viernes, 31 de enero de 2014

Make Facebook's Algorithm Change Work For You, Not Against You

Posted by Chad Wittman - Founder @EdgeRank Checker

Recently, many Facebook page admins have experienced a significant decrease in Total Reach—specifically, organic reach. For pages that want to keep their ad budget as low as possible, maximizing organic reach is vital.

To best understand how to make a change like this work for you, and not against you, we need to examine what happened—and what you can do about it.

We analyze and monitor this type of data for thousands of pages with a tool called EdgeRank Checker. By monitoring metrics such as reach and engagement over time, we can get a better understanding of how to advise companies to continue to optimize their strategy. We've collected this data over the past few months against roughly 1,000 anonymous Facebook pages.

What happened?

Facebook page admins most often run into two metrics: reach and engagement. Facebook presents this data when viewing your posts by showing the number of likes, comments, and shares, along with how many people saw the post.

What does "1,000 people saw this post" actually mean, though?

Facebook adds up everyone who saw the post, whether you paid for people to see it, people shared it with their friends, or Facebook gave you free distribution in the news feed. The people who saw it for free combine with the people who shared it to create "organic reach." When people see your post because you paid for additional exposure, they call it "paid reach."

  • Organic Reach = Free distribution + People who share
  • Paid Reach = People who saw it because you paid
  • Total Reach = Organic reach + Paid reach

On December 2, 2013, Facebook announced that they would be placing an emphasis on links while continuing to punish meme content in the news feed.

Around this time, we noticed a significant drop in organic reach for many pages. Page admins around the world were reporting a drastic drop in their organic reach. Not all pages were severely impacted by the change, but the majority seemed to be impacted negatively.

We've seen changes like this in the past. In fact, every time we've ever studied organic reach (we've been monitoring it closely for ~three years) we've found it has decreased over time. The reason being that the past three years have seen steady growth from Facebook, which means increased competition to get into the news feed. During this time, Facebook has continued to improve its news feed algorithm to focus on quality content—raising the bar for any page on the platform.

Examining the numbers

In the graph below, the first bar represents September 2012 (for a reference point), while the rest of the bars represent months within 2013. Over a year ago, organic reach fared much better than it does today. In the past few months, we've seen a decrease from 12.6% to 7.7%.

Organic-Reach-Snapshots

We specifically examined the 28 days before and after December 2nd:

Organic-Reach-Change-Before-After-Dec2-Line-Chart

When changes like this have occurred in the past, Facebook has tended to defend its news feed changes by attempting to keep engagement rates roughly equal. How did engagement data fare?

Eng-Change-Before-After-Reach-Change

In general, engagement levels for pages fluctuated within normal variations. In some cases, engagement actually increased. From Facebook's perspective, this is a good change for their news feed; it provides a better experience for the typical Facebook user, as they are seeing less of the stuff they don't want to engage with.

How did different content types fare?

All of the content types experienced decreases over the time period analyzed. Status updates continue to outperform videos, photos, and links for organic reach. Status updates have held strongly over the past year as the top-performing content type for organic reach.

Organic-Reach-Change-Before-After-Dec2-Post-Type

A look at individual pages

Not all pages were impacted the same. We saw some pages experience drastic decreases, while others were positively impacted by the change. We examined a few of these pages to dig deeper into theories on why they may have been impacted so extremely.

Some pages experienced significant, and abrupt, decreases in reach:

Anon-Page-A-Reach-Decline

The page above experienced a significant decrease closer towards December 5th. After the change, not a single post experienced more than 15% organic reach (compared to their previous average around 25%). This page posted mostly status updates and often asked for engagement. Take a look at their status updates when asking for engagement:

Asked For Engagement Status Updates

In the graph above, you can see a clear and abrupt change around December 6th.

However, other pages experienced significant improvement:

Anon-Page-B-Reach-Growth

The page above experienced an increase after the change (we found a few of these). This page exclusively posted photos over this time period and did not regularly ask for engagement. Let's take a look at their photo posts:

Impressions Photo Improvement

Around December 8th, this page experienced an increased average in organic reach. It benefited from the change. After that point, this page did not have as many low-reaching posts, and had many more high-reaching posts (note: our system maxed them out at 100% impressions / fan).

What did these pages do differently?

