Since Rand discussed a scammy link building tactics last week, he decided to tackle a good method that anyone can do. This week Rand has 8 tips on how you can build links using Twitter, yes Twitter! Rand discusses what methods he sees generating links and how you can use them. We'd also love to hear how you are using Twitter to generate links and what you see the future of linking building on Twitter will be.
Video Transcription
Howdy SEOmoz fans! Welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week I am super excited. We're going to be talking about something that a lot of have a big problem with and that is, how do I actually build real, substantive, long-lasting, valuable links for SEO to my website using Twitter?
People are like, "Oh, you know, Twitter is a great way to do SEO, great way to build connections." I hear all these people on the sidelines like, "Yeah, really, I kind of like my article spinning robot, thank you very much. That works for me." To this I am like, if you took the time and energy that you invested in some of these lower quality tactics and put them into some higher quality, tactics like social connections, and this is where a lot of folks will stop you. They'll be like, "Social connections? Really, Rand? Twitter? Can you actually get direct links from that? I know you get little tweets. You get more followers. You feel good about yourself, like you're interacting in a community. But do you actually drive real links to your site?"
Let me show you exactly how. I have eight tactics specifically designed to really get real high quality links right to your website. Let's walk through them
Number one, the serendipitous connection. This is sort of the most ethereal and nondirect of these. The idea being that I am some guy on Twitter and here is some other nice friend on Twitter and we start chatting with each other. We start building a connection, and eventually that connection through good authentic participation and back and forth, the relationship that it builds, turns into links. This happens all the time. I know it is not very scientific, it is not very direct, and it is hard for a link builder to say, "Hey, I am tweeting back and forth with this person and eventually maybe I will get a link from them and then that will make the tweeting worthwhile." You're doing a lot more than that. You're obviously building something real and authentic through that connection, but certainly that serendipitous connection can yield a link.
Now, let me give you seven, much more direct, very targeted ways to earn some links.
Number two, the top X list. This is brilliant from a content perspective. Let me explain how it works. I build a list of like, oh, here's the number one guy, number two guy, number three guy, number four guy, and number five guy in some particular space. I take that list of those folks and essentially I build it out in the community or the hub or the area that I care about.
Let's say I am in the business of selling snowboard equipment. So what I want to do is I am going to take the top five snowboarding videos of all time, snowboard stunts. In fact, I might even get more septic because getting more specific yields much better results oftentimes from a link perspective. So, what I want to do is I am going to say the top five snowboarding videos taken in Whistler BC, and I am going to make that a piece of content on my blog, on my website. Maybe it is a blog post, maybe it is just a piece of link bait, maybe it is a list, whatever it is. Then I am going to figure out all the Twitter accounts of all the people who appear in those videos, and I am going to use Twitter as a way I connect to them. I am also going to talk to all the people on Twitter and say, "Hey, does anybody know the best snowboarding videos? Do you have any recommendations?" I am going to reach out to people who have shared snowboarding videos in the past, who have the word snowboard in their profile that I find through a service like Follower Wonk, and I am going to create those top X lists. Then I am going to tweet at all those people and give them all badges for having won that they can place on their websites. Suddenly, I am getting links from all of the top places in industry X.
You can repeat this ad nauseam in all sorts of industries. The wonderful thing that you're doing is you are curating content. You are finding really good stuff. If you build these great lists, it is not just useful to the people here. It is not just earning you links back to your site. It is also fantastic content itself. You are helping to collate good things on the Internet, good people on the Internet. Here are the top Twitter people to follow in the aerospace field. Here are the best sound engineers in Southern California. Whatever it is, you can build it. You can use Twitter to help build those connections.
Number three, the let me build do find that for you. I know this sounds a little weird, but this is a phenomenal way to make those serendipitous connections turn into reciprocation relationships. So, for example, you see someone on the Web and they are tweeting I need a this or I'm having trouble with this. I will give you a great example. I tweeted recently that my WordPress blog was hacked. It happened to me about three or four months ago. Jeff Sauer from Three Deep Marketing over in Minneapolis reached out to me and said, "Hey, Rand, I'd be happy to help." I gave him my email address. We connected over email. I gave him my login. He fixed the site. He has been fixing it ever since. He is trying to plug up security holes. He is doing great work. He did it all for free. I couldn't believe it. I was like, "Jeff, dude, we have to get you a ticket to MozCon. We have to make sure we link into your website." I try to refer people over to him. What a phenomenal guy. Absolutely phenomenal guy. On the board at MIMA, too. It's just that effort of reaching out and helping someone. I don't know how long it took Jeff. I'd like to think it was an hour of Jeff's time, but I hope that over the course of the next 6 to 12 months I can reciprocate in a great way. People are like this, especially people on the Web who are active on Twitter and in the social word are like this. If you can do something to help them out, they are going to recognize you for it. It happens all the time. It is a great thing to do particularly with people who have active blogs and websites where they are contributing a lot.
Number four, the storyteller, AKA the Summify. This is actually a very simple content building tactic, but the idea here is essentially that people are telling stories through social media, but they are very hard to track unless you are paying attention to every single tweet, like tweet here, tweet there, tweet there. Only this one and maybe this other one down here are relevant to a particular story. What you want to do is take that time and curate these into a followable, directionable narrative. Once you do, the people who are involved in those stories, the people who are mentioned in them are going to tweet and share and link to them. Other people are going to tweet and share and link to them if they are interesting.
Essentially, you are taking content that is being lost on the social web because it is so temporal and you are bringing it together. You can do this from all sorts of places. Summify will let you pull from LinkedIn and Quora and Twitter and Facebook, I believe, from blogs. It's a great tool to be able to do that, but you can do this manually too, through screen shots and links and telling the story, those kinds of things. The storyteller is very powerful way, particularly in spaces where interesting stories are forming and people care about them on the social web, to build content that people are naturally going to be linking to, particularly the people who are involved. And, of course, you can use the standard Twitter tactic of tweeting at them to tell them about the content individually like @caseyhenry, what's you actual handle? [Response in background: Casey Hen] Casey Hen, that's right. @caseyhen, hey you were mentioned here. Hey, we're linking to your website here. Hey, we wrote about something that you did here. Of course, people want to share those things.
