Let go of the wire: Why you have to stop link building
1. LET GO OF THE WIRE
BLOW UP THE LINK BUILDING
Ian Lurie
@portentint
ian@portent.com
This is an annotated version of
the presentation I gave at
Distilled’s SEO Meetup in
September of 2012.
2. I always create a link bundle to
go with presentations. You can
check it out here.
PORTENT.CO/DISTNAR
(Yes, use .co, not .com)
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5. When I rewired my first house, I
grabbed what I thought was a
ground. It gave me a shock.
Unlike laboratory animals, I
didn’t learn from that, and
grabbed the wire 4 more times.
Hey, stupid:
Do not touch
Especially you, Ian
Sigh.
6. But SEOs are doing the same thing, and have been
for years. Going back before even the Florida
update, Google’s hammered site owners who tried
to rank through link spam.
Let’s build links
Google says any form of link acquisition could be
spam. But we keep trying to ‘acquire’ links.
We grab the wire again, and again, and again.
Bzzzzt
Let’s build links
Bzzzzt
Let’s build links
Bzzzzt
8. I really do mean this in a nice way. ‘We’ includes
SEOs, clients who believe link building is a good
long-term strategy, pundits who recommend it, and
me. Why do we keep doing this?!
ARE WE ALL IDIOTS?!
9. I suspect link building is now Google’s favorite
drinking game. Every time an SEO mentions it or
tries another harebrained scheme to ‘fool’ Google,
someone at the big G gets a free beer.
They get lots to drink there.
LINK BUILDING
G O O G L E ’ S FAVO R I T E D R I N K I N G G A M E
10. Of course, the moment guest posts became trendy,
we turned those into spam, too. Bzzt.
“
11. Or, how about this. A link exchange?! In 2012?!!!
Bzzt.
“
12. The best analogy I can think of is the old days of
PR. We’d contact journalists to let them know why
our client’s story would matter to the journalist’s
readers.
If we’d done PR the way we now do link building,
we’d call journalists and say:
“
can you write about
Hi,
my client so he can sell
more stuff?”
It’s nuts. Note that I’m not saying ‘Artificial link
building never works!’ Of course it can work. It just
doesn’t work consistently, or permanently. And the
wake-up call can be a nasty one for a business
dependent on Google traffic.
13. CONTENT MARKETING
But wait! It gets better! Now we have ‘content
marketing.’ It’s all the rage. Marketers everywhere
push it as a new strategy that can get you rankings.
14. CONTENT MARKETING
A G R E AT WAY TO S E L L M O R E B O O KS
What it really is is a trendy term that doesn’t mean
much. Mentioning ‘Content Marketing’ may get
folks to read a blog post or buy your book. It’s not
a strategy. It’s not even a tactic, the way most
marketers define it.
15. I WROTE ALL THIS STUFF
So now, marketers and site owners say, “I wrote all
this stuff…”
16. …And by ‘stuff’ they mean 5+ articles for
$100 or less, each, with specific keyword
densities. aka: Crap
18. LET GO OF THE WIRE
STOP IT. Let go of the damned wire. Stop looking for easy solutions
to authority-building. ‘Cranking out’ crappy content won’t do it.
Neither will buying, begging for or otherwise artificially acquiring
links.
Understand this: THERE ARE NO EASY SOLUTIONS. Acquiring links
in such a way that Google won’t quickly detect it isn’t easy. Nor is
successful content spam.
You’re better off focusing on marketing.
19. LET GO OF THE WIRE
Stop grabbing the wire.
Rant: The truth is, we keep grabbing the wire – we’re not clinging to
it. We just keep grabbing it and getting shocked, again and again.
20. Create marketable content
Don’t build a marketing strategy around ‘cranking out’ content. Build
your strategy around creating marketable content. That means good
stuff.
This isn’t the focus of this talk, so I’m not going to go into more
details. Hopefully you know the difference between marketable
content and total dreck.
21. Build authority
through conversion
THIS is what I’m talking about tonight: Build authority by starting
with the assumption that everyone converts in some way. Every
visitor to your site should read something, or share it, or ‘like’ it, or
subscribe to your blog/newsletter, or request info, or buy…
Everyone converts, somehow. That’s the goal.
23. MARKET YOUR CONTENT
(This is content marketing)
CONTENT MARKETING: Building authority for your site
and your brand by creating & promoting fantastic
content.
NOT CONTENT MARKETING: Writing one 500-word
blog post per day, for as little money as possible, then
announcing it to my 10 Twitter followers.
27. OH C'MON IAN,
REAL BRANDS
DON'T DO THAT.
First thing I hear when I talk about this kind of marketing
is ‘Real brands don’t do that’. Oh no?
28. USA Network created their ‘Ask a Spy’ series: Free, short
videos you could watch on YouTube or on the USA web
site. The goal? Promote the show Burn Notice.
29. They promoted the heck out of these videos, with
commercials, PPC ads, etc..
30. I don’t know what the results were, but the show is going
on its 4th season and has a solid following.
31. How about a knitting company running a PPC ad for
their free patterns? Why advertise free content?
Because they’re doing CONTENT MARKETING.s
33. THE PROCESS
The process:
1. Create great, free content so good
that it’s a service in itself.
2. Promote it.
3. Convert readers into fans into
customers.
Lots of people talk about #1 and #3. I’m
going to show you some tools and tactics
for #2.
34. OUTBRAIN
Outbrain: A service that lets you place
links to your content in an ad widget they
put on major sites, like Slate. You pay by
the click. The links are not crawlable, so no
Google TOS problems.
