tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85839196313174759992024-03-14T04:30:05.291+00:00Freelance SEO Link Building | Pinecone MediaFreelance link building expert with over 10 years SEO travel link building experience providing quality links for travel clients in the UK, Europe and Worldwide. testhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05425353809356194860noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583919631317475999.post-26828560768098214822018-10-19T15:53:00.001+01:002018-10-19T15:53:59.242+01:00Link Building For Travel Clients<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaQIF6Muu_Qd-WDMnTaXDowRPXdjZN2IcfdEfX-xNQqbNBnNqHCAq4aGWtD5KPmk9Fyq4gYywUQdxqONUSqW598H_0VRfA5B7KsqiwuULbNw54WioMtJ3JnQiniWg3onLfGA3GXBjaNnOQ/s1600/business-close-up-commerce-266176.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaQIF6Muu_Qd-WDMnTaXDowRPXdjZN2IcfdEfX-xNQqbNBnNqHCAq4aGWtD5KPmk9Fyq4gYywUQdxqONUSqW598H_0VRfA5B7KsqiwuULbNw54WioMtJ3JnQiniWg3onLfGA3GXBjaNnOQ/s320/business-close-up-commerce-266176.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
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freelance link building expert ready to help travel websites boost Google rankings...</h3>
If you have a travel business or working with a travel client looking to boost website rankings in Google then <a href="mailto:mark@pineconemedia.co.uk" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">I'd love to chat</a> about how I can help. <div>
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I'm Mark Shaw, a freelance link builder with over 10 years SEO link building experience working with <a href="http://www.pineconemedia.co.uk/2014/04/online-marketing-clients-ive-worked.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">travel clients</a> small and large.</div>
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I use proven successful link building strategies including content marketing and webmaster relationships I've built over the years with many top travel and lifestyle websites and blogs. </div>
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Get in touch with me at <b><a href="mailto:mark@pineconemedia.co.uk" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">mark@pineconemedia.co.uk</a> </b></div>
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testhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05425353809356194860noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583919631317475999.post-364428333146417512016-11-09T17:34:00.000+00:002016-11-10T10:07:18.947+00:00Why PR and Link Building Make Perfect Partners<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi592-DxVymiJu5Gx7GrSQRf4GdKewfzQN7vWnQJ9i_E6JHcvhoG-mg0FXYfS-FCVGgW1Dc7FmXLHIjeZBfGQpWLiwuNyVIT4S_5Z6i7vHMMf02l7QxnwkCKUVDCrpzxmZkEnI1nOn_rpdg/s1600/seo-pr-article.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi592-DxVymiJu5Gx7GrSQRf4GdKewfzQN7vWnQJ9i_E6JHcvhoG-mg0FXYfS-FCVGgW1Dc7FmXLHIjeZBfGQpWLiwuNyVIT4S_5Z6i7vHMMf02l7QxnwkCKUVDCrpzxmZkEnI1nOn_rpdg/s1600/seo-pr-article.gif" /></a>I wrote a link building article last summer about the reasons why PR is being used more and more within SEO campaigns. The post is even more relevant since further Google updates and content playing an ever increasingly important role in online marketing.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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<a href="https://twitter.com/willcritchlow" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Will Critchlow</a> from Distilled rounded off the LinkLove 2013 event with a presentation on his vision for the future of building links - 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 <b>getting PR for their clients</b>.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">SEO and PR s</span><span style="font-size: large;">ynergy - how they can help each other</span><br />
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<b><i>How SEO can help PR?</i></b><br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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<b><i>How PR can help SEO link building?</i></b><br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Link Quality vs Link Quantity</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>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, <b>people link to people</b>" 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.<br />
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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 '<i>quality, not quantity'</i> 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.<br />
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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!<br />
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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 <a href="http://www.seomoz.org/q/is-ratio-of-good-links-to-low-quality-less-relevant-links-a-ranking-factor" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Jacob Klien</a> personally believe that Google parses link type and link relevancy to determine search engine rank.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The cascade effect
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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'.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Clients love big site mentions</span><br />
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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.<br />
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Talking of the client, <a href="https://twitter.com/randfish" target="_blank">Rand Fishkin</a> from Moz 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.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">One you've nailed one or two...show them off!</span><br />
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If you’ve already been quoted or covered by an authority blog, magazine, newspaper or website then you'll discover that web-masters 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.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Relationship Building</span><br />
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Contacts are critical in the online world and building relationships with top reporters, bloggers and web-masters 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.<br />
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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.<br />
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<b>Tips</b><br />
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<li>Start small and work your way up. Once you’ve built a relationship, they’ll start contacting you.</li>
<li>Read a website or blogs editorial guidelines carefully and adhere to them.</li>
<li>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.</li>
<li>Do not pitch something they clearly don’t want, that is wasting everyone's time.</li>
<li>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.</li>
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testhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05425353809356194860noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583919631317475999.post-57711466273789785432016-01-08T15:30:00.000+00:002016-01-08T15:30:04.326+00:003 simple yet important things to help your SEO effortsGoogle recently updated the <a href="https://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/updating-our-search-quality-rating.html" target="_blank">search quality rater's guidelines</a> with this <a href="http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//insidesearch/howsearchworks/assets/searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf" target="_blank">160 page PDF doc</a> and here we summarise the most important take aways.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">1. Make sure your website is mobile friendly. If not you'll be seen as low quality in Google eyes and pay the price in search results</span><br />
