What's the Difference Between Link Building and Marketing?

Transcription

1 00:01 Garrett French: All right. This is Video 6 and the Rethinking the Link Series. This is a review video and I'm going to wrap up with a few kind of big picture thinking ideas and thoughts for you. So, let's jump in to the review. 1

2 2 00:25 Garrett French: We started our video series on a comparison between SEO Link Building and Content-Based Link Building. So, in that video, we primarily discussed some of the differences between SEO-centric and SERP-centric link building and content-based, and the sort of core thought here is that your building links, first and foremost, into a some kind of sales funnel that is contentbased. So, your building links into content that executes a business goal for you or helps push people along towards a conversion on your website. Now, I'm not saying that's certainly sales copy but certainly informative useful content that helps establish your brand and your expertise. 01:27 Garrett French: In the second video, we looked at Conducting a Linkability Analysis, and that is looking outward into your market to identify the highly-linked pages and the highly-linked types of content within your market so that you have a sense of what people want to link to and also, you get... You start to get a sense of who your linking audience is and so, those are two of the core kind of ideas for this video which are really understanding this linking audience and what exactly they link to. In Video 3, we looked at Conducting a Linkability Inventory in which you look at your website and your organization and identify what exactly is linkable on your website and what kinds of resources you have at your disposal for... That you can leverage for attracting or earning or exchanging in some way for links. 02:35 Garrett French: In the fourth video, we really dug in with Link Prospecting and in that video, we looked at finding people who are going to link to your assets and that who can be leveraged for your resources and looked at two primary methods, Back Link Analysis and Link Prospecting or rather Link Queries. Lastly, we dug into Link Acquisition which is where the rubber meets the road and that's where you're ing your prospects and asking them to take a look at your assets and consider sharing them with their audience.

3 3 03:25 Garrett French: And now that we have reviewed our video series, I'd like to kind of jump into the kitchen sink portion where I'm going to wrap up with some thoughts on some bigger picture in some cases, thinking around link building and I want to start with some criteria for link value. Now, this is sort of a summary in some ways of some of the thinking I've already proposed. It's sort of a different way of thinking about what really defines a good link for you or a valuable link. 04:08 Garrett French: So, first and foremost, the link reaches a targeted audience. So, you're putting your earning links on pages that are focused on your target audience. These are people who would potentially become customers of yours. Secondarily, the link flows, what I have nicknamed Brand Juice, to your site. So, you know, commonly people say, links flow link juice. I also hold that links flow brand juice to your site, for example, if you're mentioned on New York Times or an industry vertical publication that is well-known, you're going to earn some benefit of association and some value for your website. For example, if you can put a badge on your site that says, "As seen on," one of the... A given link that you've earned, that is a fantastic example of a link that flows brand juice. 05:17 Garrett French: Third, the link funnels visitors towards a conversion or other deeper brand interaction on your site. So, again, it's plugging people into your content funnel or your content marketing efforts. Fourth, the link is on a marketed, shared, and trusted page. So, you're not just getting stuck on some page or, you know, some random pages of website but rather, you're going into a blog post that they are going... That the publisher is going to be promoting via Twitter, from their newsletter, and it's going to have some... It's going to have... To get some play from them and from the market as a whole. 06:06 Garrett French: Fifth, the link is placed because of your relationship and the trust you've earned and the reputation you've built with the publisher. It's not something necessarily that you're sneaking in there or... There is a time and place for comment, campaigns and comment link building but those aren't always high value. And anyhow they are not necessarily an example of a link that's earned because you've developed trust and relationship with the publisher-writer. 06:41 Garrett French: Lastly, the link is followed, so it does not have a nofollow tag and it includes potentially targeted anchor text. I include this last because in some ways this is what many people consider first and I hold and I submit to you that by considering this sort of... At the end of the game, at the end of the day you're going to be getting more value out of the links that you're earning and out of the kinds of campaigns that you're designing for your organization.

