Link building is always a hot topic because it is really what makes an SEO campaign work. Content is important, page and link structure are important, and the url is important, but for competitive search terms, great on-site optimization will only get you so far. I have had a bit of a love/hate relationship with link building over the years, and I have really started to be a lot more analytical in how I go about building incoming links.
This love story begins at the beginning of 2006. I was diagnosed with a terminal cancer, but prayerfully enough it turned out to be a large non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma tumor which was treatable. For over six months, I was stuck in a chair and didn't have the energy to get up an do anything so I spent that time teaching myself about websites and marketing. I started reading SEO blogs (like SEOmoz and others) to learn what I could. I figured I might as well put the time to use, right?
Over the coming months, I started my first SEO campaign for my newly built car accessories website. My target keywords were stupidly competitive - car accessories and aftermarket auto parts and a lot more keywords like them. I figured if SEO really worked, then I could do it. I could get ranked for some ridiculously competitive keywords.
I had a good understanding of on-site SEO such as titles, meta tags, content, URLs, and link structure so I built the site to be highly optimized for my keywords. I found creative ways to get a lot of content on the homepage using ajax and javascript tabs but still keeping the website aesthetically pleasing. Once the changes were indexed, I made sure that the content in the tabs was indexing properly. After trying some long tail queries, I found my site's tabbed content was indexed very well.
The on-site SEO bumped the rankings into the top 100 for car accessories. It had previously been ranked around 350 or so. With everything I had done to beef up the on-site SEO, it was still a long way from where I wanted it. That's when I started the link building process. In 2006 I found a lot of info about directory submissions, article marketing, reciprocal linking, buying links, DMOZ, and blogging so I did a little bit of everything. A little of everything turned into a lot of everything over the next six months, and slowly but surely the rankings began to rise.
The directory submission process was done with a combination of manual submissions, semi-automated submissions using software, and even some automated submissions. I used a few directory submitters plus doing a simple Google search for relevant directories and submitted to any and all that didn't require a payment. During this process I also started writing how-to articles and submitting them to article directories, blogs, online magazines and journals. After a few months, the site made it to the first page and traffic started coming in.
Not long after that I started getting reciprocal link requests, so I exchanged a few links along with way as well. As traffic picked up, I started getting sales on the website for the first time and my attention was being directed towards sales and customer service instead of SEO. For about a year, I didn't do any marketing on the site except write a few articles and syndicate to whoever would publish them. Sometime in 2008, I checked the rankings and found this.
It had climbed to #1 out of 92,100,000 results. I could not believe it. Traffic was up over 1000%, and the site was getting literally thousands of unique visitors a month just from this keyword. I checked the analytics and traffic was up and down and all over the place. After monitoring this for a few days, I experienced the "Google Dance" with rankings ranging from #1 to #4. Surprisingly, traffic amounts from positions 2-4 were not even HALF of the amount generated from position #1.
Jump ahead to June 2010. The website is ranking between #2 and #5 from day to day for car accessories. The surprising thing about this case study is that there hasn't been any additional marketing done to the site since around November 2008. Even with the low quality nature of directories, article directories, and even some reciprocal incoming links, the ranking has stayed top 5 for a really competitive keyword. I did take the time to get the website listed in DMOZ, the Google Directory, and a lot of other "good" websites. Some of the syndicated articles landed on sites like DIY, ehow.com, and other car enthusiasts websites generating some great inbound links. The site doesn't get credit for a lot of the low quality links that were acquired early on but I did do a few things right that had some great results.
I mentioned earlier that I am taking a more analytical approach to link building, and after reading a lot of articles, seeing this video about article marketing, and getting a better understanding of how much better Google is at identifying low quality links and websites, I have really changed the way I think about link building. Much like in the world of content, quality is better than quantity when it comes to obtaining links. After analyzing my own link building path from 2006 until the present, I came up with a list of best practices to guide my link building moving forward:
- It is well worth the time to write great content as opposed to lots of decent content. Some of the best articles I wrote are the ones that attracted the most links and landed on good websites, and one or two were even highlighted in a breaking news story that brought a LOT of referral traffic while it was on the site's homepage.
- If you figure out something cool or unique, like getting Pandora to play through a mono bluetooth headset, write about it and keep the content on your site and create a buzz using social media. Links will surely come.
