SEO Column

I’ve often spoken about different link-building strategies. Generally, we can break them down into two categories: chasing links vs. link baiting (letting them chase you). Both methods have their pros and cons, and I’ve found that a mixed approach of link acquisition and link baiting is the best method.  I’m going to talk  about how each works and the best startegy to use. Whether you are a link chaser or the one who chases, both strategies are important to any link building campaign.

The Thrill of the Chase

Chasing links is the traditional way of building links. This includes things like submitting your site to directories, creating press releases, submitting articles and comments with your site link and anchor text, and other strategies. While it’s the most common way to acquire links, it’s also the most time-consuming, labor-intensive approach. But who is going to disparage a tried and true technique with results?

Step 1: Identifying link targets. First off it’s important to consider and research the links that are most valuable to your site. One way to do this is to look through search engine results to see the top spots for your keywords, and attempting to acquire links from those sites. Another way is to look at your competitors and see what links they are getting (Yahoo Site Explorer is great for this). Personally, I like the latter method because you know that if your competitor obtained a link, surely you can too.

Step 2: Categorize your target sites. There are different kinds of sites and each will require a unique approach, so you should look at where the most valuable links are coming from. Are they from blogs or news items? From link directories or review sites? By understanding the kinds of links you’re after, you can nail down your approach and employ specific strategies.

Step 3: Approaching the link target. As with any chase, approaching the target deftly and surely is of great importance. Press releases, for instance, have a particular format and style. Your success rate will be higher if you follow the guidelines and focus on a specific, newsworthy idea. Link directories also have their own rules and guidelines. Read them carefully and make certain you meet the qualifications before submitting. (Notice that I am assuming that the directory will review your site. That’s because a directory without an editorial board, one that lets every site in, probably isn’t worth your time as it will be demoted by search engines, either now or sometime soon.) Some blogs accept paid reviews, but probably the best ones won’t. Study what authority sites are already linking to so that you have the right idea of what to present them with. Always get the right contact information, an email address or phone number, and do things in an individual, personal, and personable manner. The chase of link building is a refined art!

Pros

Chasing after links allows you to be more selective and gives you greater control over your link structure and link text. It’s going to be naturally high quality and diverse.

Cons

The obvious con is the time and labor required to get the link. Chasing after links isn’t something you want to be outsourcing because it requires personal rapport. It necessitates having your own voice and building a connection with representatives of other sites. Clearly it also takes a whole lot of time and patience.

Link Exchange Caution

Sometimes when you ask for a link, the site owner or blogger wants something in return, including a link back to their site. While this is standard practice, you don’t want to get involved in too many link exchanges because it could create an artificial-looking link profile. This is especially true if you use the same keyword-rich anchor text every time. Search engines are getting better at noticing this. Get your brand name out there first, and then start with keyword anchor texts.

The Pleasure of Being Chased

A less traditional but highly effective way of getting links is doing just the opposite—getting people to link directly to you without asking. Often called link baiting, the idea is to create viral content so powerful that it attracts links. This might come in the form of a useful step-by-step guide, a widget, an online tool, or a really funny viral video. All of these call for a slightly different strategy, but it’s always a similar process. Clearly, it also requires creativity and it involves more risk, but there are experts who can help you take a good idea where it needs to go.

Step 1: Identify the influencers. Instead of link targets, we identify the influencers. These are the what Rand Fishkin calls the linkerati. They are the people who will talk about your content, include a link, and by the sheer volume of people who view their sites, you’ll get even more links. Social media sites are probably some of the best sources for influencers (Digg, StumbleUpon, Sphinn, etc.). A lot of journalists and other people interested in news go to these sites.

Step 2: Choosing your content. You must understand which kinds of content do well on those sites, but the basic idea is quite obvious. I’ve spoken before about creating content that drives emotion—stuff that is often even controversial. That’s what gets people excited and talking. Of course controversial content may not be right for your particular brand, but that doesn’t mean you can’t come up with interesting resources. Often you can look at things that have done well before and decide how you can make something better or go at it from a different angle.

Step 3: Promoting the content. Submit your content to social sites or other places where you can get exposure. Titles are very important in social media because it encourages people to read and some people vote based just on that. It’s also a good idea to begin building relationships with power users, or become one yourself—power users have more of a following on social media sites so they get more votes, increasing your chances for exposure and links. I’d like to be one myself, but I barely have enough time to blog!

