Dan Cruz Inc » Link Building

Buying or Selling: Paid Links

Dan — Thu, 12 May 2011 19:10:10 +0000

Being that I’m starved for content ideas I’ve decided to start a new category called “Buying or Selling.” The concept behind “Buying or Selling” is pretty simple when you think of it in terms of buying or selling stock. When a stock is going down in price you obviously want to sell and when it’s going up obviously you want to buy. So what I want to do here is look at SEO tactics and determine whether I think they’re something that’s useable and effective, in which case I would be “Buying” that tactic, or if the tactic is dead and no longer viable than I would be “Selling” that tactic. This week I want to look at paid links.

Buying or Selling: Paid Links

In the case of paid links there is one big detriment to using them and that’s getting outed by one of your competitors because frankly I’m not too high on Goog’s ability to sniff out paid links on their own… at least when you know how to buy paid links but that’s a post for another day…

Recently it’s become sport to out big, brand names for buying links or other nefarious tactics and some pretty big names have gone down. Brand names such as J.C. Penney, Forbes and Overstock. The penalty for buying links is a big slap to your rankings and to the back of your dome for thinking you could ever pull one over on Goog. This fear alone is more than enough to keep most webmasters and small business owners away from the likes of paid links but is that smart on their part?

When I think about SEO tactics I don’t ever think in terms of ethics or morals. When I think about SEO tactics I think about effectiveness and I look at the work or investment/return ratio. I can guarantee you the Board of Directors at all of the companies listed above think in the same way. I can guarantee you the Board at J.C.Penney’s wasn’t thinking about Goog’s feelings or their TOS as they took their profits from multiple front-page rankings to the bank. Not to beat a dead horse but buying links was a calculated move and it paid off big time for J.C. Penney. They front-paged for a bunch of buying terms right before the holiday season and they took flak for it after the fact. Their rankings were “slapped” after they had already proven to themselves that paid links work and are effective.

So I’m buying links for the simple fact that they work and Goog is atrocious at finding them.

Granted there is risk involved and that’s where as an SEO I pull myself out of the equation. When it comes to paid links, if you’re working with a client your job as an SEO is to apprise the client of the risk involved in buying links. Risk assessment is up to the client, not me. I simply say here is what is in my tool belt and this is the risk/reward ratio of those tactics in my tool belt. And when they ask me about paid links the response is always: “Paid links work but you have to be careful and you have to buy the right ones. And you have to be willing to take a “slap” to your rankings if you get caught.”

How can Google tell the difference between a paid link and a natural link? It can’t and neither can the search engine spiders or the algorithms if you know what you’re doing.

So when it comes to paid links I’m obviously buying. On my personal affiliate websites it’s a no-brainer and with clients it’s up to them to determine how much risk they want to take to achieve higher rankings. Generally speaking paid links aren’t something I would propose to a client but when I start to here comments and chatter that sound like “things aren’t happening fast enough,” “is there any way to speed up the process,” and my favorite “are we there yet?”

Yea when I start to hear stuff like that, I let it be known that there are options and alternatives but that they also entail a lot more risk. Personally I’ve been surprised at how many peeps are more than willing to take on more risk but maybe I shouldn’t be. We live in a results driven world and in a results driven world, paid links work.

I’m buying paid links. Chime in in the comments. Are you buying or selling paid links?

Using Content to Build Links

Dan — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 07:19:16 +0000

Any seasoned seo will tell you that not all links are created equal. In the eyes of Google a contextual link from an authoritative website is worth far more than a link on a footer of some site with nothing to offer other than duplicate content. A great method for acquiring some of these contextual links is to look for guest blogging opportunities from blogs in your niche.

Finding blogs to guest post on can be tedious and time-consuming but if you’re up for the task below are some search queries you can run to find bloggers who have at some point accepted a guest blog post.

{keyword} “guest blogger”
{keyword} “guest post”
{keyword} “guest article”
{keyword} “write for us”
{keyword} “guest column”
{keyword} “become a contributor”
{keyword} “contribute to this site”
{keyword} inurl:category/guest

To do this search I use the advanced search in Google and I toggle the results per page to 100. Personally I like to work from the bottom up and basically what you’re looking for are blogs that regularly take guest bloggers. On occasion you’ll run into certain blogs that only take guest posts from authority figures in the niche or have regular guest bloggers only. While you can still approach those bloggers I’ve found that only very rarely will they accept guest posts from other writers.

The key with this little exercise is obviously to go through the list as quickly as possible and to find as many possible guest blogging opportunities as possible. What you’re looking for are websites that regularly accept guest posts from different guest bloggers. Each guest blogging opp is a possible link back to your site!

If your website is relatively young and you don’t have any linkable assets your best bet is probably to write up an original article and send it along with the guest post request email. In order to do this you’ll want to spend a few minutes at the site to determine what type of content they post and get a good feel for what type of content stands a good chance of getting accepted.

I wish I had some tips or a magical template that would increase your conversion rate to 100% but I’m afraid I haven’t fount it yet. Writing good content seems to work pretty well though and so does thoroughly checking out their site to look for any guidelines or restrictions they might have on guest posts. You know for those of you looking to drop 12 links in that one article…

I digress.

