But after working in verticals like this more intensely over the last few years, I’ve realized the thing that I need to change most is my mentality. That doesn’t sound like the answer most, if not all, of you are looking for, but you’d be surprised by some of the things I’ve recently discovered.

Before we go too far…

Let’s define exactly the type of industry I’m talking about.

The industry I’m referring to is predominantly defined by the lack of quality link opportunities.

No, not the adult or gambling verticals of the world, where few would actually be a lot more than what they’re dealing with, but for the most part, competitive, legitimate industries that involve paid links, but the opportunities for non-paid links are out there, but sparse.

Why mentality matters

If you’ve seen Zero Dark Thirty, an American move film released in 2012, you might remember a scene from the movie in which Tim tells Maya:

“And you of all people, should know that once you’re on their list, you never get off.”

It took me a while, but after rereading Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill (great book; about more than money) a few weeks ago, I realized how applicable this quote was in a non-Taliban scenario. It applies directly to competitive verticals.

Here’s what I mean. Let’s say you’re starting off in one of these competitive verticals, and you start by doing some extensive competitor research. You grab all their links, merge CSVs in Excel, and go down the list, qualifying prospects by type (i.e. resources list, guest post, etc.).

In the end, there are some great prospects here that you’d more than love to get, but the list doesn’t end up being huge. It’s actually quite small compared to the average vertical.

A few weeks later, the outreach emails leave the inbox, and you settle for the regular conversion rate that’s normal across the rest of the verticals you’ve dealt with in the past.

But what comes next is you hitting that link wall. Sure, you can do some custom prospecting, but it doesn’t take long before you get to a point where you’re coming across the same opportunities again & again.

You check Ahrefs and see the new domains your competitors have touched in the last few months, and it doesn’t take long to realize that the only new links coming in are either paid or from the churn & burn of scraper sites. A quality link might come here & there, but usually when that happens, the rest of the competition eats it up (authority bloat as Ross Hudgens puts it).

Where most SEOs (and I for awhile) mess up is that they fall into the same cycle. They start mimicking their competition (at least the good ones) and become sheep; sure, they might start a guest blogging initiative (probably a low quality one at that), but outside of that, they don’t touch many new root domains.

However, there is a way out, and as previously mentioned, it takes a change in mentality.

It takes someone to say “alright, we’re going to make a list of the best prospects out there, and we’re not going to take them off that list until we get a link. It doesn’t matter if we have to follow up 15 times, call them another 5, and even send a letter each month in the mail. It doesn’t matter if they shoot us down, we’ll find out why they did, and we’ll come back a second time.”

But there are opportunities in which you’ll never be able to get the link. However, they’re few and far between. The best ones I can think of is a site saying that they will not link to a commercial website (it’s usually organization/school/government policy) or the site/page in question is no longer being updated (even then, I’m a bit uneasy to cross them off the list).

However, more times than not, the reason (if given) someone will not link is something you can change. For example, I recently got a reason out of an organization as to why they couldn’t link to a piece of content I created, and I was told this (exact quote):

“We take several things into account when reviewing requests. Please keep in mind that we do not customarily provide specific feedback on link requests. We found some formatting issues with the page and have a concern about the frequency of how often the page is updated.”

To me, that’s a huge win. Even though they won’t link now, I can almost write them down as someone I’ll get a link from. All I have to do is better format the page (more than fixable), and I had to emphasize somewhere on the page how often it’s updated (maybe include a date of last update, add an email address people can contact if they want to email in something that needs to be updated, etc.).

The point is, don’t settle for “no” (or even no response). 99.9% of the time, there’s something more you can do to increase the likelihood of you getting the link, whether it be following up with them again, or by getting an answer as to why they won’t link and using that as constructive feedback.

To put the process best, here’s the flow chart Justin Briggs made on iterations in getting links.

As you’ll see, even when you can’t get the link, there’s still something you can get out of it. For example, in that same outreach campaign mentioned form earlier, the content I created was a list of items (unfortunately can’t divulge much more than that). I quickly realized that even the sites I couldn’t get a link from, I was able to get them to either:

A)   Get the list republished on their site as a PDF with a link to me in the footer of it

B)   Get the link sent out in their newsletter (more eyeballs, more natural link opportunities)

Even though I didn’t get the link, I still got something of value (in some cases, even more valuable).

Final Note

So there. That’s how you penetrate SERPs in similarly competitive verticals. But even if you’re not in one, that mentality can be applied to great effect. I’m even using it in a vertical where opportunity is so plentiful I can hardly believe it (I could’ve easily settled for bulk outreach with average conversion rates).

I want to leave you with one final note, and it finally hit home with me in the past weeks.

Your thoughts have far more impact than you realize.

If you set your mind on something and let desire take such a hold of it that you don’t take no for as even a possibility for an answer, you’d be surprised at what you can accomplish (beyond link building).

As always, I’d love your thoughts in the comments below, and if you want to take your link building knowledge to the next level, check out my link building course and follow me on Twitter @PointBlankSEO.

The Modern Mentality of Link Builders in Competitive Niches is a post from: Point Blank SEO

A month or two ago I got a chance to meet up with Don in person, and I caught myself asking a few different questions that weren’t answered in his post. I realized that I didn’t want any of you guys to miss out on some of the answers he gave, so I decided to do a followup interview to that post right here on Point Blank SEO.

Before I start listing off the Q&A, I just want to say thanks to Don for taking the time to provide us with some profitable answers!

1) Can you explain a little bit about your forum participating rubric? Have you made any adaptations in the last 6 months?

Yeah, it is a method of using criteria to make decisions on participating in forums and online conversations that mention a need for your products. It is great for me because I’ll hem-haw around and let the opportunity slip past me if I think about it too much. The rubric makes it cold and indiscriminant; it makes the decision for me and tells me what persona I should to use.  I am making new ones all the time. It can be added to or revised; the rubric is fluid and agile depending on my needs.

