Many years ago, one of the search marketing industry's early great minds, Mike Grehan, wrote a seminal piece that's been referenced and influenced ever since - Filthy Linking Rich. Mike's point was well encapsulated in a few sentences:
The Mathew effect, when applied to networks, basically equates to well connected nodes being more likely to attract new links, while poorly connected nodes are disproportionately likely to remain poor
In fact, it has been proposed that "the rich get richer" effect drives the evolution of real networks. If one node has twice as many links as another node, then it is precisely twice as likely to receive a new link.
For those new to the field of SEO, social media and all forms of organic marketing (content development, blogging, email list building, etc.), it probably comes as no surprise that this same principle applies to each of these. The email marketer with a giant email list has much greater leverage to add 100 new subscriptions through the power of their existing influence than their new competitor, just starting out with those first dozen email addresses. The website ranking in position #1 for a high volume search query likely earns a few, natural, reference links each day, while a struggling competitor, even one who might have better prices, quality, value or content, must struggle out of obscurity before any of those "links via discovery" come their way.
This principle applies cross-channel equally well.
High search rankings can earn you lots of visitors who might subscribe to an email list. Thousands of Twitter followers can mean direct SEO benefit and second-order effects like more links and branding. A popular LinkedIn group can drive traffic that turn into more RSS subscribers, getting you noticed by industry lists, which then feed into more media attention and links, which delivers higher rankings. It's a virtuous circle -- unless you're sitting on the sidelines.
Many of the marketers I talk to complain bitterly about this challenge, though not all of them necessarily comprehend why the difficulty is so great. Thankfully, there are ways you can give yourself a step up, even in those early stages:
- Build Basic Competency Everywhere: Since your email marketing efforts will boost your link building and your social media traffic can turn into RSS subscriptions, make sure you've at least got the basics of every channel covered. An accessible websitee is key to any rankings - and basic keyword targeting is, too. Get a presence on the major social media networks with your brand name and a basic email signup form on your site. Establish a blog, an RSS feed and a presence on some major industry sites (forums, Q+A sites, blog comments, etc). These basics will serve you well no matter what shape your marketing takes.
- Focus on Your Strongest Channels: Which marketing channel should you choose? It depends. If earning links is hard for you, search is still low ROI and email newsletters are a mystery, don't start with these - go with what you know and build up your social media presence, your research-based white papers or your subscription-worthy blog content. With cross-channel leverage, you can shore up these weaker sectors when you have the strength to take them on.
- No Matter What, Get Analytics + Conversion Tracking Right: All your efforts, in any spectrum of organic marketing, will be for naught if you can't measure and improve. Analytics and conversion tracking can show you which channels work for you and where you efforts are best spent - these aren't the only consideration, as passion and aptitude should figure into the mix as well, but they're the critical baseline. Get tracking right or suffer.
Don't be discouraged, but do be wary, and do push to start investing in organic now. Like Manhattan real estate in the '80's, it might seem like there's a peak in how hard it is to enter the market, but it's only going to get worse.
Good post Rand. Though the graphic above is really daunting :(
"Overtaking a competitor or earning your way into a crowded field with strong existing players isn't just hard, it's getting harder, at a faster pace, every day."
And for this very reason establishing yourself as a recognized authority in one unsaturated/unexplored industry vertical is more prudent and profitable than to try create your niche/authority in an oversaturated market. So say if you are in a 'Gifts' industry and just starting out, you can sell or establish authority in gifts for pets or can narrow down even further and sell gifts for dogs or cats instead of trying to compete in the highly competitive markets of birthdays, anniversary or corporate gifts. In this way you can get the 'first mover' advantage and by the time other businesses make an entry into your space, you may already be a hard to beat player.
Agreed! It's tough to break into the "rich" category, but solidifying your position isn't nearly as difficult. Getting through what good old Seth Godin calls "The Dip" is where the magic happens...