- Write content for your own site first. As Rand points out, you will get the links pointing back at your site for having the original content.
- Here is one of my favorites - syndicate your RSS feed, not your article content. This is a philosophical change to the approach I used to have in article marketing. Instead of publishing your duplicate content everywhere, keep the content on your site and ping services like technorati, twitter, facebook, and anywhere you can publish your site's feed. Get visitors on your site and then give them an opportunity to bookmark or share your content via social media.
- Quality directories are still valid. I have still seen good success from getting listed in the top human-edited directories, especially local and regional ones. Avoid the free-for-all sites and focus on the ones that add value to users.
- Guest Blogging is a new hot-topic which is also worth doing. As Rand mentioned in this weeks WBF video, finding relevant websites to post content to is a good way to get quality inbound links and brand awareness. In many cases, you can get content for your site as well if you establish a good partnership with a complementary website or blog.
- Patience is a virtue. It is hard to not check rankings every day, but there are a lot of other things to do with your valuable time than checking rankings. I schedule a time once a week to check up on how things are progressing. This keeps me from wasting time each day, and gives me a reason to measure results and dive into analytics at the end of the week.
- Reciprocal links are not all bad. It is natural for complementary websites to link to one another, so the emphasis is on relevance. I will exchange links with relevant and complementary websites, but not with just any site. You want to make sure you are linking to reputable websites too.
- Don't Spam. Search engines (like Google) mostly update their algorithms to do one of two things: to increase the relevance of the search results and to battle spam in their index. If you keep things relevant and avoid spam tactics, your rankings should remain intact as long as their isn't a fundamental shift in how websites and pages are ranked. Up until the recent "May Day" update, all of our sites have actually improved over the past few years with Google updates (The May Day update gave us about a 14% drop in the number of indexed pages, much like with SEOmoz and others).
Four years later, I have a much different approach to marketing, a different approach to life, and a lot of sites doing well in the search results. Marketing gives me an outlet for my competitive edge which is why I tend to climb the keyword mountains that I do. I would like to hear how your link building tactics have changed over the years and see how far we have come. I plan to keep a student's approach SEO, which continues to prove itself as one of the most frustrating, rewarding, and elusive things in life. It is (after all) a love story!
I just want to say that I really liked this post - you started out just like me - getting any link I could find, then realizing a lot of those were getting diminishing returns and focusing on a few high value targets and tactics. And that #1 feeling - so good, right?
I'm editing the post to add a link to your site; you definitely deserve it for this great sharing :-)
Thanks Rand, I am glad to be able to contribute something to SEOmoz. I have spent a lot of time learning from you guys (and still do).
This whole idea came up when I started reverse engineering my own success and realizing what was effective and what wasn't - in hopes of putting energy where it counts. I think you guys do a really great job at educating SEOs through your continued research .
Thanks for the link too!
Ah Rand - a true link builder at heart rewards the great article with what else - a link! And IMO opinion a well deserved one. God job Matt.
great article and wonderful best-practice guide.
Another great tacking, I think for link building and getting the awareness for the brand is to identify Q&A websites like LinkedIn section and Yahoo questions and provide answers to relevant problems.
Good point - that's also another tactic I have used, even participating in forums as an authority figure when I see things I can provide some input on.
I have a few google alerts set up for things like "check engine light on" and other frequent yet tricky things related to cars that I can swoop in an give some advice on. This is an effective way to figure out where the conversations are getting started.
Thanks for the feedback!
Brilliant use of the google alerts! I'll have to start using that! Thanks, again :-)
Maybe I should have included that in the best practices. I figured this was just a creative way to keep an ear out for content that you can contribute to. I am glad you have something that you can take away from this and use!
Good reminder Tatiana
Nice post Matt! Congratulations on overcoming cancer and for getting to #1 for such a competitive search term.
Really interesting to hear that you were ranking really well even when you had not done any link building and optimisation for so long. I too have a site that still ranks well which I have not touched for 2 years or more. Tut tut.
Anyway, well done mate. Your story is both enlightening and inspirational.
Congrats on two accounts! Beating cancer and your SEO success!!
I loved the fact that instead of just sitting down doing nothing you actually took time out to learn a new trade and its working out great for you.