2) Does this work in verticals where everyone’s selling the same products? how do you pitch your products when this is the case? Or am I missing the point?

It can, but you better be on top of it. I’ve used it in spaces where it might seem useless, but it’s all in your salesmanship and your product knowledge. About 15 years ago, I worked at a retail chain that sold consumer A/V electronics. This place was ugly, with ugly brown carpet and goofy radio ads. It was a dumpy discount house, but it was awesome! We were always positioned across from a Circuit City or Best Buy (or the West Coast favorite, now defunct Good Guys!). We always had people come in from across the street to shop us on our prices, and these were the sales I went after with the intention of closing. Our corporate buyers were smart enough to buy deep in the model above what the big box stores carried, and we listed them for the same price. If you came in looking for the Hitachi HDX-series, we had the HDXV-Cinema Series for the same price. All I had to do was explain the feature advantages of my model, ask what price their model was, and possibly offer them a few margin points off a TV and surround sound package deal. My close rate was in the high 80% and my margin was 21 out of a possible 30, the best in California. I made Sales Manager in 3 months and was assigned to every storein the Bay Area that was struggling to get it producing “Federal Way or Calackamas Numbers”. All this from reading the product sheets and knowing what features, advantages and benefits our models had over the cross-street rivals.

You can incorporate which is the best X product into your rubric and participate in those conversations. They are out there, and if you know your products you can make the case for them over a competitor. Or if your customer service is better, that might also be a selling point. Know your products and know your competition before you blaze this trail, it’s the only means of success.

3) What level of research/education do you undertake before starting each forum participation project?

It is just like the product sheets for HDTVs, you just need to know the product, but the pain points that make your product a necessity or luxury as well. Know your products and know your audience. I guess if your product only has one feature it is less to know, but why would someone buy your diabetic socks over a competitors? Is it your service? Is it because of the quality materials? The price point? Free shipping? What sets yours apart? I’ve found that the more you know about your product and what it offers consumers, the better. Don’t think because you’re the best known brand or the best selling store that you have won. At best, Coca-Cola only owns 42% of the market share of carbonated drinks. Even though that is several $ billion a year in sales, I would never settle for 42%. Never stop learning, but you can start as soon as you know what your product offers that others don’t.

4) Do you prospect to find forums or specific forum posts?

Absolutely! I use Citation Labs Link Prospector to find forums and then set up alerts for them on every monitoring tool I have. Trackur, BuzzStream, Google Alerts. I might not be able to participate right away, I might wait until a fresh conversation comes up. I also look to see if anyone has mentioned my brand in a positive light and I might mention their link if a similar question comes up later.

5) On average, how many replies do you give before dropping a link?

That really depends. These days I try to build the profile out and participate in the conversation as much as I can, even if it doesn’t directly apply to my client’s products. Building authority in those forums and communities has proven extremely valuable.

6) Can we see an example of one of the replies you wrote that’s driving a lot of sales?

Not without breaking the NDA, but I can tell you there are some that continually produce a few sales a month and there are those that flash in the pan. You can’t expect them to perform well, so weigh the time vs. return when as you continue.

7) What’s the best way to present the link in order to drive maximum sales? (i.e. link the URL, use anchor text, put it on a separate line, use in sentence, etc.)

I don’t do anchors in these. Ever. I do brand links if anything, but mostly just naked links. If I am confident in our product or shopping process or price, I will even include competitors in responses just to give the user the option to choose the best one. I wouldn’t recommend this for every client, but there are some that are hands down the best option.

8) What types of verticals does this seem to work best with?

High-end men’s’ and women’s’ fashion is a really good one. Electronic gadgets gets some play. Anything educational is an excellent space in which to use this technique. If you’re selling things online, it is likely you can leverage this technique.

9) What’s the criteria you have for a client or target site in order to do build links in this way?

Emerging brands are exciting like upstart boxers because they are young and pretty and they hit hard. They win just by being new on the scene. They usually have features that older competitors don’t have. I like anything that I can easily identify the edge over a large competitor. I like to take them from rookies to title contenders and then see them outgrow their long-standing rivals. These are the challenges for why we do digital marketing. In my experience, established brands are usually better served doing ORM and retaining customers. I’d imagine this method can be used that as well, although I have not tried it so be aware.  The best ones are the ones who understand this is not a scaling technique, and should not be used for ranking purposes.

10) What voice/persona has worked best for you? Can you give us examples since they differ per project/vertical?

It depends on the circumstances. The safest bet is to be the official company voice. This is generally my most used persona. I do subscribe to creating buyer personas for a project. These personas could end up being haters turned brand advocates or experts on a given site like reddit or askville or quora. Most of the time, I try to have a male and a female and varying cultural/social backgrounds based on the products popularity among demographics. This isn’t always applicable. The data you compile from any of the sources you use will help shape these personas. Once I create them, I populate a few social profiles because a lot of these thread systems either require or make it easier if you log in using a social network. Despite the title, Mike King’s prezo here doesn’t really tell you how to use the personas you create, but it is a damn good reference for creating them. Hubspot also has a good and simple guide for creating buyer personas.

Thanks again Don for answering these questions for everyone! You can check out his blog here. 

Ecommerce Forum Link Building with Don Rhoades (Part 2) is a post from: Point Blank SEO

“What was the most creative way you, or someone you know, got a link?”

This was personally one of my favorite posts because there was so much awesome, actionable, and insightful responses. But it looks like I wasn’t alone – it’s now the #1 all time post on Inbound.org.

After it was published, I got a lot of SEOs wanting to contribute as well, but very few people actually noticed the updated additions. That’s why I decided it was time for round 2, just because each response is just as awesome as the ones in the original post.

However, there are a couple things you should know. (1) I’ll be merging this post with the original in the next week or two so all responses will be on one post, and you’ll be able to vote for your favorites (the top responses will float to the top). (2) If you want to contribute a response, see the end of this post!