Page A Page B
Posted mostly status updates Posted mostly photos
Asked for engagement frequently Rarely asked for engagement
Saw a significant decrease in organic reach Saw a significant increase in organic reach

Interestingly, Facebook did specifically reiterate that they would be focusing on "high quality content" that isn't often using drastic calls to action to attract engagement. This may be the reason behind the difference in organic reach.

In an informal poll of Facebook admins, a vast majority of respondents self-reported drastic decreases. Sprinkled throughout the responses were some admins who were able to reduce the impact of the change (or even improve it). In our data, we found ~80% pages experienced a decrease over the time period.

7 tips to gain reach instead of losing it

The pages that were least impacted by the changes tended to focus on avoiding meme content, as well as avoiding frequent use of calls to action. Facebook is attempting to decrease these types of tactics in the news feed. Pages that have heavily used these tactics in the past may be more severely punished.

Facebook has said (and always maintained) that it is ideal to structure your content in the most logical way. Stories that include links should be posted as links. Many page admins like to include links within the descriptions of photos, however this is against Facebook's general wishes. We always suggest to deliver your content in the best way for your audience to actually consume it.

  1. Focus, focus, focus on engagement.
  2. Study, analyze, and understand why your fans click the like button for your content.
  3. Avoid overusing strong calls to action.
  4. Avoid using memes.
  5. Analyze outbound links to determine which source is the most well received.
  6. Increase post frequency.
  7. Test different times of day for different types of content (e.g. news stories in the morning and product promotions in the evenings).

How was this data studied?

We examined ~100,000 posts over 11/4 -12/30 from approximately 1,000 pages. For any general metrics we averaged each page's metrics and looked at the median of all the pages when examining aggregate data. Any "per-fan" data examined the metric divided by the number of fans for that page on the the day of posting.


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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/Y2dA7VKp1L0/facebook-algorithm-change

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Build an Audience by Creating Content, Not Crap

How do you toe the line of drawing attention to your brand while also delivering meaningful, educational, and enjoyable content?

Source: http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2320356/build-an-audience-by-creating-content-not-crap

Google & Money Dollars & Marketing

About The Real Way To Make Money Online Author

In the online world I go by the name Chetty Bear (evolved over the years as a nickname). I graduated from college in May of 2008 with a bachelors degree in both business and accounting. My life long dream was to own my own business and also not work very hard. The only way that I figured this was possible was by owning websites that allow me to make money online. The beauty of owning websites is that once they are established they almost become autopilot income.

Since graduating from college in May of 2008 I have been working as an internet marketer. Internet marketing is by no means a get rich quick scheme and it takes a lot of work. I have been working hard on many different niches over the past year and have finally gotten to a point where I can support myself without needing another job.

Besides being an internet marketer I also am a Christian who believes in the bible being the inspired word of God. I also currently live in the great state of Colorado and love to spend time outdoors. The city that I live in is one of the coldest places in the United States during the winter (usually at least -20 degrees on winter mornings and weeks at a time where it doesn't get above 0) and one of the nicest places in the world during the summer (usually around 75 degrees with no humidity).

If you have any questions about making money online or just want to chat feel free to email me at thechettybear@gmail.com

Source: http://realwaytomakemoneyonline.blogspot.com/2009/03/about-real-way-to-make-money-online_3375.html

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jueves, 30 de enero de 2014

Time for Guest Blogging With a Purpose

Posted by jennita

Dear Readers, before getting to the meat of the post about how to make guest blogging work for you and not end up looking like a spammer, I'd like to tell you a little story. A story about when Matt Cutts single-handedly changed the course of my day. The story goes a little something like this...

It was a chilly, yet calm Monday afternoon in the Moz office, as I was having lunch at my desk and watching over all the Moz social channels (a task I rarely do these days, as we have a team of awesome ladies who usually does it). As I was checking my personal Twitter feed though, I saw a tweet from Matt Cutts pointing to his latest blog post, "The decay and fall of guest blogging for SEO."

Quickly I jumped over to read the blog and… BOOM, this was the first paragraph:

Okay, I'm calling it: if you're using guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014, you should probably stop. Why? Because over time it's become a more and more spammy practice, and if you're doing a lot of guest blogging then you're hanging out with really bad company.

"Oh dear," I thought to myself. "My day just got a whole lot more interesting."

