CEO Post: Types of Link Building w/pros and cons

Jim Boykin
Jim Boykin
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Posted On:
June 2, 2009
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ok…I know… kinda cheap for me to make post #2 a CEO post with a pitch at the end of it….but it’s what my writing ended up with.. (when I started writing I didn’t know where it would end up…that’s how I write… for those who aren’t familiar with my writing, I tend to write as a stream of consciousness…with lots of 3 dots while I’m thinking…

I’ll tell ya what, since you’re here, I’ll start with a little off topic fun quiz for you. The homepage of Google has 28 links on it. 1 of those links goes to another site… can you name the other site?
(for the answer, click on the “more” drop down that has the hidden links in it).

Ok..where were we..the CEO Post…The types of link building with pros and cons… and of course, the last choice is the We Build Pages choice ;) …..

For most websites that we work with, the vast majority of the traffic to their sites comes from 1 source – Google… heck, for the non-blogging world in the USA, I’m guessing Google referral of traffic is the biggest source of traffic for 95% of all websites. (*jim’s guess).

So if one is seeking to increase traffic, one can look at other methods (beyond search engines) of bringing traffic to the site (branding, social media, tools, widgets, etc).

Or they can seek to increase their positions, or add additional keyword positions to that source of the biggest existing traffic generator (Google).

Often, our clients have decided that the best ROI (based on relevant traffic), comes from increasing the existing traffic from Google.

So if you’re biggest goal for traffic is Google, then you need to decide where to put your focus to increase your rankings in Google.

Since Backlinks are still the most important aspect analyzed by Googlee in regards to rankings, then increasing backlinks should be the biggest priority when seeking to increase your Google rankings.

Ok… so if you know you need backlinks. and that’s your priority, here are some choices you may be faced with….

Popular Choice #1 – Buy links.

Pro’s, nothing can compete with focused link text going to specific targeted pages. This method rules to this very day.

Con’s, Google can penalize you for buying links if your caught.

Popular Choice #2 – Have the inhouse guy get them. They’ll comment on blogs and link the name to your site… they may get some wiki pages, and/or get some profile pages, they’re participate in forums for links, they’ll submit to directories, and maybe even some type of trading or 3 ways, etc…

Pro’s I do think that often about 10% of this does work…and if you do tons of this, on a continual basis, and don’t map too many known networks, it can achieve some great rankings on and off depending on google’s algorthym at any given time (higher flux rate from what what I’ve observed).

Con’s - 90% of these don’t pass trust value. Google can detect pages where “outsiders” can add a link (blog comments, forums, wiki’s, profile pages, etc…and I believe that they tend not to pass full trust value on these types of pages.)

Popular Choice #3 – Social Media for the purpose of links
I’ll say right off the start, doing social media for the purpose of building backlinks is something that’s almost always doomed to fail right from the start. Social media can deliver usually just a a few links of value, but more often than not, the value in social media is in more in “branding” rather than “link building”. If you’re purpose is link building for higher search engine rankings, don’t make the mistake of thinking that social media is an end to the means of getting quality backlinks.

Choice #4 – We Build Pages Link Building Services

We have a tool that helps to tell us what specific content that we can write for our clients, that has a high probability of obtaining backlinks. We write the content, and then we contact those we feel could benefit by linking to this content. Our links are non-paid, human reviewed, and permanent. The sites we contact are of the highest trusted value in our eyes. We don’t contact bloggers, we contact old trusted websites to get links like edu’s, k12′s, and all schools, .org’s, .gov’s and sites like these.

Pro’s - non-paid, human reviewed, permanent, greatly increases a site’s trust value.

Con - the only con is that it’s often not a link going to the targeted page with the targeted text, their links going to related resource pages…. but then again, the only arternatives to guarantee exact link text to exact pages tends to ge by paying someone to do that…which again, runs the risk of a penalty.

We’re currently running a killer link building sale right now… we’re offering our $2500/month link building service for only $1000 for the first month. Plus you get a $1000 report for free, as well as in introductory phone call where a few ninjas and I review the report with you, as well as we have another call with you after the first month to review the work with you. You also have reports that are updated monthly showing the work and the links that we’ve been able to get for you. This deal also has a money back guarantee if you don’t like the work or the links we produced for you.

So for $1000 the first month you get $2500 worth of link building (10 permanent links), a free $1000 report, and 2 phone calls with me and some ninjas here…. and if you’re not happy with the first month of work you can have your $1000 back. If you are happy with the work, you’re moved to the $2500 monthly budget level from that point on.

What types of links are we getting?
We’ll here’s some analysis:
28% are edu’s and/or colleges
22% are .org’s
8% are k12′s
1% are gov’s

What these links do:

They increase the trust in your site, that in-turn seems to be moving everything up as far as rankings go… but the movement is easier to see on the longer tail phrases.

What these links probably won’t do:

Move you from #2 to #1 for “competitive phrases” where there are lots of link buyers buying links with that exact phrase as anchor text. But again, Link buying carries a bigger risk.

Are the links like what we’re getting the kind of links you wish you were getting?

Fill out this form, and Chuck will contact you about how we can work with you.

What type of link building do you do, and how does it work for you in targeting the short tail and the long tail?

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What If Google Killed Puppies?

Lisa Barone
Lisa Barone
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Posted On:
January 14, 2009
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Hi, I’m Lisa and I’m codependent. Don’t judge me, you are too.