I also loved the tips you listed out especilly the Guest blogging section. Although I am surprised that you were able to use semi-automation for your directory submissions and they worked! I always thought there were associated with spamming.
Personally, I've only been in SEO for less than a year myself and I initially started with directory submissions. These days I don't bother with it. I tend more towards content writing and guest posting, with the occassional reciprocal link here and there. So far so good, it working fine for me.
Tola,
The thing about the semi-automatic submission software is that there are maybe 100 decent sites out of the 1000's in their lists. You will get a few good links from it (most even have DMOZ, BOTW, and others good directories included in their lists). IMO it isn't worth the time to do all of them since they tend to be so low in quality. I agree, those types of software can tend to create spammy submissions because people don't take the time to do it correctly - like getting the right category and having completed forms.
I am not against using technology to be more efficient, but there is a fine line between increasing efficiency and just being lazy. ;)
Thanks for the kind words!
Just thought of another question - what do you think of content spinning? I find the process PAINFUL but I know some SEOs like it.
I don't like article or content spinning really. Here is a great example why (they don't deserve a link LOL)
https://nissanroberge.com/132/car-stereo-wiring-101-a-must-read/
This is one of my originals "spun" through some software. I wouldn't put any effort into spinning articles (even manually) but it is worthwhile to do follow-up post covering a new idea related to a previous post.
First off, congrats on beating cancer! Second, great post. There are few things in this business more satisfying than waking up and finding a site you are working on is on the first page of Google.
If you create things worthy of sharing, its only a matter of time before they are shared.
On a different note, I looked at your blog. The article "Can Shared Hosting Accounts Hurt Your SEO Rankings?" makes a good point. I have picked my servers based on their speed, etc, but not for SEO. I'm not how big of a factor site speed will be. My rule of thumb is, if its noticeable slow to the user, the search will notice.
Good post!
Thanks Matthew -
As far as hosting accounts go, we try to keep page loads times under 4 seconds, under 3 preferably. Shared hosting accounts just don't give a website enough resources to perform well, especially if you are talking about a website that gets decent traffic. Slow page loads can kill conversion rates and increase bounce rates too, so we figure the investment is a small one in the grand scheme of things. Throw in the fact that Google now takes performance as a ranking factor and it becomes even more of a no-brainer to invest a little more into resources.
I started out as a developer before I learned SEO if you couldn't tell :)
As you could tell, my grammar was poor yesterday. It had been a long day. :-)
Wow Matt. I just can't get past the "non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma" part of your post. Praise God you had one of the treatable one's! That's totally stinkin' awesome!
Now to the post. Loved everything except the title...if it were titled by me it would be "Why I hate link building" :-p
Seriously, thanks for the tips and like others above, I'll be printing them out and restudying them regularly.
As in your case here, link building and content creation is much easier when you are passionate about the subject and have enough knowledge in the field to consistently create original content.
But many of us SEO's serve clients spanning across different industries. What content creation & blogging techniques can you suggest where we have very little knowledge, and even less experience, in the client's particular field?
This is a great point. We also service industries where we are NOT experts, so one of the things we have done with success is to get the experts (our clients) to write the content with our guidance. If we determine a unique set of keywords we are tarketing, we will give them a list of topics covering the keyword range. This give our clients an opportunity to become the authority figure - which has always been well received.
Part of the process is educatiing clients about this type of SEO strategy so they can buy into being a content contributor for their industry. Sometimes I have even studied an industry and wrote content for our clients if that is the route we have to take. This is not the best case solution, but one that works. It comes down to how much effort you are willing to invest.
Awesome post! I really enjoyed it. Very informational. I printed your bullet points and have them on my desk to keep me on track. As far as content creation, I always struggle with whether to write more short (300 to 500 words) blogs or less long (700+) blogs....more fresh, short content on the site or less longer and more in-depth content.
Thanks again!
A great story.
I wish more SEOs could share their individual success stories (with personal projects) like you did. It's not that difficult to guess that most successful SEOs have personal SEO projects, but we never get to hear that part of the story.
Also kudos for being of better health, for that's real success. :)
Well, it is often diffucult to put stuff out there like this because you open yourself up to a lot of criticism and analysis. The point of the article was just that - to be more analytical in how I build links and relevance. My hope was to offer something inspirational on a personal and professional level.