Number five, I know this is a little light because it is in orange, the link suggestion. Perhaps nothing is more obvious and direct, but you really, really need a relationship first to make this work, which is why building relationships with people who are active in your industry or your space and are writing online or blogging or contributing in journalistic practices, run forums, run small business websites, whatever it is, directories, etc. The link suggestion is essentially when you find pieces of content on their site through reading their RSS feed or browsing, and you think to yourself, boy, they really missed out on this, which by the way, I have something written up about that on my blog, or I have that precise product or I have that service. When people ask for that or when they are not even actively asking for it but they have essentially written about it, they've curated something, you can suggest a link to them like, @marksuster, hey, I know you mentioned social media startups in Southern California, but you forgot about Awesome. He probably didn't. I think he is an investor. You should write about them. You should include them as well. Oh, well, great, perfect. That is a direct request for sort of a link for an inclusion in something. Fantastic way to build this up.
Number six, the content to answer your query. I like this one because what happens is you see a lot in the social world. Not just on Twitter, but even on places liked LinkedIn, on Facebook, which I know sometimes can be private, on Google+, on all the networks. On Quora certainly tons of questions. If you can build up the content that answers that query . . . for example, someone might say, "Hey, what are the best thin and light laptops?" You say, "Huh, you know, I see that question come through quite a bit. I am actually going to build up my top recommendations for thin and light laptops." You can be like here are the top five, here's who has endorsed them, here is a blog post written about them, here is content from CNET, here are all their specs, here are some graphics, here is some video, whatever it is. You curate that stuff. Come on, man! And then you reply to the people who are asking and those questions come through day after day after day, boom, boom, boom, you can just be replying to them and saying, "Hey, you know, I built this thing because I saw a lot of people asking about it on Twitter," and yada, yada, yada. That is going to drive some great links and drive some great content too.
Number seven, what I love about this one is the reciprocation aspect and the just general goodness that you add to the world. It's called the must have testimonial. The idea is simple. People out there on the Web are always looking for people to say nice things about their product that they can use on their website. If you can engage people on Twitter and find those people, particularly in sort of startup types of environments or small business environments or particular local businesses, they love to feature content from people. If you say, hey, I wrote a blog post about how much I loved your restaurant, how much I loved your video hosting service, how much I loved your t-shirt that you designed, how much I love the new eyeglasses that I got from your shop on the Web. Whatever it is, you essentially create kind of that testimonial for them and tweet at them, and say, "Hey, I just want to let you know I really love your stuff. If you would ever like a testimonial, just email me or direct message me. I am following you." You'll probably get a follower. You'll probably get a direct message. They'll probably put that testimonial on their website, and you'll get a link back from the testimonial. You've done something great for them. You've said, hey, I love their product, I want to endorse them. Now this great product or website that you like is linking back to you. It is a win. Huge win.
All right. Last one. Number eight, the biz dev deal. This works so well all the time because essentially businesses, particularly small businesses, medium businesses, even big businesses, are always looking for ways to jumpstart their reach. Anyone who is participating on the social web, chances are really good they're trying to do a lot of other inbound marketing. That means that if you reach out to them and say, "Hey, you know, we really like what you guys are doing, and we'd love to talk about ways that we could potentially partner," if you build up that Twitter relationship first, you're definitely going to get a reply. You're going to get a reply to that email. They are going to be more likely to like the things that you are doing if they know who you are and they have seen you on Twitter for a while. Building up those serendipitous connections first is going to mean the world when you reach out for a biz dev deal, and biz dev deals almost always include some linking back and forth between your website and websites this other entity might own and that's going to mean good stuff.
So, when folks say Twitter can't help you link build, Twitter is not that great for SEO, I want you to look down this list and look down the list below me in the comments where people are going to add tons more awesome ideas and tell you about great stories of how they got links on Twitter, and explain to me how anyone can believe that. Twitter is a phenomenal tool for link building. Great way to do inbound marketing. Such a better use of your time than so many other negative, useless, short-term tactics.
So, I hope you will jump on Twitter. Follow me @randfish and @seomoz, and maybe I'll be happy to link to you in some future posts.
Thanks, everyone. Take care. See you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday.
CHALLENGE:
If what you are saying is true, it would be fun to see you get a new twitter account, do not associate yourself with it, do not tell anyone that you are Rand, do not use any connections you have, and use it to build links and rank any hat store, tire store or accountant in any state USA. Then, tell us how long it took you, the amount of links and quality of those links.
Think of a super hot country girl that says, "everybody here in New York City is just so nice to me". Well, yes they are...to you.
Thoughts?
This is brilliant however it isn't an option because everybody knows how hard it is and like I've mentioned above, with Rand having the profile that he has, it's easy for him.
Not if he doesn't tell anyone!
But he knows how hard it is so he won't attempt it but maybe he will prove me wrong - I hope he does.
Twitter is a great tool however it is very difficult and very time consuming. All the "professionals" above make it sound easy, I don't see how two replies out of probably 200 tweets is a good return but hey, if that makes people happy then so be it.
Thanks for reminding us how important it is to be super hot. I am sure even if rand starts everything from the scratch with a different identity people will still soon recognize his talent & skills. IMO u should challenge urself for ur own sake
All along, I have not slated Rand for his influence or talent, he does have that and I'm not saying he doesn't however my stance above is towards the point of he needs to be in our shoes rather than his own.
This is not a TAGFEE comment...
Realised :-)
Maybe I missed the point because I am not the target audience. If he is talking to those people in the seo loop (boys club so to speak), then I get it. You guys should be seeding your work and calling friends to see if this post idea will get you a link from them. Then Rand is correct and well done sir.
But, if he is talking to the person he was on day one when he was broke without connections before he built this up, then he is wrong.
I challenge myself everyday and believe me, I am over my head even in this conversation. I like Rand and I like reading your contrary opinions on many topics here. My point was only to make a challenge.
I am a lawyer and in the few counties that I practice if you go against me, I will roll you without a doubt. You are on my home turf. I get that. For me to go on my blog and say whenever you are in A,B and C county just say this like this and you will win. That only works for me because of the goodwill that I have built up. But, for other lawyers in my area it would be perfect advice.