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Probably the biggest takeaway from the Google guidelines is to make your site mobile-friendly (if it’s not already). By not doing this you are putting your website at a disadvantage and letting websites outrank you because they have mobile friendly sites - Google sees those with non-mobile-friendly pages as low-quality.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiONaXXnVHbItNMIg8FoeTJurQKHwOigKxMpx00GAuWmqiJvCSUCMNL-6Whe6upNZcQUQyP2XYKFTu7DYVcpW4YEElNdqoju-pszP56zp2Ra7rSNhFQXopnkws9qzv_d0lB-AEW2PkNqs8M/s1600/google-mobile-tablt-search-ss-1920-800x450.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiONaXXnVHbItNMIg8FoeTJurQKHwOigKxMpx00GAuWmqiJvCSUCMNL-6Whe6upNZcQUQyP2XYKFTu7DYVcpW4YEElNdqoju-pszP56zp2Ra7rSNhFQXopnkws9qzv_d0lB-AEW2PkNqs8M/s640/google-mobile-tablt-search-ss-1920-800x450.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">2. Make sure you content is useful to your readers</span><br />
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This one is obvious and if you're not creating content useful for your reader then why would Google rank you well in search results lets face it. Take a look at your supporting content across your website and review how it supports your main content. Adding related articles and linking to articles found on your own site is a simple way to provide additional value for the visitor. This will also help keep visitors longer on your website as they engage with your content, spend longer on the time.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">3. Calm down with the advertising! monetise your site but not to the detriment of readers</span><br />
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We've all been on those websites, especially blogs, which are literally covered in ads - Google ads, affiliate ads, annoying pop up ads, in text ads and so on. As a blogger myself I can understand to a certain degree why many choose to monetise their site in this way but I would add a word of caution.<br />
Find the right balance between monetisation and user experience. Look at your stats and see what is making you money as it's very common to find ads which are not generating any money and hence useless.<br />
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and finally, have these things in the back of your mind...<br />
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Make sure you provide sufficient information to a visitor, or a quality rater, that can answer simple questions about your site.<br />
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<b>Is the author reputable? </b></div>
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<b>Does the site have authority? </b></div>
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<b>Should people consider the site trustworthy? </b></div>
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And don’t forget to include things like a simple contact form, that's just basics but I'm always baffled to come across sites in my link building research and outreach which don't have the simple things in place.<br />
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Your site should reflect E-A-T:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg14ii2ctl_HL_ziiCkNRexTJV1_vCbE8dvumQ7Qa70AcChn8XID6y6R_qdlfQVEuQOvDtA7TMDaPRPYpRDytFyXXNamPhZ9rpL5VfN3hxNK2tXDCxXelQxr_dGrAgVRIv92EiIfQiqdg7L/s1600/eat.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg14ii2ctl_HL_ziiCkNRexTJV1_vCbE8dvumQ7Qa70AcChn8XID6y6R_qdlfQVEuQOvDtA7TMDaPRPYpRDytFyXXNamPhZ9rpL5VfN3hxNK2tXDCxXelQxr_dGrAgVRIv92EiIfQiqdg7L/s640/eat.png" width="640" /></a></div>
So in a nut shell you should make sure you present the highest-quality content from highly reputable sources. The higher the perceived value of your site, the higher the quality ratings will be. While this doesn’t translate directly into higher rankings, doing well with regards to these guidelines can translate into the type of content Google wants to serve higher in the search results.<br />
<br />testhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05425353809356194860noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583919631317475999.post-76376113876101144982015-12-01T10:36:00.003+00:002015-12-01T10:36:48.051+00:00The importance of building high-quality links has never been higherA simple search for 'link building' in Google will prompt a 'link building is dead' auto complete and you may be thinking you should therefore stay clear of this tactic as part of your SEO / digital marketing efforts.<br />
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Link building of course is far from dead, it's changed yes....but it's alive and kicking because after all, Google drastically hasn't changed the way it uses links to rank websites in searches.<br />
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If you don't have anyone linking to your website, your website will really struggle to rank - and those in competitive niches need links to compete to rank in higher positions in Google search results.<br />
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The important thing to know is that the links you get need to be relevant...and quality.<br />
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SEO link building has changed for sure - it's very much content led these days although that's the way I've always built links - using content on the right websites engaging with the right audiences.<br />
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But link building is certainly not dead. Building high-quality links has never been so important - but it's about quality, not quantity of links.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqhNvTbCaKYHMcsXzCWfanzacmEVD_7tB7IN88we3T95zWB7Bg0MtQ3xR8b4G5Nubys4dYTqeqHzm84-VPRh0zEk-ytTcc1xlejWfYASDGYq6E40esez72CHLmDgbVeLj9NKOC-IcSjSCs/s1600/Build-Quality-Link.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqhNvTbCaKYHMcsXzCWfanzacmEVD_7tB7IN88we3T95zWB7Bg0MtQ3xR8b4G5Nubys4dYTqeqHzm84-VPRh0zEk-ytTcc1xlejWfYASDGYq6E40esez72CHLmDgbVeLj9NKOC-IcSjSCs/s640/Build-Quality-Link.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="mailto:mark@pineconemedia.co.uk" target="_blank">Email me</a> today to get a discussion going on how we can work together on building </div>
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links to your/your clients website using content on relevant quality websites. </div>
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<br />testhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05425353809356194860noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583919631317475999.post-63246376187241898452015-09-13T23:07:00.000+01:002016-11-10T10:01:08.792+00:00How Can I Help?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoNU1mSGnxPCwp7CrNes5YiAlAtOHlfzLM4tvFQOEo4Z5Y1sB6nzLs6m6BpTKcA5CVQArqYJbugbwNPDtEaTVNV-1GdwuHoYMLPng5Gqr0AfbzNlfOmXTAoMldFXKQzlWoUIr0qVMcYB1_/s1600/skills-small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoNU1mSGnxPCwp7CrNes5YiAlAtOHlfzLM4tvFQOEo4Z5Y1sB6nzLs6m6BpTKcA5CVQArqYJbugbwNPDtEaTVNV-1GdwuHoYMLPng5Gqr0AfbzNlfOmXTAoMldFXKQzlWoUIr0qVMcYB1_/s200/skills-small.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
I'm a freelance link builder and SEO consultant based in Cornwall and work with clients across Europe. If you're looking for an experienced UK Freelance SEO link builder to help you get high quality relevant links via content marketing and other proven successful link building techniques then contact me at mark@pineconemedia.co.uk<br />
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You can find out more <a href="http://www.pineconemedia.co.uk/p/about-me.html" target="_blank">about me</a> or <a href="http://www.pineconemedia.co.uk/p/contact.html" target="_blank">contact me</a> today for more information on how I can work with you on your SEO, link building and content marketing efforts. I'm on <a href="https://uk.linkedin.com/in/markdanshaw" target="_blank">Linkedin</a> too so you can check me out on there, my experience, testimonials etc.<br />
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The below graphic highlights just some of my skills and experience within SEO and link building.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBOCTLKEe5mBIBbD1CcA8hyphenhyphen_uKpJ_tytX2oBDaaWmwHnlX4pNzNZFpdPOx6qJVRR8l6xI-RNotAMiD80RN6DoO5Gl2NrBLSHuG4tX7doLi60D326WWsGqo2gl2jLhDpNBC2pjXoatdN0iR/s1600/pineconemedia-experience.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBOCTLKEe5mBIBbD1CcA8hyphenhyphen_uKpJ_tytX2oBDaaWmwHnlX4pNzNZFpdPOx6qJVRR8l6xI-RNotAMiD80RN6DoO5Gl2NrBLSHuG4tX7doLi60D326WWsGqo2gl2jLhDpNBC2pjXoatdN0iR/s1600/pineconemedia-experience.png" width="412" /></a></div>