That particular website is ranked really well for a lot of keywords - #1 for Car Modifications too. I just wish the accessories market was better right now :)
Awesome article and tipps - thanks for sharing all these details.
I am inspired by the translation into French and would like to translate your article into German & post it on a German SEO blog - may I? Obviously with backlink!
To me whose mothertongue is not English it's quite difficult posting flawless and clever guest comments or articles on blogs... tough! So I try to find other ways for linkbuilding. Local/ regional directories prove to work very well for my websites, it's really worth to invest time and effort here I think.
Good luck to you, and keep healthy!
I can't really comment as I'm new to the game and therefore nothing has changed for me yet but just wanted to say great post and I like how you kinda changed a negative into a positive.
All the best for the future.
Grainger - Welcome to the game :)
You are on the right track. Staying in the loop with blogs like SEOMoz and other SEO resources is the way to go. If you haven't already, subscribe to a few rss feeds of blogs you find useful on the topic and keep learning. Good luck to you.
Very nice tips Matt, but my question is: how on earth did you get to stay in the top 5 results with just 600 backlinks? There are guys after you that have thousands of backlinks? Is the quality of the links that matter? Or the on-page SEO you did? what's the secret? And you're not even having the keywords in the domain name.. That's awesome
I don't think there is any secret - the main thing I did is to keep things on topic across the board: on-site content, published articles, link parters, linking domains, social media mentions, etc. It makes sense to make your SEO strategies centered around what is relevant to your website and your industry.
One last thing I'd like to add, since no one so far has mentioned Linkscape, the Keyword Difficulty tool or Open Site Explorer (or Website Grader!) - I just checked out your site and you are doing a really impressive job! You seem to have done an awesome job at getting great anchor text frequently but not too frequently and targeting quality over quantity in terms of links. Definitely an inspiration to those tempted to the dark side every once in a while ;)
I could only do this nosey investigation because you were honest about exactly what site you were working on and what you did...so thanks Seoteric! I think that takes some major guts. As someone in the health industry I'll be digging further and hoping examples from your success can lead to our own. Again, thanks!!
Thank you Matt!
first because your personal story of superation is inspirational, teaching us that nothing has the right to pull a man will down.
second because of the great tips you share with all of us about link building with a honesty that is rare.
Sincerely, thank you... your promotion to the main blog is very well deserved.
Patience is the virtue. I am glad you mentioned that. I feel very confident right now.
Keep writing!
What a great article and a story about how "anyone can do this." Glad you're healthy enough these days to share your story!
Nice article. Also I would like to suggest press releases and articles usually help too.
Also one good recep. linking method is ask other bloggers to blog about me or an article on my blog and in exchange I do the same for them in a few days or a couple weeks. That seems natural and editorial to google and works well.
This is very close to the guest blogging idea. If you wirte about another blog entry and link to it in the post, often times, you don't even have to contact the blog owner (especially if they use Wordpress) because they will automatically give you a link through pinkgbacks and linkbacks. There is a dark side to this as with any other method - so don't abuse it :)
If you add value to their post, they will be happy to return the link favor so this can be a good method of attracting relevant links.
Great post, I love to see how your determination paid off. It's just like everything else in life that's worthwhile doing, it starts off as a duty, turns into a discipline, and finally becomes a delight!
Great job!
I have a pretty similar story, writing a technical blog - kensfi.com, on which one I've got #5 in Google search for "computer blog" (351,000,000 results) and #11 for "tech blog" (134,000,000 results in Google).
I never did any web marketing except blog commenting and being active on some forums.
The only secret in all this success is writing interesting and useful stuff. All I do is posting solutions for technical problems, most of them as a reminder for myself so I can get back to blog, anytime I get the same problem again. I am pretty sure is helping many others since I get more and more visitors on my blog.
Hi Matt,
Very glad that you were able to get your health back. If we don't have our health, we can't help others.
You certainly helped me on this post. You really simplified and clarified the complex beast of link building. Your article has given me a much more optimistic outlook on the challenges ahead in my own link-building efforts and those of my clients.
Thanks for your time and effort on this one.
Ian D. Rossi
aimtheory
Very nice article Matt. You're a shining example of a person who sticks to the fundamentals and perseveres... not expecting overnight results, but being pleasantly surprised nonetheless. You sharing your SEO experiences in such a candid way will provide many readers with a feeling of optimism and desire in an area that can often be be overwhelming and frustrating. Please write more articles about your SEO experiences... I sure enjoyed this one :-)
Thanks guy for this great article.