Right point, even though your more than a tactic (which could be in part) could be considered a strategy and would have been decided also before starting any kind of business.
In fact, it cannot be easily implemented when you are working with a merchant of gifts that maybe have a stock filled with business gifts, even though he sells gifts for pets.
I don't mean to undervalue your idea, it is perfect and I too try to put in practice every time I can. I only try to be realistic and say that sometimes to move from a theoretical practice to a practical one is more complicated than we can think.
On the other hand, your tactic is perfect for business that do not sell real products, but experience. For instance, an hotel can more easily try to offer with a correct inbound marketing strategy something that really can make it outstand for a niche others are not competing for.
Thanks Himanshu for your contribution here in SEOmoz.
My tactic works well for businesses of all types and size. Here is how. If a merchant sell business gifts then he can set himself apart by establishing his authority in one industry vertical like stress relieving business gifts (e.g. stress balls). By this i don't mean that the merchant has to sell only 'stress balls' and no other gift items, so he should not concentrate on other products. But by picking only one such vertical and establishing his authority there, he is in a much better position to acquire editorial links and eventually sales through high rankings than those merchants who are spreading themselves too thin, trying to establish their authority in a very generic and highly saturated 'gifts' market or 'business gifts' market. It is better to be known for 'stress relieving business gifts' than not be known at all.
Even if a business is a large corporation, it should stick to only one or two industry verticals. When it doesn't do that it looses maket value, contents, target audience and eventually sales. Classic example is Google. Instead of just concentrating on search, Google is spreading itself too thin by trying to compete with wikipedia (through knol), facebook (through orkut, proposed google me), Apple (through android), internet explorer (through chrome) and the list is becoming endless.
Shouldn't a company diversify outside of its core competency if it has a strong positive cash flow? Or do you fall into the 'retained earnings trump expansion' school of finance?
I see some problems with your statement.
First, let's use your examples, you assume there will be enough demand for the 'gifts for dogs' or 'gifts for cats' category. How do you know there will be enough people interested in that niche so you have a decent ROI? How do you know the market will be rising so future competitors will have problems to catch up? There are SO many variables in this and as I'll later explore, this is a very simplistic way to look at what market you want to enter. I think this is a very wrong way of seeing things. I see problems in Rand's post, yes, being #1 in search results will result in you getting natural links, but at WHAT PACE? I have 2-3 #1 rankings for keywords with 100-150k searches and I barely get 4-6 natural links (the content is top notch by the way, it's not that my content sucks). My place can be easily taken by a competitor who goes and does a massive guest posting campaign for 3 months, for example. So I think the important question to ask here is: AT WHAT PACE do your competitors grow naturally? Things are getting worse as time passes for you vs. your main competitor, but that 'worse' might be at a very small pace. In my niche, competitors are getting links naturally yes, but they're lazy because they got success and they got it for a long time so it will be easy for me to catch up & stat ahead and not repeat the mistake of getting lazy because of success.
I adopted a different way of looking at 'niches', I now don't think there are 'niches' or 'niche markets' but products that people 'hire' to do a particular job. For example, in the "gifts market" as you say it, one "job" people are trying to do is "I want a gift for me son's birthday", for example. Or "I want a gift for my mom's birthday". Now, it's hard to identify these segments if you thoughts of the gifts market as 'gifts for humans vs animals' view.
I also think the advice of 'don't get into over-saturated market' is very simplistic. What if the 'gifts for dogs' market was worth 1/1000 of the 'gifts for humans' market? And now suppose, if you spent the same time in the 'gifts for humans' market as you spent in the 'gifts for dogs' market, you could capture 1/100th of that market. You'll be making 1000% more. I don't know why but for some reason I find that when I enter extremely competitive markets I always make money. Unlike entering those niche market. Who knows, maybe it's because most people are scared of competing with the big guys ?
"First, let's use your examples, you assume there will be enough demand for the 'gifts for dogs' or 'gifts for cats' category. How do you know there will be enough people interested in that niche so you have a decent ROI? How do you know the market will be rising so future competitors will have problems to catch up?"