<br />testhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05425353809356194860noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583919631317475999.post-7084663386733904462015-09-13T23:06:00.004+01:002015-09-13T23:11:31.221+01:00Clients - Past and Present<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNc9jvAcR1yvZSkJlQkgLr2t2ePE0d8Hwe0ZBdAAfw4Kcd0VxlQ8Y_1iHDPWv5n-SoTXpNElwvPrzLVlFg27sjn3Z-lGK3APHKuabvzuMQeW4-UeRYA2RLDkpXQBlvArwf2_QrszM2uNaC/s1600/clients-small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNc9jvAcR1yvZSkJlQkgLr2t2ePE0d8Hwe0ZBdAAfw4Kcd0VxlQ8Y_1iHDPWv5n-SoTXpNElwvPrzLVlFg27sjn3Z-lGK3APHKuabvzuMQeW4-UeRYA2RLDkpXQBlvArwf2_QrszM2uNaC/s1600/clients-small.jpg" width="320" /></a>In my 8 years of working in SEO link building and online content marketing down in Cornwall, south west UK I've had the privilege to work with many clients, both large and small.<br />
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From household names such as the Post Office, Brittany Ferries, talkSPORT and moneysupermarket.com to start up businesses such as thedaythat.co.uk and Folk2Folk.com<br />
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I've enjoyed being an integral part of their successful online SEO and content marketing campaigns and continue to do so in 2015.<br />
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<a href="http://www.pineconemedia.co.uk/p/contact.html" target="_blank">Contact me</a> today for more information on how I can work with you on your SEO, link building and content marketing efforts.<br />
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<br />testhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05425353809356194860noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583919631317475999.post-63503725226732245772015-09-13T23:06:00.003+01:002015-09-13T23:06:54.445+01:007 tips for adjusting your link building mindset<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheVR04V0sMmTQ3mFO_BL_01I6hm-O-vS6zEYj0pbDs4V0UUefidk823QnSSJ19M7iSIo-hozVdW4iSnSzgjBHNzM97kXWR3np8skI0W16DI3iAUD1BNYdV76hIZkVziRm-Lc1zr2TddYl-/s1600/Homer-Brain-Google-Effect.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheVR04V0sMmTQ3mFO_BL_01I6hm-O-vS6zEYj0pbDs4V0UUefidk823QnSSJ19M7iSIo-hozVdW4iSnSzgjBHNzM97kXWR3np8skI0W16DI3iAUD1BNYdV76hIZkVziRm-Lc1zr2TddYl-/s320/Homer-Brain-Google-Effect.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Link builders need to remember that link building isn’t just about growing a backlink profile; it’s about marketing a business. It's a mindset for many to just think about links but don't forget the fundamentals of online marketing at the expense of links.<br />
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A few years ago in April 2012 there was an interesting interview with Matt Cutts on what makes a quality site and was asked if he thought link building is a problematic concept in and of itself.<br />
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Matt Cutts response to this was:<br />
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<i><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></i>
<i><b><span style="font-size: large;">It segments you into a mindset, and </span></b></i></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-size: large;">people get focused on the wrong things.</span></b></i></div>
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This comment highlights the problem with a mentality of SEO's so heavily focused on building links to clients websites that they forget the fundamentals of online marketing. So instead of focusing on link building, focus on the concepts of creating genuine online marketing with quality at its heart. Create incredible, link-worthy content that will earn links from quality websites.<br />
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As i've said before, building quality links is hard and takes a lot of resource and effort but the longterm results are well worth it. As it's not a short-term game, it's important to manage clients expectations. It is very rare that overnight success is achieved unless your client has something exceptional to utilise such as an amazing story, video or infographic. For most, immediate success is not usually on the cards.<br />
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You need to stick to the task and build up quality links over time. If you start with content that is genuinely useful, and if you target sites that are real authoritative sources of information for high numbers of readers within your niche, then you will succeed and start to see powerful and sustained results in a matter of months.<br />
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In order to achieve this, SEO's now need to adjust their mindsets of 'links for links sake' and focus on quality not quantity.<br />
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So here I share some tips on how to think and act when it comes to link building today in 2015.<br />
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People" rel="nofollow" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgtppPZi8UY3vpD6hcbOgBWAS3DK1K9h6L0QoX57Xw3QrAfEblBW3kyydX3MceJ8iFWhS7yZslsvmb9iOEdqfD4uCdriL3TXJv35R6kWM_wx6F-il_6_GN79O-qfg_rrvJZ0KGx47Bk69P/s320/how-to-win-friends.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-size: x-large;">1. build relationships</span><br />
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It’s people who link to people and not websites so get to know key people within the niche you are working. If they get to know you, they are far more inclined to do something for you. You scratch my back i'll scratch yours scenario and link to their Twitter account in a piece of content you are writing (we talk about this in point number 2 below).<br />
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Recommended Reading: <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0091906814/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=0091906814&linkCode=as2&tag=coostu-21">How To Win Friends And Influence People</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=coostu-21&l=as2&o=2&a=0091906814" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />. Written by Dale Carnegie and first published in 1936 is one of the first best-selling self-help books ever published selling 15 million copies world-wide.<br />
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Engage and win friends through useful comments on relevant blog posts and forums. From the email conversations that follow, you can quickly build up contacts with people all over the world...that's the the beauty of the Internet!<br />
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Don't forget offline communication and build personal relationships wherever you can as relationships can bring opportunities future links. So look to:<br />
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<b>Phone or Meet Up </b><br />
Do not underestimate the power of actually talking to someone either over the phone or via Skype - they will remember you more than by an email. If you get the chance to meet up, this is the best way to build a relationship face-to-face over a coffee or a beer.<br />
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<b>Attend local and national meetings/events</b><br />
Any relevant event or meeting is good to attend and network as those there will likely have websites or blogs with link building opportunities. You’ll easily build contacts among fellow delegates and even among some of the speakers.<br />
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SQGJmgnEI8" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO8O11pUlL0kskZQyMDb9iv4pjrjhr4Fd9yTCy74CKRsN1wGMQ5KMrIWVnol05m1R3-Y0xDbnBXL0bq3krhDJTRZ_xwDGY-OaP49AED5a2PBoh_Nw22JOZJ80o17CXvcrRE1Hxj4T6YwgU/s1600/give-a-little-bit.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">2. give a little bit</span><br />
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As Supertramp sang '<i>there's so much that we need to share, so send a smile and show you care</i>' - okay along with that smile send a link :) don't be afraid to link to other websites from within any type of content you're creating - on the contrary, encourage it, especially linking to key bloggers or sites (not competitors).<br />