I like to shoot through a bunch of targets and then take a closer look at all the blogs that I didn’t get a response from to see if they’re worth continuing to pursue. If the website shows all the characteristics of an authoritative site than I might continue to try and communicate through comments or through Twitter or Facebook. If they have a Twitter or FaceBook account it would probably be a good idea to follow them. For those of you that think now is a great time to hit them up for a link go ahead and smack yerself on the back of the head for me…

If you have a Twitter or Facebook account yourself you can share their stories as a friendly gesture. In the end it all boils down to building relationships with people and sharing content with them that would be useful to their readers.

Guest blogging works if you’re looking to build contextual links and not only is it a great way to build links but let’s not dismiss the fact that you’re placing yourself in front of an audience that is in a somewhat related niche. In other words the link could mean more then just link juice, you could also be looking at a spike in traffic and new readers.

How Hiring the Cheapest SEO Could Cost You Your Website

Dan — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 19:05:29 +0000

It’s unfortunate but there are a lot of snake oil salesman in the seo industry… In any industry or business there are always folks who are willing to take short cuts in order to reach their goals and the seo industry is no different.

Inc ran a story recently about a gift basket website that was penalized for buying links which is against Google’s webmaster guidelines. You can read the whole story here: How Google Cost Me $4 Million.

The moral of the story is this: Google does not like it when websites/webmasters buy links and attempt to manipulate their search engine rankings… doing so could get your website removed from Google’s search engine results and end up costing you a lot of money.

I’ll be the first to admit there are a lot of shady seo’s out there in the search engine optimization industry and that’s why you have to do your homework when you go out and hire an seo agency to do your search engine optimization for you. If you’re going to hire someone or an agency to try an improve your search engine rankings you should probably ask what it is they will be doing to improve your websites rankings. Before you go out and outsource this kind of thing you may want to read Google’s webmaster Guidelines and at least familiarize yourself with what you can do, what you cannot do and of course what could get you banned!

In many cases I’ve run into clients that have spent a lot of money paying a seo company to basically spam their website all over the internet and sometimes this will have the same result as buying links. The reason some seo companies do it is because it flat out works with certain keywords. If you build enough links you can achieve a top ranking but a lot of bad things can happen in the process…

For starters your business and your brand could be directly associated with spam if your seo provider decides to drop your link wherever they see fit… it’s really sad but there are a lot of peeps practicing seo and they’ve never even read Google’s webmaster guidelines… they don’t know that half of the stuff they’re doing could get you banned!

As mentioned earlier some seo providers will drop your link wherever possible, sometimes just to meet link quotas, and some of these places are known as “bad neighborhoods” because they were basically created by spammers so they could have a place to place their links. Anyhow it’s a bad practice and links from these places could actually hurt your websites rankings because instead of building trust with Google, it’s actually taking it away.

Another thing these shady seo companies like to do is spam every blog on the internet with your link followed by a comment that goes something like this: “great post! I hope to read more from you.” Not only does this make you look bad but a webmaster having a bad day could report you to your hosting company for spamming and your website could be suspended for some time.

A lot of times the best case scenario when you hire a bad seo company is you end up paying a lot of money for a lot of crappy, worthless links.

Ok and that’s with the obviously shady companies out there… the company mentioned above in the Inc. article was a “reputable” company in the search engine optimization industry so you even have to be careful with the big guys because a lot of times they don’t know what they’re doing either.

Anyway you look at it, it’s best to familiarize yourself a bit with search engine optimization and at least know what could get your website banned from Google’s index… you know things like buying links and spamming your website to the top of the search engines. Know who you’re working with and have a good idea of what they will be doing to improve your rankings.

Using Competitive Analysis To Build Links

Dan — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 05:07:40 +0000

Building and creating links and finding suitable link partners is a painfully arduous task. Unfortunately it is also necessary if you ever plan on ranking for something meaningful in Google…

After you’ve done your keyword research and you’ve decided on some good keywords to optimize your website around, it’s time to start building some links so you can start to build some authority for your site and start moving it up the search engine rankings. But where do you start?

One of the first things a seasoned professional SEO will do is conduct a competitive backlink analysis for the top few websites that are ranking for your targeted keywords. When a seo does this we’re basically looking to see who is linking to the top sites in the search engine rankings. The reason for this is twofold:

You get to see what keywords and keyword phrases your competitors are targeting and ranking for and
You get to see where your competitors are getting links from and at the same time you can create yourself a nice list of potential link partners

Personally I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done back-link research for a website and noticed that the webmaster hasn’t really targeted any keywords or keyword phrases in particular… Other times they made the big mistake of targeting their brand name or domain name which we talked about here: Why You Should Consult With An SEO Pro Before Optimizing Your Website. When a seo sees something like this it generally signals a good opportunity but these are the kinds of things that can be invisible to folks who don’t know what they’re looking for. This is the time for you or your seo consultant to gauge the competition is see exactly what you’re up against.