Pros

When successful, a good link bait will yield a massive amount of links. Ultimately, it requires less effort and is more cost effective. People will link to you with lots of different kinds of anchor text and from many different kinds of sites, giving you a very natural link profile.

Cons

While the pros are really outstanding and hard to ignore, link baiting is more risky. You’re not guaranteed to be successful and, more than likely, it will take you a few tries to learn the ropes. The results are also unpredictable; you could get just one or two links, or hundreds. Finally, it bears mentioning that you’ll have little control over your link structure and link text. While I’ve stressed that you don’t want an artificial link structure, the point really is about ranking for specific keywords. A bunch of random traffic will get you hits, but not necessarily for the keywords you truly want.

Adjusting to both strategies

The secret to link building truly rests in finding the proper mix of both chasing links and being chased. I don’t think that link acquisition should be an either/or scenario. I recommend starting with 50/50 investment both in time and money for each type of link acquisition. Diversifying is also a sound strategy for your budget because, after all, link baiting may be cost-effective, but it’s risky. Eventually you may want to shift to something more like 80/20 for what works for you and your site. In my experience, this is inevitably viral content and link baiting, but I’d be curious to hear your thoughts.

Reputation is everything in the business world and is important to maintain. With the huge growth in people becoming antiquated with the internet and the freedom to voice their opinion, it’s important for businesses to keep their employees and customers happy.

One problem many organizations face is a former employee  who was let go for no reason or maybe not given the raise they deserve. After this happens, a sour taste towards the company is left in their mouths and they begin a smear campaign. This goes with customers as well. They experienced a problem with a product they purchased and the customer service rep could get it right for the 5th time.

Especially with the popularity of blogs, the amateurs are in full force voicing their opinion to warn others of the offending company.

Enter the SEO expert, focused on obtaining organic prominence as quickly as possible. The objective is to push the bad content as far down the SERPs as possible and, if necessary, debunk the credibility of the afflicting editorial.

Ironically the tactics we reach for in are strikingly similar to any normal SEO campaign. Competitive intelligence, content publishing, link building, taking inventory of digital assets for universal search and leveraged power of social channels are among classic tools of the trade. What differentiates crises management is the sense of urgency, pressure to perform, legal options and the obvious downside to failure. Here are 8  tips for SEO Reputation Management Success:

1. Evaluate the authority of the page on which the negative content is published. As with any SEO assignment, start by taking a look at PageRank and inbound links profile using Yahoo Site Explorer and other tools. If the offending result is not on a site’s homepage, then take a careful look at older and similar interior pages along with their archives. Google’s algorithmic regard for any page tends to accumulate over time as a result of numerous factors, known and “black box.” Therefore it’s a good idea to keep in mind that any page’s clout might increase over time. Be advised and plan accordingly. Reciprocally if the problem content is currently indexing on a blog’s homepage, the difficulty may be mitigated when the post cycles off the homepage into archives. While the post is on the homepage, its content has the full “weight” of the homepage’s authority.This won’t be the case in archive unless the post generates great links. That said many blogs’ category pages, author and date archives accumulate PageRank and you might have to wait a while for the post to cycle even deeper into to site over time. (Note: PageRank isn’t everything but it’s better to have it than not.)
2. Since some offending results violate copyright or trademark laws, a strong understanding of and willingness to utilize legal channels can be important in the SEO’s defense . Sometimes the first attempt is from our client’s law firm in the form of a cease and desist letter. Be aware of laws as pertain to protected marks and intellectual property. Certainly taking the legal route can yield results and sometimes the expense makes sense. Our legal team has scared many an idiot off our client’s back. Some rouges just don’t want to mess with lawyers and can be “encouraged” to take down their problem content.On the other hand be a realist. Some insolent jerk halfway around the world won’t give a rat’s ass about your attorney’s saber rattling. Sometimes firing legal missals can even result in your opponent digging in their heals with an intransigent disregard for reality.When nasty search engine results stem from social media channels, it can be impossible to locate the villain let alone engage them legally. Social site moderators often couldn’t care less because they thrive on the passionate engagement which surrounds controversy. StumbleUpon (eBay) is the worst as they are nearly completely unwilling to enforce Terms of Services as pertain to abusive “troll” users.
3. Determine the likelihood that the substance of proposed defensive content will further provoke and backfire virally. We find it’s best if newly created content and subsequent promotional activity do not appear to be directly related to the problem we’re competing with. “Instead, create defensive content that builds on strengths of your business to contradict the negatives raised by a bad editorial. Build your content to outrank the offending material.Though we never take directly refuting offensive results off the table fully, one needs to be extremely careful. We don’t want 5 other bloggers to rally behind their friend and take up a damaging cause they hadn’t even noticed before.
4. Unless you’re an expert, talk to a professional before engaging directly in social channels surrounding the problem results.  There are very few instances when taking a step back and counting to 10 will negatively impact the end result of defensive activities. If you’re not a regular contributor in a specific social media channel, learning the vernacular while under duress is not the best choice.
5. If direct engagement in social channels makes sense, attempt to earn the provocateurs respect by your response. Every disaster is an opportunity in the making and vice versa.
6. Take the high road over and over. Then take the high road again. If that doesn’t work…you can always nuke em’. There are white hat methods and other, ummmm, not-white hat methods available to “eliminate” the problem. Given recent furor over public discussion of non-basic SEO tactics you’ll have to contact me directly to discuss the options further.
7. Consider paid search as a stopgap and/or ongoing strategy. When weighing the cost of PPC to circumvent damaging organic results, paid search is often an attractive “lesser of all evils’ option, especially in the short term while waiting for other solutions to come online. Google’s content network, in the hands of a site-targeting expert, can be a highly effective channel-especially when clarifying or refuting mainstream damage in news, niche’ and social channels.
8. Get back to SEO basics. The best defense is a good offense.  It didn’t make sense at first because the offensive result was on a PR zero site with little authority.