I made a translation in French here :
https://www.compare-le-net.com/index.php?comparer=articles/affiche-actualite&actualite=7095
(with a backlink to your post obviously)
wow! Neat, thanks for the translation. :)
Cool, thanks Sam. It's funny - I know what it says and I still can't read it in french LOL.
In many cases my potential clients or prospects cannot afford my services. For the same reason seomoz.org offers free link building, article writing, and other seo advice I also offer the same advise on my own blog. You all are great. Time and again I come back to SEOMOZ.ORG to read up on the latest seo advice and tips. Keep up the good work!
I'm very impressed at your ranking with a term as massive as "car accessories." Nice job!
Your Morgan Freeman article was pretty cool. Do you have any tips on developing and distributing "breaking news" stories? Huliq seems to have very high standards for their content.
That article about the Nissan Maxima just had GREAT timing and some luck. It was published just a few weeks before the incident, and got picked up by a few news websites. What could be considered a very niche article found a groove in a mainstream story.
There is a strategy burried in there that I have played around with. If you can offer some new insight to something that is creating buzz, write about it on your blog and syndicate it through your RSS feeds and social media. As with this one, it could land in some good places if the timing is right.
This is a great success story. I got a little fuzzy feeling when I saw the screenshot with you at #1 :P . Glad to hear you are in good health and experiencing success :)
My take on this almost mirrors what Rand said about whether poor quality links can hurt (in a nutshell, they can if they're a major proportion of your entire backlink profile). Those quick & easy directory submissions we do when we first launch a site have a certain level of value. You'll get indxed (that's got to be worth something of course) and they'll deliver a certain level of authority, just up to a point, and not all that much.
Once you're starting to get established, adding more low quality links by submitting to lots more directories just doesn't seem to have any impact - it's like there's a threshold Google applies to how many low quality links will bring benefit and there's just no point going over it - you get nothing more.
A most excellent article. After reading your article today, I'm thinking link building isn't all that bad. Just need to put the metal to the grindstone and do it.
Thanks for sharing your great story, and congrats on beating the lymphoma. I am sure that SEO and link building offered a great and very welcome distraction at the time.
I know everyone before me has said it but great post!
I am really quite new when it comes to any form of SEO, I am a web/graphic designer an I enjoy that role but I really do want to get more into turning my designs into something that people will actually be able to find on Google!
I've learnt all the on-site SEO side of things and a few of my sites are creeping up the rankings which is great, mainly due to reading posts like this, so thanks!
Link building is probably the one area I need to research more on, when I first started I was basically adding my sites to all of the directories under the sun, but that was a bad idea! I think in future I will stick to the decent ones you mentioned in a previous reply and hope they work, also get some social marketing going.
Thanks Damian,
There is a wealth of knowledge on SEOmoz about linkbuilding. This is just one of many great resources. Good luck to you!
Link Building has been great for us. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
James Platteborze
Great post, Seoteric, and I'm glad to hear you're in good health.
Question: Is it advantageous to have guest blogging reciprocation with another blog if my blog is PR 6 and theirs is PR 4? Or, is it OK as long as their content is credible and in line with my blog's type of content?
I think the most frustrating thing about doing all those things you've listed is if it works. You know that you have to submit to article directories, write articles, syndicate RSS feeds, on site/off site optimization etc but you won't see results instantly or immediately. I guess yeah as mentioned you need patience and the persistence to continue.
Once you have created great content through a widget or article how do you get the word out? I post all of my articles to Ezine Articles. What is the best way to get traction for your content and get it in front of people that would be interested in posting your content?
Indeed SEO and especially link building is a love/hate game! I think I have aged 20 years in the last year since we started our site (www.discoveroriginalart.com . You provide new hope and I will follow your guidance.
Brian Wiltshire
It's part of SEO, you optimise your website, content, incoming links, etc ...
But the results only appear months later ^^
Great article man :)
Thanks for sharing your success story!
One of the key factors that always seems to be mentioned is time. You can start off on the right track with a great user interface, a well optimized site, and worthwhile quality content.... but there is a lag from the launch of a well crafted site to when it actually starts popping for the keywords you want (given all the linkbuilding efforts in between)!
