Is creating link bait good SEO? Emphatically, yes! If it does not get links it is not link bait. If it does, then people are finding value, which is exactly what the search engines want to reward. Whether you call it white hat or ethical SEO, link bait fits the bill. But what is link bait, what makes it work and why does it fail? What Is Link Bait? Link bait is content designed from conception to go viral. The goal is to produce something so awesome your friends will share it with their friends, your friends’ friends will share it with their friends and so on. In theory, if you to cr [...]

Related Topics: All Things SEO | Features: General | How To: Links | Link Building: Linkbait

When you're trying to build as natural a backlink profile as possible, you need to carefully think about all the things that could make it look strange. If your typical link growth each month over the past 12 months has been 5 links, getting 100 will seem odd. Suddenly focusing on an incredibly bizarre long-tailed keyword in your anchor text may signal that you're using the links to up your rankings. We keep hearing about all the latest and greatest new way to build links, things we "must" do, but we don't always step back and consider what a natural link profile actually looks like as we t [...]

Related Topics: Link Building | Link Building: General | Link Building: Linkbait | Link Building: Paid Links | Link Week

I'm currently reading a novel that many people rave about, but it's not really my thing. My least favorite book ever is One Hundred Years of Solitude. I despise U2 and thought Shakespeare in Love was the most laughable piece of crap I've ever seen. I think Hall and Oates' "Private Eyes" is one of the most underrated songs ever and am really getting back into yacht rock even though I love all the indie bands I'm supposed to love as an over-the-hill former hipster. Yes, I'm cranky but I'm not alone in my grumpiness. I'm also a mess in my likes and dislikes. I previously wrote a post about [...]

Related Topics: Link Building | Link Building: General | Link Building: Linkbait | Link Week

In 1964, Marshall McLuhan proposed the idea "that media itself, not the content it carries, should be the focus of study." He said that a medium affects the society in which it plays a role not only by the content delivered over the medium, but also by the characteristics of the medium itself. He gave examples of various popular media forms of the time, describing ways in which people would react to the content presented. Back then, as hard as it is for some of you youngsters to believe, a movie was something that you watched from beginning to end. We didn't have video clips on YouTube, DVD [...]

Related Topics: Link Building | Link Building: General | Link Building: Linkbait | Link Week

Most people in the industry look at contests and incentives as branding and marketing tools. However if you are willing to get creative, you can turn a contest into a powerful link building tool that will, over time, help your organic rankings. When most marketing and advertising teams look at a contest they are looking for mass exposure, so they choose a prize that is going to have wide appeal, like an an iPod or iPhone. However as an SEO you need to look at this as an opportunity to build the anchor text you want, especially the really hard to get commercial anchor text. Want to rank for [...]

Related Topics: All Things SEO | Link Building: Linkbait