6 Steps To Help Products Spread Like Wildfire
During the 6 tips for successful blogger outreach presentation at BrightonSEO last week, Danny Ashton from info-graphic design agency NeoMan spoke about how seduction techniques can help you to become an content outreach expert. The presentation was excellent having worked in blogger outreach for 6 years now and much of what Danny said I could relate to.
The presentation included some great takeaway tools including a book he recommended called 'Contagious - why things catch on' by Jonah Berger which I've just purchased from Amazon
. Before buying this book, I had a little look at some videos online and found a great talk he gave a day before this book Contagious - Why Things Catch On
was released on book store shelves. In this talk which you can watch below, Jonah Berger talks about how ideas and information is spread via word of mouth. But the key to making things really popular happens long before it's discussed or "liked" online. It starts with the message. Drawing on his groundbreaking research, he explains that there are six key steps (STEPPS) that make products or ideas contagious:
Social Currency
Triggers
Emotion
Public
Practical Value
Stories
These 6 steps will help any product or idea spread like wildfire. Surprisingly, Berger also reveals just how little word of mouth is generated online versus elsewhere. Berger's findings will help you craft products and messages that people will share.
Video Hacks, Marketing & Optimisation - By Phil Nottingham
One common theme from most presentations on the day concerning link building was content is king (it has been for at least 4 years now) and link builders need to earn links and create great content that people will link to and share.
Video is one of the best forms of rich media to achieve great shareable content and so Phil's presentation was a real eye opener for me because coming from a content background, I pretty much dismissed video as a link bait strategy for smaller clients because it was too expensive and time consuming. Evidently from this presentation, creating video doesn't have to cost a lot.
The presentation touched on a number of interesting ways to create videos cheaply whilst maintaining high quality. Phil also talked about editing video and using freelancers to get the most for your money which I love the idea of being a freelancer myself.
Where to place the video once it's been created was interesting as it depends on the objectives you have for the video. For example, if your main objective of the video is to increase brand awareness then you should host the video on YouTube. If your main objective is conversions and traffic then self host the video on your own site via a video hosting company such as Wista which Phil was keen to promote. If your main objective is to create links and social shares then self host the video on your own site and once you have done this then place on YouTube.
Phil also created a video embed link generator which you can use here:
http://philnottingham.com/tools/video-embed-link-generator/
Check out the slides from Phil's presentation here:
Big thanks to Jack Norell who tracked down the presentation slides and put them all on one handy page for us which you can view here: http://www.jacknorell.com/brightonseo-september-2013-presentation-slides/
Real Link Building Tips from Matt Cutts
Okay this is a slightly ambiguous title but bear with me. Google wants you to know that it doesn’t consider link building “illegal” and in this article we look at a few useful link building nuggets from those in the know (namely Matt Cutts and Eric Enge) along with our own link building experiences over the years.
Google’s Matt Cutts did an interview with Stone Temple’s Eric Enge last week which was a real eye opener i'm sure for some link builders.
Matt Cutts tweeted out to his followers this interview as a reading recommendation.
Within the interview Eric Enge mentioned about people thinking link building is illegal to which Cutts replied:
Google’s Matt Cutts did an interview with Stone Temple’s Eric Enge last week which was a real eye opener i'm sure for some link builders.
Matt Cutts tweeted out to his followers this interview as a reading recommendation.
Within the interview Eric Enge mentioned about people thinking link building is illegal to which Cutts replied:
“No, link building is not illegal,”
Matt Cutts
“It’s funny because there are some types of link building that are illegal, but it’s very clear-cut: hacking blogs, that sort of thing is illegal.”
Matt Cutts
Matt Cutts
“It’s funny because there are some types of link building that are illegal, but it’s very clear-cut: hacking blogs, that sort of thing is illegal.”
Matt Cutts
Link Building Roundup: June 2013
June 2013 link building round-up showcasing the best expert link building blog posts featuring strategies, news, views, opinions, tools, case studies and anything else I feel that is cool or useful to link building.These will be posts that have been popular on SEO sites, Twitter or simply posts i've read and i've really learnt something from.