Thank you. I liked this blog post
Boy do I love this article!
I really like one tip you gave - be patient. That's one of the SEO secrets that's rarely mentioned: Google loooves slow but steady link-building. But, hush, don't tell anyone ;-)
Great personal story and great linkbuilding tips. Congrats on both. Definitely some usable nuggets for my team. Thanks and continued health and success.
I dont want to sound like an Oscar winner with a thank u Speak, but i have read your post and the comments and i found interesting tools for link campaing and one ad-word tool also (https://www.ppcwebspy.com/).
So...thank you for sharing in this post a part of your knowledge, and Fintel, RyanOD, Greendezine, TatianaL and all the pples who share their tips.
Wish you good health.
Question: isn't it a game for you "to be first"?
I agree that most directories are not worth the time. From a page rank perspective, many of these are a PR0, whereas a good guest blog post on a authoratative site can earn you a link on a PR2-3 page or even higher. Guest posts are an interesting topic. They are somewhat editorial because the webmaster must endorse you to a certain extent to allow a guest post. But it is not exactly a recommendation. Seems like it would be very hard for Google's AI to detect the difference between a guest post and an editorial recommendation.
I found your article very insightful, and I wanted to congratulate you on the popularity you have created for your business.
I was just wondering, what do you think the benefits/cons are of doing SEO in-house versus hiring an agency?
Thanks, Liz
Nice post...
--Jen removed text--
i am new to this and just trying my best to get as many links as i can.
regards
Kash
While I appreciate the intent, this is not the best place to look for link exchanges. :)
A really inspiring story, well done. I have admiration for you and I found the comments really useful. As someone fairly new to SEO I`m still learning and only working in basic link building and blog reviews etc. I may be slow to pick this up but I`m guessing that content spinning is content written with words thrown in for no apparent reason, but is actually a sly way of improving hits? I can only assume this as most of the example shown from the link provided doesn`t make sense. I use DMOZ very frequently in my job and it`s useful to know that it`s a popular tool in the SEO world and also that others are getting results because of it.
All the best for the future.
Matt, thank you very inspirational story. You should continue writing about your experiences with SEO: Those case studies are really helpful.
So as usual it all comes down to have link worthy content on your site.
By the way loved this tip: Get the experts (clients/owners of sites) to write the content. This is a great way to create content.
But sometimes so hard to achieve without a good ratio of psychology
Not to mention having a good stout stick and not being afraid to use it...just sayin' :p
Your story is almost exactly the same as mine. Only difference is I learned to program before I'd even heard of SEO.
I really enjoyed reading this article since it shows some material results from a linkbuilding effort. It's also really relevant to me as I'm starting to get more involved in linkbuilding and your best practices list was definitely helpful! Thanks!
Good stuff...thank you for sharing what you've learned. Our company does well with SEO. We want to do better. To that end, we're currently researching linking opportunities. You said: "Avoid the free-for-all sites and focus on the ones that add value to users." Can you - or others - suggest the best means for determining which linking opportunities do, in fact, add value? How do we best determine where NOT to link?
Jeremy,
I think the short answer is to get links from websites that are human-edited or editorial in nature. Specifically speaking about directories (which is what I was referring to), there are thousands of directories and websites that are low quality and accept just about any type of link without any review. These types of links don't add any real value to anyone. Sites that "Add value to users" would refer to sites that people actually use, read, or would naturally link to. The "Free for all" sites - well, who actually goes to a low quality directory and does any kind of searching? This seems to be the test for me... do people actually use the site? :) If not, then chances are, the website won't have a very long life span, so why waste the effort.
And to follow up on this - I get the idea of not wasting your time on many of these directories. Like I mentioned in a comment elsewhere, as someone new to this kind of thing, are there free directories out there we should specifically avoid because they'll get us penalised? Or is it simply a question of finding the useful ones against the less useful ones?
Thanks for your comments.
That was a great article,,I am new to search engine business(8months to be precise) and this article motivated me a lot,,Kudos for writing such an intelligent article..
Hi Everyone.
Yes superb post Matt.
This was much the same with me when i started over 12 years ago. The main search engines then were Yahoo, Alta Vista and Lycos, and a little search engine called Google.