With the rampant proliferation of user-generated content, the opportunity for disgruntled malcontents to damage your firm’s reputation increases everyday. Make sure to evaluate the extent of the problem, consider legal options, and stay within your comfort zone. Take the high road whenever possible, treat your opponent with respect and consider paid search as a stopgap or ongoing prophylactic measure.

Above all, remember that when talking about reputation management in the organic SERPs, you’re talking on-demand SEO. The best defense is a robust offense so make sure the strength of your site’s optimization makes it harder for anyone to even get on the SERPs for direct brand search. Finally, don’t make things worse by biting off more than you can chew. Engage an expert instead.

Before starting your SEO strategy, it is important to first know who your online competitors are and what kind of online marketing tactics they are already engaging in. You will want to take some time to research and analyze your competitors to gain intelligence and hopefully stay one step ahead of them.

Here are some guidelines and questions to consider while performing research on the Internet about your competitors:

Website Design and Layout

Are your competitors using a search engine friendly Web design, like a basic HTML or ASP site?

• Are they using JavaScript, a dynamically-driven site, frames, or tables that will prevent search engines from properly indexing their sites?

• Are any Web sites built entirely in flash?

• Are their sites easy to navigate with a professional look and feel by using the same font styles and sizes and similar color schemes throughout?

• How heavily are the graphics on the Web site?

• How many Web pages total does each of your competitors have on their site? Does your site need improvement on the amount of content-rich Web pages you have?

• Does the entire Web site focus on one central theme alone?

Placement of Keywords

• Where are your competitors using their chosen keywords? The META title tag? The META description tag? The META keywords tag? In ALT tags? What about in link text and headline tags? The page URL? Image names?

• How often do those keywords appear on each Web page?

• Where does each of their keywords first appear on the pages of each of your competitors sites?

• Are they achieving good rankings for their chosen keywords online in Google, MSN and Yahoo!?

• What is the keyword weight and density of the entire content of your competitors’ pages? Are they keyword spamming?

• What are their chosen keywords being targeted on their sites? Are they single words or long-tail keywords with 3, 4 or even 5 keyword phrases?

Off Page Factors

• Check your competitors Alexa.com and Compete.com traffic rank and compare with yours. Do they receive more or less Web traffic to their sites?

• What is their Google PageRank? Again, is it higher or lower than yours?

• Go to a reputable link popularity checker online and compare the number of incoming links your site has versus your competitors. How much improvement in link building, if any, does your site need to effectively compete online?

• What types of incoming links are they receiving, how top quality are these links, and how much traffic does a link from these sites generate for your competitors each month?

• Are any of your competitors registered with any popular link directories, like dmoz.org, Yahoo! Directory, Business.com or other similar high traffic directories online?