I’m getting caught up after spending the past few days hobbling around Affiliate Summit (you can find coverage for Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3 at Hoffman’s House) and stumbled across an interesting poll recreated by TechCrunch. The question at hand was: “What would make you switch search engines?”

This morning the results looked like this:

[click to enlarge. floss regularly.]

I know now that 58 percent of you are damn liars.

Like I said, I’m what some would call “codependent”. I willingly stay in unhealthy relationships, I invest in losers, and I repeatedly take people back lying to myself that they can change.  Basically, I’m an idiot. And you probably are, too.

The reason you originally switched from Yahoo to Google back in the day was because Google was the far superior engine. It kicked ass at everything it did and was undeniably the best choice. And they’ve done a good job maintaining that awesome. The search results are typically to be trusted, there’s Gmail and GDocs, as well as a whole suite of products designed to make your life easier.  However, the quality of products isn’t why people stay with Google.  How many blind tests have been done to show that the quality of the results is less important than the brand name placed at the top of the engine? I’m pretty sure I’ve read more than a handful over the years.

The truth is you stay with Google for the same reason I’ve stayed with a slew of crappy ex-boyfriends. Because it’s been there for you, because it’s broken in, because it’s socially acceptable, and because it’s really, really pretty.

Adding video to the search results or uncluttering things won’t make someone change. I don’t even know that Yahoo could change enough that most people would care. The only reason people will leave Google is if something drastically different AND better comes along or if Google commits some sort of brand suicide.

I spent some time thinking about it and here’s my list of what Google would have to do to make me leave them.

They’d have to:

  • Leak my Data/Private Information ala AOL
  • Take their “tweaking” of the results WAY too far
  • Start charging me for services like Gmail
  • Sell off the engine/acquire someone else’s and completely murder its relevancy

Aside from that, I think the Google bar code that’s been discretely branded on the back of my neck is safe. I asked Twitter what it would take to breakup with Google and their answers were surprisingly similar to my own.  Well, except for Chris Winfield and Jim Hedger who said Google would have to start slaying puppies and kittens, respectively.  I agree with both of those, assuming they were cute puppies and kittens.

I think we like to tell ourselves that the reason we stick with Google is for the quality of the results. It makes us sound like we’re free and independent thinkers. But we’re not. The truth is we stick with Google because we’ve been told to. And we’ll stay there until we’re told to do something different. If we’re going to be codependent, let’s at least be honest about it.

Or maybe I’m wrong. Would it take anything less than puppy killing for you to abandon Google?

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Ninja Easter Egg in Google Reader

Patrick Sexton
Patrick Sexton
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Posted On:
November 20, 2008
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During Pubcon, Matt Cutts revealed a ninja secret to me, Lisa and Rhea.

He said that in Google Reader there was a ninja Easter egg. If you want a ninja to come out and say hello to you while you are in Google reader….

You must go to your Google reader and then use the Contra Code…

When you are in your reader, use the above code using your arrow keys (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a). You sorta have to do it quickly. If you use the code right, your Google reader will go from this….

To this….

Anyone know of any other Google easter eggs?

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Google to Run Smarter, Leaner Machine

Lisa Barone
Lisa Barone
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Posted On:
November 17, 2008
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My fellow liveblogging comrade Barry Schwartz shares the news that Google is making a major change to its product development cycle. There will be no more throwing spaghetti on a wall to see what sticks. Instead, Google is going to look to its audience to help them come up with products that will serve user-specific needs. Hmm, targeting your services to meet your users? Imagine that..

Stuart Smith, Strategic Planning Director of Google’s Creative Labs in New York, commented:

“What typically happens is it is just a load of engineers producing a load of things and then refining until it finds an audience. What they have never really done is to look at audiences and understand audiences and say ‘perhaps there is a need over here — let’s meet that need’. Now I think they have seen an opportunity to come at it from an audience perspective and that is part of what any planners’ job is — to understand audiences.”

Does that mean no more Orkuts, Google Catalogs, or Google Web Accelerators? Huzzah!

All kidding aside, this is a very big (and a very good) step from Google. Google has its hands in so many different parts of the Web (and on so much of our data), that you have to think they have a nice nest of information to work with by now. And the better they can act on that information, the happier users will be, the more successful their products will be, and the easier it will be for them to bring in more ad revenue. It’s a win/win for everyone. Well, assuming you’re not, like, Yahoo or Microsoft or something.

There’s been some talk that this may mean the end of Google. A structured product development cycle is definitely a departure from Google’s carefree 20 percent time approach.  However, I don’t think that’s the case at all. This doesn’t signify a death. If anything, we’re about to see the emergence of a smarter, more refined Google. As Silicon Alley Insider reminds us, Google Android and Chrome were all planned releases that took years to create. There was no spaghetti throwing there, and that’s the future of Google.

Props to Google for leading by example here. In a time of recession, you should be looking at your company the same way.  It’s time to tighten up those offerings and make sure you’re focusing your resources on the things that people want. It does you no good to be putting money and energy into areas that aren’t making you money. And if that’s an important enough lesson for Google to learn, it’s definitely important enough for you, as well.

Go through your analytics and find the products and areas where your customers are most invested. Then work on building those out. The more you build your company around filling your customers needs, the more useful you are to them and the more loyal they’ll be.

In other words, be like Google.

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