So, even though there are only 28 responses in this round, they’re equally insightful as the first group’s!

If you’re wanting to contribute your own creative link story, I encourage you to leave a comment with it and I’ll consider adding your response & company website if it’s good enough!

The Second Most Creative Link Building Post Ever is a post from: Point Blank SEO

If you’re like most SEOs, you’re as confused as the cast of Jersey Shore at a TED Talk…

…because it seems that the second you master a new link building strategy, Google cracks down on it.

In fact, there’s a lot of buzz that guest posting (guest posting!) may be the target of a future Google update.

It can leave you wanting to scream: “what’s left!?“.

Fortunately, there’s still a handful of powerful link building strategies that still work over the long-term.

And as someone that’s tried them, I can tell you that they blow most old-school link building techniques — like article marketing and press releases — out of the water.

Strategy #1: Build a White Hat Blog Network

In my experience, a private, niche-focused blog network is one of the most effective link building strategies on the planet.

But if multiple registrars and fistfuls of class-C IPs make your head spin, why not build a white hat network instead?

In fact, this is something that even big brands like American Express dabble in. They created their small business information site, Openforum.com, to funnel traffic and links to their official site:

Think of how you could take one piece of your business — like drywall tips, Twitter marketing or vegan recipes — and build a mini-site around that subject. When the site builds a bit of trust and authority, start dropping links to your site.

If you’re knee-deep in the SEO field, you may have seen TheShortCutts.com. It’s a site that breaks down Matt Cutts’ often cryptic Webmaster Help videos into takeaway points. This site links to Click Consult, an SEO firm.

Even though it’s just a few weeks old, TheShortCutts.com boasts these impressive metrics:

Why does this work so well?

For some reason, people are slightly more apt to link to a tightly-focused site with a single tool or feature than a page on a larger site.

Strategy #2: Infographic Egobait

Infographics and egobait are two of the most effective backlink strategies around.

But when you put them together…

POW! You get a doubly powerful strategy.

Using Infographic Egobait I was able to get my precious metal client dozens of backlinks from authorities in the investing niche, like ZeroHedge.com and Mining.com. And these authority sites push the infographic into the viral stratosphere:

Here’s how to do it:

1. Create an infographic like you normally would: find a hot topic in your niche, collect interesting data, and hire a pro designer to make something eye-catching.

2. Here’s the twist that makes this technique so powerful:

You know that references section you put at the bottom of infographics, right?

Instead of referencing random .edu and news sites, reference authority sites in your niche.

3. Once your infographic is published, reach out to those authority site owners using this tested email template:

Subject: I Heart (Their Site)

Hey (Name),

First off, I want to say that I’m a huge fan of (Their Site).

I love your stuff so much that I recently referenced (Their Site) in my latest infographic: (Infographic Title).

You can check it out here (Infographic URL).

I’m just sending you a message to give you a heads up.

I’d be tickled pink if you share the infographic with your readers.

Either way, I’ll see you at (Their Site).

Thanks!

(Your Name)

Like anything in link building, infographic egobait is a number’s game. The more sites you reference and email, the more links you’ll get.

Strategy #3: WordPress Plugin Directory

You probably already know that you can get links by creating a WordPress plugin or theme that automatically drops a link on the user’s site. But that strategy is a bit shady for my liking.

Either way, I’m talking about something way better: getting a dofollow link from one of the most trusted authorities online, WordPress.org.

And you can do it by simply by submitting a unique, functional plugin to their plugin directory.

While outbound links in the plugin description area are nofollow:

The link to the contributor’s page is dofollow:

If you’re hopeless at coding (like me) you can hire someone on Elance or Odesk to make a unique plugin. The WordPress directory mods are a bit stricter than they used to be about accepting plugins, so be sure that your plugin brings something new to the table (in other words, don’t submit another social sharing plugin).

As long as it’s unique and functional, you’ll be OK.

Bonus tip: Re-code the plugin as a Joomla Extension or Drupal Module…which will land you links from two more PR9 domains!

Strategy #4: Send Bloggers Something Cool

You may already know that you can get some top-notch links by sending your product to top bloggers in your niche for free.

Even if don’t have a product or service to sell you can (ethically) bribe site owners for links.

How?

With free stuff!

I’m not talking a .pdf download or membership area login information.

I mean send them an actual, physical item.

It can be in the form of a branded water bottle, a hoodie, or a t-shirt.

In fact, startup Shareaholic goes as far to send t-shirts to bloggers that mention their product:

Imagine how much you’ll stand out from the masses when you send them a handwritten “thank you” letter…along with some free stuff.

Think of some ways you could do this for your own site (if you do client work for a big brand then you probably already have tons of free T-shirts lying around).

Bonus Tip: Give out free stuff at Tomoson.com. There are a ton of Mommy bloggers there that gladly trade free stuff for backlinks.

Final note from Jon: Thanks so much Brian for contributing! For everyone else, f you’re looking to take things further, check out my link building course.

4 Outside-the-Box Link Building Tactics is a post from: Point Blank SEO

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t. That’s why I decided to hunt down a few of the biz dev SEOs at one of the leading companies in our space: SEER Interactive.

This post is a collaboration between David Cohen, Shawn Cohen, John-Henry Scherck, Saurav Rimal and I.

We created a Word Doc (.docx download, .doc download, Google Drive) of the questions so it’s as easy as just hitting “Send” in your inbox to get the client info you need.

Enjoy!

Questions

Step #1: Get to know the client

The first thing you need to do once you & the clients agrees to beginning work is to get to know why their brand exists and what makes them unique. Here are the types of questions you should be asking:

• What purpose does your brand serve?
• How do you differentiate your brand from the competition (what is your unique value proposition)?