I have a perfect example for you. Two years ago, my wife started a blog - everywhereist.com and a Twitter account. She didn't do SEO (kinda refuses to do keyword research, even), but she started participating authentically on Twitter. People invited her to events, she went, she met them in real life. They said good things about her on the web. People she'd never met started following her - 50%+ of the links and traffic she gets is from Twitter. Most of the rest is from Facebook, Google+ and people who've bookmarked her site.
She didn't start with an authoritative profile and our worlds barely intersect (travel blog readers have very low overlap with SEOs), but she built from 0 to 3,853 followers simply by participating authentically, contributing good stuff and helping others (often with nothing but a humorous or empathetic reply).
It can be done. It's done all the time. As I said in my White Hat SEO piece, I think a lot of the antagonism against authentic participation as a tactic is that it's a delayed reward, and many gray/black hat folks don't have the patience or the belief. That sucks, because authentic inbound marketing doesn't just make your site rank higher and your social sources send more traffic, they make the web a better place to be. I think we should be striving for all of our tactics to have that impact - those are the ones the engines (and potential customers) will always want to count.
Black Hat is the Tea Party-Astroturf (Article Idea for you SEOs)
Your wife's site is a perfect example of it being done correctly. I applaud her for doing it and for you promoting the benefits of it.
If I have any antagonism, it is against the system itself not your video. If the Koch brothers paid thousands of people to tweet, like, bookmark and link to a pile of poo, it would rank. Money and connections bend any system, but sometimes in a fun way (miserable failure/Santorum).
Look, we all have used your OSE to check who is beating us only to find junky/spam/recip links as the reason we are losing. I am patiently on page two for everything and writing my heart out the best I can (to some degree). Everyone is frustrated by this. I am sure you have terms that this site should be ranking for but are not.
But, if you are saying that in the graph of things we should be doing in your white hat article, try out this while using your Twitter, I get that. And it is a great way to using it because I am kind of lost using it.
Are you saying that? And will giving full attempts at that graph get me to page one in your opinion if authentically done by one person going up against spam? If so, I will get on it. Will that beat the spam or are we talking about justice and equality when they are talking about death panels?(politial reference)
Or are you saying to build my own sphere of influence overtime and benefits will flow naturally?
In my profession (legal) when a normal guy comes in for a divorce, all things being equal, in before certain judges I must tell them the truth about what is going to happen. They are going to lose if they go for full custody. It is total bs, but that is the reality is 99.9% of cases with perfectly equal parties in my jurisdiction.
If this dude wants to win, he has to lay out his cards and be prepared to play them. Every piece of dirt that he has on his wife. I then analyse it and see how bad it stinks and if this will play with judge. That is reality, as bad as it is.
For me to tell this dude to just go home and focus on being a good person/dad, and we will let the judge decide is a complete lie. A lie. I should disbarred. For me to open my mouth and say that is repulsive, yet partially true. Of course he should be a good dad... and see his kids on the weekend. He is hiring me to tell his odds and to put him in the best position to legally win.
So, if you are telling me that twitter is going full out, I am in. If you are telling me twitter because it is the moral thing to do... I will have custody of page two.
You are my favorite seo guy in the world, sorry to challenge the utility of your video when you provided value info and make you stand up for it.
How to win a court case versus how the legal system should work are different topics.
You said it perfectly Rand! Too often we SEO's forget that behind the computer screen there is a person. If you are agressive about replying and intiating conversation people will respond. People want to feel like they are heard and sometimes that all you have to do, let them know they are heard and that someone cares. What it boils down to is are you willing to invest in quality not quantity, because once the relationship is built its going to yield more than one link it will build rapport, trust, and affinity not only with that one person but with the industry you are reaching out to as well.
Well spoken!
Yet another awesome whiteboard Friday! Thank you!
I once had a client tell me twitter didn’t work, I then replied; "Come on, we have followed you for several months... you don’t tweet, you don’t follow other people… Lets face it, you don’t actually use twitter!" Guess who won that marketing debate!
I really believe twitter is a great tool for increasing brand awareness and link building, my company Tidy Design uses it daily to communicate and promote blog posts, special offers, services etc… But one thing I would suggest to any pro-active businesses out there is this; have more than one twitter account! I don’t mean @business1 and @business2 that tweet the same stuff… I mean unique accounts, unique tweets, and unique profiles with the same finish line in mind!
Multiple twitter accounts could reach a bigger audience, you could also use various accounts to help promote, RT or #ff the others… What do you think about this?
Hats off to you Rand and the team at SEOmoz, really enjoying your blog and vids… Keep up the amazing work!
I've had similar debates with some of my clients! They create a Twitter handle and expect results to just happen, then they get frustrated when it doesn't! You'll get out what you put in, not just for Twitter but social media marketing in general.
I really LOVED this video and really connected with it. This is pretty awesome and powerful stuff.
Hola Rand!
I really like this WBF today and not only because you make me feel less guilty for my time spent on Twitter.
I consider Twitter a wonderful PR/Branding tool, and, with the "be generous and share the best you find about your topic" tactic (and commenting it), I've tried and trying to create a respected voice. If you think it, that is applying the curation principle into Twitter marketing.
That leads to conversation, and conversation to what you call serendipitous connections... and those connections are a very effective way to plan outreach actions. So, that I can consider that since a long time, Twitter is one of my best link building tools.
I'm with you Gianluca, I don't neccessarily see it as "social media marketing". Rather, I see it as networking and brand building. No one wants to be marketed/ sold to, but they do want to make friends and get involved with brands they like :-)
I've recently had a lot of positive experiences with users on Twitter helping me fix minor development issues (CSS and JavaScript browser debugging to name one), no one would accept any form of money (even though I said "Need help, will pay $$$".)
To top that off, none of the people who helped me were people I knew/followed/followed by. They found me purely by the hashtags I had associated with my help tweet. I figure I'll repay them in my next blog post by linking their Twitter account (they don't have their own website.)
Twitter definately works for both links and increased reputation but you have to be really consistent with it. Beyond just participating one other thing that I've done is set up our stores to automatically post new and popular products with our niche-related hash tags (that works for clicks too) but you have to be sure to keep the human element going and interact with your customer base on a daily basis. If you run several sites/stores grab an application like Tweetdeck to manage all of your different accounts.