It didn't take long before people starting asking questions about whether sites like Moz and our YouMoz blog would be in danger. People were unsure as to what exactly his post meant.

Was he saying there was going to be an algo change, as Rand predicted in last week's Whiteboard Friday? Was he saying that all guest blogging was dead, or that all guest blogging had become spammy? Did he mean that all links in guest posts now should be nofollowed? Essentially, the SEO world got its crazy on.


http://www.latenightwithjimmyfallon.com/blogs/2010/04/tgif-gif-41/

Immediately I was fielding all sorts of questions, from how Moz discourages spam links in guest posts, to how it'd be crazy to ban us from Google. There were also lots of jokes going on… you know, things like letting Keri (our YouMoz manager), stay longer on her vacation.

But I digress; let me get back to Matt's blog post. In it, he also has this to say:

"Ultimately, this is why we can't have nice things in the SEO space: a trend starts out as authentic. Then more and more people pile on until only the barest trace of legitimate behavior remains. We've reached the point in the downward spiral where people are hawking "guest post outsourcing" and writing articles about "how to automate guest blogging.
"So stick a fork in it: guest blogging is done; it's just gotten too spammy. In general I wouldn't recommend accepting a guest blog post unless you are willing to vouch for someone personally or know them well. Likewise, I wouldn't recommend relying on guest posting, guest blogging sites, or guest blogging SEO as a linkbuilding strategy."

I giggled at the "this is why we can't have nice things in SEO" line. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'd heard it phrased exactly that way before. But what really caught my eye was this, "We've reached the point in the downward spiral…" Wait… hadn't Rand said the exact same thing three days ago in his Whiteboard Friday? Wait… wasn't it called "Why Guest Posting and Blogging is a Slippery Slope???" Of course, others caught on to this as well.

But the point really isn't about how Rand can see the future; it's about how Matt wasn't actually saying anything we didn't already know. Right? No, seriously.

Ok, ok, so maybe it wasn't totally obvious to everyone, or else the post wouldn't have been written, eh? So how do you proceed if you were using guest posting as a link building strategy? (By the way, guest posting is a tactic, not a strategy.)

Guest post with a purpose

As with anything, you don't want to be out there trying willy-nilly to get your posts on every blog for the sole purpose of building (probably bad) links. It's important to have this tied to your business and marketing goals, as you would with any other tactic. SEO is only one piece of the larger strategy, and if you focus solely on writing posts for link building purposes, you're missing out on a ton of other possibilities, such as:

  • Branding, branding, branding
  • Build credibility in a specific niche
  • Increased traffic (oh, HELLO)
  • Exposure to new audiences
  • Community building!
  • Authorship: The more legitimate posts you write and connect to your Google+ account, the more likely your lovely face will show up in the SERPs.

Imagine if you were to focus on writing an amazing blog post, with actionable information, relevant to the community of the blog you're pitching. No, really—you should do that. Believe me, that's how you're going to get a post on YouMoz. :)

As Sir Dr. Pete (I added the Sir, because he's older than me ;) ) so eloquently stated today in an internal thread about this very topic, "You've got to make sure you're not a one trick link-building pony. I mean, any time you base 80% or more of your link profile on one tactic/gimmick, you're going to eventually be in trouble. The problem isn't guest-posting, it's abuse." People, the doctor has spoken.

But how, you ask? How do you ensure that you don't come across as spammy or a "one trick link-building pony?" For this, I'd like to introduce you to Everett Sizemore. He's an Associate here at Moz, and mostly focuses on helping out in Q&A. But in his real job, he's the Director of R&D, Special Projects, and Moonshine over at seOverflow. (Hey Everett, how does one go about getting an amazing job title like that, anyway??)

Over the past few days we've had some email discussions about guest posting. We discussed how Google might determine a post is spammy, how they'd determine one was legit, and ways in which SEOs and all the other online marketers out there should be guest blogging legitimately.

Well, Everett had the answer that we all agreed was the best answer, so now I happily present to you...