Step #2: Understand the business

The best ROI an SEO can deliver on is revenue, so understand how they make money! Here are some of the questions you should be asking:

• What conversion actions can visitors take on your website?
• Who is your target audience? (Define personas.)
• What are your main business goals?
• What is the average life time value of a customer?
• What does the sales cycle look like?
• What are the current conversion rates?
• Is your business or any of your products seasonal?
• How much revenue are you currently generating from organic search on a monthly basis?
• Are you currently doing any Pay Per Click advertising?

Step #3: Understand the community

In some cases, the client’s brand doesn’t have any type of a community, but it never hurts to ask. These are the types of questions you should be asking:

• Does your brand have a voice and personality?
• What is your community like?
• Do you have a blog, forum, or newsletter? How much interaction do you see from them?
• Is there anything else we should know about your community or the community of this vertical as a whole?

Step #4: Understand their SEO/Marketing background & expectations

While some might make this Step #1, the other questions before this are a lot of times the most important. So here are the directly SEO related questions that now need to be asked:

• What are the basic keywords you want to rank for?
• What are a few of your main competitors you want to beat?
• Describe your previous experience with SEOs.
  • Was it good/bad? Why?
  • What’s making you change SEO vendors now?
  • What do you wish your old SEO did for you?
• Define exactly what your expectations are for us from an SEO perspective.
• Have you or a past SEO vendor done anything, to your knowledge, that is, or could be, considered against Google’s Webmaster guidelines? Define exactly what and be as detailed as possible.
• What are some of the previous marketing & PR initiatives you’ve done? Are there any that you or a separate department is currently working on?
• Do you do any offline marketing? If so, please define exactly what you’re doing.

Step #5: Define the resources you have to work with

In a lot of cases, clients have a fair of amount of resources that you as an SEO can take advantage of. Here’s a sampling of questions to ask that can uncover those:

• Can we have access to a company email address?
• Can we have access to Google Analytics?
• Do you have any in-house or contracted web developers? Designers?
• Are you in the process of making any changes to the website?
• Can we have access to executives for questions & interviews?
• Do you have any available budget for linking initiatives such as sponsorships & content assets (i.e. graphics, videos, white papers, etc.)?
• What organizations or associations are you a part of?
• What businesses/consultants have you contracted with in the past?
• Define every business you currently have a working relationship with. (i.e. suppliers, manufacturers, partners, etc.)
• Is your company involved with in anyway any charities or non-profits?
• Are you working with a PR agency?

Step #6: Client-specific questions

Since every client is different, each will need to be looked over for questions specific to their business. Here are a few broader examples.

• If there’s a blog: what is your blog’s editorial plan?
• If they’re ecommerce: can I know your margins or have access to your daily/weekly financials?
• If they recently launched a new product: What do you wish to achieve from this new product? How does it compare to your competitor’s?

All in all, it’s hard to be specific, as each client will be different.

Checklist

Outside of asking those questions, here is a quick checklist of things you should be doing on your own when you’re taking on a new client:

• Find out if your client has any lead generation forms. Fill them out and experience what it’s like to be one of your client’s leads.
• Sign up for their newsletter
• Read their blog
• Read their press releases
• Use a tool like Topsy to listen to what people are saying about the brand & their products
• Setup web alerts so you can see when their brand or products are mentioned. Also setup alerts for their competitors
• Do a Google search for CEO, board of directors or brand name
• Do the same for a lot of the above for their competitors

Closing thoughts

100% of your clients are real humans, so the more energy we put into thinking about the human side of the business relationship, the more we can retain our clients and stay with them as their business grows.

Make sure you’re asking these questions, because the more you know about your clients, the better job you can do for them. Sometimes golden opportunities are left on the table because you’re not asking the right questions, or you might go in blind and do more harm than good if you’re not fully educated.

Thanks again to David, Shawn, John-Henry, and Saurav for helping me put this together!

Are there any questions or checklist items you’d add? We’d love to hear them in the comments!

Also – if you’re an SEO interested in mastering the art of link building, check this out.

Questions & Checklist for New SEO Clients: A Collaboration is a post from: Point Blank SEO

I wish I could see all the gasps from all the content purists looking at this headline.

But I just couldn’t hold back after the following quote from an article entitled ‘Why Content Marketing is the Only Link Building That Counts’ on Brafton:

“Content Marketing is marketing, link building is manipulation.”

So it seems as though link building is dead (again…), and that content marketing rules the Web.

The truth is, though, the “content marketing” fluff in this industry needs to have a reality check, not only for the sake of SEOs everywhere, but also because it’s doing small businesses an injustice.

From an industry blogging perspective

You’re right, I’m probably biased because I build links, and thus, all of my clients come to me wanting links, but from my point of view, links is still what it comes down to in SEO.

No, not as a business as a whole, but for SEO. We’re still SEOs writing about SEO on SEO blogs, so let’s stop avoiding what information the majority of readers (SEOs) want content written on: SEO.

No, not big budget, vaguely described content strategies that are there for the sole purpose of attracting those big budget clients, thus doing an injustice to 80%+ of their audience, but tips on how to rank in search engines. And if we honestly think “Google has it all figured out” and that “the days of building links are over”, then we’re not living in reality.

What people still pay for

Yes, a lot of people have bought into content marketing, but only because they want links out of it, because at the end of the day, links are still all that matter.

Yes, in SEO, links matter, not pretty content. Google is still an algorithmic machine, not a fleet of designers & bloggers meticulously judging different aspects of websites on a scale of 1 to 10. Google lets webmasters do that by giving them the signal of whether they linked or not.

At the end of the day, even the vast majority of those big budget clients that the content evangelists are trying to attract only care about links from an SEO perspective. Not social shares or those relationships you’ve now started to harness for a couple of tweets, but links. Links are still the foundation of Google, and SEO is still alive more than ever.

Why I don’t do much content marketing

As many people have realized, it’s not exactly a science of input & output; a lot of the content marketing we talk about provides difficult to measure results (if there ends up being any), and is nearly impossible with any audience (I’ve seen it done, but very rarely), yet so many have pounded into us that arbitrage is “what you get when you do great stuff.”