@ randfish once again i'm probably gonna write comment for roger. What about buissnes where people wont twiit about it or wont gonna put anything on facebook like your selling sex stuff for perverts. No one wonts to twiit about it!!Then what??where to get links when your in a hard link baiting business?
@kadziu1 - That is probably why the Gambling and Sex industries aren't touched by most SEO's and why they are seen as just link buying.
Mmmm... well, in that case I would try other ways that Twitter (even though, maybe are existing other kind of SM sites for that)... for instance (and I'm rambling) a site for Sexy Contacts could learn a lot from what, on a lighter side, OKCupid does with its posts and researches: and we all know how much press will use those kind of content.
Like other Whiteboard Friday videos, this one is indeed very helpful. We've been using Twitter for quite some time already, though I must admit that we have yet to ramp up our efforts. I specifically like the Top X List. We will definitely use this tactic. Thank you so much!
Phenomenal Post sir!
It’s pretty common for (i guess) most ethical SEOs to suggest and force (where possible) people to invest their time and get some high quality ethical links instead of spinning articles, SPAM commenting and other stuff.
The argument that twitter is good for communication but for link builders SEO is nothing but a bull shit was pathetic and this post is a solid reply to it!
The list of superb 8 tactics are amazing and that focuses 2 things in general (IMHO) for link building two essential things are communication (relationship building) and content. I believe behind every long term, high quality, ethical and powerful links there are communication and a great content.
The trick which is very logical and great but unfortunately I never tired is story telling but after this video I am defiantly going to try this!
Thank you Rand sir for such an amazing contribution…
All the true Respect for you!
And i can confirm personally that you are a living example of how much Twitter can be useful as an outreach tool!
Thanks for these specific, actionable examples Rand.
People often forget that a link is ultimately an expression of a relationship. Better relationships yield more and better links.
As with many things in sales and marketing, building relationships is in some respects a matter of quantity and quality. Not every relationship yields links - but if you only regard relationships in terms of links then you're missing the big picture. There are many other potential opportunities for collaboration or otherwise utilising relationships for mutual benefit. (Again, stronger relationships yield stronger results.)
In my view Twitter is currently the most effective tool available to build relationships in a given niche. Your examples illustrate this point beautifully.
Good video Rand, Twitter is a powerful tool for link building it is funny that some people say it does not work becuase it sure does work =)
I have been doing Twitter link building for around the last 3 years and we have built some fantastic links with it. I feel that the best relations can be done via Twitter Advanced Search for your niche products.
I also remember when you had the blog hack problem, you deffiantly have people going out of their way to help you =) But yeah I ran a sucessfull charity auction via Twitter the other week we raise a decent amount of money for charity so it is a great crowd sourcing tool too =)
Around this time last year I was dubious that Twitter could represent real value to our company from a link building perspective. I just couldn't see how bitesized updates would convert into really valuable links that we could scale. I was dubious about the ROI. But why was I dubious? I know now that I was naive and didn't understand how to leverage Twitter fully. I didn't view Twitter as a medium to have conversations, I was in the one-way communication mode for quite some time. Fortunately for me, I only wasted six weeks being a douche before we overhauled our strategy and started doing things properly.
A year on, and this past month we just scored the biggest piece of real PR in our seven year history off the back of a conversation on Twitter with the most influential and largest peer in our industry. Boom. And best of all, other than time spent on Twitter developing the relationship (which was not my time but our SM managers day-job) it didn't cost us a dime. The PR we scored was a video interview and a tangible biz dev deal which will be a very big deal for us a few weeks from now.
What I would say to those who might be doubting it is fine, I was in your position too, but I didn't understand Twitter as a means of marketing fully, and as a company we just weren't using it correctly. Make stuff happen, take action and become influential, the links *WILL* come.
And Rand, thanks for the inspiration on #2. I'm going to give that a shot next!
@Randfish - Nice post yet again, it is fair to say though that the comments above have brought up a heated discussion which is constructive of course :-)
Great post as usual. This list is going up on my bulletin board as a reminder that building great relationships, brands and links are worth putting in the extra effort for the 'long-term.'
Twitter has helped me build my best links.
If you have worthwhile content (key #1), and followers that pay attention to you (key #2), then you have the recipe and means for the type of viral response that builds links.
There is no trick. The concept is simple, making it work is the best proof of your value, not the value of the process.
Would you agree that goo.gl is the best link-shortener to use, since it sends a direct signal to the big G every time a tweet is interacted with? https://goo.gl/ZX9Qv
Even if you use t.co google will index it sooner or later but using goo.gl does give you an advantage time wise.
Excellent Whiteboard Friday. I have not engaged in Twitter and this opened my eyes to so many possibilities. Thank you.
Just going trough all SEOmoz blog posts which went public during my holiday - this one is brilliant and useful. I always like the "easy-to-follow-tips" the best!
Rand, great explanation “how to use twitter for link building and making strong bound relationship with customers and related industries” I have been using answer to questions tactic. It is one of powerful and good approach to influence people.
Very good video, Rand!
I've been twittering for a couple of months and just now I realize that some of the points you're checking can be developed without problem. I think good relationships, talking to the people and starting new contacts always can derivate not just in links, but in good posts, recommendations and visits to the website.
Does it rules? Yes, definitively. But i think that more than a twitter help, a twitter feature, it's our capacity to establish this relationships what will give us the link, the post, the comment.
I have attended just now your webinar, also congratulations about it.
Hey,
That was really a god post; I am definitely going to try this out, though seeing so many positive responses I am sure it's going to work.
Will comment back after trying it out with my experience.
Wonderful WBF. Immediately actionable advice is always best and this is also simple enough to present it un-predigested to a few people up the hirachy here. Thanks Rand!
Wow, how convenient video for me. In last few weeks I'm exploring opportunities of reaching different goals on social networks, including getting links. And in all my experiments I got only one result which is equal for all - only if you build relationships you will achieve your goals. If you first build relationship with targets (people who are in same industry or can help you to get more visits/links/conversions/sales) you will probably succeed. People like to communicate, like when someone offer solution for their problems (as Rand mentioned in video), like to be noted...Rand, this video is "bulls eye" for all souls (including me) who are searching new ways to get links from social networks. Different automated systems are not even close efficient as when you work manually. It is only matter of strategy, organization and available time how many relationships you may produce and get new great (niche related) links.