Off Page SEO
How to approach outreach in a new market
Best link building for local SEO - None!
3 principles of future focused no surprise link building
Well-Timed Link Building: How to Capitalize on Popular Topics
The Modern Mentality of Link Builders in Competitive Niches
Link Building Is Not Dead - Rebranded More Like
Today it's all about quality, not quantity of links via creating engaging content that will earn links, be shared socially and send traffic.
Those link building companies that promise you hundreds/thousands of links will struggle today and are more than likely be inundated with previous clients requesting clean ups and disavow of links they have secured for clients. Those in the know will be hiring high quality link building experts with proper digital marketing experience that can deliver quality. Link building experts that use successful content marketing techniques to attract high quality relevant links are in the driving seat. These are people who've forged strong relationships over the years with top bloggers, websites and publishers in different niches. Their mindsets these days are not so focussed on links but the user and creating engaging, relevant, topical content published on sites with good readership and social following. It's clear this is what Google wants, for SEO's to stop thinking about search engines and think of the user.
SEO
Content Marketing
PR
This combination of SEO, content marketing and PR that focusses on the user via optimised onsite and offsite by creating engaging content is now key to online success. The question i've been pondering the past few months is should I still call myself a link builder or should I rebrand and call myself an online marketing consultant or digital marketing consultant?
It's undeniable that Google's Penguin and Panda updates have changed the face of SEO and link building. Since this years Brighton SEO conference we've witnessed the industry rebrand itself from SEO to incorporate 'online marketing' and 'digital marketing'.
Whether the term 'link building' will be used much going forwards remains to be seen but my feeling is it will...but will sit under the umbrella of online marketing / digital marketing and be called inbound marketing or similar that incorporates the following: blogger outreach, social media, content writing, info-graphics, product reviews, citations, niche site listings, competitions and PR.
Related Reading
I recently wrote an article called don't stop link building - do start genuine online marketing with PR which I argue that link building is not dead, it's evolved.
Link builders need to change their mindset and think like an online marketer. Use social media and other online marketing tools to reach out and engage with users.
Stop Thinking Of Search Engines!...Think Of The Users
Matt Cutts talks about one of the biggest misunderstandings in the SEO industry during a five minute video and talks about what SEO's should focus their efforts on.If you don't have 5 minutes to watch the video below then a quick summary would be that SEO firms are still focussing too much of their time and energy on link building and understanding search engines, rather than focussing on the users themselves.
"stop thinking of search engines...and think of the users".
"Where do you see many SEO's spending too much energy on...or where do you see SEO's spending too much time or energy when they could be taking care of other things?"
3 Key Focusses:
1. SEO's confuse algorithm updates with data refreshes.
2. Panda and Penguin algorithms are not about making Google more money in the short term.
3. SEOs spend too much energy and time focused on link building and only thinking about search engines.
Matt suggests (encourages as Google does) to focus on:
User Experience
Website Design
Online Marketing / Social Media
People tend to look at SEO as 'how do I build more links?' SEO's are not thinking of the global picture. You need to change that mindset and think 'how do I make something compelling and how do I make sure I market it well' - stop thinking of search engines and think of the users.
Use social media and other online marketing tools to reach out and engage with users.
Link Building Roundup: May 2013
Every month I'm rounding up and showcasing the best expert link building blog posts featuring strategies, news, views, opinions, tools, case studies and anything else I feel that is cool or useful to link building. These will be posts that have been popular on SEO sites, Twitter or simply posts i've read and i've really learnt something from.May 2013 has been dominated by Penguin 2.0 so i've included a few relevant posts to this along with some posts that I think link builders will find useful:
10 Things To Expect From Impending Penguin 4
Google’s Matt Cutts confirmed a few days ago via Twitter that a major overhaul of its Penguin algorithm will happen in the next few weeks (middle-end of May). Although Matt Cutts didn’t specify the exact changes likely to be made, hey, he does work for Google after all, but it’s a pretty safe bet to assume it will target more black hat link building tactics used by some SEO and link building companies to improve search engine rankings for clients.In the 7 minute “Webmaster Help” video below, Google’s Matt Cutts gives the low down on what Google’s webspam team has planned for summer 2013… and what it all means for webmasters. It involves the Penguin and Panda update, paid advertorials, hacked sites, link analysis, link spam, and lots more.
