This presentation is from Affiliate Summit East 2014 (August 10-12, 2014 New York City). Session Description: Overview of cutting edge link building tactics. How to leverage current events & trending topics, reverse content marketing, publisher relationship building and a discussion of pitfalls to avoid.

1. Presented by:
Scott Polk
Founder - ObsidianEdge
Link Building Reboot
Hot Strategies for More Traffic

2. The Link Audit

3. The Link Audit
Reasons
• Preemptive … before you get a penalty
• Penguin … devaluing of links
• Penalty – Unnatural Link Notification
• Algorithm Update

4. The Link Audit
Penguin … devaluing of links

5. The Link Audit
Penalty – Unnatural Link Notification

6. Data Collection

7. Link Audit: Data Collection
Utilize various sources of data
• Google Webmaster Tools
• LRT (Link Research Tools)
• Ahrefs.com
• Majestic SEO
• Internal Link Acquisition Reports

8. The Link Audit: Data Analysis
Datapoints to look for
• Unique Linking Domain Count
• Links from penalized domains (PR0 – not in index)
• Links with Exact Match Anchor Text
• Sitewide Links (Footer – Sidebar)
• Links from non-relevant content
• Links from Article Directories &
• Links from Traditional Directories
• Links from same IP or C-Block
• Hidden Links within HTML
• Comment Spam (Follow & NoFollow)
• MozRank, Alexa, Domain Authority

9. Link Audit: Visual Review

10. The Link Audit: Visual Review
• Relevancy – is this site relevant to your site?
• Natural – does the link look natural?
• Location – where is the link located?

11. What is a Bad link?

12. Link Audit: What makes a bad link?
Author Bio Links

13. Link Audit: What makes a bad link?
Non-Relevant Content vs Anchor Text

14. Link Audit: What makes a bad link?
Comment Spam

15. Link Audit: What makes a bad link?
Exact Match Anchor Text

16. Link Audit: What makes a bad link?
Scraper Websites

17. Link Audit: What makes a bad link?
Scraper Websites

18. Link Audit: What makes a bad link?
Penalized Websites – not in index

19. Link Audit: What makes a bad link?
Hidden Links within HTML

20. What to look for in a good link

21. Link Audit: What makes a good link?
• Relevancy

22. Link Audit: What makes a good link?
• Natural

23. Data Action Projects

24. The Link Audit: Data Action Projects
• Link Removal Requests
– Manual vs. Automated Tools (Used automated tools to
create links? Got a penalty? Please learn from this
mistake and do not use an automated tool)
• NoFollow
– Link sending you traffic or part of brand strategy?
Affiliate Links to your site
• Disavow
– If a link cannot be removed via requests. Do not pay
to have a link removed
• Affiliate Links

25. Link removal request

26. The Link Audit: Data Action Projects
Link Removal Requests

27. Manual vs Automated Tools

28. The Link Audit: Data Action Projects
Automated Software - Link Removal Requests
• I am the owner of Google Plus 

29. The Link Audit: Data Action Projects
Disavow

30. The Link Audit: Data Action Projects
Affiliate Links
• Do NOT try to gain link equity from Paid Links
– If it is an Affiliate Link then it’s PAID
• NoFollow
• Custom Landing Pages
– Create Custom 404 error page for Affiliates to link
to and use so the link equity will not pass

31. What’s Next?
Once you have cleaned the link profile, then
submit your documentation to Google.
If under manual penalty for links, wait for
response, if it is rejected repeat process
Once clear … start on Link Acquisition

32. Link Acquisition
• Organic Outreach of content – unique
– Interviews / Thought Leadership
– In-depth Articles
• Content Marketing
– Infographics (image & interactive)
– Videos

33. Link Acquisition
Do NOT fall for these

34. Link Acquisition
Do NOT fall
for these

35. Scott Polk
Founder/ CEO
ObsidianEdge
http://ObsidianEdge.com
@scottpolk
scott@obsidianedge.com