Super Dooper Rand! I didn't thought twitter as a link building machine. I gotta invest some quality time into twitter.
An oldie but goodie. Love that shirt!
Thanks for the information..
Thanks for this informative discussion. I am building it all into a blog for Realtors.. they are the last ones that really want to get involved in social media but one of the best industries to do this in. Thanks Rand.
Thank you for the video Rand. I think it's a great thing that you are challenging the folks here in SEOmoz. No pain no gain right.
It's not healthy to let fear debilitate the outreach of a SEO campaign becasue it leads to settling for the scraps and could lead to compromising SEO strategies. FEAR can be a serious enemy of a good SEO campaign and could turn things south very quickly. FEAR manifests doubt, worry and negativity and breads failure. To achieve success in anything, not just SEO outreach or link building through Social Media Marketing, FEAR has to be overcome. I'm sure many can agree that black hat strategies or spammy article spinning all stems from this corrosive four letter word FEAR.
I have learned in my life that there are two ways to look at F.E.A.R. either F#%K Everything And Run or Face Everything And Recover. I believe that this acronym can be applied to business and to a specific industry like SEO. For instance, when Rand challenges the community to put themselves out there and become vulnerable to people on a social networking level and people start saying things like, "it works for you because your popular or because your a big shot and us little people, geeks or nerds are not able to follow your lead. It reminds me of when you’re at the junior high dance and your terrified of asking a girl to dance because of the fear of rejection. But for anyone that has been able to walk through that fear you realize that the girl had the same fear. So you muster up the courage to ask her to dance, she looks down at her shoes and says yes. I think you get the point.
Yes Rand is popular and successful in the SEO community but that doesn't mean you or someone else can't be as good or even better. I see it like this. The scared punks of SEO sit in the dark corner of the gym talking smack on everyone and letting robots do all the scary work for them. the people that exhibit courage step out into the deep dark scary world of Social Media Marketing and succeed. Yes there is failure and rejection along the way but that's what success is made of.
Catching up on posts right now. This one was great (as always)! Thanks Rand for proving you can really build links with Twitter.
Did you mean to link to twiter.com/randfish? I thought maybe you posted that by mistake.
I can't do nothing with my Twitter marketing ... am I doing this wrong ?
Well, you've obviously mastered making your point in under 140 characters, but your use of double-negatives could be confusing your followers! ;)
But seriously, post your handle and let us take a look. I'm sure people would be willing to make suggestions for your account.
Awesome post once again Rand. I will be honest, I very seldomly click through and view a White Board Friday post, but this one was great. Will be sure to come back - and have signed in to followonk and summify....
@seowestcp
Cheers
Even with all the naysayers on the topic, the idea is a solid one and can be very useful. I think some may be mistaking this as a "you should build links through Twitter" post, when it's really a "these are some ways you CAN build links through Twitter."
Beyond that, if you're saying "No, regular people can't do that" then you aren't looking to become anything more than a "regular person." If you want to BE a brand, you have to ACT like a brand. You do things like the ones Rand suggests. You reach out. You use your name. You talk to influencers. If you don't do these things, of course they won't work.
Rand gave solid advice in this WB Friday. If you don't think it'll work because you're not a big brand/personality, then you will never become one.
Bottom line: You have to start somewhere. Just start. "The best time to plant a tree is 10 years ago. The second best time is now."
thanks Rand, good video again!
A very interesting video again from Rand, with good advices.
We can also say that Twitter is one of the best way to index new page from your website in Google.
According to the profile, an URL can be index in 5 minutes !
In five minutes ? Should test that one :-)
The simplest way to build links using Twitter is just simply to ask people for them. We've been doing this for quite some time and it works very well> We've acquired some really relevant, targeted niche links to our website from people in the PR industry with whom we speak to on a regular basis on Twitter.
The article is perfect for newbies and advanced users who are still learning the ropes. I am using these tactis today and testing them to see what results I will gain from this. Thank you very much for the information and the education.
Cheers for the advice Rand, I definitely need to spend more time looking into the best ways of using Twitter but right now I've had to focus on other areas. Will take on board what you've said and do more research into it when I get the chance.
Great Video Rand, the conclusions I have drawn from your last couple of white board fridays is that there are too many people in this industry that are unable to think creatively, instead just wanting step by step instructions to completing seo "tasks" as if they were building flat-pack furniture.
The typical excuses about "oh, the client/my boss wants me to measure every little task I do on a spreadsheet" start to fly around, along with "how am I supposed to do this when promoting a drain-pipe website, there are no interesting videos about drain pipes" or "that´s great, but at the end of the day clients want results".
The fact is, SEO is not a step-by-step process where you can measure and account for every little thing, it is about people, psychology and imagination. It has evolved from implementing technological tactics.
We should be looking to "traditional" creative agencies for inspiration. We have become spoiled with data/analytics - think back to the time when people did massive media spends, came up with television and print campaigns with not nearly the measurability we have with online marketing - it was perfectly possible to convince executives to part with large chunks of budget to spend on "creative stuff" having only very limited idea of what was working/how well it was working.
SEO is not about code anymore and those professionals who are unable to adapt their methods and business models, who are unable to convince clients that getting exceptional results means taking risks, being creative and pushing the boundaries are going to sink.
And if that gets rid of the hoards and hoards of people who litter the internet with advice such as "do some forum posts, blog commenting and article marketing", all the better in my opinion.
Agreeing and not agreeing.
Agreeing with you that Marketing is surely overtaking the technical part of SEO (but that needs to be overly well crafted, as it is packaging in offline marketing).
Not agreeing with you about the not measurability. Everything is can be measured in online marketing; and this is still the big difference with offline marketing.
Agree that everything can be measured in online, the tuff part is making those custom reports that show the improvments!
The number two, curating about the top peoples and their bests, again creating a content on your website and inform them, really it is an amazing idea to build relationships. Here the tool works, Twitter. I liked it, liked it very much.