36. IMPORTANT
NOTE: I’m not suggesting you write crap
and then spend $9999 getting visitors to
it. I am suggesting that you have a lot of
competitors, and waiting for organic
traffic to something you slaved away at
writing for a week may lead to indigestion.
Paid advertising is a great way to give
great new content a boost.
37. Once you do that, you need to see if it’s
working. That means looking at content
effectiveness.
TEST YOUR CONTENT
38. Sigh. My bounce rate is ridiculous… MEH MEH GAH!
This report shows traffic from the
OutBrain network, and whether it’s doing
anything for me. If I was tracking goals like
subscriptions and sales, I could look at
that, too. In this case, I was sloppy, so all I
get is visito duration and bounce rate.
39. HMMMM. I’LL KEEP TESTING THESE.
These two titles aren’t doing all that bad.
41. Portent.com/reading-time.htm
And, for that top article, I need to see how
long it SHOULD take to read. We built a
quick little tool that lets you evaluate
reading time and grade level. Here’s the
report on that article.
2:37 to read. So an average time-on-page
of :24 is pretty awful.
44. REFINE THE CAMPAIGN
NONE of this means you give up!!!!
Instead, look at where traffic’s coming
from.
45. In Outbrain, I can turn off articles that
aren’t performing. So I took the worst
performers from my content report and
remove them from the stream.
47. 5% RESHARES
(so far)
And generated a 5% RESHARE RATE
through Google+, Twitter and Facebook.
Every reshare helps build site authority
and rankings, AND increases the chances
someone will link to that page.
So this is a win, to say the least.
48. STUMBLEUPON PAID DISCOVERY
Stumbleupon has an amazing advertising
program called ‘paid discovery’. You pay a
per-Stumble fee to have your content
inserted into the stream for relevant
readers.
55. …and got huge re-shares, which let to 129
simultaneous visitors on Portent.com for a
few hours. Whoa.
56. Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit
Outbrain and Stumbleupon are just the
start. Do the same thing on Facebook,
LinkedIn and other sites.
But do it smart. Remember…
57. EVERYONE CONVERTS
Everyone converts. If you’re not getting
conversion, you may not be targeting the
right content, or the best audience, or
something else.
58. And NEVER quit. EVER. Marketing is equal
parts creative genius and pure pig-headed
stubborness. Make sure you use both.
DON’T QUIT
THIS
59. CLOSE THE LOOP
Sometimes, seeing your great content
once isn’t enough. So you need to close
the loop by showing readers the same
stuff a few times.
61. Outbrain Visit Pixel
Facebook
In this example, a reader sees your article
for the first time via Outbrain. Then they
Ad
go to Facebook. Because Facebook
Exchange retargeting uses Outbrain data,
we can show that person an ad for the
same content again.
Share/Like
If they come back, they’re even more likely
to re-share.
62. FACEBOOK CUSTOM AUDIENCES
You can also build and target Facebook
campaigns based on your ‘house’ e-mail
list. That’s even better targeting. These
people already like you. They just need a
gentle reminder that your stuff is there.
66. Can you even
prove it works?
Of course, someone will ask if I can prove
this works. I wonder why? When the same
person spent $500,000 on TV ads, or
$25,000 on a print ad, or $5,000 on a
Yellow Pages ad, did they demand that
level of measurement? Nope.
But anyway…
67. TOO MUCH NOISE
There’s too much noise to know for certain
when someone links/re-shares content
because of a paid campaign.
The ‘noise’ in this case includes clicks from
social networks in the normal course of
business, visits from organic search
bolstered by the brand reinforcement of
previous content marketing, etc.
69. Here’s a quick case study. I posted this
article, then promoted it the ways I’ve
talked about in this presentation.
70. That got me 195 links to this page. 18 from
unique domains. Including one link from
Reddit. I spent $200 promoting it.
IS THAT WORTH $200?!!! HELL YES.
71. ON AVERAGE WE SEE AN
INCREASE OF 2-3 LINKS ABOVE
NORMAL ACQUISITION PER 3000
PURCHASED PAGEVIEWS ON
STUMBLEUPON.
72. $9/LINK
On average, campaigns like this cost $9/
link. Pricing by the link is a little silly, since
social shares matter too, and link value is
so inconsistent. But people insist, so there
you have it.
I dare you to find a less-expensive way to
acquire authority this fast.
74. EVERYONE CONVERTS
Plus, you’re getting more than just ranking
authority. You’re getting real brand
authority, because potential customers/
clients learn how much you know,
subscribe to your newsletter and come a
step closer to full conversion.
75. i dunno, ian. Isn't
there an easier,
faster way to do
this?
76. THE SHORT CUT
Of course there is! It’s
much less work if you…
78. Or just search for ‘buy links’
and then go buy some.
No one at Google WILL EVER
SUSPECT A THING.
cough
79. Let’s build links
Bzzzzt
Let’s build links
Bzzzzt
Let’s build links
In other words, you can
just keep grabbing the
wire.
Bzzzzt
The problem, of course,
is that you’ll continue
to get shocked.
80. CHANGE THE CONVERSATION
Instead, I suggest we change the entire
conversation. Talk about smart
marketing and authority building. Talk
about diversified strategies. Help
people test results. Never use the
phrase ‘crank out’.
Accept a different definition of ‘content
marketing’.
81. Questions? Catch me on Twitter or
Google Plus.
Me:
@portentint
plus.google.com/+IanLurie