But for me, as both a consultant who needs to hit quality link goals (yep, and I love it) as well as making sure there’s ROI for my efforts on my own sites, it just doesn’t cut it.

Content marketing is what I do when I’ve done EVERYTHING else. There’s a time and place for it, but not for a small business owner with barely any links, no budget, and no audience. It doesn’t make any sense for them to do “content marketing” at that time for their business, but because all the experts are telling them that they have to do it, that’s where they turn to first.

They then get turned off to this SEO thing and end up paying a spammy company to take over.

I’m not saying telling everyone out there to do content marketing is on the same scale as the SEO companies ripping off their customers (and possibly doing more harm than good), but the point is a lot of what we recommend is misleading to business owners.

Rather, we need to be educating them on everything else that can be done to get the links they need before content marketing.

We should be talking more about making our websites look like legitimate businesses so when we conduct outreach to webmasters who curate relevant business or local listings, they’ll happily accept them and give us a link.

We should be talking more about doing meticulous competitor research so we can get every link we deserve & qualify for.

We should be talking more about how to help out webmasters in our industry that hold the power to link (i.e. broken link building).

We should be talking more about how to identify new link tactics & opportunities so we’re not playing by the same rules as the rest of their competition, who’s waiting head over heels for the next blog post to be written about “how to get links with tactic X”.

We should be talking more about things like fail-proof content (NOT known as content marketing) that makes sure any time spent creating content provides measurable returns ahead of time, allowing us to be smarter about the content we create that serves an SEO purpose.

Because the truth is, there’s so much low hanging fruit in SEO. We don’t have to jump on to the content marketing bandwagon because 7 experts told us it’s “the only way to get good links”.

Takeaway

As I said, there’s still a time & place for content marketing, but it should be a last linking resort.

So stop thinking the only way to get links is by “earning” them. Go out there and build them.

Small update: this post is another example of link building getting thrown under the bus. I encourage you to check out John-Henry‘s comment below it, as well as the responses to it.

People Still Pay for Links, Not Vague Content Marketing Strategies is a post from: Point Blank SEO

“Want links? Create great content!”

But honestly, 95% of the type of content you’re being told to create does not guarantee links in any way; sure, we get reminded that “nothing is certain” and that we need to take risks, but you know what? Screw risk. Let’s take that out of the equation with our content when it comes to link building.

So I’m going to break down how some of the top most ranking sites are getting links as a result of fail-proof content; content created for the purpose of getting links, and as a result, arbitrage is no longer a piece of the puzzle. So without further adieu, here’s the first (and very cut & dry) edition of the Point Blank SEO podcast!

Below are links mentioned in the podcast, as well as the topic matter written out. I do not have ANY affiliation with the examples being mentioned.

The first example in the podcast deals with this article by MortgageLoan.com. It’s a home & loan mortgage/buyer’s guide for people with disabilities.

This is a perfect example of fail-proof content because they already identified multiple high authority pages on the Web linking out to various web resources on this topic (ex. 1 & 2); all they had to do was create content on the topic, conduct some outreach, and collect their winnings.

The key, however, to it being perfect is the fact that it found the sweet spot between authority & relevance; for example, that website creating content on chemistry might qualify for links from academic websites, but it’s not at all relevant. On the other hand, creating another loan/mortgage resource might be highly relevant content, but it doesn’t fit the mold of subject matter that you can easily conduct some outreach & get links to.

The second example in the podcast deals with this halloween costume retailer. They created fail-proof content on the following topics:

• The Ultimate List Of Websites for Kids
• The Byzantine Empire
• The Renaissance
• Sherlock Holmes

While this fail-proof content does fits the mold in terms of authority (there are plenty of university websites linking to content on the Byzantine Empire and the Renaissance), it’s not particularly relevant; sure, this content works and will continue to get the results they want, but they run the risk of creating irrelevant content, which won’t lead to the desired results (i.e. Google sees them as experts, but on a different topic).

The potential downfall of fail-proof content is two-fold; (1) webmasters catching on and seeing commercial sites creating a lot of mediocre content on topics they link out to, and (2) Google potentially not giving as much weight to those links ONLY IF the content is irrelevant enough (people gaming solely for authority).

One last example I didn’t mention in the podcast

Being that it was my first podcast, I knew I’d forget something. What I forgot was this example that articulates a VERY important rule of thumb when creating fail-proof content. Here’s the link:

http://www.1800wheelchair.com/news/

At first glance, this section of their website looks like garbage, but in reality, it’s genius. To understand why, compare this with one of their product or category pages; on one side, you’ve got commercial intent everywhere (they’re trying to sell you products), and on the other hand, you’ve got a very simple page template with just text.

Notice that there’s no commercial intent on this section of their site; they use it when pitching for links, because they don’t want people to not link as a result of them being a business. They know this because they look at what they’re already linking to (most university resource pages with hundreds of links look like text was slapped on to an ugly HTML template), and that’s the key; just see what high authority sites are linking to (both topic matter and page layout) and replicate that.

My link building course

As mentioned in the podcast, here’s a link to my link building course.

Main takeaway

The main takeaway of fail-proof content is that the equation “targeted content + targeted outreach” is what makes up a highly successful manual link building campaign (again, not talking about “viral content marketing”, because it’s not a sure thing). Also, this type of link building should compliment your overall strategy; it shouldn’t BE your strategy.

Thoughts? Takeaways? Extremely upset because I used real examples of sites, and possibly gave away their secret sauce? I’d love to here them in the comments below. Make sure you follow me on Twitter @PointBlankSEO.

Podcast #1: Fail-Proof Content for Killer Link Building is a post from: Point Blank SEO

So what is the solution to long term client retention, and for keeping your clients happy and on board?