I was in the adult industry which was very competitive and I needed to get my rankings up in the top 5 for adult keywords. I gave myself 2 years to achieve this with a mixture of recip linking, link buying, and directory submission. I emulated my competition and achieved this goal by getting my site to no1 on Yahoo and Google for for a highly competitive adult phrase. This is still in the top 5 now, however I sold the site and this has still kept it's position and still continues to accrue natural links.
Don't worry about competing on competitive keywords, SEO is a waiting game, but if you do things ethical and slowly you will get there in the end.
Really good to hear about your success and an enjoyable article to read!
I understand that you had used some semi-automatic and automatic link submitters. Would you share which one that works for you?
I wouldn't necesssarily recommend any of them at this point, but I used the tools from Submit Suite and even tried some of Brad Callen's software. A LOT of the directories in them that are still active links have converted to paid directories, and a lot more directories have expired domains or are dead. Neither seem really worth the time for the long-term SEO effects. It would not be unlikely that a lot of the smaller "FREE" directories go extinct because that seems to be the trend (and that is the majority of what you find in those types of software). And if that is the case, then why waste the time on them.
There are some add-ons for Firefox that can help with form filling, which has been my weapon of choice for that type of work. Find the good directories (local/regional/editorial/DMOZ style) and get listed in those.
Thanks for the advice!
Thanks for this article, great individual story.
In terms of SEO check up, I agree with the once a week rank check. Gives you more time to focus on improving your overall SEO. Rather than minor tweaks.
First of all, Matt Brooks FTW! Nice job and congratulations. Very inspirational.
I agree with your take on rank checking once a week. However, what I really want is a weekly report generator I can use to drop reports into my inbox and the inbox of all relevant parties. That way I can get a high level view of what is going on plus any drill down info I feel is of critical importance without having to dedicate time every week to gathering it.
I've seen some solutions for this, but most fall woefully shy of what I'm envisioning in my head. There might be a good reason for that my CS minor prevents me from seeing. :)
I would agree that a generated report would be nice. If Google is listening - maybe add scheduled reporting to analytics???
What have you seen that does this, and where did it fail to meet your needs?
Look into Rank Tracker by link-assistant.com. It has very powerful reporting and automation features. (No, they are not paying me to write this, I'm just a very satisfied customer.)
Actually, i've used all of them, including spyglass and link asistant and I think OSE is way better than all of them. Not to mention the Site Intelligence API which rulez :)
BTW - Google Analytics does have scheduled reporting. Not sure If I missed it back then, or if it was added later.
Really informative and well written article
Thanks very much for the tips!
For some markets there are a lot of opportunities in getting quality links, this also can depend on the industry's popularity and how developed it is on the web.
For example, automotive or real estate markets are quite developed. But other markets like assisted living are not.
There are no directories specific to just assisted living, nor article sites, nor blogs or any such resources that developed markets can take full advantage of.
Do you think there should be a different approach in trying to obtain quality links in underdeveloped industries?
Well, my first instinct here is "Why not create it?" If there is really a lack of info out there about assited living or any other niche, how powerful would it be to get your client to be the authority on the subject? Maybe host a blog and generate content on their website.
Just a quick look shows huge search volume for keywords associated with assited living and related topics, so a well constructed blog could create a valuable resource for the entire industry, if it is an "underdeveloped" industry.
You're saying develop the quality content and eventually it will be found and linked to right?
The results you pulled up are sites trying to generate clients for their businesses. This would be the first frontier in an underdeveloped market.
Creating a independent site that offers all the info on assisted living without a direct company image, I could see that getting links even from "competitors". But most will not link to you if they see your site as a direct competitor.
Since the 'product' has to be delivered in person there is a regionalization effect that can be leveraged.
Finding a list of popular retirement locations would give you a list of regions to seek link partners. You are in Arizona so the area I suggest to you would be Florida. There are lots of others!
Exciting stuff, isn't it? Linkbuilding is the most fun part of the SEO process! Your post was great, and a good resource for any internet marketing professional.
Nice article and a good round up for conventional link building technique. Posting quality content on quality article sites like buzzle, ezine and articledashboard is also good method and works well.
Some great information here for link building, Interestign story too how you came to learn SEO originally.
Great Story and Congratulations on your recent success in both SEO and most importantly your health.