By the way, I am planning to build a special link building team, and i ll ask them for getting links by following your 8 ideas. I think it will make them more interesting to work in link building. What do you think about it?
Thanks a lot Mr. Rand.
I jump on the twitter wagon a couple of month ago and i am now confused I my tweetering should be in english or italian or both .. any suggestion ??
LOL... think at me that I have to add Spanish!
What I do is the following:
Then there are very special occasion that I find a post maybe in spanish or italian, but I find it could be interesting also for my english speaking followers. In that case I tweet in english and send the link to the Google translated english version of the post... but this also because I like to make see to international Search community that great stuff is written also in a language that is not english :)
That's something I can achieve and your twittering seems well organized .. I was worried on having to open different accounts and follow them both .. It had been very much time-consuming ! Thanks for the advice. Take care
I guess I'm reading behind and I apologize but anecdotally I would like to say that if I run across a Twitter account in my feed that is consistently tweeting in a different language, I will usually unfollow because I think I may have followed them in error.
I would recommend different accounts for each language. It shouldn't be too difficult to manage, using a tool like TweetDeck, and it's better than forcing your followers to sort out which language you're speaking each time, IMO.
I love social media both as a backlink building system and a distribution method. It's wonderful :)
Rand, great post as usual. Love learning more about using social media for SEO purposes.
Most of your topics though seem to cater to businesses that are doing SEO though, not agencies. As an agency owner, I can see these tactics being GREAT, and I plan to use them for our large clients. However, for our smaller local clients the time involved in managing their twitter fans for them would be difficult to swallow.
Could you do any posts on agency stuff downt he road?
And hey, at least it's an alternative to the traditional methods.
I agree making relationship with people who will link to you...I have made a good connection with many bloggers using FB and Twitter..btw I wish you could do an ajax reply to this blog so the video does't load each time I post.
Rand,
Where is your link love though? I noticed you didn't link to Three Deep Marketing? ;)
I agree with you that social media is great tool at building short and long term relationships but not sure if Twitter is leader of the pack on this. Really hard to measure the ROI/ROMI on something like this but I'd be curious if someone did any rough comparison between other quality link generation strategies.
good call, need to include that.
Somethime when I want to measure very targetted actions, I use the Google URL creation tool, where it's easy to include parameter for Analytics, exactly like a newsletter campain. After ti's come easy to track ROI in this particular event.
TIP: Even getting a lot of retweets can help your seo. One thing that we do is "RT bait". We will post a funny quote, or joke that relates to our industry (computers). The quotes will be something like, "If at first you don't succeed: call it version 1.0 " Then we will put a #funnycomputerquotes hash tag at the end of the tweet and a link to our blog.
These tweets tend to get retweeted a lot, and I have tracked direct, positive corrolation data to this strategy.
I've got a meeting with a couple of customers next week - I'm going to walk in tell them that no longer are we going to use any article marketing (the same article marketing thats seen them rise and rise in the SERPS over the last few months and continues to do so) - we're now going to invest the cash in trying to 'reach out' to people on twitter, spend a few months nurturing the relationship - to get a link or two
I can't wait for their response.
Thanks a lot, Rand!
Uf, what a fantastic Whiteboard Friday. Although I'm a newcomer to SEO, slowly, very slowly, I'm learning new things about that stuff, and you contribute to my training so much.
I've always thought that Twitter is one of the most powerful tools that all we have to improve our presence on the internet, and you have just confirm this idea. I couldn't imagine that all these actions could provide such feedback to your daily Twitter work. Thank you again. You are a master.
It's essentially the same as saying "yes you can build links while grocery shopping"... you can stand in line for the register, strike up a conversation with the person next to you and if they have a website ask for a link/say you'll review their company. Sure there's a higher percentage of website owners on Twitter and you can target your audience more, but neither Twitter nor grocery stores are meant for link building. Trying to use them for it takes far more effort than usual link building tactics and can end up annoying people.
Twitter's great for relationships and reaching out to the masses but tweeting repeatedly to build a relationship then maybe get a link or two is not a good use of your efforts. Better to focus on engaging potential/current customers on twitter and link building via more traditional link tactics.
I'm not convinced :(
There's only one way to know what works for you.
Twitter is a great way to win links and gain influence in your niche. On one particular project I was able to win a site-wide link on a well respected P5 blog with over 6,000 indexed pages. This win came completely from interaction on twitter and slowly buidling a relation with the site owner. On the same project twitter has also been used to find and add affiliates into the projects network. The following and brand loyalty built by our interactions twitter now has us consistently getting our tweets retweeted to thousands of people. Twitter FTW!
retweets are off topic - they aren't links!
Really? Thru twitter? Do you think i can get back links to my site (https://www.kettlebellworkoutsecret.com)?
Yes you can :). It's a long domain name why did you chose it?
Really...Rand! I have the best article marketing time machine! It goes back in time and builds links before twitter was born.
Can you beat that?
Wait - you have a time machine... And instead of using it to go back in time and invent rock + roll (and make your parents fall in love during the "Under the Sea" dance), you went for article spinning?
For shame sir. For shame. :-)
Marty - "Are you saying my mom has the hots for me?... This is heavy!"
Doc - "Weight has nothing to do with it" :)
Yes. I am an article marketer. haha
Hi Rand,
I have given you a thumbs down because I liked this WBF however there are plenty of points that I disagree with and that are misleading towards everyday people like the majority of us on SEOmoz...
1. I don't think that just by talking to somebody randomly on Twitter to create a good relationship is as easy as you make out. The majority of high figures ignore the majority of tweets that they recieve anyway. I don't understand how you percieve this and how you think that by talking to somebody will get you a link? Firstly you need to spend lots of time talking to whoever it is and by speaking about something that is relevant to them both, this is hard to figure out sometimes and not everybody will find it easy to get a response. Let's say you do break through and begin speaking to somebody, why on earth would they give you a link? Nothing is free nowadays and they will also want something in exchange so are you saying that people give a free link out easy nowadays?