That's the risk you have to take as a business. How sure 'jack dorsey', 'biz stone' and 'evan williams' were when they started a service called 'twitter'. And their service was something which nobody has experienced/considered ever before.
"I have 2-3 #1 rankings for keywords with 100-150k searches and I barely get 4-6 natural links (the content is top notch by the way, it's not that my content sucks). "
You are not getting it my friend. Network makes a content great and fetch natural links and nothing else. Great rankings is not equal to great contents and vice versa. Here by network i mean your followers, fans, influencers and target audience. You may have the best content in the world but if nobody read it, tweet it or share it then it has no commercial value.
"I also think the advice of 'don't get into over-saturated market' is very simplistic. What if the 'gifts for dogs' market was worth 1/1000 of the 'gifts for humans' market? And now suppose, if you spent the same time in the 'gifts for humans' market as you spent in the 'gifts for dogs' market, you could capture 1/100th of that market. You'll be making 1000% more. I don't know why but for some reason I find that when I enter extremely competitive markets I always make money. Unlike entering those niche market. Who knows, maybe it's because most people are scared of competing with the big guys ? "
It's not about getting scared here. Its about effectively utilizing your available (but often limited) resources. To make an entry into an oversaturated market you need to grab considerable market share at the expense of well established players. This is not possible without having a huge advertising budget in the first place. So even capturing the 1/100th of the market (which may be worth several million dollars) will be a hard nut to crack esp. for small very young businesses. And yes big guys can eat your small business even if they have to incur considerable losses just to maintain there market share.
I was implying on Rand's post that a page that is on position 1 will get natural links. I commented on that and said that you don't get a bunch of natural links for being #1 for a particular phrase for 3-4 months, for example. To put it into proportion, try doing nothing and after #1 for a competitive phrase for 3 months while someone is building links actively for those 3 months. That guy is going to outrank you in no time. The 'network' effect of being in the search engines (and I don't count factors like followers etc) for a long time is not a big one if you ask me. So that blue person might not be running down a slope so fast.
On your comment that "network makes a content great and fetch natural links and nothing else" I agree, yes, network makes content great in the search engines DIRECTLY, but on the other hand content can BUILD YOU a network . So content can also get natural links indirectly. I don't know what you meant by 'makes a content great' did you mean content in the eyes of the search engines or content overall? We should't leave content out of the whole link equation.
"To make an entry into an over saturated market you need to grad a considerable market share at the expense of well established players" - I don't agree here, you don't have to grab a market share from a competitor if you wanna be in that space. Say you're in the market whose job-to-be-done is 'I want to buy gifts for a close person I love'. Now, you make some cool gift and sell it...and people buy it. Yes, some will buy your gift and not your competitor's but many may buy them both. Or someone might not consider buying a gift (he didn't find a suitable one from competitors) till he found yours. So you aren't really *only* stealing market share when you introduce a new product in a particular market because people wants are unlimited. It isn't just"I'll either buy this or that" but "I'll buy this AND that" or I'll buy that because I never wanted to buy this. People wants are not limited.
Thanks again Rand for some morning insight.
I saw this a lot when working on the Majestic Modifications website. When it first launched, we had a hard time (a real understatement) getting links, decent distributors, and breaking into the super-competitive market. When we started getting ranked and competing in natural search for keywords like "car accessories" and "aftermarket car accessories", suddenly the tide started turning in our favor in a BIG way - we started RECEIVING link requests, getting ASKED to carry products, being OFFERED better deals on our product line, and having buy-in requirements WAIVED because of our visibility and growing positive perception. It is true - people want to be associated with leaders - whether in SEO, business, or whatever. One of the things we tried to identify was the "tipping point" and the most likely cause of the "turn" was getting above the fold for major keywords. Now, that took over a year to accomplish, but well worth the time investment.