One thing however has not changed and that is the advice from Google to make sure you have a great compelling website that users love, that they'll want to tell their friends about, bookmark, come back to, visit over and over again. If you follow this goal, Google will reward you because that’s what they want for their users.
Watch the video here and below we pull out 10 things (with quotes from Matt Cutts) that we can expect from this new Google update:
1. Penguin 2.0 – many calling it Penguin 4
SEO’s will be anxious as Danny Sullivan pointed out that SEO’s and webmasters who did manage to clean up sites after the initial penguin update could have triggered something else. On the contrary, it could also be possible to see substantial gains in rankings for many clients as all the black hat work is thrown out. It will be interesting to see who ranks in top 10 for ‘payday loans’ or ‘online casino’ after the new Google Penguin update – I hope all those who implemented white hat quality link building tactics will be laughing.
Matt says
“We’re relatively close to deploying the next generation of Penguin. Internally, we call it “Penguin 2.0″. And again, Penguin is a webspam change that’s dedicated to try to find black hat webspam and try to target and address that. So this one is a little more comprehensive than Penguin 1.0 and we expect it to go a little bit deeper and have a little bit more of an impact than the original version of Penguin.”
2. Advertorials
On February 21st 2013, Martin Macdonald broke the news about the demise of Interflora’s search engine rankings. It was a wake up call to anyone using advertorials as part of their link building strategy. David Naylor published an article highlighting that advertorials were the reason for the action.
Google’s war against paid advertorials that pass page rank looks certain to continue this summer.
Matt says
“We’ve also been looking at advertorials that is sort of native advertising and those sorts of things that violate our quality guidelines. So again, if someone pays for coverage or pays for an ad or something like that, those ads should not flow PageRank. We’ve seen a few sites in the US and around the world that take money and then do link to websites and pass PageRank. So we’ll be looking at some efforts to be a little bit stronger on our enforcement as far as advertorials that violate our quality guidelines. Now there’s nothing wrong inherently with advertorials or native advertising, but they should not flow PageRank and there should be clear and conspicuous disclosure so that users realize that something is paid, not organic or editorial.”
3. Cleaning up specific queries
Cleaning up search queries within historically spammy niches such as 'payday loans' and 'online casinos'. If they are all up to it, who will be left to rank?
Matt says
“It’s kind of interesting. We get a lot of great feedback from outside of Google. For example, there were people complaining about searches like “payday loans” on Google.co.uk. So we have two different changes that try to tackle those kinds of queries in a couple different ways. We can’t get into too much detail about exactly how they work, but I’m kind of excited that we’re going from having just general queries be a little more cleaned to going to some of these areas that have traditionally been a little more spammy including, for example, some more pornographic queries. And some of these changes might have a little bit more of an impact in those kinds of areas that are a little more contested by various spammers and that sort of thing.”
4. Denying the value of link spammers
If you're a link spammer, the likelihood is if you somehow managed to survive previous Google updates, they are going to nail you this time round. Anything involving obtaining links via automation or part of link networks will be probably be targeted and comment spammers.
Matt says
“We’re also looking at some ways to go upstream to deny the value to link spammers – some people who spam links in various ways. We’ve got some nice ideas on trying to make sure that that becomes less effective and so we expect that that will roll out over the next few months as well.”
5. More sophisticated link analysis
Link analysis...now we get down to the nitty gritty but the details are very vague from Matt. This has the potential to be a real game changer so get ready for this.
Matt says
“And in fact, we’re working on a completely different system that does more sophisticated link analysis. We’re still in the early days for that, but it’s pretty exciting. We’ve got some data now that we’re ready to start using and see how good it looks and we’ll see whether that bears fruit or not.”
6. Detecting hacked sites better
This includes better communication and information for webmasters.