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Linking to their twitter feeds is a good tactic and tweet them about their mention in your content - likely chance is they will follow you and share the content too. This is relationship building again and is now key to link building.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">3. know the niche </span><br />
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The majority if not all of your potential quality links will come from relevant websites, blogs, forums, associations, email newsletters specialising or related to your niche. You need to understand and build relationships within that niche to establish your position within it and these following 6 tips will help:<br />
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1. Set up <a href="http://www.google.co.uk/alerts" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Google Alerts</a> to monitor keywords or competitors<br />
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2. Setup an RSS newsreader...not Google Reader as it will not be available after July 1, 2013<br />
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3. Read key blogs - top blog lists are useful - use their rss feeds to populate you newsreader<br />
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4. Be active in industry forums<br />
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5. Read industry newsletters<br />
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6. Comment on blogs but nothing spammy...must be useful to the reader<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">4. know the customers</span><br />
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As an SEO you will have no doubt have undergone some analysis on your client. Knowing your clients customers is very important when it comes to link building. What articles could you write about relating to your clients customers? Is there anything you can dig out and use such as statistics to create an infographic or interesting customer stories - people are interested in other people and if you write web copy that highlights interesting stories, you’re sure to attract links.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">5. forget automation and link networks</span><br />
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If it's too good to be true...it probably is. There are many link building companies and schemes offering to build links automatically but you should avoid these like the plague! Do not waste your money and end up having to clean all the spammy low quality links they will obtain. The links they will get will do more harm than good.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidYHm47cG63DdVCsE0fMlbkpr8BEafTuqGAKUtPaX7dBADaojow4HJENXrilPUzahcatHZqUPRawZ7CzTSKL7o3UDkKg5_e-Hpf_Jk9Ui4ZmNRhyJVnUgmsndEw1qnewjcjF6ThRotIj2b/s1600/quantity-quality.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidYHm47cG63DdVCsE0fMlbkpr8BEafTuqGAKUtPaX7dBADaojow4HJENXrilPUzahcatHZqUPRawZ7CzTSKL7o3UDkKg5_e-Hpf_Jk9Ui4ZmNRhyJVnUgmsndEw1qnewjcjF6ThRotIj2b/s1600/quantity-quality.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">6. think quality not quantity </span><br />
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These days it's all about quality and obtaining trusted authoritative links from within a niche...not the number of links you get. Quality sites have higher levels of traffic and so a mention on one will inevitably result in increased traffic to your site.<br />
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Also quality content and links attract other links. If a trusted authoritative site is linking to you, for example from the BBC, then many others will more likely to link to you. It's like the rich get richer scenario or the strong get stronger - people with good inbound links get more inbound links without asking. This is link building as it's best.<br />
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You can also reference a high quality link in correspondence to webmasters and journalists which will give you a much higher response rate. As a link from the BBC is such a valuable endorsement, it's great to use it as a testimonial ‘as featured on the BBC’ on your clients website.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">7. reverse engineer links</span><br />
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One of the first things many SEO's tend to do when working on link building strategies for a client is to look at competitors links. However, be careful not to let competition dictate your link building strategy. Would Google really make it that easy for a website to simply find the “secret” to a competition’s link building and reverse engineer for similar success? What worked 5 years ago will not hold the same value now. Don't get me wrong, an in-depth competitive link audit is still very much an important job before any link building strategies have been devised. Why? it gives you a good baseline and shows how your clients website measures up against the competition.<br />
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If your client has 200 links but it's top competitor has 5,000 you know some hard work is on the horizon. However how many of these 5,000 links are high quality links? If a large proportion of a competitor’s links are from low quality directories or spammy content farms and article syndication sites then it's not going to take many high quality links in order to rank above them. Of course every niche is different so this is generalising but a good idea is to seek out the most valuable links within a competitors’ link profile and look to provide something of real value for that site - think 'earn the link'.<br />
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Look to earn links from websites that do not link to your competitors that are relevant and have good <a href="http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/domain-authority" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">domain authority</a>. <br />
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<br />testhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05425353809356194860noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583919631317475999.post-52280809531094082782015-09-13T23:04:00.001+01:002015-09-13T23:04:10.116+01:00What Is A Good Link? 3 Questions Every Link Builder Should Ask<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh36vb8dZkvln7t3yQEkyCO2oqyTeN0mUNeeeT7RDbK9S8l6Nud9SnkZmO2tgzVzkUfDLaqIp-Ta8ztXHGZAI3QzDF1KGVKBeKnGqJjZBqflfPVDjvAbA5qNWnfv1KeaTvXwpLUADeM_Qv4/s1600/WHAT-IS-A-GOOD-LINK.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh36vb8dZkvln7t3yQEkyCO2oqyTeN0mUNeeeT7RDbK9S8l6Nud9SnkZmO2tgzVzkUfDLaqIp-Ta8ztXHGZAI3QzDF1KGVKBeKnGqJjZBqflfPVDjvAbA5qNWnfv1KeaTvXwpLUADeM_Qv4/s320/WHAT-IS-A-GOOD-LINK.jpg" width="320" /></a>One of the best schools of thought when it comes to the type of link you want to earn your client is to think to yourself...even if links were not a ranking factor, you'd want to keep this link.<br />
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I've blogged before about how link builders must take their SEO hat off and stop thinking of search engines and think of the users/customers.<br />
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A 'good link' has changed over the years and how it's important these days to understand whether a link is ‘good’ or ‘manipulative’, especially in light of <a href="http://insidesearch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/another-step-to-reward-high-quality.html" target="_blank">Google's Penguin update</a>.<br />
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Links are still a major ranking factor and that's not going to change for the foreseeable future but lets pretend for one minute that links made no difference to search engine rankings. Then, have a look at the links you've built and ask yourself the question <b><i>"would I keep this link?"</i></b>.<br />
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This is a difficult question for many but it becomes much easier when you break it down into 3 things:<br />