Ten years of SEO consultation and practice have given me the chance to get a lot of feedback from clients coming to me from other firms, and occasionally walking out the door. I ask all of them one simple question, “What went wrong?”

This simple and effective approach has yielded a wealth of helpful feedback and most of the answers involve what amounts to the following: Pushy, Over-Hyped, Confusing, and/or Dishonest…

Ouch!

That’s okay though. Rip of the band-aid and let the wound breathe.

Luckily there is an easy approach to make sure this does not happen to you:

• Educate the client right from the moment you meet with them through the length of your relationship. Most clients only have a passing knowledge of what SEO entails and many may have the wrong idea completely.
• Be honest about your service, how you get results, and your pricing.
• Set clear expectations but don’t over promise. Make sure you can exceed the expectations you’ve set for yourself.
• Don’t be pushy!

Education

The number one thing that damages an SEO/Client relationship is that the client has no understanding of SEO (or really anything outside of the basics in online marketing). When a client comes to me from another firm I ask a few simple questions to gauge their knowledge and over 90% of the time I find that their previous firm did not bother explaining anything at all.

When this is the case, you may be doing virtually everything right, but all of that laborious proper link building, great content, and everything else you’ve done was a waste of time… because they don’t get it. They don’t know how long SEO takes, they don’t understand what good those links are doing, and they don’t get the value of targeted content. It’s all meaningless to them.

At the very beginning of your relationship, give your client a basic understanding of SEO. This foundation will allow them to understand the research you have put into their niche, how you are helping them get a jump on competition, how the process works so they do not become impatient, and in the end, it will give them a better understanding of your Technique, Pricing, and Approach.

Be Honest

The second thing that I hear from clients walking in my door is “They said they can do XYZ in X amount of time and they didn’t come close.”

Whether it was a misunderstanding or an out-and-out misrepresentation is inconsequential at this point, it’s all about how they perceive the situation. Let’s talk about Technique, Approach, and Pricing.

Technique: It is important that your client understand your strategies and why you are doing what you are doing. Be specific. “Changing tags and building links” is not a real strategy, and if that is all they know it is not surprising the client doesn’t get it.

A little explanation into the proper and even the wrong way of doing things can go a long way. Help them understand concepts like White, Black, and Grey Hat SEO, real content vs. spun content, etc. Not only will this help you explain later why you are doing what you are doing, it will also help them appreciate your service and how you do business.

Worst case scenario, if you do lose a client you won’t be helping a bad SEO firm pick them up after you. That’s just good karma.

Approach: Explain your approach and your plan. Fill them in on the research aspect, set goals and give them a timeline and tell them why the timeline is what it is (it takes X time to get this content posted on X blogs, we estimate it will take Google X time to pick up on these changes to your sight, etc).

Having goals set at each point helps them understand the work that you are doing for them, and if you have not overestimated the impact of your campaign, it can make you come out smelling like roses when you start meeting these goals ahead of time.

Pricing: this is arguably the most problematic area. This is especially true of established businesses that have been around a decade or two, “Let me get this straight, you want me to pay you X to do something I’ve never heard of and that I’ve never had to use in the past?”

Once again, education is key to get this client on board with you. It can also be helpful to describe your service as part of their marketing and advertising budget. Chances are a billboard that maybe 5,000 random people see a month is a whole heck of a lot more expensive than a really good blog post on a really good site that 20,000 of their potential customers see a month.

Also instill a sense of quality. Trust me, there are plenty of SEO companies that will take your clients money, do some Black Hat SEO, and disappear in the wind once the check clears, so this part is not hype. Make clear what your expenses are, how much time this takes, and the level of expertise you are providing.

Nearly as important as making sure they understand the reason for your pricing structure, is not under-pricing your services. You too need a clear understanding of your costs and how much your service is worth. Low-balling may sound good in the pitch, but a couple weeks later you may have to start cutting corners to turn a profit yourself, and that doesn’t help anyone.

Let me give an example of how this straightforward approach has worked for me. I’ve personally lost a dozen clients after this meeting because my prices were too high. I broke down my pricing, justified every expense, explained the process, but these twelve potential clients decided they could get it cheaper elsewhere.

Of those, six returned some months later after throwing money down the well with poor SEO service. They came to understand why my prices are what they are the hard way. You are better off with six clients that understand (eventually) your service and are paying the amount it takes to do the job right, than cutting deals for 12 clients which will lead to cut corners, lost revenue for you, and a damaged reputation.

Set Expectations

“You’ll be ranked number one on Google in 3 months!” Well, maybe locally if there is next to 0 competition and you are going by keywords that no one really cares about. To get your client where they need to be though, you know that it is a long term process. They need to know this too. So…

Tell them it’s impossible to deliver the world overnight. In fact, SEO is a forever-process. My agency does not lock clients into long term contracts, they pay month to month, and we keep them. That’s because they understand the service. This goes back to education in part, but it is also because we set realistic expectations.

Our rule of thumb, depending on the niche and the competition, is to let them know up front that getting to where they want to be is going to take either 9,12, or 18 months. We let them know that their competition is doing the same thing they are doing. SEO requires vigilance and after they meet the goals we have set forth, it is just a matter of time before they start dropping in their position again if SEO is ignored.

Don’t Be Pushy!

Simple enough. Don’t be pushy. You know what that means. Maybe they’re just not into you. Hey, let a bird fly and it will lay eggs… or hold onto sand too tight and it will fall through your fingers… something like that.

More than a dozen times we have been able to close the deal just by being patient and answering questions. Education is a huge part of getting a good client, and sometimes a good client needs to be molded. A hard sell might get them to agree, but it will leave a bad taste in their mouth and make everything else you do suspect to them. You want to hold onto them for the long term and first impressions last.

Not being pushy also applies during your campaign. SEO is always changing so your clients should be getting constant updates not only about their site’s progress, but updates about the world of SEO.

Final Tips

1. Re-educate clients periodically about changes to SEO. Not only will this let them know that SEO is an evolving fluid process, it will also re-instill the sense that this is a long term process.