Matt says
“We also continue to work on hacked sites in a couple different ways, number one trying to detect them better. We hope in the next few months to roll out a next generation of hacked sites detection that is even more comprehensive, and also try to communicate better to webmasters, because sometimes they/we see confusion between hacked sites and sites that serve up malware. And ideally you have a one-stop shop where once someone realizes that they have been hacked. They can go to webmaster tools and have some single spot they can go where they get a lot more info to sort of point them in the right way to hopefully clean up those hacked sites… We’re also going to be looking for ways we can provide more concrete details, more example URLs that webmasters can use to figure out where to go diagnose their site.”
7. Respect My Authority!
By the sounds of it and what other SEO people have been saying, this is likely to refer to author rank and this recent post on author rank by Eric Enge and of course SEOmoz is well worth reading.
Matt says
“We’re doing a better job of detecting when someone is sort of an authority in a specific space — could be medical or could be travel or whatever — and trying to make sure that those rank a little more highly if you’re some sort of authority or a site, that according to the algorithms, we think might be a little more appropriate for users.”
8. Softening Panda’s Blow
Some legit sites were unintentionally harmed by Google’s updates which they want to avoid so this update looks to specifically review previous affected sites by examining additional quality signals.
Matt says
“We’ve also been looking at Panda and seeing if we can find some additional signals and we think we’ve got some to help refine things for the sites that are kinda in the border zone/in the grey area a little bit. So if we can soften the effect a little bit for those sites that we believe have some additional signals of quality that will help sites that might have previously been effected to some degree by Panda.”
9. Refining Domain Clusters
Lots of people noticed that from page 3 onwards in Google results, there is often several results from one domain. This new Penguin update looks like it will be addressing this.
Matt says
“We’ve also heard a lot of feedback from some people about that if I go down three pages deep I’ll see a cluster of several results all from one domain. We’ve actually made things better that you’re less likely to see that on the first page and more likely to see that on the following pages. And we’re looking at a change which might deploy which would basically say that once you’ve seen a cluster of results from one site then you’d be less likely to see more results from that site as you go deeper into the next pages of Google search results.”
10. Exciting Changes?
In a nutshell, those link builders using spammy black hat techniques will have little impact in search results by the end of the summer. Small to medium sized businesses should come out well too.
Matt says
“I think it’s going to be a lot of fun. I’m really excited about a lot of these changes because we do see really good improvements in terms of people who are link spamming or doing various black hat spam would be less likely to show up I think by the end of the summer. And at the same time we’ve got a lot of nice changes queued up that hopefully will help small/medium businesses and regular webmasters as well.”
What all this means to link building companies?
The Google updates over the past year or so has meant link building companies around the world, not just here in the UK have required to stop old-school link building tactics and focus on what Google wants. Following online marketing principles with the user in mind and not links is what Google wants and they call this “user intent”. Google wants user experience improvements and provide high quality search results that understand what the user wants to see instead of what marketers want the user to see.
With this in mind, the following link building tactics should play a big role within link building strategies in the months ahead:
High quality content – relevant to a given search that aligns with a companies
business/industry/products
Relevant links – not over optimised anchor text links but natural link text being used. Relevancy + Quality + Shareability is a good stance
Social signals – utilise social media, engage with it
Niche directories – there are some gems around
Relationship building - important to engage with and build relationships with key bloggers and influencers
Guest blogging – find quality relevant sites to regularly guest post on. Do not over optimise your bio links – keep it clean and natural.
Utilise key influencers – within companies there are those who have power and when they talk, people listen. Utilise these people and the contacts they have.
Attend relevant events – chances are there will be opportunities from the people you meet
PR – think of stories, statistics, research that a journalist would be interested in, get quotes from a CEO that you can include within the content
Many SEO’s have suggested this is going to be a really big update. Everything i’ve have heard in recent weeks backs this up and could be the biggest most impactful algorithm updates we've seen to date.