Love the tipping point reference. Thats what is really being described here.
If you havent read the book the tipping point is essentially the point where something explodes in popularity. Some examples include hush puppy shoes in the 80s, disease, computer viruses, etc. Check out the book or at least the wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tipping_Point
Really good post Rand.
I think that all the thing you suggest clearly show how an SEO/Web Marketing strategy should have to be planned at the same time the more general business plan is... or, at least, that should be in a ideal world.
This is especially important for startups, as the Internet is going to be their most important way of communicating their existence and the value of their products/services.
Therefore, beware of those who say: "We will think to our online presence after we have set up our assets"... in a world like our that business is probably going to have an hard life, and will be the Runner B.
great article. But is the whole point of SEO not to gain friends and influence? Is SEO not the coach telling runner B he must try harder and motivative him to get to the top of the hill?
Another great point to tell potential clients that if they are serious about their business, they should start SEO immediately.
The longer you wait, the harder it gets. No way around it.
I bet if we could graph the average change in keyword difficulty over the past 5 years for a whole bunch of short head keywords, there would be a nice correlation between difficulty and time.
Actually, that would be a pretty convincing graph to show potential clients. I better look into that.
A brilliant post rand, thanks
It's a great post, but it doesn't fully cover how democratizing social media can be. If you've got a great site, social media can be the true equalizer and easily spread your business among your followers and fans. Thats why sites like https://twitter.getmorepopular.com are so important for businesses and startups that don't have a lot of cash to spread their links around. I do think organic growth is the best for long-term prospects, but there are definitely awesome ways to give it a jumpstart.
Except that those are not real followers... at least I doubt it. I've seen a million sites claim their followers are real. I think the real value in something like that is simply for potential followers to not feel like they are the first ones to the party - seeding certainly can persuade some people who wouldn't otherwise follow to go for it.
Real followers RULES! :)
This post one more time illustrates that "online world" continue to become more like "real world".
We see MONSTER companies in all markets and for begginers exist only one way - take a tiny niche and be creative :)
Now SEO world is the same.
New bussiness first go Local, Viral, etc. Then when they earn some authority they try to expand their bussiness to another niche, region etc.
Maybe not all doing this way but I think it's smarter way.
Take a niche and fight for it! :)
If you liked, please THUMB UP! Thanx!
I agree with parent. Even if they are real people's accounts that doesn't mean they actually care about what you are saying. If they don't care about what you are saying how likely are they to share your link? While it is true that more followers means better klout, following to many accounts/being followed by to many accounts to quickly is a possible red flag for the engines.
Also bing publically stated they know who twitter users are (in a sense of klout in the twitter cloud) and factor in how interactive their network is and who follows them. Having lots of low value twitterers follow you gives you exactly that, low value. Having a few key twitterers follow AND interact with you can give you high value.
If you are in SEO think of key players in your industry like seomoz and their employees, distilled, aaron from seobook, hubspot, etc
Um, Richard...did you know that your signup button on that twitter.getmoretraffic.com website isn't working?
You might wanna get that fixed. :-p
Really interesting post Rand.
Point number 2 – ‘focus on your strongest channels’ really caught my attention in this post. I really like how you explain that if earning links is hard for you that diving straight into search might not be the best option. Rather it is important to build a solid foundation through social media, white papers, and blog content. After all – content is king (I learned that from your book - The Art of SEO!) and with out it, your search strategies are meaningless.
Great post! Though it can seem discouraging when you're not in the "rich" category. Your post gives simple step to make it there. So thanks.
Very interesting post, Rand, as usual. I would love to see some more quantitative data that measures the effect of link building and how tipping points are reached. How much link traffic does a site need to have before it starts to show a measurable amount of new reference links coming from that traffic? And what is the relationship between # of links and ranking help for a keyword with X traffic? I know the answers will vary, but clients always want to know what kind of long haul they're getting into with SEO link building, and it's hard to convince them that they won't always be on the steep part of an upward slope.