4 4 07:16 Garrett French: Now, I'd like to talk a bit towards ideas and thinking around link building campaigns that can induce scale, meaning you can execute at the tens, the hundreds, the thousands of prospect level. The first criteria is that there are actually indeed hundreds or thousands of potential linkers. If you're in a market with no or relatively few potential linkers, you either think about what are some tangential or relative markets that do have some depth of link opportunity in them. For example, if you're in an engineering space you would want to look at some of the markets that you serve, so if you happen to create tools or engineered machinery that you used on movie sets then you can potentially move into some entertainment spaces and try to build up some campaigns targeting that particular market. 08:28 Garrett French: Another important criteria here is that your assets and resources can stretch to fulfill demand. So if you find for example that there are a thousand potential reviewers for one of your products but you only have 10 products for review then your... That's not going to be an effective and scalable campaign for you. So certainly your assets and resources have to be able to fulfill the potential demand in the linking audience. Some campaign types that we've seen to be scalable include things like guest posting, content promotions, so promoting content on your site that can potentially earn links and would be considered linkable from others. Group interviews, and again, this is where there are hundreds of potential people to interview so if you're interviewing bloggers there would be a large number of them. 09:35 Garrett French: Contests, again, targeting probably bloggers or forum goers. Reviews scale as well, so if you're able to mail out tens or hundreds of products to potential reviewers and there are also happen to be hundreds of potential reviewers that can certainly scale. Donations, we've seen that scale quite well where you are donating goods or services and earning links on thank you pages that sort of campaign is also scalable. Of course, there are widgets, tools can be highly scalable as well. 10:19 Garrett French: This is just a little sort of tip of the iceberg for you, just to get you thinking around campaign types that can scale but I just want to include this because getting to scale should be one of your core focuses for your link building efforts and certainly it's going to be determined by the amount of time you have to spend and the number of people in your organizations. So if you're the CEO and the link-builder then there's going to be some disconnect here and you may not even need to pay attention to this part of the video. If you are the link builder and you've got a depth of resource and a depth of assets at your disposal, then this is the kind of thinking you'll need to execute.

5 5 11:17 Garrett French: Now, I'd like to submit for your consideration some thinking around the links strategist role. This is a proposed role that I have been pushing out into the market because I see that there's a hole or a gap in most organizations and there's a lack of continuity between certain departments in some organizations and there's a need to have this bridged by an individual who I contend is the link strategist. So in my model the link strategist sort of paddles SEO, publishing an editorial, PR, social media, design and development departments and has an eye in all of these and an understanding to some extent of all these. And certainly knows what is linkable in the market and also has a good sense of an organization's resources and capabilities. 12:25 Garrett French: And this person works in more than opportunity identification role where they're really looking to connect the linking market and the publishing market up with various aspect of their organization. So they're doing this by first reviewing existing efforts for link opportunities. So looking at a new press release that's going out to make sure that... You know, that the links are going to... First, that links exist. Second, that they go to the appropriate pages and that the anchor text is optimized for that page. For example, another is if there's a widget or social media effort that's being executed on, that there are no missed opportunities for link building within that or certainly heard of horror stories where that's been the case. 13:31 Garrett French: Fourth, they're also proposing new efforts that capitalized on existing resources and assets that can build links. So this is someone that has a good sense of what is missing in a market. What linkable kinds of content is missing in a market and can communicate that clearly and help get it executed on and design the kinds of outreach campaigns that need to be executed in tandem with or wants a piece of content or a part of the site or what have you has been created.

6 6 14:13 Garrett French: Lastly, I'd like to close the video series with some thinking around the influence that you're exerting on the web. So, my humble request to you, link builder, is that you're, at the end of the day, working to build links that in some way improved your market. And I'm asking you to create campaigns, link building campaigns that improve your market in some way. That add value, that add some sort of value to your market, that fulfills some kind of need, certainly that you're conducting efforts that push the boundaries of existing thought within your market. So, you're not necessarily rehashing things that have already been done and trying to blast that out to, you know, a thousand people. 15:09 Garrett French: But rather, you're really genuinely moving thought within your market into new places. I'm asking you to serve your market in some way with either free or membership content, that of course is related to your conversion as part of your sales funnel. But that certainly serves your market and helps them do something better, helps them do something faster, helps them do something for less money. And... And certainly also, that is in line with your brand promise. 15:51 Garrett French: And lastly, I ask you to serve your linking audience. And that means really understanding what they link to and why and then pushing the boundaries there. Really giving your linking audience something that is new or much, much more valuable than has existed previously. And... Follow these... Sort of follow these codes, follow these tenets and I submit to you that you will see your search engine rankings increase, and certainly that you will see your brand and your buzz increase as well. And if all of these plugs into your content marketing, you certainly, certainly will see your conversions and sales increase. 16:50 Garrett French: And that's what connects link building and SEO and PR and most aspects of marketing together. So do good by your market, serve your market and build links. Thank you, link builders. Thank you for your time. And I hope you build thousands and thousands of fantastic links.