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<b><i><span style="font-size: large;">1. Does the link drive good quality traffic to your/clients site? </span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-size: large;">2. Does the link drive paying customers to your/clients site? </span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-size: large;">3. Does the link increase your/clients site’s credibility</span></i></b></div>
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If you answer yes to any of these 3 questions then the link is most likely a good link worth keeping. </div>
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I've always focused on relevancy and quality when building links but in some cases I would have to say no to this question - Analytics shows no traffic coming from a link.<br />
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However, in some cases, I find that very little traffic was received but the link is on a highly authoritative website. Is this therefore a good link? I would then look at what anchor text is being used and if it's natural/in context and relevant then I would say yes, it's a good link.<br />
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I'd say the best link is one from a respected/authoritative high traffic site which has good social presence and engages with your target audience and the link drives good quality traffic to your site.<br />
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<br />testhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05425353809356194860noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583919631317475999.post-54304095827002581202015-09-13T22:58:00.001+01:002015-09-13T22:58:11.353+01:00Don't Stop Link Building - Do Start Genuine Online Marketing With PR<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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SEO events the past few years have highlighted the importance of PR and the emphasis on 'quality' link building should be at forefront of online marketing campaigns.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT2CSPS7b6B_IPB1ClrppRfPlJOibwQBdMKcpvHvrpr-aL57-I88uHINlTxor25Dun5cuc2z5_1V39MjAsHYjsdDaalfYrkQd4bH_NjvAGw4VrN7KgFWtZ9y0kBihPQeZ990IEbH2kj-6M/s1600/tuttut.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT2CSPS7b6B_IPB1ClrppRfPlJOibwQBdMKcpvHvrpr-aL57-I88uHINlTxor25Dun5cuc2z5_1V39MjAsHYjsdDaalfYrkQd4bH_NjvAGw4VrN7KgFWtZ9y0kBihPQeZ990IEbH2kj-6M/s320/tuttut.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-size: large;">Scaremongering? </span><br />
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I like the term link building, it does what it says on the tin. White hat link building that involves earning natural high quality links without paying any money is where link building has been at for at least 4 years at least.<br />
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We all know (we always knew) that you can't buy links for clients to manipulate search results and get away with it like you could perhaps a few years ago. You could get away with it back then if the link was relevant.<br />
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I'm surprised with the technologies that Google have at their disposal that they hadn't developed a comprehensive dodgy link detection system sooner for spotting and devaluing / penalising paid links. In 2007 we were waiting for one to emerge, nothing came.<br />
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The message running through the SEO industry 6 years ago was that it was only a matter of time when Google will develop a sophisticated detection of “illicit link activity”. There have been the odd high profile cases every year since 2007 of a website being nailed for buying links against Google's guidelines - some thought this was scaremongering on Google's behalf but the SEO industry always reacted. I remember back in 2010 people stopped buying links at websites like Text Link Ads and advertorials as a result of a few high profile cases hitting the headlines as a result of some shoddy SEO agency work which impacted upon the rest of the online marketing communities.<br />
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A few years back we saw Interflora hit the headlines in newspapers and magazines such as <a href="http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240178518/Google-penalises-Interflora-and-UK-newspapers-for-failing-to-comply-with-SEO-regulations" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Computer Weekly</a>. Interflora's SEO agency secured advertorials on national and local newspapers but the content was poor quality and the links within looked so obviously paid for, they got caught. I know for sure that many other SEO agencies and some of the biggest websites have secured advertorials on the same newspaper and magazine websites who weren't caught.<br />
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Many thought Google would never take on the publishers but it seems no website is too big to feel the back hand of Google if you break their guidelines and manipulate search results via buying links. They also removed the Page Rank away from those papers that sold these advertorials so the SEO value was seriously downgraded making the proposition for selling further advertorials for a tidy profit and help manipulate search results more difficult.<br />
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Google scaremongering? No, they are trying to help make the web a better place and removing the rubbish and cheats. By exposing a few high profile websites, this was the warning shot required to help everyone stand to attention and clean up before getting hit themselves.<br />
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White hat SEO agencies and those implementing quality link building will not need to worry, and that's a really great thing because for a long time have they seen their hard work hampered by others using less that legitimate ways of gaining links for clients.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQjX73pESHIWxam87Hf32Pyrm-op8hMntHT50S03bIhabiSd_4w9sxzTR-TN1yuzjPh9vxBRv3Q9CWUlABfeBqhOeYgXB9sOhOJcMLRK93QUN8LzJRk9bIGw_tugWcWm-oIBMYJZYf1Ub-/s1600/PR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQjX73pESHIWxam87Hf32Pyrm-op8hMntHT50S03bIhabiSd_4w9sxzTR-TN1yuzjPh9vxBRv3Q9CWUlABfeBqhOeYgXB9sOhOJcMLRK93QUN8LzJRk9bIGw_tugWcWm-oIBMYJZYf1Ub-/s320/PR.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-size: large;">PR & Link Building</span><br />
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A few years ago I attended 'Linklove' and the big message was that PR is one of the best ways to build links in a natural and scalable way and <b>'don’t build links, earn them'</b>.<br />
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PR is the backbone to most of my most successful link building campaigns and so I supported this sentiment along with producing high quality audience specific content to publish on high quality relevant sites.<br />
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A shift in mentality has been required with traditional SEOs required to stop gaming the system and adopting traditional marketing mindsets which involves getting PR for their clients. This was echoed in <a href="https://twitter.com/willcritchlow" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Will Critchlow’s</a> recent presentation on “<a href="http://www.distilled.net/store/ll-2013-wc-critchlow/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The future of Link Building</a>”.<br />
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'High Quality' and 'Relevancy' have been the two main words that appear over and over again in any of these Linklove type events and conferences...because it is true. It's what the audience wants and more importantly to us, it's what Google wants.<br />
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Those who do not use PR as part of their online marketing will inevitably need to change. Link building campaigns that involve PR have proven to be successful. I can give numerous examples of campaigns i've worked on where PR both supported and aided link building with great results.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Post Panda and Penguin - Lets Outreach! </span><br />