Everett's tips on how to be a better guest poster

He stated that seOverflow wasn't panicking in the least because they were changing their internal guest posting guidelines to now include language like this:

  1. Develop a relationship with the publisher outside of "guest blogging platforms" in order to customize the relationship better.
  2. Pitch a series of content instead of one "guest post".
  3. Describe yourself as an "expert contributor" not a "guest author", explain the difference if you have to, and explain to the publisher why this is better for their site.
  4. Don't contribute to sites that want to publish your content under a general "guest author" account. Always insist on your own contributor/author account, and markup with rel author.
  5. Work with authors who have Google profiles to which they can add contributor to links. If they don't have one, help them get one.
  6. Go back to the same authors for similar content to develop them as experts in a specific niche (e.g. if John Smith did an article for a client on PBX solutions and you have need for another piece of content about VOIP, office phone systems, etc... go back to John Smith again)
  7. If the resident authors don't have their bio below/above every post then our content shouldn't have one either.
  8. Stop thinking about links. Think about traffic and exposure instead. Links are fine if they are relevant, but don't let a nofollow policy keep you from contributing to a major site with lots of traffic in the clients' niche.
  9. Track the right metrics, which starts with aligning our goals with the clients'.
Everett also said this in the email:
With that said, this 'tactic' is taking a back seat in our arsenal of options in any content marketing strategy. Our goal these days is to find the influencers in any niche and pay an expert to write expert-level content, no matter where it gets placed, to help further our clients business goals, primarily through online customer acquisition driven by good content.

That's good stuff right there. Essentially, be a real person, write posts with purpose beyond just building links.

How can guest blogging sites stay credible?

Since we're on the subject, let's talk about sites like the Huffington Post, Tech Crunch, Smashing Magazine, and even the Google Analytics blog. All of those sites, along with our own YouMoz and Moz Blog, allow guest posts. One thing that's common across all of these sites is that they have rigorous editing. They simply don't allow for just anyone write a post about anything. They read through posts for accuracy, to ensure that links aren't simply "link drops," and to ensure focus on actual, good, helpful content.

But let's say you allow guest posts, but you're not quite as strict about things right now? Here are a few tips to make sure your blog stays credible, even with guest posts:

  1. Ensure that the content is original. We use both Copyscape and Small SEO Tools to look for plagiarized content.
  2. Make sure the author is a real person. Have people create an account on your site and link it to their Google+ page. This ensures that you're getting real people, verifiable on their Google+ and other accounts.
  3. See if they've participated in the community before. This is another good way to make sure they know the type of content that your community likes.
  4. Double check the links. Now, many links are legitimate and make perfect sense, but be sure to click through to each one. Do you really want to "validate" that page? Only allow links with a purpose.
This list is really just the beginning. For a more thorough review of a good way to allow guest posts, check out Keri Morgret's post about how to guest post on YouMoz.

Guest blogging isn't dead

Let me wrap this up by stating again that guest blogging isn't dead by any means. But being a Spammy McSpammer only caring about links, and not caring about real content, community building, branding, and all those other great benefits... is dead.


Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/NRFYoAm18As/time-for-guest-blogging-with-a-purpose

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Google Encrypted Search Means SEOs Need a Better Toolbox

SEO is undergoing significant change. Here are several sensible and logical things marketers can do today to mitigate the effects of encrypted search by Google.

Source: http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2306239/google-encrypted-search-means-seos-need-a-better-toolbox

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Gmail Tabs: An Opportunity, Not a Threat

Marketers - there's no need to panic. If your emails are engaging, customers will find them.

Source: http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2286739/gmail-tabs-an-opportunity-not-a-threat

Google & Money Dollars & Marketing

miércoles, 29 de enero de 2014

Get Your Marketing Budget Ready for 2014

Use this time to evaluate 2013, build a strong case for investments (particularly in technology, skills, data and customer-focused campaigns) and you will be able to hit the ground running in 2014.

Source: http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2304883/get-your-marketing-budget-ready-for-2014

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Tutorial: How to Convert & Sell an eBook in the Apple iBookstore

If you have a PDF E-Book you?re selling online, but would like to drastically increase your potential sales and exposure, it may be time for you to also publish to the Apple iBookstore. In the past it may have been enough to just sell your E-Book as a downloadable PDF file, but now people are [...]

Source: http://honestholly.com/tutorial-how-to-convert-sell-an-ebook-in-the-apple-ibookstore/

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Bring Your Attribution Model up to the 21st Century

A holistic attribution model is a very good thing for the industry and a way to strengthen any customer-centric approach.