Why PR and Link Building Make Perfect Partners
SEO link building strategies are increasingly incorporating PR tactics to build up familiarity and trust when working on client's websites, creating a natural link profile and increasing search engine rankings. In this article we look at the reasons behind this shift in mentality, and what this means to link building in general.SEO of late seems to be steering itself away from automation and 'quantity' and focussing on marketing and 'quality' which is a good thing for everyone. The bulk of this work lies in the hands of manual link building experts, marketers, copywriters and PR working in unison within agencies and companies to create engaging content that both readers and Google will find interesting.
Will Critchlow from Distilled rounded off the LinkLove 2013 event with a presentation on his vision for the future of building links which I talk about in last weeks article titled 'Don't Stop Link Building - Do Start Genuine Online Marketing With PR' - he stressed that link building was not dead and that traditional SEOs must stop looking to ‘game’ the system, rather they must adopt a traditional marketing mindset and be far more concerned with getting PR for their clients.
The biggest reason why PR is being used more widely in SEO link building campaigns today is mainly due to the Google Panda and Google Penguin updates. These two updates increased the demand for unique high quality content to be published on high quality sites resulting in many SEO companies changing link building tactics and becoming far more natural 'white hat' and ethical when obtaining links. These Google algorithm changes has meant more natural looking links being used by SEO's such as brand, URL address or 'click here' links instead of the old school keyword anchor text links creating un-natural link profiles resulting in many webmaster tool messages with a slap on the wrist...or worse from Google.
The need from SEO's for high quality content with natural links has opened up the numerous opportunities available via traditional online PR. PR content tends to be of higher quality, well researched and engaging that's suited to publication on high quality websites. Having an article or press release published on a high quality website is much harder to come by and must be earned, they are not simply given away to anyone. By using PR methods, this difficulty is lessened and far more achievable because websites are far more likely to link to or publish content that is compelling and provide information that goes beyond your typical 'top 10' articles you see being published daily on blogs.
There's always been a place for PR within the SEO arena as it's one of the most natural ways to get mentioned (and linked) on a website, especially the better sites. But for those who've worked within SEO will know, the relationship between SEO and PR has often been strained. Many PR companies missed a trick during the past decade by not taking SEO link building seriously and incorporating it into their work. Those who did are in the hot seat now. Many PR's tended to focus on media coverage alone as the main objective without thinking about any links within their content, often containing no links at all. It's still very common to see great articles published on top online magazines and newspapers that mention a company but without an all-important link for SEO benefit to that company.
The relationship between SEO and PR has changed in the last 12 months, mainly from SEO's embracing PR. However it seems more and more PR companies are reaping the rewards of adopting SEO principles into their work and here we look at how SEO and PR can help each other.
SEO and PR synergy - how they can help each other
How SEO can help PR?
In a nutshell, SEO enhances a press release by using popular keywords within the press release giving it the best possible chance of delivering search engine traffic. The editorial links within the press release can generate direct click-throughs and lead to higher rankings for your client.
Those working in PR don't take full advantage of those opportunities from an organic SEO point of view, the keywords used and the links within. By working together, SEOs and PR people are able to maximise exposure to a higher level than either of those entities by themselves.
How PR can help SEO link building?
PR can help SEO by increasing branded traffic by focusing on what’s newsworthy, crafting a great story, finding editorial opportunities, getting coverage on quality sites and building relationships with reporters and editors.
Indirectly, PR helps SEO generate inbound links from quality sources that not only gets first-touch exposure to new audiences, but credibility in the eyes of search engines. SEO's focus on securing links back to clients websites but often forget the importance of nurturing long-term relationships with webmasters and specific media outlets. SEO's can also learn a lot from PR's when it comes to working to very tight deadlines and negotiation skills.
Link Quality vs Link Quantity
Of course, high quality links are more difficult to obtain than normal links, we all know this. You must earn it by creating something of real value and of high quality. "Websites don't link to websites, people link to people" said fellow Cornwall content marketer Lyndon Antcliff which I 100% agree with - give the people who you'd love a mention or link from something that grabs their attention, give them something engaging and success will come.
