engines) tries to handle links appropriately for domain transfers.

Adding further, he said:

The sort of stuff our systems would be designed to detect would be things like someone trying to buy expired domains or buying domains just for links.

Let’s take those statements and see how likely it is that different types of domain acquisitions will pass link credit.

Buying Expired Domains: Don’t Expect Credit

Have you picked up a domain that was once owned by someone, not through buying it directly from them but because it had expired and went back into the common pool of domains for purchase by anyone? That’s an expired domain – and chances are, the backlinks aren’t going to pass credit according to Matt’s statement.

Buying Domains & Redirecting Links: Probably No Credit

Did you see a tasty domain and think it would be nice to get it, in order to obtain its links for a different site, such a redirecting them? Sounds like there’s a good chance that Google is going to notice the purchase date, take note of the redirection as well and decide those “historic” links shouldn’t count. What about if you just paid someone to keep the domain going under their name but closed down any existing content and point to another location? Might work; then again, Google might note the change, the oddity of one site to completely point at another, and it might be that the links won’t count.

Buying Domain & Running Web Site As Usual: Credit Likely

Did you buy a web site from someone else and are maintaining the business on that site as normal? Despite the fact that your domain name registration will have changed, since the site is carrying on as usual, there seems to be a good chance that link credit will continue as normal.

Getting Domains Through Acquisition: Credit Likely

Have a domain that changes hands, due to a company acquisition – company A buys company B? You should be OK, thought it’s unclear how Google tells the difference here from an ordinary transfer. And no, Google wouldn’t share more on how they can tell the difference.

Does Domain Registration Length Matter?

Finally, from time to time I’ve seen suggestions that the length of domain registration is a factor – domains registered for longer are rumored to be more trusted by Google. In the past, I even saw one domain registrar claim this as fact. Matt said about this:

To the best of my knowledge, no search engine has ever confirmed that they use length-of-registration as a factor in scoring. If a company is asserting that as a fact, that would be troubling.

He also added:

The primary reason to renew a domain would be if it’s your main domain, you plan to keep it for a while, or you’d prefer the convenience of renewing so that you don’t need to stress about your domain expiring.”

Getting Links AND Content From Flickr

Lisa Barone — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 12:00:18 +0000

You can get more than just links from social media. You can also get really great content. And one of the best places to find free content is on Flickr.

There are tons of ways to use Flickr. If you can take a great photo, you can use Flickr to build inbound links and get your photos showing up in places like Consumerist and Epicenter. You can use Flickr’s comment area to build links that drive traffic and exposure. However, one of my favorite ways to use the site is to follow a link AND content development strategy. And that’s what this article is about helping you learn to do.

I’ll start out by saying that full credit for this method goes to Rae Hoffman who passed it down to me while we were brainstorming ideas for Outspoken Media. She also agreed to let me use TheBinocularSite.com, a site she owns with MFE Interactive, as our case study.

Case study: The binocular site

The Binocular Site prides itself on being an independent guide for all things binoculars. There are overviews on virtually every binocular manufacturer on the planet. There are consumer guides to address binocular-related concerns. Basically, if binoculars are your thing, this is your mecca. However, even with all that content, the site was looking for a better way to engage its community, especially with horizontal sites or sites that aren’t directly related to binoculars. Sites geared towards groups like hunters, birders or online predators.

One of the content pieces Binoculars was working on was a List of Birdwatching Spots to go inside its Birding section. Here’s how they used Flickr to not only help them build the content, but to attract links to it, as well.

Building the content. The Birdwatching Spots guide was to serve as a resource for the community. Each spot was carefully selected, researched and built out by a team of expert writers. To add to that value, they decided to include images associated with each of the spots mentioned in the article. To do that, they went to Flickr.To find images available for use, an Advanced Search was conducted looking only for Creative Commons-licensed content available for commercial use. They searched each one of the sites that the writers had covered and were able to find a collection of usable photos. The photos were added to the content with a link back to the original Flickr page. Thanks to Flickr, The Binocular Site now had real pictures of the locations to go inside their guide. Not only did this make the piece more visually appealing, it also increased its value. They could give people a feel of the spots, show what they really looked like, etc. The photos became an integral part of the birding section. But that was only step one of the Flickr campaign.

Building a volunteer promotion army. One thing you may not know about Flickr is that unless you have a Flickr Pro account, there are restrictions for how many people you can message. A quick $25 takes care of this. With a Pro account in hand, Rae and her team now had the ability to contact each of the photographers whose photos they were using. An email was sent out giving them a friendly heads up that their photos were being used and inviting them (and their friends) to come leave reviews on the actual locations. And the photographers did leave reviews. They also began promoting the content. Or more accurately, they began promoting themselves. They blogged about the birdwatching guide that used their photos. They linked to it. They sent traffic to it. They became the best promotional army you could ask for because they were feeding into one of the most basic human instincts there is—the need to be more famous and more recognized than the person standing next to you.