Source: http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2304888/bring-your-attribution-model-up-to-the-21st-century

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martes, 28 de enero de 2014

B2B Marketing Automation Teaches B2C Marketers a New Trick

B2C marketers have always been the coolest kids in the room; they've had the best tools, the biggest budgets, and the most fun assignments. Marketing automation is changing that.

Source: http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2321526/b2b-marketing-automation-teaches-b2c-marketers-a-new-trick

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A Physicist?s Approach to Marketing

While marketing doesn't adhere to a strict set of universal laws like physics, it can and should be a rigorous, left-brained discipline. Marketing at its best can be tested and measured and with the right balance of accuracy and rigidity, marketing can be akin to science.

Source: http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2308880/a-physicist-s-approach-to-marketing

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7 Sales Page & Marketing Methods to Avoid

Too often Internet Marketers follow in the footsteps of other webmasters or known marketers, and oftentimes this can be a setback to your business and website. Although you may view the website of a marketing guru and see how his sales process works, it doesn’t mean it is the best route for you to take. [...]

Source: http://honestholly.com/7-sales-page-marketing-methods-to-avoid/

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Top 10 WordPress Plugins 2009

After receiving numerous e-mails with people asking me about the plugins that I use on my websites, I wanted to create a list of the best 10 WordPress plugins. Some of the plugins are new, and others have been around for a while. They are all excellent and improve the flexibility of my websites tremendously. [...]

Source: http://honestholly.com/top-10-wordpress-plugins-2009/

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lunes, 27 de enero de 2014

Step Up Your Marketing Sophistication ? Create a Marketing Automation Action Plan

Most marketers are still only using marketing automation technology for basic emails and landing pages. Here are three tips for creating a marketing automation action plan that will help you drive big results.

Source: http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2320800/step-up-your-marketing-sophistication-create-a-marketing-automation-action-plan

Google & Money Dollars & Marketing

Tutorial: How to Convert & Sell an eBook in the Apple iBookstore

If you have a PDF E-Book you?re selling online, but would like to drastically increase your potential sales and exposure, it may be time for you to also publish to the Apple iBookstore. In the past it may have been enough to just sell your E-Book as a downloadable PDF file, but now people are [...]

Source: http://honestholly.com/tutorial-how-to-convert-sell-an-ebook-in-the-apple-ibookstore/

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31 Link Building Tactics Discovered From Competitive Analysis

Posted by Cliquekaila

On the Moz blog there's always been a large discussion around competitive analysis. From how to conduct competitive analysis using Google docs to in depth articles about competitive link analysis using Excel, or even just the fact that Moz has Open Site Explorer, one of the ultimate analysis tools for competitive backlink analysis. The fact of the matter is competitive analysis can be a very worthwhile exercise to help you determine the best strategy for your online efforts. This is especially true with link building.

Over the years, I've seen hundreds of thousands of backlinks while analyzing for opportunities (as well as looking for bad links to disavow or prune). Most recently, my analyses have inspired me to write this post, because common opportunities continue to reveal themselves, and they're worth sharing. Have you discovered some great link building gems in addition to those listed below? Share them with us in the comments.

Contests

It's no secret that giveaways, contests, and sweepstakes are great ways to attract links. Some of the recent contests I've observed driving links for authoritative sites include the "Draw My Favorite Teacher" contest by StorageMart, a competitor of a storage chain client of mine. Natural links from news organizations and authoritative blogs are often a result of a contest that is unique like this.

A hacking contest by Rackspace, a competitor of our global hosting provider client, also drew in quite a few links we observed after they partnered with this NFC Ring kickstarter project. The NFC Ring partner then helped promote the contest too for some added link juice. These are both great examples of contest-driven link earning.

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EDU link building strategies

Some of the most authoritative links my team and I have ever built are on university and college websites. When conducting competitive analysis be on the lookout for your competitor's .edu TLD earned links. Expert tip: Do a find & replace for the characters ".edu" in Excel, and format it to fill any cell with a color that has ".edu". See the screenshot below for more information.

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Housing and residence life "helpful links"

Recently I conducted some competitive analysis on three separate industries: storage facilities, national cable providers, and automotive insurance. In all three of these industries, I discovered a plethora of link opportunities on housing and residence life FAQ pages for students. Students who move into campus housing often have to find extra storage, thus the storage links. Additionally students moving to a new state or country for school may need to find cable providers/utilities or new insurance providers, thus the cable TV and auto insurance links. Some example opportunities are provided below. Be on the lookout for these types of link building opportunities.