• Do they have a sign up box for an industry email newsletter on their sites?

Use of Spamming Techniques

• Is the competitor’s site using any spam or unethical search engine practices? If so, what are they?

• Do any of these sites have doorway or gateway pages?

• Do they have same color text on a same color background?

• Are they blatantly keyword spamming?

• Are these sites publicly listed or affiliated with gambling or adult-oriented sites?

Yes, these are basics for you advanced guys out there, but take a look at this list again and think of the couple of tactics you don’t look at on a regular basis. Ah, yes we may have studied all of these tactics but not using them regularly may give missed opportunities in the long run.

Google continues its host of  updates to its Analytics product by unveiling helpful new features.  Google focused it’s new features on enterprise level clients.

Google’s intent was to add more flexibility into the reporting so that users have the ability to see data which ever they want.  Below is a summary of updates:

They are (with more details below): Advanced Segmentation, Custom Reports, a data export API (private beta), integrated reporting for AdSense publishers (private beta), multi-dimensional data visualizations called “Motion Charts,” and an updated user and administrative interface.

These are features that experts and enterprise-level customers demand, and they will be available and easy to use in your Google Analytics reports. Please see below for details on each new feature and the release schedule letting you know when you can expect to have access to them. Here is a screenshot showing you where in your reports you can find a few of the new features, with more screenshots, help center links, and video demos (also at this YouTube playlist) below.

Features being added to all accounts in the coming weeks:

Advanced Segmentation enables you to isolate and analyze subsets of your traffic. It is true on-the-fly segmentation of visits so that you can create powerful filters with a few mouse-clicks. Select from predefined custom segments such as “Paid Traffic” and “Visits with Conversions” or create new custom segments with a flexible, easy-to-use segment builder. Then, you can apply one or more of these segments to current or historical data, and even compare segment performance side by side in reports.

Custom Reports are reports you create, save, and edit to give you a specific view of your data. You can choose the information and metrics you want to see, organized in the way you want to see it, by using a drag and drop interface to populate an Analytics report. You can also create tabs if you want to see related data – similar to a “Goal Conversions” tab – in effect creating multiple levels of sub-reports.

Once created, each custom report is available for as long as you want it. Take a look at this quick start guide to Custom Reports and to see a demo, play this video:

Motion Charts add sophisticated multi-dimensional analysis to most Analytics reports. Select metrics for the x-axis, y-axis, bubble size, and bubble color and view how they interact over time.

By comparing metrics visually over time you can expose data relationships that would be difficult to see in traditional reports. Motion Charts will be available through a new “Visualize” button at the top of reports.

Google has made a slew of improvements within his past week such as including banner ads in search results and reading dynamic URL’s as reported last week.

One of the most important technical tools any SEO should use is the free Google Webmaster tools. This gives you a great deal of performance data to ensure Google is properly crawling and indexing your site. For those of you already familiar with the tool, you may have noticed a few improvements within the last day or so. The UI has been tweaked a bit but I noticed they removed the “date last crawled” feature in the overview section. This feature is critical to make sure Googlebot is visiting the site as often as possible. If a site hasn’t been crawled in a few weeks, changes can be made for the spiders to revisit but without knowing, myself and everyone else out there is in the dark.

That’s the downside to this update. As for the improvements, you can now use the tool to set a geographic location. Basically what this means is you can use the target tool to provide Google with information that will help determine how your site appears in Google’s country-specific search results, and also improves the search results for geographic queries. This is beneficial because once Google starts to understand your target audience, it can potentially optimize results to ensure you are reaching your intended audience. For instance I’m from a small town outside of Buffalo, NY called Angola. Well, there is a country called Angola as well which is a big geographical difference. If I create a site and all the info on the site just says, “Angola” including titles tags, meta info etc, Google is confused as to where I intent to target. Not to mention, there are most likely other Angola’s in the US. If someone goes to Google as types in “Angola” there could be numerous results in there. If I go into Webmaster tools and specify my geo-targeted location as Angola, NY, it will now that’s where my audience is. My take on this, is that it is very similar to the Adwords PPC side of things. Very similar but it’s bringing you geo-qualified traffic for free!

A few other additions are and updated to their GData API. This is for high-level programmers who can use the API key to create custom reporting functions across multiple clients. Great for an agency but again, a experience programmer is required!
Google Webmasters Blog highlights everything with a few explanations.