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I admit I had a slightly smug look about me when Google's dreaded algorithmic updates like Panda and Penguin were implemented that cleaned out all the low quality links from content farms and low authority sites leaving many SEO's in a spot of bother and cursing Matt Cutts and his Google spam team. Those that stuck to high quality link building were rewarded with ranking increases, no lengthy link clean up or disavow exercises and now more than likely more clients signing up with them.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjop1LiqBl1ERq2Hippffg9vgCtBwBZTV1KyIx6npYBBQkbl7FskPOZMLaO850d09fAUwHZX_J1YsX_qSrdzboGWu11fM3IOCzcS30lo4XekoxAUE4csyIlKcb4Th6o0LYSaGjH11r72J2h/s1600/matt-cutts-panda-smx-1314101535.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjop1LiqBl1ERq2Hippffg9vgCtBwBZTV1KyIx6npYBBQkbl7FskPOZMLaO850d09fAUwHZX_J1YsX_qSrdzboGWu11fM3IOCzcS30lo4XekoxAUE4csyIlKcb4Th6o0LYSaGjH11r72J2h/s320/matt-cutts-panda-smx-1314101535.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;">Image Source: Search Engine Land</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
This past few years has seen many bloggers being contacted to change old links to 'nofollow' as a result of the Google Wemaster Tools messages.<br />
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Companies need to be proactive in conducting link removals as Google takes a much firmer stance with dubious backlink profiles. I've heard this to be a very labour intensive laborious task, especially for those clients with lots of un-natural links and will inevitably lead to those SEO agencies changing their tactic of gaining links for clients from that day forward.<br />
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Once the two Google Panda and Penguin updates had sent shocks waves around the SEO community, people began almost immediately to use new terminology via posts and social media. Words like 'outreach' was adopted throughout 2012 as opposed to the commonly known 'link building'.<br />
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This 'outreach' involved getting more creative and spending time securing 'high quality' and not 'high quantity' links from relevant authoritative sites. Those that weren't used to traditional online marketing were in for a shock. Those that were online marketing experts were happy has Larry.<br />
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Websites like <a href="http://www.followerwonk.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Followerwonk</a> overnight must have seen spikes in traffic from SEO's looking for influential bloggers and social media contacts. Also the abundance of top blog lists were finally put to some good!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkrgEdx_gk3kzBaof1sAZ9sdhBqOC0iplZlY5Bvmzi3z_TrDCLYAGRyMCc4CbzP-Irtr7wyx8B6DXG_r1Z1lKSO9947_EjwkM1eA_dYPaYHzQd_Eyjxpgbg4wqMrpCUGMrj3Z88iFBw6rb/s1600/LAME.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkrgEdx_gk3kzBaof1sAZ9sdhBqOC0iplZlY5Bvmzi3z_TrDCLYAGRyMCc4CbzP-Irtr7wyx8B6DXG_r1Z1lKSO9947_EjwkM1eA_dYPaYHzQd_Eyjxpgbg4wqMrpCUGMrj3Z88iFBw6rb/s320/LAME.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-size: large;">Creative Link Building </span><br />
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Infographics are still as popular as ever but the web has been flooded by online marketers producing them. Whilst many infographic attempts have been criticised and ridiculed, there's little doubt that when done correctly, a well designed interesting or funny infographic is an extremely effective method of link bait. But today the trick is finding something new and refreshing that nobody else has done. Time is needed to research and create something high quality rather than in the days gone by when you could simply send an email asking for a link and job done.<br />
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If a client has products or services to offer bloggers as competition prizes or product reviews or some research or useful statistics they have then great, the opportunities are plentiful. I expect to see a surge of product reviews and competitions on blogs and websites this year.<br />
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But what about those clients who have websites in a niche like titanium suppliers - they will of course find this type of online marketing unrealistic and this is where again PR and quality engaging articles will work along with listings on niche directories.<br />
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More time is now being generally taken to earn links. Poor quality links secured months or years ago are still poor quality links now. It is much better to build a few good quality links that are genuinely relevant to an audience or community than many links for links’ sake. Quality over quantity. Those SEO's that supply link building reports will need to adapt their reporting (perhaps via quality scoring metrics) and learn to educate clients and manage their expectations. They they will see less links and wonder what the hell is going on!<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Relationship Building </span><br />
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People link to people, fact. Link building for me has always been about relationship building, building relationships with key bloggers and webmasters and earning links via something creative, something useful whether it be a piece of high quality engaging content that they want to feature on their site, an info-graphic or video. It should attract existing readers for the blogger whilst gaining new readers and traffic so it's a two way relationship.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQXY1uypglY15sI6RYy5oRJnxC1wujK2UvZFw1pnl3Cl6M7RG3pqvH9r1XbG3EJvy601p9tGRdT2UeB3-4lDGNit9juf3tCrR99FKtzkJPUekyq34ixLGVilMNI2BuBhzaghsVr13lfqUN/s1600/great-success.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQXY1uypglY15sI6RYy5oRJnxC1wujK2UvZFw1pnl3Cl6M7RG3pqvH9r1XbG3EJvy601p9tGRdT2UeB3-4lDGNit9juf3tCrR99FKtzkJPUekyq34ixLGVilMNI2BuBhzaghsVr13lfqUN/s1600/great-success.png" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The Future of Link Building</span><br />
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<a href="https://twitter.com/willcritchlow" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Will Critchlow’s</a> recent presentation on 'The future of Link Building' pleaded to all SEO's to stop corrupting the online marketing industry, to stop giving each other a bad name and stop cutting corners and <b>start doing genuine online marketing</b>. I thought that was great, i've always liked Will and do even more so now, I don't know him personally but have followed him for a long time. I agree. The SEO industry is maturing, it's had to, but there are unfortunately people who break the rules like the naughty school kid who's always in detention. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUAHEiFhQkGkLo0XDrfkX42KpnZarrmhUtBTFP_pp_XfyV6aVS3XJKX4fQ_lco-X3e8i4NJetGB3-wyJRq1WAoUCIyWlE7kT7IRk4SxxC1UkPp4MNRKNf1O0MhyphenhyphenJwUBtDy4Jm4amOruDdf/s1600/ONE-DOES-NOT-SIMPLY-STOP-LINK-BUILDING.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUAHEiFhQkGkLo0XDrfkX42KpnZarrmhUtBTFP_pp_XfyV6aVS3XJKX4fQ_lco-X3e8i4NJetGB3-wyJRq1WAoUCIyWlE7kT7IRk4SxxC1UkPp4MNRKNf1O0MhyphenhyphenJwUBtDy4Jm4amOruDdf/s1600/ONE-DOES-NOT-SIMPLY-STOP-LINK-BUILDING.jpg" /></a></div>
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It's no longer the fear of being punished by Google that is making SEO's change there ways (it has certainly contributed) but link building services from SEO agencies and individuals working hard on a daily basis on client SEO link building campaigns who want to play by the rules and not endorse or be a part of in any shape or form of illicit link building activity. These are people who have a genuine interest in implementing quality link building techniques, do a great job for themselves and the company they represent and for there clients is where this industry is at.<br />