A key to earning these quality links is building good relationships with webmasters, bloggers and reporters. The PR method does takes longer and involves more resource to end up with the finished article but the rewards in the long term are worth this initial effort. Many agree with the phrase 'quality, not quantity' when it comes to link building such as Hannah Smith from Distilled who talked about this in LinkLove 2013. Hannah stressed that links must be sustainable. Poor-quality links in days gone by are still poor quality links now and that Google is now very vigilant to people using dodgy link building techniques to alter rankings. In the long run it's much better to build a few good-quality links that are genuinely relevant to an audience or community than many links for links’ sake.
It's of course very difficult to quantify this 'quality vs quantity' debate and put actual numbers to it. A link from the BBC on a relevant topic is worth how many links compared to lots of lower quality sites...hundreds? I've yet to see any clear evidence of the true value of a high quality relevant link vs numerous lower quality relevant links. I've certainly seen clear evidence from online marketing campaigns I've worked on that a focus on relevance + quality, not quantity works. However i've never tried obtaining lots of lower quality links...and glad I haven't as i'd now probably be busy with the disavow tool cleaning up clients links!
If you have thousands of low quality links, Google will devalue those that aren't legit so all that effort was for what? Sticking to the quality + relevance rule has always made sense to me and from experience Google likes this too. I like many others such as Jacob Klien personally believe that Google parses link type and link relevancy to determine search engine rank.
The cascade effect
Journalists just like bloggers will often quote/cite, comment or expand upon other’s work. Getting an editorial piece on a prominent website often delivers a cascade of similar stories and links spring up with 'a cascade effect'.
Clients love big site mentions
An SEO's contact with a client is typically someone within a marketing team, a marketing manager for example, reporting to their senior level. Any marketing manager relishes informing their boss that they've been featured on 'so and so' website, especially if it's a household website name. Not only will this be a great link for SEO benefit but the brand exposure on that website will build consumer trust, drive traffic and create extra links.
Talking of the client, Rand Fishkin from SEOMoz at LinkLove 2013 talked about the importance of CEOs of organisations. When the boss speaks, everyone listens - using their character, knowledge and reach to promote their brand and how the face of a company needed to be proactive in making use of the increased profile and authority their outreach has. So look to use those who have power, they will usually have some great contacts within that niche you can use.
One you've nailed one or two...show them off!
If you’ve already been quoted or covered by an authority blog, magazine, newspaper or website then you'll discover that webmasters and reporters are much more inclined to cover something too if they can see any examples of previous high quality work. So once you have nailed the first, you can provide this as an example in future correspondence. You'll be amazed at the response rate.
Relationship Building
Contacts are critical in the online world and building relationships with top reporters, bloggers and webmasters is key to being efficient and successful. You should always get to know a website before contacting them - read other articles on their site and get a real sense of what they like, what they don't like and only approach them with what you know they’ll be interested in. Think about other topics relevant to your client that relate to their site.
PR is often the fastest and most cost effective way to generate relevant high quality backlinks via building contacts and relationships within different niches, for example, the travel niche. Having a personal relationship with a key blogger or webmaster massively increases the chances of coverage.
Tips
Start small and work your way up. Once you’ve built a relationship, they’ll start contacting you.
Read a website or blogs editorial guidelines carefully and adhere to them.
Read similar editorials that they have published and either write something that leads on from this or think outside the box - a new angle that you think they would be interested in.
Do not pitch something they clearly don’t want, that is wasting everyone's time.
Use editorial calendars to your advantage – you can see months in advance what publications are going to be covering so think ahead how you can capitalise on this.
Matt Cutts Mash Up Video - How to Rank Number 1 on Google
Clever and funny Matt Cutts mash up video released in March last year. For anyone in SEO who hasn't seen it, check it out.It's a really great piece of link bait that took 3 days to complete. This goes back to my point that great quality content and link bait demands resource and time but the end product is worth it.
The funny video gives tongue in cheek advice on how to rank number 1 on Google search using Google Webmaster Help videos by Matt Cutts.
For those of you that don't know who Matt Cutts is, you obviously don't work in SEO. Matt is a Google engineer, and is currently head of the Google Webspam team.
This 'How to Rank Number 1 on Google' video was created by Sam Applegate completely independent of Google. Great link bait...well i've linked to Sam :)