  1. School of the Art Institute of Chicago Housing & Residence Life: FAQs
  2. Yale School of Medicine "Living in Connecticut" helpful links
  3. South Dakota School of Mines & Technology useful links section
  4. University of the Incarnate Word helpful links
  5. University of Florida College of Dentistry helpful links for students

Scholarship listings

The need to find help to fund education for students is in high demand. A reoccurring link building strategy I've seen used includes creating a scholarship for students and having the listing added to scholarship pages on .edu sites. Virginia.edu has an authoritative scholarship page along with KU.Edu and Davenport.edu. These schools don't just post their own scholarships, they post other institutions' scholarships as well as brands offering scholarships. Expert tip: Try the search command inurl:scholarship site:edu to find .edu domains with scholarship pages.

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Student resources and minority resources

When thinking about ways you can convince a University's webmaster to place a link to you or your client's site, specifically search for student resource pages. These pages are often similar to those found in campus life or residential sections of a University site. They are always treasure troves for link opportunities.

What are students looking forand in need of while in school? Awesome student resources exist on .edu sites like UKY.edu, as well as dedicated resources such as UniversityParent.com. See if a list exists that your site should be listed on.

Additionally, minority resources are prevalent, especially for Hispanic students. On MSState.edu this Hispanic business primer was developed and not only acquires a lot of links but also links out to great resources for students. Seek out these resources and ask to be added if you can develop a program, content piece or promotion relating to resources for minorities. Expert tip: Try using advanced search commands like this one to uncover these pages: inurl:helpful-links site:edu.

GOV link building strategies

Just like University domains, government pages are often extremely authoritative and very relevant. Helpful links pages, resource pages and more information is available on .gov TLDs you just have to find them. Common pages include those listed below. This is just scratching the surface of opportunities!

Foreign nationals

Helpful links for foreign nationals such as general information, banking and credit institutions, local news organizations, programs for foreign nationals and ESL scholarship opportunities. The National Renewal Energy Laboratory's helpful links for foreign nationals was a site that was discovered during competitive link analysis.

Employment opportunities

Employment and career opportunities are often shared with visitors of .gov sites. The Iowa Human Rights department provides such resources to its readers on authoritative pages.

Non-profit partnerships

Non-profit partnerships also provide for great link building opportunities. This economic development program showed up in a competitive link analysis report listing private sector partners.

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Offering a job

Job boards exist all over the internet. From news publishers to industry association job listing pages, if you're hiring there are opportunities to get your site listed. Attending a career fair is also a great way to get a link. UIowa.edu has a great career site which was discovered during a competitive backlink analysis for a new school offering engineering programs.

Job boards are also on non-profit sites such as Python.org in your industry. Think about the types of sites that industry professionals frequent; I'm sure you'll find a job board or career center with links to job listings. Just have to look.

Green eco-friendly causes

Anything eco-friendly, carbon footprint-lowering, green, or renewable presents an opportunity for generating links. Our team developed a resource page for green printing resources for a client InkTechnologies.com after looking through competitor resources and finding Go Green resource pages on an .edu and on non-profit sites. These pages existed and linked to third party sites so we figured we could ask to be listed as well after developing the content. We succeeded and got some great links; you can too!

Education programs that focus on renewable energy can uncover green links. While conducting research for a new engineering program one of our client's offers we uncovered this Energy.gov link. Engineering related programs often study technology to help reduce our dependence on non-renewable energy sources. Other green educational resources and initiatives exist that might attract links such as: green internships, clean energy jobs, green competitions and related private and non-profit programs.

Pull backlinks to "green" educational programs, conduct advanced searching to uncover these sites and think about the opportunities at your organization or client's company that have an environmentally friendly angle to acquire links.

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Sponsorships

Sponsorship has been a "bad" word in the world of link building. Using a sponsorship to try to increase your rankings with a dofollow link can be against Google's Terms of Service. However, there are exceptions which make sponsorships not so bad after all. After conducting some competitive analysis, the following six sponsorship opportunities were uncovered. Expert tip: Watch out for sponsorships that put your link sitewide on every page or allow anchor text specific links. These are links that often signal nefarious tactics, and should be avoided at all costs.

