Link Building and Content Marketing: How They Work Together SMX Sydney 2015 Presentation Benj Arriola, Internet Marketing Inc. Check the other presentations Benj presented at SMX Sydney 2015. Visit: http://bit.ly/smxsydney2015

2. Benj Arriola
Work
Global SEO Architect
/ SEO VP
Internet Marketing Inc.
Speaker
SMX, Pubcon, IRCE,
OMS, eMA, EmMeCon,
SEMCon, MORCon, and
more!
Experience
SEO: 11 years
Web Design &
Development: Since 1997
Before 1997
Chemist
Industry / Laboratory
Professor
IT Instructor
Competitor
Winner of several SEO
contest winning cash and a
brand new car in the 2007
SEO World Championship
It’s my first
time in Sydney!

3. Link Building Vs. Content Marketing
What some SEOs are saying:
Link building is out. It’s dead,
content marketing is in.
Content marketing has nothing
to do with link building.
Link building still works! With
or without content marketing.
Link building is content
marketing. Content marketing
is link building.

4. The Main Reason Why We Are Talking About This
Your links look
like some
spammy SEO
guy made it.
I’m bored
reading your
mediocre
content.

5. Are Links Still Important?
Links are like votes of:
Credibility
Trust
Authority
But links should be natural
As long as they are natural,
they are generally good. They are
definitely still important.

6. Goals
Link Building
Gain more links
Gain good quality links
Gain natural links
Scale the Process
Content Marketing
Social Shares
Gain Links
Brand
Engagement
Loyalty
Popularity / Ubiquity
Generates Demand
Conversions
Sales
Revenue / Profits

7. Which Is A Part Of Which?
Goals
Content Marketing
Gaining links is just one of the
goals of content marketing.
There are many other goals of
content marketing, not just
links.
Tactics
Link Building
Content marketing is just one
of the ways to gain links going
to a webpage.
There are many other tactics
for gaining links outside of
content marketing.

8. The Role Of Links In Great Content
Usability
SearchSocial
Content
Good Quality
Content =
Good for
Penguin and
Panda, and
Good for Users
Good Quality
Content =
Compelling to
share, viral, share
bait, link bait
Good Quality
Content = Good
link bait, natural
links. Increase
ranking.
More about this
tomorrow:
Creative Content Marketing:
From Strategy to Execution
10:45 – 11:30am

9. The Panda And Penguin Solutions Work Together
You know your
content is good
when people
talk about it &
pass it around.
Good natural links
are gained when
people pass your
good content
around.
Oversimplified Action Item:
Prevent your site from being affected by Panda & Penguin by:
(1) coming up with great content & (2) doing a social promotion.

10. Backlink Factor Metrics
Quantity Quality

11. Quantity Quality
Backlink Factor Metrics
Quantity
Google Webmaster Tools
Bing Webmaster Tools
Search Engine “link:”
command
Majestic
Moz OpenSiteExplorer
aHrefs
Sistrix
Link Research Tools
SEMRush
Unmeasurable Dimension: Relevancy
Quality (Power)
Google PageRank
# of Backlinks of the
Backlink
Total Backlinks of the
Domain
Keyword Focused
Majestic Citation Flow
Follow or No Follow
Hosting Country
Site Wide vs. Single Page
Cemper PowerTM
Quality (Authority & Trust)
TrustRank
Google Indexed
SEOMoz Page Authority
SEOMoz Domain Authority
Majestic Trust Flow
IP Diversity
Anchor Text Diversity
Deep Linking
Domain Age
Domain Name Extensions
.gov/.edu/.org
ccTLD
Cemper TrustTM
The Challenge

12. You can
change
You can't
change
You can
influence
Potential Link Sources
Evolution Of Link Building
Late 90’s, early 2000’s 2000’s to Pre-Panda &
Penguin
Post-Panda & Penguin
You can
change
You can't
change
You can
influence
Potential Link Sources
You can
change
You can't
change
You can
influence
Potential Link Sources
Bad Good
You have strong control.
You make it relevant.
You have little control.
Hopefully it is relevant.
“Influence others to link” makes link building part of earned media.
To earn trust, credibility & authority, needs quality content.

