SEO Agency – SEO MOZ Con in Seattle – Part 1: Link Building
Link Building for SEO
SEO MOZ CON 2012 – Part 1 Link Building
There is nothing more refreshing than being surrounded by 700 or so SEO marketing professionals, many of whom are about 10 steps ahead of the Google game. We provide SEO Services based in Sydney, (plug, plug) and had the privilege of attending SEOMoz’s Mozcon in Seattle this year. We listened, we mingled, we attended over 15 seminars and speeches – but what did we learn about link building?
Linked building has changed significantly in the past few years, from the early days of suspect link farming to the healthy, content-driven links that are now part of everyday SEO practice. This is much in thanks to Google’s clampdown on deliberate search engine manipulation and their ongoing war against low quality websites and link spam.
It’s no secret that great content and articles can help your link profile, but what else can you do to improve your inbound links? Here’s what Paddy Moogan of Distilled had to say as part of his seminar of link building tips (he actually had a lot more to say, but this is what we found most interesting):
- Embed Your Photos: If you’re not embedding your pics, you’re missing out on invaluable links. Make sure you use the right code to embed all your images and videos. Don’t forget photo credits either – if you’re photo is on another site, make sure you get a credit link!
- Embed Your Embeds: Yes, it’s possible! Believe it or not, you can embed your code within another embed code to link back to your site.
- Stalk Competitors: Ok, not literally! But find out where they are guest posting and what they are writing about – and do the same. You should then set up Google alerts to track any names they use. You can also use Google custom search engine to search for competitor backlinks and see where those links are coming from.
- PR Request Your Hashtags: This is one step up from simply using Google alerts. Use IFTTT for alerts whenever anyone posts a tweet with the hashtag #prrequest and “your keyword” (your keyword should relate to your business). Alternatively, you can also set up an alert for the hastag #journorequest. You’ll then have great opportunities for new content (and links) landing straight in your inbox.
- Create Great Infographics: Don’t worry if you’re not a top-notch designer. Infogr.am can help you build simple infographics for your site. Once you post it and it creates a few links, you can use this as proof that your graphics work and invest in a real designer to customise your infographic and design many more!
- Guest Blog: It’s an oldie, but a goodie! Create backlinks through guest blogging and writing about what you know best. Use various tools like Blogdash and Guestr to help you find sites that accept guest posts – and go for it.
- Leverage Bloggers: Find out what content bloggers want to read about, create that content and then give them credits as contributors; this will improve your links, boost your buy-in and increase social share.
- Link to Profile Pages: Is someone else on the web mentioning somebody in your company in their blogs or articles? If so, your mission (if you choose to accept it) is to track these instances down using Google alerts. If a high profile person in your business is named anywhere, ensure their name links back to their profile page on your website (rather than your landing/home page). Don’t have a profile page for them? Create one! This will diversify your backlinks and make the links much more valuable.
- Incentivise Sharing: You might be doing this already, but give users something valuable (e.g. freebies, discounts) to encourage their page sharing is a precious marketing tactic. Paddy talked about UK company “Innocent’s” campaign in getting fans to tweet their hashtag for a collective discount on a product – the more people that tweeted/shared, the more the price went down and the cheaper the product would ultimately be.
- Troubleshoot Broken Links: Broken links are like SEO death! Check your broken links using this Check My Links plugin on Chrome. You can also use SEOmoz’s Open Site Explorer to discover who else is linking to these broken links. If you’re in the process of recovering from Penguin or if you have received link warnings from Google, you can also consider using Google’s new Link Disavow Tool.
There’s much be learned when it comes to link building and as Paddy Moogan showed us, there are dozens of ways to build your links legitimately and lots of great tricks of the trade that you can leverage to improve your SEO.
Interested in finding out more? Get in touch with us at our Sydney SEO Agency today to discover what else we learned at MozCon!
Cheers, and we hope you gained something from this.
Related Posts:
The SEO Team in Sydney Attends SEO MozCon in Seattle – Part 2: Content Tips for the Best ROI
www.seoagencysydney.com.au
virginia cottrell
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