The result?

Thirty-five or so links to the main site (and that number goes up every week), to the directory and to other interior pages. All from connected and well-linked birdwatching sites.

Real foot traffic.

A more linkworthy directory thanks to the incorporation of expert photos, thus making it easier for the marketing team to market and build more links to.

It became a success story for how to do something interesting and gain links in a very natural way.

Using the method listed above, let’s brainstorm some other ways to use Flickr to develop both great content and great links. Ready? Let’s go.

Example #1: You’re a florist

You’re a florist and you’re looking for unique and interesting content ideas. How about a piece on Five Flowerly Fantastic Floral Arrangements? How do you create it?

Head to Flickr and do an Advanced Search for floral arrangements that allow commercial use as directed above. Spend some time going through the photos and select five arrangements (or more if you’re feeling daring) that you think your readers would find interesting. Then, create a post on how to save money by replicating these arrangements at home for less.

Once you have the photos and story in your head, start building your post. Make sure you link back to the Flickr photos you used and contact the photographer once the post is finished to give them the all important “heads up”. You may also leave a comment on the photo itself to point people back to your post. Sure, the comments are nofollowed, but you’ll still benefit from the traffic, especially if you select a popular photo or one that’s been added to several different Flickr sets [cough].

If you do it correctly and you grab a few photos per arrangement, you’ll have between 15-20 photographers to contact. Contact them and watch as they promote it for you on their blogs, on Twitter, in their photo and floral communities, and maybe even on Kirtsy or Boudica. It’s a great way to get really good content without having to be a fantastic photographer yourself.

Example #2: You’re in the automotive industry

We’re in the midst of a recession and you need to get people excited about spending too much money on their cars again. So what do you do? You write an article about The 7 Most Amazing Paint Jobs Ever. How do you do it?

Head to our friend Flickr and do an Advanced Search for car paint jobs. Once you find your photos, start thinking about how you can add extra value. If you just snatch a bunch of photos from Flickr, no one’s going to care and they’ll start to resent you. Instead, contact the photographer and see if they can put you in touch with the artist. Find out how much that kind of paint job costs, how long it took to complete, what went into it, etc. Use all of that information to create a resource that is worthy of attention and links. Something that gives love back to the community. Once it’s complete, tell the photographer and the artist where to find it. Chances are they’ll link to it and promote it. They’ll Twitter it, share it in their car community sites, etc. When you make other people look good, they want to promote you. You get people passionately working for free.

Example #3: You’re a wedding planner

‘Tis the season and everyone’s getting married. You may as well bring them to your site so that they can buy that $3,800 couture wedding gown from you. So what’s your next content piece going to be to get their attention? Why not the Most Outrageous Wedding Dresses of All-Time. As usual, let’s head to Flickr.

People love uploading their wedding photos to Flickr, it’s like a tic. So open up that Creative Commons, commercially-licensed Advanced Search and go on your hunt for wedding dresses. Find the 10-15 that pique your interest and pull them in for a post.

Once you have your photos, message the photographer and let them know that you”ll be using their work. Add value by asking them if they’d be interested in offering some additional information for the post to help your readers. Find out the designer name, the style of the dress, how much it cost, where it was purchased, where it was worn, what accessories were paired with it, etc. Basically, tell the story of the dress and the day and make it something that readers will really be interested in.

Once it’s done, invite the photographers to leave their own comments to add even more information. Chances are they’ll jump at the exposure. They’re also likely to once again help you promote it, reaching out to their photography blogs and networks. And of course, the wedding community. And let’s face it, there is no greater self-promotional group than those who are in the process of getting married. Get your story in their hands and they’ll pimp it to holy hell.

The idea here is to think outside the box and to start using Flickr as not only a place to scout for links, but for a breeding ground of content. Sometimes you’ll do this work and you’ll get a handful of links, sometimes you’ll get a hundred. You have to keep experimenting to find a content and link strategy that works. And once you do, you’ll not only come away with some superior content, you’ll be able to take advantage of that built-in promotional army.

WeFollow – New Twitter Directory From Kevin Rose

Danny Sullivan — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 00:04:19 +0000

One of the problems with Twitter is knowing who to follow in particular areas. Now Kevin Rose has launched WeFollow, a nice directory of people organized into categories. It’s not perfect, but it’s a great start and well worth visiting.

At the site, you’ll see the top five people in popular categories such as celebrity, music and news. You can also drill-down into any category to see all the people listed in them. On the right-hand side of the home page, there’s also a list of more popular categories:

That list of popular categories (or tags) is dynamic and has already changed since the site first launched. For example, socialmedia and marketing weren’t on it originally, but then they rose up.