13. You can
change
You can't
change
You can
influence
Potential Link Sources
Late 90’s, early 2000’s 2000’s to Pre-Panda &
Penguin
You can
change
You can't
change
You can
influence
Potential Link Sources
You have strong control.
You make it relevant.
Evolution Of Link Building
Post-Panda & Penguin
You can
change
You can't
change
You can
influence
Potential Link Sources
Bad GoodThe links with the largest
benefit is a smaller subset of
all sites you influence.
Very Relevant
You have little control.
Hopefully it is relevant.

14. Obsolete Link Building Practices
Early days of link building (~ late 90’s)
Link farms
Doorway pages, multiple websites
Unmoderated pages: forums, guestbooks.
Link Building Improvements
(~2000-2005)
Submissions: Directories, Articles for relevancy.
Content: Blog Networks for better relevancy.
Interactions: More natural postings on Blog
Comments, Forums and Wiki Entries
Themes/Template, Tools/Widgets
Link Buying, Link Exchange
RSS Syndication
Pre-Penguin Days (~2006-2010)
Blogging Networks
Guest Blogging
Press Releases
Paid Links (Including .edu links)
Link Wheels
Automated Article Spinning & Posting
Link Building Today
Content Marketing
aka Inbound Marketing, Viral Marketing, Link
Baiting, Buzz Marketing, Earned Media Marketing
Quality Content
Promotion

15. Obsolete Link Building Practices
Early days of link building (~ late 90’s)
Link farms
Doorway pages, multiple websites
Unmoderated pages: forums, guestbooks.
Link Building Improvements
(~2000-2005)
Submissions: Directories, Articles for relevancy.
Content: Blog Networks for better relevancy.
Interactions: More natural postings on Blog
Comments, Forums and Wiki Entries
Themes/Template, Tools/Widgets
Link Buying, Link Exchange
RSS Syndication
Pre-Penguin Days (~2006-2010)
Blogging Networks
Guest Blogging
Press Releases
Paid Links (Including .edu links)
Link Wheels
Automated Article Spinning & Posting
Link Building Today
Content Marketing
aka Inbound Marketing, Viral Marketing, Link
Baiting, Buzz Marketing, Earned Media Marketing
Quality Content
Promotion
This is a large blog network: Autoblog,
games.com, winamp, Huffpost Money,
Huffinton Post, Huffpost Celebrity,
Huffpost Politics, Huff post TV. Stylelist,
AOL, Techcrunch, Engadget,
MMAFighting.com, SB Nation, and tons
more.
• They are all good quality.
• All can stand on their own.
• All were not just created for links.
• They all get a good amount of natural
links themselves.

16. Obsolete Link Building Practices
Early days of link building (~ late 90’s)
Link farms
Doorway pages, multiple websites
Unmoderated pages: forums, guestbooks.
Link Building Improvements
(~2000-2005)
Submissions: Directories, Articles for relevancy.
Content: Blog Networks for better relevancy.
Interactions: More natural postings on Blog
Comments, Forums and Wiki Entries
Themes/Template, Tools/Widgets
Link Buying, Link Exchange
RSS Syndication
Pre-Penguin Days (~2006-2010)
Blogging Networks
Guest Blogging
Press Releases
Paid Links (Including .edu links)
Link Wheels
Automated Article Spinning & Posting
Link Building Today
Content Marketing
aka Inbound Marketing, Viral Marketing, Link
Baiting, Buzz Marketing, Earned Media Marketing
Quality Content
Promotion
Matt Cutt’s told us to stick a fork in guest
blogging. But taking a look at the authors
on Huffpost, Mashable, Buzzfeed, some
of the authors are pitched contributors.
They are essentially guest blog posters.
• The post is good quality.
• The site is a good quality site,
authoritative and credible.
• The sites were not just created for
links, and the post was not created
solely for links.