2. Keep clients involved in what you are doing. They want to be involved in what you are doing with their website, trust me. It can be as simple as inviting them to a brainstorming session. Don’t forget to ask for their expertise in their niche as well, you’ve done the research sure, but just like you know more than they do about SEO, chances are they know a whole heck of a lot more about their business.

3. Show them what you are doing throughout the process. Show them the links you’ve created, direct them to the blog posts, let them see the content you have created, etc. All of this builds trust and makes them feel that they are a real part of the process… which they should be.

4. Support your clients every way you can. When they have questions get back to them quickly with a researched answer, reach out to them periodically even when not scheduled for the purpose of brainstorming, educating them, asking questions yourself, whatever it may be.

5. Make your reports simple, to the point, and as painless as possible. Full details with graphs and charts are important but you need to summarize as well.

6. Whenever you are updating a client with a report, make sure you give them a phone call with that in order to answer any questions they have.

7. Finally, ask them how you can serve them better. They may have some ideas of their own.

Following just a few of these tips will drastically increase your retention rate as well as the number of new clients you can sign up. Not only that, the clients you have will be a whole lot happier.

If you have any questions or would like to know more about anything mentioned here, please contact me directly at jeffreykgross@gmail.com.

Keep SEO Clients Longer and Happier in a Few Easy Steps is a post from: Point Blank SEO

It’s quite obvious really, and everyone’s accepted it. What we haven’t really realized, though, is the longevity of it.

The theme I’m talking about is tactic X being labeled as spammy and no longer “an approved strategy by Google”. It’s been around since practically the beginning of SEO, and over time the discussion heats up more & more.

But as we check off link building tactics as “no longer worth pursuing”, we haven’t realized the list of “approved” tactics is growing smaller & smaller.

So let’s go through each tactic that is supposed to be no longer “white hat” or “Google approved”. Hopefully you’ll see a theme to this as well.

Reciprocal links. This was probably the first link building tactic ever being deemed as manipulative. Strangely enough, though, people are still deeming it as something that can be used to have a positive effect, but only if it’s a natural, relevant opportunity with user intent playing a big part.

Directory links. After hundreds and thousands of directories were created solely for link placement purposes, Google started to crack down. Directory links make most link purists shudder at the thought. Yet, most still believe authoritative & relevant directories are still great places to get links.

Blog comments. If you run a blog, you see the comment spam that comes through each day. It didn’t take long for CMS platforms to nofollow comment links and Google to disavow this form of spam. Yet, comments still prove to be a popular inbound tactic for those trying to grow their audience, and the links can’t hurt if they’re genuinely written on relevant, authoritative blogs. (Just seems natural, right?)

Forum postings. Like blog comments, this was notorious for spam as people could hit a button in a piece of software and watch the links role in by the thousands. Of course, Google sees this as a big no-no. Yet, relevant, quality posts in forums that provide helpful answers & information will get you good links, and it might even drive revenue.

Article marketing. This only recently died with the birth of Panda and then the knockout punch of Penguin. Even though this is in fact a tactic that I cannot see any value add, the idea behind it is extremely similar to guest posting, which we’ll get into in a second.

Press releases. Who hasn’t recently heard about how PRWeb links aren’t counted and that they could even hurt your site? Yet, Cyrus Shepard does a killer job breaking down how press releases should be used and could be used for in a totally white hat way.

Infographics. When all the rage hit in 2011 about infographics being the best thing since sliced bread (even though they were being utilized well before), people started questioning the legitimacy of them and even went as far as calling them spam. Yet, most agencies are still doing them (I do myself) because when the content & data being displayed is quality stuff and if it gets picked up by niche & news sites, and as long as the anchors aren’t exact match & show obvious link building intent, then they’re great links.

Guest blogging. Ah, yes, my favorite tactic to address on this topic. Because guest blogging has become wide spread, it’s been deemed as spammy and some have classified the tactic as a whole as spam. Yet, when you look at it, is writing content for other industry blogs “spammy”?

Main Takeaways

I’m going to get right to some extremely important takeaways here.

Almost all “spammy tactics” can produce quality, natural links. There’s a quality factor that can implemented for any of the above, and even though what most are using the above for can be deemed as manipulative, the tactic as a whole isn’t because it can be done in a non-manipulative manner.

By the definition of most link critics, we’d be just about out of ways for an average website to build links. Yep, believe it or not, not every small business can afford that big content marketing budget, and looking at the current state of rankings (a lot of sites continue to rank with the above tactics to at least some extent), one isn’t needed in every situation.

At one point, none of those tactics were manipulative. Why? Because they didn’t have the link in mind. Start thinking about how you can get quality links in the above ways as a byproduct of what you do, and not you main intention.

Algorithms detect footprints, so don’t leave one. The reason most of these tactics were deemed spammy was because link builders left footprints that could be detected by future algorithmic updates. Even if you didn’t have great intentions besides the link, you could get links from the above tactics without any repercussions. I.e. change up the author bio for every guest post, cycling in different anchors in your infographic embed codes, etc.

Conclusion

Don’t write something off because everyone wants to publicly stay in Google’s good graces. Analyze the initial reasons behind what the tactic is outside of the link, and do it with those intentions.

If you liked this post, please check out my link building training course for beginners & experts.

The Inevitable Demise of Link Building… or so They Say is a post from: Point Blank SEO

Blogger LinkUp is of great use to any SEO utilising guest posting as part of a link building strategy. I’m a firm believer that saving time is the key to scaling up link building efforts, and the more tasks you can get done faster, the more spare time you have to be productive. A message delivered to my inbox 3 times a week with a whole list of prospects offering a link rather than running around looking for them? Why would I not want to receive that?!