Thank you for the excellent read.
So your car accessories site is an affiliate page? What sort of income is it generating off how many uniques?
Do you think that if you were starting now you'd be able to have as much success given that domain age has been added as an authority factor?
It is not an affiliate page at all, its an e-commerce site built in Magento shopping cart with a custom theme that I developed.
The site gets tens of thousands of visitors each month from organic search (about 75% and mostly new unique visitors), 15% from direct traffic, and about 10% from referring sites.
The domain age was irrelevant considering the fact that I created the name, bought the domain, and made it an authority factor. It helps now, but I had to start from a brand new domain.
Excellent article! I have received the best results from blogging. The direct links from the blog, and the feeds to Social Networks, have made this tactic golden!
Thanks for the post.
I've seen a couple of articles recently on other sites that discredit the benefit of writing good content in favour of link building. You mention writing great content as opposed to decent content but do you think that Google is mainly interested in the strength of the links pointing to your site and content, however great, is secondary?
Sorry - and another question. For someone relatively new to this field, how do I judge what is a quality directory against one that I'd potentially get penalised from? As a rule of thumb, I'm thinking that paid directories are frowned on but there are lots of free directories out there - how can I tell which ones are the good ones?
Thanks again.
Writing good content is a link building strategy because it creates link-bait (something that people wil naturally link to).
I also pointed out that content generation is just one form of link building. Quality directories, guest blogging, links from complementary sites, and even forum posts and Q&A sites all all a part of your link building strategy. You can throw social media into that mix too since it can also help generate useful links.
The point is - better content can breed better links. As for question 2, refer to this comment
Thanks for the reply.
I guess I'm differentiating between what seems like a respectable activity in writing good or great content on your site against what might be seen as a slightly less admirable activity in adding your details to one directory after another. The former contributes something to the web and it's valuable for you site visitors; the latter doesn't add anything. And my question was really about whether good content is now secondary.
Writing quality comments on blogs and forums is maybe the best of both worlds.
As someone who sticks closely to the "build content" linkbuilding method, I can tell you that it DOES work - but sometimes, slowly (and in my experience, it is especially helpful/less slow when it comes to long tail keywords - for ex., 3 word keyword phrases that are moderately competitive). And directories certainly do still help. Here is what I would recommend if you want to take a content approach:
Blog, a lot: Choose a few long tail keywords as I said above, and blog about them each at least once a week. Link back to the page you want to promote in each with your keyword phrase as anchor text. Then, link back to the blog articles from the page you are trying to promote. The page you are trying to promote through your blogs thus becomes a hub page. It's an idea I got from Ian at Conversation Marketing and it works (Ian's hub pages article). Also form links to the page you are trying to promote through article directories and a few general directories. We went from 6th page for the term to 1st, and are competing with such domains as americanheart.org! I also found some people with links to a product that is no longer made, and offered ours in its place. Finally, guest blogs in your niche are also of great benefit - Ann Smarty's My Blog Guest forum is a wonderful place to find almost any niche.
I'm no SEO expert by any means, but I love to write, so content is my preferred method. And this was very much a content based approach. It definitely helps to mix it up with more active link building and techniques I've hardly begun to master, I'm sure. But content is certainly a firm foundation for any SEO campaign, IMO.
And as I(i'm trying to) say, take it with a grain of salt - I'm not an SEO master, just someone who likes to produce content. And I was happily surprised to see that content works (although it takes a few months). Supplement it with other strategies for quicker results, but if Google can't argue with content, then one day content will be rewarded :)
Nice post! Interestingly my SEO "career" took a similar path although it was a boring job, not cancer that gave me the time to read, watch and learn everything I could about SEO. Like you I had some stupidly competative terms "Dog Collar" & "Dog Accessories" to name but two! In a similar way though we made it to the top 3 with both phrases with lots of directories, articles, social media etc etc and we are still doing "the dance" on page one even though I've hardly done any work on it for well over a year, too busy sorting other people's sites now! Like you though my competative edge is forfilled by climbing to the top of the pile!
Good luck to you and keep up the good work.
Inspiring and thoughtful and informative, thanks for this post.
I really enjoyed this post, thanks for sharing
Thanks for the great article. I've read it carefully and will be trying out the ideas of guest blogging and RSS myself.
Good work.