17. Obsolete Link Building Practices
Early days of link building (~ late 90’s)
Link farms
Doorway pages, multiple websites
Unmoderated pages: forums, guestbooks.
Link Building Improvements
(~2000-2005)
Submissions: Directories, Articles for relevancy.
Content: Blog Networks for better relevancy.
Interactions: More natural postings on Blog
Comments, Forums and Wiki Entries
Themes/Template, Tools/Widgets
Link Buying, Link Exchange
RSS Syndication
Pre-Penguin Days (~2006-2010)
Blogging Networks
Guest Blogging
Press Releases
Paid Links (Including .edu links)
Link Wheels
Automated Article Spinning & Posting
Link Building Today
Content Marketing
aka Inbound Marketing, Viral Marketing, Link
Baiting, Buzz Marketing, Earned Media Marketing
Quality Content
Promotion
Matt Cutt’s once said, links from news sites
should be treated like nofollow links.
Additionally, news articles are all duplicate
content.
But news articles can also get on high traffic sites
with a lot of visitors.
• Make the articles newsworthy for better
distribution.
• Do not just go after the link to get a link. Go
after the promotion of a content piece on
your website that may gain new natural links.

18. Content Marketing Evolution
Didn’t change that much
Copywriters, PR writers,
newspaper writers, have been
doing this for years.
The only thing that changed was SEO
people are trying to do it more and
more these days.
Content marketing may also be
loosely known as:
Link baiting
Inbound Marketing
Buzz Marketing
Viral Marketing
Earned Media Marketing
Content Marketing is not just
PR Distribution
Mat Release
Article Distribution
Guest Blogging

19. Content Marketing Is Not Just Writing An Article
Ideation Creation Promotion
Many forms of content marketing
Blog Post, Infographics, Kinetic Typography,
Explainer Videos, Interactive Pages, Online
Tools, eBooks, Slideshares, Whitepapers and
more!
Or in any combination of the above.
More about this
tomorrow:
Creative Content Marketing:
From Strategy to Execution
10:45 – 11:30am

20. Is There Link Building That Is Not Content Marketing?
Tactics that may still work if done
correctly
Blogging Networks
Guest Post
Press Releases
Partners, Dealers, Distributors,
Affiliates, Memberships, Donations
Forums
Blog Comments
Q & A
Wiki Entries
Niche Directories
Intent
The intent is not to get a link.
The intent is to reach your
targeted audience.
Shares the same interest
Passionate in the topic
Has a strong following
Is an authority on the topic

21. Is There Content Marketing That Is Not Link Building?
What we measure in
content marketing
If you are doing
content marketing for
links alone, you might
be doing it wrong.
Conversions
Traffic
Links
Engagement
Social Activity

22. Bad Old Links Made Years Ago

23. Some Say: That’s BS! My Spammy Methods Still Work!
Early days of link building (~ late 90’s)
Link farms
Doorway pages, multiple websites
Unmoderated pages: forums, guestbooks.
Link Building Improvements
(~2000-2005)
Submissions: Directories, Articles for relevancy.
Content: Blog Networks for better relevancy.
Interactions: More natural postings on Blog
Comments, Forums and Wiki Entries
Themes/Template, Tools/Widgets
Link Buying, Link Exchange
RSS Syndication
Pre-Penguin Days (~2006-2010)
Blogging Networks
Guest Blogging
Press Releases
Paid Links (Including .edu links)
Link Wheels
Automated Article Spinning & Posting
Link Building Today
Content Marketing
aka Inbound Marketing, Viral Marketing, Link
Baiting, Buzz Marketing, Earned Media Marketing
Quality Content
Promotion
Spammy old link building methods
may still appear to work when:
Spammy Industry
Even if your links are bad, all your competitors are bad, Google still has to choose who
becomes #1 based on all the other ranking factors.
Very Non-Competitive Industry
You are in an industry that almost no one targets at all.
You Actually Have Very Good Links
You have may good natural links and they are over-powering the bad links, but you
think it is the spammy ones that are helping you.
You are Measuring Success Wrong
You think you are doing good, but you are really doing bad, but is just looking at the
wrong things.

24. How do I make that awesome content?

25. Thanks
Question?
My Main Takeaways
Content Marketing
Involves ideation, creation and promotion.
Create great awesome content that users would link to
naturally.
The goals of content marketing is not to get links alone, but
also gain some traffic, engagement , conversions.
Link Building
Many methods in the past don’t work anymore.
Some may still do, if done properly, where the intent is to
reach your target audience and promotion your content
than interacting just to get a link.