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<br />testhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05425353809356194860noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583919631317475999.post-11464429125472771852015-09-13T22:51:00.001+01:002015-09-13T22:51:16.873+01:00How to earn top quality links? <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6eAdVsUKlIY70gOO-dW0eQpc0dx7nJNpR469moQBPj9cFaXU7NvDQiGrODq_D2i_soA8huRKvoHZczL6zD1rg1Fpes9gfTwu9uKbgc6Ja3SPRT6ApyPd16m3wAtPkW9HHOcEyKPMZLeSj/s1600/LINK-BUILDING.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="189" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6eAdVsUKlIY70gOO-dW0eQpc0dx7nJNpR469moQBPj9cFaXU7NvDQiGrODq_D2i_soA8huRKvoHZczL6zD1rg1Fpes9gfTwu9uKbgc6Ja3SPRT6ApyPd16m3wAtPkW9HHOcEyKPMZLeSj/s320/LINK-BUILDING.jpg" width="320" /></a>Today, link building is all about link earning but how do we go about earning a link from an influential blogger or website? It's quality and not quantity we are after and so focussing efforts on top blogs and social influencers is now the name of the game. But how can you get this golden nugget link? In this article I will provide a few tips on what I have found to be a successful link tactic.<br />
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Lets start at the stage where you've found the site you would love to get a link from. What next?<br />
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Have a read of their recent articles on their site and think to yourself, is there a topic associated with any of these articles that I could write and expand upon whilst being new, relevant and engaging to their audience. If so, go ahead and write. If not, see if you can source a writer who has expert knowledge in the subject area that can write this, it will be worth the investment if they are a top blog or website. When writing the article, the main tip is:<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">Give them (the site you want a link from) credit </span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">in the article you are writing and publishing</span></i></div>
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If you want a blogger to link you, the best way to do that is to link to them first. There’s no guarantee that they’ll link you back but there's no harm done trying either, it's a no lose scenario. This is relationship building and another key tactic in high quality link building.<br />
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After all, a link in many ways is like a gift and naturally people feel the need to reciprocate gifts. It’s human nature. If they don't link this time, chances are they will next time so if this first attempt doesn't work, don't give up.<br />
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Also if they have an incoming link section in their WordPress dashboard setup then the chances are they will spot your blog post there if you link to them. Then hopefully they will either link to you or at least share the post socially.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Once published (on your blog or another site), <br />Tweet the blogger directly</span></div>
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I would go for the tweet option over email as webmasters these days are inundated with email requests whereas a tweet means you follow them already so again it's like reciprocating gifts, they will follow you back and hopefully share and retweet it. Because it has their link within your article naturally they are much more inclined to promote it for you than if it didn't.<br />
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If you do email them, you need to do it right and be friendly and personable - don't just email them asking for a link. Pay attention to their latest articles and include a quick comment on your favourite.<br />
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This relationship overtime can yield other opportunities such as guest posting so this little bit of extra legwork at the start of this process develops into a quality link source. <br />
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<br />testhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05425353809356194860noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583919631317475999.post-6603923170322300292015-09-13T22:49:00.004+01:002015-09-13T22:49:44.321+01:00What link builders can learn from newspaper headline titles?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Killer quality content is now critical to link building and link earning success and some of the most shared and valuable content on the web comes from newspapers. So what can link builders learn from newspapers and the headlines they use?</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Make your blog post / article title stand out </b></span><br />
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Above all else, the most important part of writing an article is the headline. You should begin and end every article with the question: “Would this make me want to read on?” The best titles are either something funny, sexual innuendo, interesting, controversial - maybe not sexual or controversial if it's for a client! Here's are just a few of my favourites tabloid headlines over the years:<br />
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Ok none these will probably be relevant to an article you are about to write on car insurance, but you get the idea - you need to take your SEO and link building hat off for a moment and think of a title that will get clicked on rather than a boring title that includes keywords within. If you can get a keyword or two in the title whilst making it stand out, bonus. Put your SEO hat back on as you need to get your title within 70 characters ideally :) </div>
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I like reading writers blogs like Jeff Goins who's written some great articles on writing article headlines including the article <a href="http://goinswriter.com/catchy-headlines/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">5 Easy Tricks to Help You Write Catchy Headlines</a> which I recommend you read. </div>
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These are some more great articles on this subject of writing engaging attention grabbing article tiles:<br />
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<a href="http://freelanceswitch.com/freelance-writing/the-sexy-art-of-writing-headlines-that-kill/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Sexy Art of Writing Headlines that Kill</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.copyblogger.com/10-sure-fire-headline-formulas-that-work/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">10 Sure-Fire Headline Formulas That Work</a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Think local</b></span><br />
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This is especially important if you have a client that targets a specific area. For example I work with a few holiday companies in Cornwall and so i'm always incorporating Cornwall related articles that target the audience of those holidaying in Cornwall - so titles such as 'Surfing is top thing to do on holiday in Cornwall, rain or shine'</div>
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Using any research or PR that can be used within the article works extremely effectively. </div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Target your audience </b></span><br />
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You need to tailor the content of the article to your audience - so you need to know firstly, where this article you are writing is going to be published. Then look at other successful articles on hat site - do they share anything in common? Try to emulate certain characteristics of these articles in your own to give it the best chance of success. </div>
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testhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05425353809356194860noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583919631317475999.post-10884273675466905312015-09-13T22:47:00.000+01:002015-09-13T22:47:53.253+01:00Earning Hard Links, Not Easy Links<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV_xBYIb2TZMxQg3KKS9bfTkAsVEdafUqE_H3eAwdKe-ssGU4TsYqzdDqqzTPEpHdf1ITvu8uIFj2mkr9XrlMYFV_5cbmkLvmWFqT36QFZMKa5Xjla6Ewunl79Df5GyymLQTAJcOLE2rCb/s1600/sweating3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV_xBYIb2TZMxQg3KKS9bfTkAsVEdafUqE_H3eAwdKe-ssGU4TsYqzdDqqzTPEpHdf1ITvu8uIFj2mkr9XrlMYFV_5cbmkLvmWFqT36QFZMKa5Xjla6Ewunl79Df5GyymLQTAJcOLE2rCb/s320/sweating3.jpg" width="320" /></a>It was back in 2012 - the year that many working as link builders had to wake up, smell the coffee and change their link building strategies that had worked so well in previous years.<br />
