Why Doesn’t ESPN Own 538.com?

Why Doesn’t ESPN Own 538.com?

I’m (unfortunately) pretty outspoken about politics this year, as any of my friends on Facebook will tell you and most of my Twitter followers know. I’ve avoided writing about politics here so far. And I’ll continue that with the brief mention that you should have a plan for voting tomorrow. With that out of the […]

Determining the Need for Linkbuilding

Determining the Need for Linkbuilding

People often come to us and say that they want linkbuilding. I assume that this is because many people are under the understanding that SEO = linkbuilding = rankings. While there have been posts written about why this is not true, this scenario plays out again and again.

I bet this happens to you as well, if you are an SEO consultant or work in an SEO agency. Sometimes it is quite difficult to know whether or not to take them on. On the one hand, the money is nice. On the other hand, we have to do what is right for the client and not always what is right for the office bank account or personal wallet.

The goal of this post is to provide you with a framework for success when deciding whether or not to take on a client for linkbuilding. I’ll walk you through what I check before I agree to take on a client for linkbuilding, which will hopefully help you to do the same.

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Bucketing Link Prospects for Link Outreach

Bucketing Link Prospects for Link Outreach

Linkbuilding is always a hot topic within SEO, and different schools of thought exist. There’s the Throw Away Your Form Letters approach, and then there’s the school of form letters are great, just make them personalized. I did a lot of linkbuilding at my old job, and am doing some now for clients, and I prefer to take a more nuanced approach.

Different targets require different approaches. Let’s break the types of link prospects into three groups:

  • High level – these are the most important links. High quality sites.
  • Mid-level – these are valuable sites, but maybe not as hard to get.
  • Low-level – when you need mass.

Let’s examine the different approaches required for each.
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Google’s Hidden Author Search (plus Bookmarklet and Video)

Google’s Hidden Author Search (plus Bookmarklet and Video)

Google has an author search. Did you know that? We’ve been talking about author authority for some months now, and in earnest for about the past five or six. When rel=author was announced back in June, the SEO world went nutso talking about “SEO is dead” and “The Era of Linkbuilding is Over” and “We all have to go in-house now” and all sorts of craziness.

Read more about Google’s Hidden Author Search (plus Bookmarklet and Video)

15 Linkbuilding ProTips

15 Linkbuilding ProTips

Recently at our Distilled-a-thon in London, Phil Nottingham decided that he was going to ship some pro-tip videos, which are short videos of under a minute in length, where we gave away some actionable soundbites. We have a lot of really smart people in Distilled, so I decided to go watch them for myself.

HOLY MOLY. The content on our Distilled Youtube page is amazing, with tips being given by everyone from our CEO (Duncan) to our PR Exec (Lexi) and many others, including Analysts and Consultants who are stuck in every day moving the needle for their clients. Watch and learn! Read more about 15 Linkbuilding ProTips

Retargeting Old Contacts for New Links

Retargeting Old Contacts for New Links

Today I want to talk about a simple tactic that you should try if you have been working on linkbuilding for a specific site for a while and have had some blog posts written about your site, without links. The Skinny At my old job, my coworker had been working on building links to the […]

Using Scraper Sites to Build Links

Using Scraper Sites to Build Links

  The Internet is a dodgy place. There is a lot of bad information and people get things wrong. Also, there are a lot of bad people on the Internet who want to profit from your hard work. I’m talking about scraper sites. A lot of top sites and blogs get scraped and copied every […]

Link Prospecting with Twitter Tools and APIs

Link Prospecting with Twitter Tools and APIs

Most linkbuilders constantly hunt for new ways to find new link prospects for their clients. Many of us use tools like SEOmoz, Ontolo, Buzzstream, and others to find new search queries. Sometimes, though, we have to think creatively, outside the box, to gather prospects that no one else has leveraged yet. One such way is […]