2. It's fine saying that you tweeted about your WP Blog being hacked and that the kind gentleman offered to sort it out for you... Rand, I'm sorry to say that it's fine for you but for the typical average Joe it's not. Let's be fair here and taking nothing away from you... Your profile in the SEO world is extremely high and you are well respected due to your stance at SEOmoz, your contribution to the industry and the fact that you're a speaker amongst othet things. Most people would jump at the chance to help you, the majority of people would be delighted with a response from you on Twitter. Unfortunatley I don't believe that if the average Joe tweeted about this kind of problem, I don't feel that they would get free help. This point is very mis-leading. Not everybody has a high profile like yourself Rand, surely you agree with this without blowing on your own horn?
Twitter is a great way for building links however what makes you think that you automatically recieve a link? We need to be realistic here and think to ourselves... Is somebody really going to give me a link from their site just for answering a question? I don't think so.
Also - at the beginning of the video, the title says "build link with Twitter"... I believe this should be "build links with Twitter".
Rand, I would really appreciate a response on this and especially on point number 2.
Thank you.
I guess we can agree to disagree. My recommendation is not "tweet your problems and folks will help" it's "watch what others who own sites you want links from say on Twitter and offer to help." I'll give an example - tonight I was in San Francisco with a friend who runs a few powerful sites. He needed a laptop cable, and tweeted it - had anyone been watching his account and helped out, I can virtually guarantee they'd have a follow, and several links from those of us in the bar with him.
The power of building real-life connections and helping others (in whatever way - a link, content, a laptop ca able, a fix for a hacked blog, an email, a survey, a tool, anything!) is tangible and it works. The keys are authenticity, likability and a real value proposition. We all see this work time and again - a relationship starts on Twitter and turns into something real - often including a link. It's not automatic, and I certainly never meant to suggest that in the video. If it came off that way, it's my mistake (I watched again, but perhaps we're just perceiving things differently).
@Rand - Thanks for your response. This takes lots of time and effort though just to gain one link, the majority of people on here are very busy business people. Why would people link from their site to you? I really don't understand your concept at all Rand. What type of website are you referring to here? So if I have an SEO site, a Snowboarding Equipment site or whatever, I'm going to create a link to his site saying he's a top guy and give me a laptop cable? I don't think so. Even if your talking about a personal Blog, people aren't going to say, this guy helped my friend by giving him a Laptop cable... I think you know where I'm coming from Rand and I find this very misleading, although many might not agree, I feel that the majority of folks don't dare ever to disagree with you because of who you are which disappoints me, not your fault at all of course.
A relationship does start on Twitter, agreed however...
Let's say I am your average Joe that sells Snowboarding Equipment, I follow a guy that works at SEOmoz. He tweets an Article, I tweet back saying great stuff, what are your views on that? How does that develop further and turn into a link? It's a HUGE task Rand.
Also in terms on your profile, you still haven't justified or mentioned or agreed with me that it's easier for you because your influential and people "brown nose" you heavily so you're much more likely to find this much easier.
@seo-himanshu - I never said that and yes I agree that he has worked hard however it's still a point that for someone as well known as Rand compared to an average Joe like 99% of SEOmoz, it's still extremely difficult.
@gfiorelli1 - It's much easier if you're a brand however Twitter can be used for any company, I agree with that.
It was extremely difficult for Rand too to become the well known and reputed person he is now... and there wasn't Twitter to make his life easier when he started.
@irldonalb - I agree with what you're saying here. I work in a very competitive environment and to be fair, people who are in my area of work don't want to give out links to their 'competition', even if you help them out in some way or another.
If I'm looking for links connected with the area of work I do, I don't see why by reaching out to someone, they would willingly just give away a link to me without something of mutual and equal value in return.
I guess other people simply work in less 'cut throat' industries than I do!
Hency why Link Exchanges were created, eeeek! :(
Thanks for agreeing Shelly.
It's not so much the tactic that makes it work, it's the principle behind what Rand is saying. If you meet people on the Internet and offer to help them, good things will happen because reciprocity is a very strong aspect of human behavior.
You may not get a link directly, but that's not the point. Reciprocity isn't about a quid pro quo. It's about doing good things without an expectation of a reward. Many times you may not even get one. But when you go out of you way often enough, at some point you're going to strike link gold just by being a nice person.
@Jlbraaten - You're totally missing the point...
"You may not get a link directly, but that's not the point."
The whole point of this blog post and these comments are about getting a link.
I offered to interview a microcelebrity about his science book who I found on Twitter. After the interview went live he shared it on his site. I received a link from his site a few days later. It was a link from a pagerank 6 page on a .edu domain. I was completely unaware that he was going to do this. The link alone sent thousands of visitors in referral traffic. Have you ever gotten a link like that?
Forming those relationships is easier than you think. I think that services like Twitter have helped to break down the barriers that might once have existed between the "lower people" and "the elites." For example, I've held a brief conversation with Adam Baldwin (of Firefly and Chuck fame) on Twitter, and I'm sure I could do it again at any time, and I have nowhere near the profile that Rand does.
Have you got a magical link from it? No!
I think you're all losing the concept here. Rand's video says that speaking to somebody gets you a link, everybody here are boasting that they've had a 50 lettered tweet from somebody!
Not exactly going to get you #1 in the SERPs is it?
Sorry, but IMO you are missing the point. All this WBF is about how to use Twitter as an outreach tool, not about you contact someone say "Hi, I love your blog, please link to mine".
In this sense it is like spending time in a blog and become "friend" of the blogger, therefore being in the position of asking for a guest post.
More over: having, for instance, Rand re-tweeting a link to a post of my blog is link building:
1) actual link building > the 301 shortener in his twitter status profile indexed by Google and iall the twitter scrapers
2) with his re-tweet my post is exposed to 30,000+ potential linkers, whose re-tweets makes even bigger the outreach
3) you seem as not having still read nothing about social signals as ranking factor
And, yes, at least 40% of the inbound links my site have from not italian webs are thanks to connections first started on twitter.
No I didn't get a link, but some kind of relationship was formed. This isn't a magical thing (as pointed out by Gianluca). Consider an offline business activity such as sales. I'm not a sales person, but even I know you can't just go up to a person and say, "Hey, how you doing? Lovely day. Now buy my product!"