  1. Sponsoring an event often garners publicity and brand visibility. For companies that decided to become an event sponsor of a recent Arts and Crafts Fair in Scottsdale, Arizona, their sponsorship also landed a link with their company's logo on ScottsdaleAZ.gov.
  2. Sitewide sponsorships were a popular tactic just a short time ago. Be very selective about these types of opportunities. Did you know StatCounter.com accepts sponsorships? We discovered a competitor of a client uses the site for sponsorship.
  3. A Podcast exists for just about every topic under the sun. Consider sponsoring a Podcast or a Webinar, as you might just earn a link or two out of it. Take for example this Podcast sponsored by Go Daddy, InlandBank.com and others.
  4. Conference sponsorships have many benefits including getting you in front of a niche audience. Juicy links are a result as well such as those found on http://mashable.com/connect/ and http://debconf13.debconf.org/ which were uncovered after a recent competitive analysis of Rackspace for a hosting provider client of ours.
  5. Non-profit sponsorships provide funding for a great cause while also achieving an authoritative link. A few noteworthy companies sponsor food banks such as this one http://www.safoodbank.org/, another opportunity uncovered while scouring competitor Rackspace's backlinks.
  6. Exhibitors or vendors at a Tradeshow or an Expo often receive listings and information on exhibitor pages. The Green Building Expo held in Scottsdale has a nice PR 3 page listing for exhibitors such as Wells Fargo, a competitor of a bank client for which we were researching strategies.
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Content earns links

Developing content can help you earn links? No way, what an unheard-of concept! We've all heard about content marketing being used to attract links, but what kind of content should you develop? Here are a few ideas discovered after competitive link analysis with clients in the web hosting, banking, education and engineering industries applicable across different industries.

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Old tactics done right

The majority of manually built links you likely uncover during a backlink analysis often utilize tactics from yester-year. Things like forum link building, comment spam, directories, and spun articles are evident. After reviewing a few recently, however, I discovered that even the bad tactics can be done right, and here are a few examples:

  • Forum links: When placed on authoritative relevant sites they can be valuable. Check out this Adobe Forum that packs a bit of punch from an authoritative standpoint for a competitor of a tech client we were reviewing.
  • Directories: When placed on relevant sites that don't accept any site under the sun, have strict submission guidelines and are authoritative sites directories can still provide valuable. Sites such as BestoftheWeb.com and DMOZ.org are very authoritative, but niche directories exist catering to a specific topic.
  • Foreign link building: Although caution is required, there are still opportunities on foreign language sites that can represent link building opportunities. They must be relevant and authoritative, such as this one on Chinaz.com about web hosting providers.
  • Customer case studies: Although used in the past to be biased reports about your company, many customer case studies have provided worthwhile for competitors we've reviewed. Check out this case study we saw drew in a lot of links for Hostgator.
  • Guest blogging: Sure it's overused today but if you have an opportunity to guest blog on a partner's site or even a competitor do it! This guest post on Rackspace is a good example for a competitor we uncovered.
  • Links pages: Discovering links pages with a lot of on page authority and getting added is one link building tactic still valuable today. Consider this SAE.org links list with huge on page authority, a great opportunity discovered when looking through engineering school competitor's backlinks. Just because there are a bunch of outbound links doesn't automatically disqualify these link types as authoritative.
  • Local associations: Some brands went crazy with building a ton of links on local sites. One tactic that still works today is finding local associations to join. This NFPA.com link was discovered after reviewing competitors of a University client of ours for a juicy link.
  • Bookmarking: Wanted to receive hundreds of links for low cost in 2008? Bookmark links were a big hit, however today aren't the best when done unnaturally. But did you know some sites exist today that allow individuals to create their own bookmarking pages? When you discover bookmarking pages on .gov or .edu sites they can be opportunities. Take for example this bookmarks page on the lbl.gov site we discovered during competitive analysis. This page is a bit irrelevant for the client we were looking for, but is a good example of bookmarking pages that exist today with some on page authority.

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These are a few of the great opportunities we've discovered through competitive link analysis. Hopefully you've found the opportunities worthwhile for your industry. Tell readers your own observations from competitive analysis in the comments below.


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