The Work Media Internet Marketing Blog

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Friday, January 18, 2008

Seach Engine Optimization: Get the Link Out

We have been thinking a lot about this whole linking thing that is causing such an uproar in the Internet marketing community. If you haven't heard, Google is supposedly cracking down on paid links and is de-emphasizing the importance of links to a site's rankings...supposedly. We haven't seen it.

We are doing a lot of work right now for a company that is in an industry in which the top competitors are very aggressive about using paid links. In order to compete, we had no choice but to emulate the strategy. There was just no way we were going to be able to catch up using a purely natural linking strategy. It would take years...and we don't have years. So we're paying for links.

Are we going to be punished for buying links? We think not. Another thing we have in common with the companies we are competing against is that we are all heavy spenders on paid search ads. Is Google going to punish some of its best customers...customers who are generating millions of dollars in revenue for the company...for being aggressive in promoting their web sites?

We understand that Google wants its search engine results to be as genuine as possible and does not want companies doing things to try to artificially influence those results. But as a multi-billion dollar company, we do not believe that Google is going to piss off some of its largest advertisers.

Maybe the situation in your industry is different. But how would Google apply different rules to different industries? We don't think it would do that.

Our point here is that you have nothing to fear by going out and pursuing links to your site. Use a number of different strategies - link swapping, directories, paying for them, whatever. Now...we're not saying you should add your site to FFA pages or other sources of junk links. It will be a waste of your time. But for higher quality sources of links - go for it. The best strategy of all is to create content that is so interesting that other sites are compelled to link to you. Natural, non-paid, one-way links are still king. But regardless of what linking strategy you pursue...do not be afraid.

If you need help with your search engine optimization campaign, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, link bait, linking, linking campaign, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, seo, web site marketing

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Search Engine Optimization: Thoughts on Linking from Personal Observation

A lot has been made in the press and in the Internet marketing community lately about Google's attempts to de-emphasize the importance of links in its ranking algorithms. We've been asked a number of times by our clients if linking is still important. Based on what we have seen lately, the answer is a resounding...hell yes!

Google's anti-linking efforts are aimed at stopping web sites from purchasing links. Google feels this is a manipulation of its system. It wants only genuine, non-paid-for links. However, we are currently promoting a client in a very competitive category in which ALL of the top sites have used paid links to drive up their rankings. And they don't seem to be doing anywhere. In order to compete (and compete quickly) we basically had no choice but to adopt the same strategy. Otherwise, we would be too far behind the ball to catch up. We are not using paid links exclusively - it's just one part of a comprehensive strategy. So far the strategy is working, as our client is climbing the rankings.

Whether or not to use paid links should probably be determined by the competitiveness of the industry you are in. But regardless of your stance on paid links, you definitely need to keep getting links. Start with directories. List your site everywhere you can. Then start writing some articles and distribute them. A site we like for article distribution is http://isnare.com. If you are really dedicated, you can start going out and posting comments on other sites' blogs, with a link back to your site or blog (you do have a blog don't you? It's a powerful content creation strategy).

Then you can move into the realm of social bookmarking. This is where it gets really useful to have interesting original content on your site. If you have a really interesting web site with content that people want to link to, you will do well with social bookmarking. Once you introduce your web site via social bookmarks, hopefully other people will find it interesting or useful enough to add their own bookmarks. This can create a snowball effect where lots of people bookmark your site, thus creating lots of very high quality, one-way links to your site.

We are still using links as an SEO technique, and it continues to work for us. So don't worry about what the pundits say - keep working, keep linking, and keep aggressively promoting your web site. If your web site is high quality with strong content, then a linking strategy will work if you are diligent enough. If your site does not strong content, then you need to address that before you worry about linking. First things first.

If you need some help implementing a linking campaign for your web site, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, link bait, linking, linking campaign, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, seo, web site marketing

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Internet Marketing: Using Link Bait to Generate Traffic

Link Bait is content on your web site so interesting and compelling that others want to link to it and discuss it. Examples of different kinds of link bait include free books, free tools or downloads, and contests. To give you a better idea of what link bait looks like, I thought I would highlight a couple of examples that I like:

http://tools.seobook.com This site is intended to market a book about search engine optimization. But what's great about the site is that it provides a ton of free information about SEO as well as providing free access to a very useful set of SEO tools. The design is very clean and easy to navigate, so this is a good site to study all around.

http://www.deanguitars.com This is a very dynamic, exciting site that caters to a very specific market - primarily young men who like to rock out. The site has lots of original content about music artists, new models of guitars, contests, sexy women - everything boys like.

http://tools.marketleap.com/publinkpop Another site with free SEO tools. This particular one, the Link Popularity Checker, lets you check the number of links for the major search engines pointing back to your site all at once.

Now think about your business. What tool or content could you give away for free that would be of great value to your prospective customers? If you can think of the idea, you can probably get the item created for cheap by posting the project on elance.com. Or if it's a book and you have some writing skill, you can easily do it yourself.

However, just creating the item or content is not enough. You have to tell the world about it. Make sure you ping the blog directories with your blog update about it. Contact web site owners or bloggers who might be interested in it. Do an online press release. These things will get the word out and hopefully cause an avalanche of exposure and new links pointing to your site.

For help creating link bait for your web site, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or info@workmedia.net.

Labels: blog, blog marketing, blogging, blogging advice, internet marketing, link bait, search engine marketing, search engine optimization