However, BLU doesn’t come without some challenges. Being a mailing list it can be tough to sort the good from the bad and the relevant from the non-relevant. The edition I received on Monday 11^th February contained a whopping 9137 words set among 60,001 characters. Times that by 3 editions per week and 156 editions per year;  that’s the equivalent of reading Moby Dick over six and a half times! If you tell me you have the free time to read for leisure in your working day, then I can tell you that the rest of the world most certainly envy you.

Oh, and that’s only 2/3 of one email!

Another problem for me personally, being in a GMT time zone, is by the time BLU arrives in my inbox (mid-afternoon) I’m already swamped with things to do for the day and in full working flow. There have been more than a few editions I’ve completely forgotten about since I signed up, and with it countless link opportunities have been lost.

Because of this, I decided to come up with a system to A) sort through the list whilst saving a lot of time and B) make sure no potential opportunity via BLU slips under my radar. Better still, all the tools I have used for the following method are available for free.

What you need:

A subscription to the Blogger LinkUp newsletter

Just put your name and email in the sign up box. Simple.

A Gmail account

Needs no explanation really.

An Evernote account

This is a great tool for bookmarking notes and resources. In this case we’ll be using the email bookmarking feature.

Excel with SEOTools for Excel Plugin

I’m probably beginner/intermediate on Excel but we won’t be using it for anything too taxing. SEO Tools for Excel is fantastic for getting big chunks of data about websites at the touch of a button.

Linkclump extension for Chrome

This tool opens or copies a selection of links by drag highlighting them.

(NOTE:  This might look like a long list of tools to organise an email, but it’s all quite quick to set up and runs on full-auto once it is, therefore saving a lot of time.  Also, if you do feel generous send some donation love over to the developers of these tools;  they’ve earned it!)

The Method:

1. Sign up to Blogger Linkup with your Gmail address to receive the newsletter every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

2. Go into Evernote and copy your unique email forwarding address (under the settings).

3. Go into your Gmail settings and add your Evernote email to your forwarders under the ‘Forwarding and POP/IMAP’ tab (You’ll need to go into your Evernote for the verification link to complete set up).

Once the forwarder email has been approved, you need to set up a filter (under the ‘Filters’ tab in settings) to make sure BLU goes into your Evernote. Luckily, Cathy labels all her mail outs with the subject “[Blogger Linkup]”. Set this term up in the subject filter in the forwarder settings and click Continue.

On the next step make sure the ‘Forward it to’ box is ticked and your Evernote email is set up as the forwarding address. Also make sure the’Skip the Inbox (Archive it)’ and ‘Apply the label’ options are selected too (I’ll explain why later).

If you’re not clued up with tweaking Gmail, this guide on About.com is easy to follow and will walk you through the process.

(NOTE: I no doubt expect at this point you’re thinking; why the heck did you not just use IFTTT for this? Trust me, I tried every method under the sun to get IFTTT to do this properly. For some reason it clips the email, possibly because it thinks the contents are below a signature line, so you end up with a note containing just the foreword of each newsletter).

Now you have every BLU being saved into your Evernote. The next step is extracting the value from them! I tend to go into Evernote and sort this periodically every week, but you can sort it as little or often as you need to.

4. Make sure you have Linkclump set up to “copy to clipboard” in the extension options with “@” added as an exclude filter and ‘URLs Only’ as the copy format.

5. Open up Evernote in your browser. Whack “[Blogger Linkup]” in the search bar to bring up all the saved newsletters.

6. Open up one of the newsletters, find the numbers of the prospects you’re interested in (in this case all categories of “Guest Posts Needed”) drag select that area of the list with Linkclump and dump into an Excel sheet.  Repeat for each note, pasting each one to the bottom of same column.

You now have a massive Excel list filled with prospects, but not much more use than going through them individually in email format. This is where some basic Excel knowledge and SEO Tools for Excel comes in handy.

7. First, you want to get down to a list of root domains. Go to Data > Text To Columns > Delimited > Other (enter “/” as your delimiter and check all looks in working order) > Finish. You’ll now have a third column over containing the root domains.

8. Ditch the duplicate sites by going to Data > Remove Duplicates > (Select Column containing Root Domains) OK and copy the remaining URLS in said column into a new sheet.

9. Now to figure out a “priority order” as I like to call it. I know people deny chasing it in the present day of online marketing, but come on, Page Rank is still handy! Chances are a domain with high PR is doing something right and has readership, so there’s a good chance you’d like a link from them. Using SEO tools select the cell next to the top domain. SEO Tools > Offpage > CheckGooglePageRank > (select the cell on the left containing the Root Domain) OK). Now drag this all the way down the right column to get all the page rank metrics for all the URLs.

(NOTE: Of course there are tonnes of metrics you can get from SEO Tools. Just because I prefer to gauge by Page Rank, you may prefer to use another metric, so feel free to do so!) 

10. Select both columns and Ctrl+T your data into a table, sort the Page Rank (or other metric) column by largest to smallest. 

11. Now to go off and find out which of these sites we want to target! Going down the list, Copy each URL one at a time, go back to your Evernote and paste it into the search bar. This will bring up the BLU edition the site appeared in. You can then use a CTRL+G Browser search to find the entry, see what they are looking for in terms of content, have a peak around the site to make sure all checks out and get a contact address. You can then get these added into your preferred method of logging prospects or go straight in with an outreach email! 

12. Delete all [Blogger Linkup] notes in Evernote each time you finish this process to prevent going over the same edition twice and make life easier. If you need to access any particular edition in the future you have no need to worry; all are backed up in your Gmail archive and labelled for convenience because of the filters you set up in step 3!

Although you do get some less quality site options in BLU, I usually find a minimum of 2-4 decent options per edition. So that’s 6-12 potential links per week for the sake of 30 minutes work or less.

And with the advantage of A) knowing they are looking for content and B) knowing what they want the content to be about, you have a great upper hand when it comes to outreach too.

How to get Value and Great Prospects Fast from Blogger LinkUp is a post from: Point Blank SEO