What happened? The top categories are based on the total number of followers that everyone in a particular category has. For example, at the time I wrote this, the “marketing” category had 76 people who have placed themselves into that category. Those people collectively had 60,236 followers. Just above marketing was the apple category. It had 93 people who had 73,617 followers collectively. The more followers a category has collectively, the higher it comes on the list.

Adding yourself is easy. Simple send a Twitter reply to the WeFollow twitter account with the areas you’d like to be listed under, up to three of them, with each area starting with a # sign. For example, if you wanted to be listed under wine, design and awesome, you’d do it like this:

@wefollow #wine #design #awesome

Awesome is a category? Yep, it is. Anything can be a category, once someone assigns themselves to it. Of course, if you’re looking for visibility, it makes sense to find the most popular category that relates to yourself, then place yourself in it.

There are no help pages on the site, and since it’s all self-classification, there’s nothing preventing you from putting yourself in a category like “music” even if you’re not a musician. However, that doesn’t guarantee visibility. With each category, people are then listed by the number of followers they have. So for me, I currently get to be 5th in the blogs category:

In the tech category, I’m 12th:

That’s because in the techt category, there are more people with more followers than me (want to help move me up? follow @dannysullivan on Twitter!)

Some people got special treatment. @britneyspears tops the celebrity list; @coldplay tops the music list and @barackobama tops the politics list, but none of these accounts asked to be listed in WeFollow as others are having to do (I can tell this, because you can see none of them sent a reply message to WeFollow).

I’m sure some will feel that’s unfair, especially given some of these accounts also have huge numbers of followers due to being on Twitter’s suggested list. But it does make sense that some of these categories were prepopulated.

It’ll be interesting to see how the directory changes, over time. So far, there seems to be no limit on how often you can reclassify yourself. Don’t like where you put yourself initially? Just send a reply to WeFollow with new categories, and that will put you into new places.

Finally, it’s also uncertain how quickly (if at all) that WeFollow updates user counts. For example, the number of followers I have has changed since I first listed myself with WeFollow about two hours ago — but my old count is still listed on WeFollow. My assumption is that if I relisted myself, the count would update to my latest figure. That’s easy to do, but it’s annoying for followers if people constantly have to do this (though good visibility for WeFollow). Hopefully, WeFollow is smart enough to automatically do this. Alternatively, it would be nice if you could add yourself to the service and update through direct messages. All that @wefollow stuff that’s going to be happening will get annoying soon enough.

Postscript: Updating your tags does not appear to update your count, I’ve just discovered. Also noteworthy is that WeFollow has its own top Twitterers list that differs from the long-standing Twitterholic list. Both things make me more certain that WeFollow plans to run some type of automated rechecking. so that its “top” list is an attraction, as well. Also see related commentary now on Techmeme.

Meanwhile, what if you tag yourself in more than three categories, as @mattcutts tried:

@wefollow #tech #web #blogger #google #blogs #seo #geek #technology #internetmarketing #cats #gadgets

Doing this makes WeFollow ignore the request, as best I can tell. When I looked, Matt hadn’t shown up in ANY of these categories — yet when I reclassified another Twitter account into one of them AFTER his request, that account did show up.

Postscript 2: Correction — as noted below and by others who have twittered me, if you use more than three tags, only the last three are used by WeFollow.

Postscript 3 (Mar. 17): It looks as if the three tag limit is gone. @graywolf twittered seeing someone with more than three tags listed. I checked, and could see the person listed with more than three tags (if you click the “i” info button next to a person, you get more details that show all the places they’re listed in WeFollow. I then tried the same for myself, sending in more than three tags, and I showed up in all the places I indicated except the last (11 of 12, so 11 is probably the new limit). However, the Info button for me still only listed three places (which might be a bug).

Postscript 4 (Mar 19): Various people have reported that WeFollow is back to using only three tags again.

A Big Roundup Of Link Building Tools

Debra Mastaler — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 14:00:00 +0000

Ask any link builder what link issues they’re consistently asked about and one of them will be linking tools. Link building is such a time consuming and detailed process that it’s only natural people look for tools and techniques to maximize their time. Those who spend a lot of time link building are familiar with standard linking tools, but a number of non-commercial tools, resource sites, and “find me” tricks aren’t as well known. Below, some tools and resources you may not know about that can streamline your link building campaigns.

When to use each tool

While linking tactics vary, each relies on a sole point to be successful: you need lots of links from quality sites in order to rank well and build brand. This means that a big part of the link building process is finding the best sites to request links from and being notified when new opportunities present themselves. You can’t go after a site or watch a resource if you don’t know about it. Search engines alone don’t always provide the information or leads we need to find the best link partners, and that’s where using good tools can help.