Thanks for the post Rand, it can be hard sometimes to set everything up with a plan in mind. I often focus on the one that works and forget that I need to be working on everything at least a little bit. Even if your social media plan is not providing anything at the moment it is a best not to forget about it or let it go to waste. It could only take a few months for it to start being really valuable with just a little periodic attention right now.
Great post. Organic is a long term investment. Quality link building to quality sites is my favorite marketing strategy.
Great point at the end, I do agree that it will only continue to get more difficult. Not just because the rich are still getting richer but I have a feeling Google is going to drop some updates that will put more emphasis on links from highly trusted sites.
great post rand, I think with all the changes a foot it makes the SEO task a lot longer and harder, but in theory this should weed out the chancers, the short gain players, leaving those who post great article and engage with their audience and customers stronger.
When did Google change their 'Updates' nav tab to 'Realtime' ?
I belive the "everywhere" in "Build Basic Competency Everywhere" is growing, and will continue to, especially with Google/Bing admitting that they look at Twitter+Facebook as an SEO signal. It's important to spend time to sow your seeds in all the popular places, but also don't forget about your 'niche' communities and networks that only you and your industry ilk can leverage.
Hello
I am a big fan of your website and posts. I regularly follow your posts. But I just need some small tips from you for starting a website template store. SEO is the next part but first I want to know what should be the key features in a store homepage to increase the sales.
Hi Rand,
Great post. I enjoyed all the useful comments. SEOMOZ is sure a useful organization. The graphic is excellent as well. Graphics like that, make such a great impression. Dan Roam's book business on the back of a napkin covers those well too. Thank you.
Interesting post - in competitve industries you really have to plan your SEO and internet marketing in general for the long haul: how can we consistently build natural backlinks? How can we build a community around our service/product/idea? It's an extremely difficult and daunting task to undertake, but it is the most effective way to hit that accelerating slope and nail/overtake competition.
Great post, Rand. I can attest to it from personal experience, it seems as though it's an impossible task to overtake the big players but with hard work/determination, it CAN be done. I haven't quite caught up to the big boys in my market, but I feel as though the principles that I've applied to my site (particularly the link-building) are superior to those employed by my competitors. So far it has been almost 9 months since my site's inception (mauirealestatesearch), but I'm quietly optimistic that with time my site will overtake them (only time will tell).
Great post Rand. Even though its a bit disheartening for small ventures, it has some positive takeaways. I think the phrase "Aim Small, Miss Small" fits well here. Choose a niche vertical and identify keyword that your big competitor is not ranking for. Just focus on those keywords initially and you will see the benefits.
Great post Rand..thanks..specially sharing your blog to the popular social media network..its amazing..
Just read "filthy linking rich" from the link in rands post. READ IF YOU HAVE NOT - Its years old, but the information based on mathmatically thoery is valuable for search marketing and life.
I love the illustrations and details. It makes complete and inspires me to push my link building skills. Thanks agian.
Arnold
indeed, now the competition is getting tougher day by day...
Rand,
One of your best posts for a while, what about the notion of building new phrases, industry terms to get that first move advantage? You get to be that #1 result and get search engines to see you as a brand/industry leader for those new/unique terms and other will link back to you using those newly created phrases. In time social media, blogs posts and media will build the traffic around those terms and you will have that first mover advantage.
Great illustration with the runners. We all felt (or feel) like runner B sometimes, but most people get depressed and don't get that if they work hard and long enough, they will get at the top of the heel and they will become runner A.
Great post Rand! This issue has been studied in the business world for many decades using the resource based view theory, which can be applied to the cases exposed in this post. The RBV states that when businesses possess rare, valuable resources, which are difficult to imitate and cannot be substituted easily by other resources, they will obtain a competitive advantage over other businesses.
As you state in this post, this also happens in the online business world, so perhaps online companies should seek guidance or look into the tactics used by “offline” companies throughout the years to overcome this difficulty.
