All Entries Tagged With: "Link Building"

Guidelines for Link Building With Blog Reviews

Loren Baker has put together some guidelines in using blog reviews as an effective link building tactic. What I like best about Loren’s post is that he provides sound advice without revealing any specifics such as blogs that sell reviews or even companies that actually provide this as a service. With the war that Google has waged against paid links, it is comforting to see posts such as these that provide useful information without helping Google to identify those who are buying or selling the reviews. It fits right in with my previous plea for the entire paid links industry to go underground.

The Paid Links Industry Needs To Go Underground

If Danny Sullivan’s report over the weekend that Google is in fact reducing the PageRank for sites that are suspected of selling paid links isn’t enough to send the entire paid links industry underground, then I don’t know what is. Add to this the storm of controversy that recently occurred over Rand Fishkin outing sites that sell paid links. Now I don’t sell paid links for the sake of ranking better in the organic search results, however, as one who buys paid links for client sites, I have been a proponent for some time now of the entire industry, those who buy links, those who sell them and everyone in between, working to make it more difficult for Google and other search engines to identify paid link strategies. Currently we are making their job way to easy.

SEO Myth: All Reciprocal Links Are Bad

We are having a discussion over at Small Business Ideas Forum where Dale King starts things of by questioning the effectiveness of reciprocal linking tactics. He basically says that once upon a time, reciprocal links were one of the number one ways webmasters acquired links from other sites. However, in current times, reciprocal links have been greatly devalued by the search engines, at least as far as helping a SEO effort. So are reciprocal links a thing of the past? Should webmasters avoid them like the plague? I would say that it really depends on the “type” of reciprocal link.

Things That Bug Me Regarding Those Who Sell Links

Don’t let the title fool you – I’m not against buying links. In fact I buy them quite often for clients. However I am frustrated time and time again when searching for good links. I find a great site in which there is an opportunity to buy a paid link but am scared off for one reason or another. Here is a rant of sorts as I list several things that bug me regarding those who sell links.

Follow-Up On Whether MySpace Passes Link Love or Not

I conducted a test last April (almost 10 months ago) in which I added a phrase to our SearchRank MySpace profile that at the time produced no search results at any of the four major engines. I linked the phrase to Justin Timberlake’s official web site to see if I could get the site to rank for that phrase even though it did not appear anywhere within his site – a Google bombing of sorts. I won’t repeat the phrase here as I don’t want any more pages ranking for it but you can read about the results of my experiment 4 months after link was originally placed.

Finding and Sharing Free Links

Chris Logan in conjunction with Small Business Brief has launched a new site called Free Links which offers a venue for individuals to share their experiences with free advertising and marketing opportunities. Free Links provides ways to advertise and promote a website or business. Currently there are over a hundred opportunities listed including gaining inclusion in web directories to promoting podcasts.

Personalize Your Link Request Spam Already!

I get request for links from link builders all the time, what I refer to as “link request spam.” The content of the email is typically the same because they are using some kind of form letter. Simply fill in the blanks to somewhat personalize it even though most often the sites requesting links have absolutely nothing to do with my site (except that they are both on the Internet). It is a lazy way to build link popularity as opposed to building quality content that will attract links naturally or actually taking the effort to seek out quality links whether they are requested, purchased or both.

Link Baiting Tips for Real Estate Agents

Real estate agents face some of the toughest competition in the search space. Thousands of agents all competing for the same of near-identical key phrases and trying to capture one of ten spots when shooting for the first page of search results. How can they gain an edge over the competition? What will it take to set their site apart from the masses?

New Article on Link Baiting and Viral Campaigns

I’ve written a new article that has been published at SearchDay entitled “Generating Buzz With Link Baiting and Viral Campaigns”. It provides detailed coverage of the Link Baiting & Viral Search Success session recently held at Search Engine Strategies, San Jose and dives into the topic of how to employ successful link baiting and viral campaigns.

101 Ways To Build Link Popularity

“Link Building… Time-intensive. Frustrating. Sometimes confusing. Yet Unavoidable. Because ultimately, it’s still the trump card for higher rankings.”

That’s the introductory paragraph to a new article authored by Andy Hagans and Aaron Wall, entitled 101 Ways to Build Link Popularity in 2006.

Drinks For Links?

I was at the Online Reputation Monitoring session at SES San Jose yesterday where Andy Beal was the last to speak. Because there was not much time left in the session, he had to rush his presentation. Therefore he jokingly asked how many bloggers were in the audience. Many of us raised our hands and he told us that we were all his favorite bloggers and that if we told our readers how great his presentation was, He’d buy us a drink at the bar, concluding, “that’s how you ensure a good reputation among bloggers”.

You May Be A Link Whore If…

Link building expert, Eric Ward has an interesting article that lays out some tactics of link whores. What is a link whore anyway? Typically it is a person who goes about link building using less then ethical tactics. It is a person who litters the web experience of others. Are you a link whore? read on to find out.