Strategic Link Building: Is this love that I m feeling? Point It Digital Marketing www.pointit.com 04.22.2015 1
Housekeeping Slide Raise your hand if you are having technical difficulties Hide the chat window Submit question via chat Additional Q&A addressed and at the end of session A link to view a recorded version of the webinar will be emailed within 48 hours Toolbox Blog on the Point It Website 2
@MaureenOnPoint 3 3
About Point It Our Clients Our Services 4
Today s Presenters Sean Van Guilder Point It Digital Marketing Director of SEO About Presenter 20+ Years of internet marketing experience. Worked for companies such as Microsoft, MSN, and WONGDOODY. Likes tennis and golf. @SeanVanGuilder Maureen Jann Point It Digital Marketing Director of Marketing About Presenter Self-described jill-of-all-trades. 15 years of experience delighting customers and prospects. Does karaoke in a mediocre fashion. @MaureenOnPoint 5 5
Agenda 1 2 3 4 Link Building Foundations Link Building + Content Strategy Link Building + Tech To Sum Up + Q&A 6
Section 1 Link Building Foundations 7
Link Building History Previously website authority determined by quantity of links Now Google determines authority by quality of links Then Link Exchange E-mail Links Requests Paid Links Directory Submissions Article Submissions Blog Comments Broken Link Building Link Networks/Farms Now Cross Promotion Social Sharing Organic Link Earning Curated Lists/Portals Guest post on highly valued and relevant websites Authentic community participation Mine competitor content & do it better Grow social network of influencers 8
Why Links are Important Indexation & Discovery Increased Page Authority Increased Brand Awareness Increased Rankings Increased Traffic 9
Fundamentals of Link Building SEO Great Content Content Marketing Calendar Content Syndication Social Media Content Curation Competitor Research Backlink Monitoring Analytics 10
Section 2 Link Building + Content Strategy 11
Link Building Tactics Blog Articles Create relevant, industry related content posted on domain www.domain.com/blog Publishing calendar with a consistent cadence Use of a core keyword phrase Linking strategy Resources at pointit.com/blog 12
Link Building Tactics Infographics Use for a visual representation of data Ideally used as support for a data heavy blog article Supply embed code for use on other websites, which increases link equity Promote via social media and influencers that already link to your site Leverage existing mailing list Look at search trends for ideas. Resources at pointit.com/blog i 13
Link Building Tactics ETC Some other tactics that can be impactful for attracting links to your articles: Egobait Mention or reference an industry expert and let them know Videos Embedded videos within your website can help increase traffic and time on site Industry Reports Demographics and percentages within a specific industry type In-Depth Guides How To s or large concepts Resources at pointit.com/blog 14
Section 3 Link Building + Tech 15
Link Building + Tech Open Graph and Twitter META Tags Look for plug-ins for your CMS, such as WordPress. Recommend Yoast s WordPress SEO Plug-in Use customized values that are specific to Facebook, Twitter and Google+ Resources at pointit.com/blog 16
Link Building + Tech Social Media Allow for your content to be shared to social media platforms http://www.addthis.com/ is an example of social sharing options Use a custom bit.ly, ow.ly domain Use social media management tools such as Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Buffer Backlink Monitoring Understand who is linking to your site Use Google s disavow tool carefully Reach out to the website to get the link removed Monitor competition s backlink profile CognitiveSEO, Moz, Ahrefs all offer back link tools for monitoring 17
Section 4 Bringing It Together 18
Future of Link Building Google is moving away from backlinks Google is actively trying to do away with using backlinks as a measurement of authority with user engagement and user experience and some measurements of quality user experience include: Mobile Device Usability Click-Through Rate/Bounce Rate Time on page/site Social Shares/Number of comments Conversions Quality links will contribute to the above measurements 19
Conclusion Just remember Link Building, aka Link Earning, takes time View as one piece of Digital Marketing Incorporate SEO, Social Media, Content Marketing into your overall Digital Marketing Plan Have solid performance reporting and monitoring in place 20
Questions? NEXT WEBINAR: A Journey Through Programmatic Display May 13 th @ 11:00am Programmatic display can seem complicated. Let Evan and Sherveen, our programmatic display experts, guide you through the mountains, rivers and valleys of this effective addition to your digital marketing channels. Register at http://pointit.co/programmaticwebinar A link to view a recorded version of the webinar will be emailed!within 48 hours 21