This post has certainly motivated me! As we all know SEO is an on going battle and sometimes you are Runner A and sometimes you are Runner B but as long as you are moving forward you are ahead of Runner C, D, Etc...
I have personal experience of this. I tried to start a small online business from a very very small investment (we're talking a couple of hundred pounds), utilising my SEO knowledge in a market where the competitors SEO knowledge and implementation seemed to be poor.
But the old adage, you have to spend money to make money proved itself to be true, as without any further money to invest I only had a small handful of products to sell. And as my site was so paltry I struggled to promote my site to earn sufficient quality links to increase rankings to drive traffic. Even when visitors did land on the site from a very specific keyword, the small product range seemed to dissuade them from buying. But until I sold my stock I couldn't raise enough money to pump back in to expanding my product range, so the cycle would continue.
It was a lesson learned and there are ways around it, and I plan to try again in the future so thanks for the encouraging post!
Quite a motivational post for when we are trying to creep up those last couple of places in the rankings. I do agree with investing in organic as it will only ever get more competitive. I did read somewhere about google acknowledging historical relevance also. The fundamentals are usually the same for everyone just starting out. Get a good little infrastructure surrounding your business and invest in a good quality site and SEO campaign.
Of course the difference is for email marketers that they can rent very large email lists for a relatively small sum of money, so actually it's relatively easy to reach an audience this way for a new business. Naturally though, if you don't have the site to back it up when people arrive, well that's another matter. For me personally, I think email is a better way to start for a business from scratch than simply relying on social media and "white papers". It's hard to suddenly become a credible source of research if you're new to the scene
As always, no one sucessful mix will be the same for any new company or website.
Slightly depressing with a uplifting finish. Good stuff.
Just read that "Filthy Linking Rich" absolutely awesome heres a quote and I am sure the rest of you will read it in its entirety. "If you have acted in a movie with Kevin Bacon, then you have a Bacon number of one (Bacon himself has a Bacon number of 0)."
It is evident that in the near future media networks who hold high authority will be miles ahead of competition for search optimization via verticals. I think it is hard to keep up with some of these guys but if you have the right SEO fire power behind you any thing is possible. But 100% agree with you if you do not get in now you are going to be leaving it too late in 5 years time. Businesses need to wake up to them selves and realize that if they do not invest soon it will be too late, but saying this I think SEO MOZ is in a good authority search/social/rss position =)
This is an awesome post!! I can totally relate as someone very new to the Internet Marketing field. I truly enjoy it, but sometimes I do get a bit discouraged running that uphill battle, while everyone seems to be easily getting further and further away. Thanks for letting me realize that my thoughts are not just my own crazy thoughts.
Nice post i can completely understand what you are saying both from a personal and professional point. YOu need to work really hard to big with but once you a start to get things right it should get easier.
its a bit like expecting to be able to run before you can walk.
Hmm...great graphic on the "velocity" notice, Rand....explains it all in succinct form!
And...gives us something to aim at too, eh!
:-)Jim
That's funny I was just talking about this the other day. One of my sites ranks #1 for certain keywords and it seems to be picking up new links every month without us doing any specific link building efforts. It seems if you want to rank #1 you need links, if you're already #1 your get more people linking to you, a very real cycle indeed!
Great post Rand, hve been applying a lot of these tactics to my new company, it can be hard when you don't have much to begin with however once I get the ball rolling it should be more staright forward.
I am 100% behind using social media and blogging initially!
Great post Rand! I think the biggest takeaway from all of this is prioritizing your time in order to achieve greater results. Businesses need discover more about their industry and experiment with different social media and SEO options to find out what works and what doesn't. Then leave out everything that doesn't work and focus in on the things that work, rinse and repeat.
Jackson
Great post rand, Thanks!
Fantastic post Rand... Thanks!
Simple, as always and great graphics.
Great post. Thanks for sharing your informative write up. Good insights. Looking forward to reading more.
Great Post rand!