Tools help in the research phase of link building but I don’t recommend them much beyond that. Some of the commercial applications offer email templates for mass mailings or assistance in creating link directories, but it’s best to avoid those types of tactics. Automatic form-filling tools like RoboForm are a definite plus and extremely helpful in tactics such as directory submissions, but the email template thing…not so much.

Getting started

Before you start any SEO campaign, it’s a good idea to check the links on your site and make sure they’re in working order. Broken links frustrate people and drive them away from your site. Don’t belittle your content with broken links or poor navigation.

Xenu’s Link Sleuth ^(TM) checks for broken links and verifies “normal” links, images, frames, plug-ins, backgrounds, local image maps, style sheets, scripts, and java applets. Link Valet does the same but doesn’t require download. Both are very fast and run an easy to read report.

Authority Links

After determining which set of keyword terms you’ll target, most link building campaigns begin by looking at the competition’s backlinks for leads and well-ranked sites. We’re after sites that rank well in multiple engines and link to the competition. To locate sites ranking well on more than one engine, you can try The Langreiter Tool or GoogeGuy.de. Both compare the top 100 results for a keyword term on Google and Yahoo!

To locate URLs with links to related authority websites, use Hub Finder. This tool uses Yahoo! but can also check Google if you have an API key.

Once you have a list of authority sites to mine and analyze for backlinks, several tools will pull and collate backlink data based on the number of inbound links, the anchors being used, PageRank, and outbound link counts.

Link Harvester provides all of the above, along with unique linking domains, their IP addresses/unique c blocks, plus info on .gov, .mil, or .edu domains linking.

Backlink Analyzer is the most thorough non-commercial backlink checker available. It grabs data from all three engines, exports to a spreadsheet, and provides excellent anchor text analysis and outbound link data in addition to providing the information Link Harvester includes. Note that it requires an API key for Google results.

Both SEO Link Analysis and Link Diagnosis are Firefox extensions that gather PageRank information, the anchor text used on the link, and nofollow status.

Once you’ve spent time analyzing backlinks, you’ll start to see linking patterns and similar sites in what you’re mining. Pull URLs that both link to competitor sites and are authoritative pages, as well as those showing high PageRank scores/low outbound link counts and add them to a spreadsheet. From this point you’ll want to do a little background check to see how long they’ve been online and what kind of company they keep.

Domain Age Tool provides the calendar age of a site as well as a thematic snapshot of the site when first launched. It’s great for checking if a domain has been resold for PageRank.

Bad Neighborhood Tool scans links on your website plus the pages your website is linking to. This can be particularly helpful in determining if the sites you’re linking to have less than desirable inbound links. Remember – you don’t control who links to you, but you’re in total control of your outbounds links. Be sure the site you’re linking to is as conscientious as you are.

Utility Linking

Utility linking tools SoloSEO and BackLink Builder find sites that host your keywords plus utility search phrases such as “submit site” and “add link.” They also return directories, article directories, and forums in a niche. Both tools make it much easier to find thematic sites to add your links to without having to do individual searches constantly. Even with the tools, this linking tactic is time consuming but worth it. Budget time to do a handful of terms a day and you’ll see results.

Niche Linking

Resource sites such as Directory Big Boards (database of forums), ISEDB (niche directories), and Blog Catalog are constantly updated resources of blogs/sites that can be mined for links.

Instead of regularly taking time to search for new leads in these resources and other mega directories like them, set up alerts to bring new additions to you. Sites like BotABlog and Blogarithm can be used to send alerts to you (via email) each time a new site is added to a directory resource. When a new directory/resource is added, you get an email and can add your site before the masses do. Let the bots work while you sleep.

Social media tools

Shareholic allows you to select any webpage you’re on and send it to your favorite bookmarking and social news site. It also has an added feature of being able to tell (with a right click) how many people saved or ‘dugg’ the page you’re on. This little time saver helps boost your authority by developing your presence on the bookmarking/social news sites and helps you find popular and high traffic media sites and blogs.

A couple of other fun social media tools that help you locate sites being talked about are What’s the Buzz and Social Alerter. Both help find popular on-topic sites you can participate in and ask for links.

Yesterday on Twitter problogger posted a URL to a new WordPress plugin called Increase Sociability that senses when people are coming to your blog from Digg and Stumbleupon and encourages them to vote up your blog post. I haven’t used this, but I did send the tool to a couple of savvy social media people and early reports are good. More traffic may lead to more links, and who doesn’t want that?

And finally…

It would be remiss to do an article on linking tools and not mention Marketleap. They’ve been around forever and provide an easy way to compare general backlink results at a glance. I still use it every time I link.

No matter what type of link building you do, it all starts with research. Some of these tools will help determine a site’s “worthiness” and others act as your eyes and ears. No matter which one you use, any of the tools outlined will help in your linking efforts and make the tedious job of hunting for partner sites easier while not costing you a dime.