The second huge benefit a competitors back link report gives us is a list of potential link partners. A seasoned seo will be able to go through this list and also be able to tell you which of the links carry more value and are worth going after. Certain factors like Google Page Rank and domain age give us some indicators that certain links are worth more then others and it’s in your best interest to go after links that will pass on the most “juice” because it’s these authoritative links that will elevate your website up the search engine rankings.

Now is also the right time to ask yourself just how good of a job your competitors have done in optimizing their website for the search engines both on-site and off-site. This is the time to ask yourself if obtaining a spot on the first page of Google is a realistic undertaking considering your competition and a back-link analysis of your competitors will provide you with some good information to make that decision.

If you’re getting into search engine optimization, if you’re looking at keywords to optimize your website around you need to analyze the back links of your top competitors to gauge the level of the competition and to start building some links. The information a competitors back links gives us is invaluable.

Quick And Easy Ways To Get Some Links To Your Site

Dan — Fri, 21 May 2010 01:39:26 +0000

Directory Links

The only form of acquiring links that is 100% kosher with Google’s webmaster guidelines comes in the form of submitting your website to online directories.

Directory links come in all shapes and sizes. Some directories are absolutely worthless and some are extremely valuable. One of the nice things about directory links is that you can usually choose your anchor text which is very important for ranking for terms that you want to rank for.

Online directories vary in what they require for you to submit your site to their directories. A lot are free but take forever to review your site and the rest vary from a few bucks to hundreds of dollars.

Beware of seo companies that offer to submit your website to thousands of directories. A lot of the directories they submit your website to are low quality and could even result in penalties for your website. You’re much better off submitting your website to just a couple hundred higher-quality directories. Some of the most valuable directory links are from “niche” online directories. Niche directories are just directories that only accept websites within a certain niche/industry and links from these websites are a little more valuable to the search engines because they come from a “related” site.

Article Directories

Writing articles and submitting them to article directories is another way to get some anchored links for your website. Some article directories carry a lot of weight in the search engines and will actually generate some traffic for your website if you target the right keywords and craft a good resource box.

But the real value in submitting articles to article directories for search engine optimization purposes is the one-way anchored link that you get back from the article directory. There are literally a ton of article directories on the net but only about 5-10 that have enough authority to generate some traffic to your site. At the very least you should consider submitting a unique article to the top 5-10 article directories.

Web 2.0 Websites

The internet has a lot of websites that exist for the sole purpose of allowing people to share whatever it is they want to share. Typically you can create your own web pages on these sites just by signing up for an account and most, if not all of them, are free.

Some of these sites are a lot like article directories in that all you have to do is write up some content and then drop a link but others are more for socializing on the net like Facebook and Twitter.

In any event, this is just another area on the net where you can get some much-needed links pointing back to your site.

Social Bookmarking

There was a time when social bookmarking links carried a decent amount of weight in the search engines but that time has come and gone. Social bookmarking sites still have some use though but not so much in terms of link building and search engine optimization.

These days your best bet with social bookmarking sites is to use the high quality sites to promote your content because some of them get a ton of traffic. When you hear people talking about generating viral traffic they’re usually talking about using one of these popular social sites as a catalyst to initially get their story/content out there.

Side Note: Something a lot of “off line” authors don’t realize is that on the internet not only do you have to come up with and write your own content but you also have to promote it and social bookmarking sites are a great way to do that. So while social bookmarking sites don’t offer much link value they do serve a purpose…

Blog Commenting

Commenting on Blogs that have a similar theme to your website and dropping a link is another way to get some links back to your site. The trouble with commenting on blogs is that the blogs webmaster has to approve your comment before it will show up and inevitably some of these folks will be your competitors so some of your comments may not get approved.

Nonetheless, commenting on blogs is a great way to “lure” some readers from popular blogs in your niche. Make sure you add to the conversation and brand yourself and your company as well as leave good, insightful comments.

Blogging

Blogging is another way to get links back to your site. If you don’t already have a WordPress Blog you should go get one. WordPress blogs that are properly optimized are like search engine magnets. In order to get other webmasters linking back to your site you’ll have to write compelling and often controversial content…

Writing controversial content for the purpose of getting links back to your site is known as “link baiting” and it can be a pretty effective method for generating viral traffic or it can be an exercise in futility. Your best bet is to check out some of the social sites and see what kind of stories in your niche are getting a lot of votes from users.

The key though is to not only write great content but also to work equally hard at promoting it.

Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is a lot like submitting an article to an article directory only that you’re submitting a unique article to one blogger or webmaster. Allowing other blogger to post on their sites is a necessary evil for a lot of webmasters and small business owners because they’re often too bust to keep their websites fresh with content. The benefit for the guest blogger is an anchored link back to their site.

If you plan on doing some guest blogging, look for websites and blogs that are old, popular and authoritative as these websites tend to produce stronger and more powerful links.

There you have it some quick and easy ways to get some anchored links back to your site. Make sure you do your keyword research beforehand and choose some keywords that are not too competitive, have some good demand and will hopefully convert for your site.