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GWT Unnatural link warnings, freaked out online marketers and their clients and noted a general consensus that 2012 was the year when Google officially clamped down on low quality. Google’s Panda and Penguin updates meant that link building based around non-human engagement no longer works, which is a good thing as those implementing unethical practices involving quantity and not quality links were penalised.<br />
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Google now has more quality signals in place than ever before and social is playing a big part in there rankings. They know bounce rate for each site, an easy signal for them to detect low quality sites and not pass any value from them. What does this mean for link building? Simply that the main focus of link building strategies is content and rich media - publish an engaging piece of content, video or infographic on a blog or website where your audience can resonate with. It should be a site that gets traffic and has prominent social media presence and buttons that users can easily share the content on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and so on. You need to almost forget about SEO and link building and think like a marketer.<br />
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<b><i>Today the best link building strategies focus on content marketing that attract not only links but social followers as well...thus helping to establish authority within a niche. </i></b></div>
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Why did it take Google so long to implement a detection system for unnatural links? Why did it take so long for Google to stop trusting anchor text? It was never rocket science that if you had a exact match domain, you would rank well for that search term as people would link to you using that link text - it was a ridiculous signal, but of course they knew this, they are not stupid by any means! Sitewide sidebars links, banner text links, footer links, scraped content, blog networks, advertorial networks - I can spot these being so glaringly obvious and I'm no techie - so it must have been easy for Google to...but not until 2012 was this implemented which I find confusing.<br />
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Danny Sullivan’s brilliant rant in 2012 about links and his subsequent post <a href="http://searchengineland.com/link-building-means-earning-hard-links-not-easy-links-123767" target="_blank">Link Building Means Earning “Hard Links” Not “Easy Links”</a> post was one of the best link building posts I've ever read which 100% summed up what I and SEO's around me were feeling.<br />
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If you haven’t listened to the audio of the Danny Sullivan link rant you can <a href="https://soundcloud.com/jeremy-bencken/danny-sullivan-rant" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">listen to it here</a>.<br />
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Today you can forget about anchor text and think about being natural with brand links - start sending Google brand signals as they cannot ignore these. Every brand has its own signal and importance for Google and if people are talking about a website / brand Google will know about it.<br />
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By all means, do more creative link bait such as info-graphics and viral videos if you can as these are seemingly easy (but take time to get right) ways to earn large numbers of links. Relationship building is now one of the most important aspects of link building - find authority bloggers with particular niches which most now call this 'outreach'. It's all about proving your worth and <b>earning links</b>.<br />
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Just like in our daily lives, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. So if you obtain a link and it was easy, the chances are it will have little or no SEO value, it might, but it probably won't. Why? Because the high quality links come from hard work creating something that will earn links whilst bringing relevant traffic - and these are now the most valuable links to obtain.<br />
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<br />testhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05425353809356194860noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583919631317475999.post-195394696215470462014-02-25T17:29:00.002+00:002015-09-13T22:45:07.629+01:00Link Relevancy Still V Important For Google's Search Results<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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SEO link building is not dead despite what many people have been saying this past year or so. Why? Well for a start, online visibility is still very much dependant on links and until search engines like Google find another signal that is as strong, links will remain.<br />
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Matt Cutts only this week gave the clearest evidence yet that links are still as important as ever.<br />
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Here is the video in which he explains that Google tried a search engine that excludes back-link relevancy and the results were as expected:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/NCY30WhI2og" width="640"></iframe>
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A user asked:<br />
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<b><i>Does the big G have a version of the search engine that totally excludes any backlink relevancy? I’m wondering what search would look like and am curious to try it out. </i></b></div>
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And here’s Matt Cutts’ response:<br />
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<i>We don't have a version like that that is exposed to the public, but we have run experiments like that internally, and the quality looks much much worse. It turns out that backlinks, even though there's some noise and certainly a lot of spam, for the most part are still a really really big win in terms of quality of search results. So we've played around with the idea of turning off backlink relevance and at least for now backlink relevance still really helps in terms of making sure that we return the best, most relevant, most topical search results.</i><br />
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What is true is the days of lots of low quality links that successfully boosted rankings are gone...they've been dead for a while in fact. Today it's all about quality, not quantity of links via creating engaging content that will <a href="http://www.thelinkbuildingexpert.co.uk/2013/04/earning-links-how-did-this-come-about.html" target="_blank">earn links</a>, be shared socially and send traffic.<br />
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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 <b>high quality relevant links</b> 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.<br />
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This month we saw SEOMoz rebrand to MOZ and rumour is that SEOGadget will shortly follow suite and rebrand from 'SEO' to 'Digital Marketing'. I expect many other SEO agencies will be doing the same in the months ahead. Perhaps I should rename myself to 'online marketing consultant'? The ability of Google to attribute authority to links has lead many agencies to migrate away from pure SEO towards a combination of:<br />
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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?<br />
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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'.<br />
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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.<br />
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<br />testhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05425353809356194860noreply@blogger.com