It isn't going to work (well, not usually). It takes a little time to make the sale, and requires that you establish some kind of relationship with the person. You have to talk to them a little bit first before you can convince them to buy whatever it is you're selling.
It's the same with getting links, and all Rand is saying is that Twitter is just another conduit to doing that. The methodology apparently works really well. I think this SEOmoz post from a couple weeks ago explains it perfectly.
I created a "brand" in an industry in which I knew no one. Not a single person. I saw an opportunity, built a site, and then began using Social Media to build connections. I actually started with MySpace before Twitter was around. To this day, I have some of the top people in this industry linking to, tweeting about, and referencing my site.
I have actually become friends with some of these people. The key to the success it is that you must be sincere and the relationships have to be genuine. If you are only contacting people with the expectation of getting a link, you're missing the point.
" My recommendation is not "tweet your problems and folks will help" it's "watch what others who own sites you want links from say on Twitter and offer to help."
I have been using this technique for a long time. And one good way to implement it is via 'snap bird'. It is tool through which you can search someone tweets. If you can satisfy the need of your potential linking partner/influencer through awesome content and even if the person doesn't know you, you can still manage to get links/mention/shares. For e.g. if i want to know what 'Tom critchlow' would like to share/link out, i can search his tweets for say ' what i would love to see' and here i found one tweet . So if i quickly write an awesome article on 'javascript guide for SEO' and tweet to him, he may share it or link out to it at some point. Other key thing to remember is the timing. You need to tweet your contents to the influencers at the right time i.e. the time when they usually tweet or have just tweeted (otherwise your tweet will get lost) or talking about writing on some topic. If your target is writing on some topic and you already have a related content then suggest it, offer to help. Again many people tweet about what they are working on and that's the right time to suggest your resource and get links during the development phase when probability of getting links is pretty high.
Rand it was really a great video the way you defined relations as a backlinks is really fantastic.But I just want to say that as in last week you had encourage us to generate readership in our articles this week you are suggesting us to improve or create up a relation on social network. I know these two posts are totally different from each other but the thing which was same is contribution of dedication. The tips you discussed in the video is not just for twitter we can use it for each and every platform on the Internet while promoting ourselves. As smart contribution into the communities will make you visible and helping others make you reputed and important. So I just want to say to all that always behave genuine on Internet if you know some thing than teach others and if you got learned something than appreciate others.
Well Said Rand! He' salso not saying it's going to be easy. You need to make the effort to make things happen and it won't happen overnight. Building the relationships takes time, but, with that time and effort, communication and relationship building, things will happen!!
"Not everybody has a high profile like yourself Rand, surely you agree with this without blowing on your own horn?"
Rand wasn't gifted a high profile. He earned it through his countless contributions to seo community over years. If you want to become an influencer (& you have to, to get attention and eventually links), you have to relentlessly contribute to your niche. That's the only way and there are no short cuts. Your comment remind me of people who often say this SEO strategy works only for "brands". No business is a born brand. It becomes brand through its contributions to their niche/target market.
Totally agreeing with you Himanshu! That is why I was saying in my comment that I look at Twitter as a great (personal) branding tool at first.
@irldonalb Just to use myself as an example, thanks to sharing not just "obvious" things about SEO topic, curating what I'm (re)tweeting, I could catch the attention of Rand, Wil Reynolds, Will Crichtlow and many others that, if using your way of thinking, I would have not have imagined to be able to reach.
But the secret, as in any human relation, is not really to start a conversation, but to maintain that conversation in time and make that first contact a long lasting one. In my case (sorry to use again myself as an example), that led me to start a real life friendship with Rand and with many of my industry contacts originally obtained via Twitter. And from that, to be able also to ask for things like opinions, thoughts, suggestions in order to create posts, interviews... apart having a great time when we can see offline (as it happened just a couple of days ago with Wil Reynolds here in Spain for the Tomatina).
@gfiorelli1 - Good for you and I'm sure you enjoy that however not everybody has time to constantly "build a relationship" with authority figures like who you mentioned. Some people just aren't interested and I also feel that the likes of Rand, Will R and Will C don't have the time to have a personal relationship with EVERY single person that tweets at them! Thanks.
Don't sub estimate the power of human relations... :)... all the web now is based on those.
Maybe :)
Hehe... anyway, that same "Maybe" is a strong reason for insisting in using Twitter and any other social platform in order to build real connections :)
Maybe however there is LOTS of effort needed for this method and like I said, not everybody is as "open" like Rand and Will for example, the vast majority ignore a good bunch of people on Twitter.
…clearly you have the time to rant. The point I got from this WBF was another set of ways to build useful relationships with twitter that can be mutually beneficial.
The testimonials tact one may work for only Brand profiles, like Rand :). I don't think that trick will work a lot for less barnding people.
Everyone has to start somewhere. Not all of those tips are going to work for you straight out of the box, you have to work at them over time and consistently add value over time.
Heres a tip - get a profile picture up. I have no idea who you are as a human being, it makes it tough to relate
S
@Stephen - I normally break the camera because I'm so ugly xD. Sorry!
Ops! Em sorry but I really want to share my experience on this!
As far as this is concern that an average profile is usually ignored by high profile SEOs… well if you have asked me a year back may be I would support you on that… but I think these high profile users like @randfish and other s that that include @jennita and many more might not reply to your very first tweet but as soon as you get more active and share more powerful and share worthy content with the community they will automatically RT your tweets, reply to them and recommend you in your #FF the ball is actually in your court it’s up to you how you play the short!
Danny Sullivan and Aaron Wall even have replied few of my tweets and I am for sure a person with an average profile.
I usually help my friends on facebook for their Internet Marketing needs and guess what this brings me solid leads… so it’s a very very common but powerful technique.
As far as this is concern that answering a question will give you a link? So why not? I do that quite a lot of times… there are lot of examples on the internet like that just Google it! :)
I still disagree with you.
I think that they will probably see it as an opportunity for escape.
By replying, it might shut you up, the majority of these people probably find you a "pest" and that's the reality of it I am afraid.
:) I see one year back me in you! Seriously!
I can clearly see that you are one of those people who didn’t give much time to virtual communication; I guess all you need to do is to think positively and react accordingly!
Just consider this! In your 1st comment you ask for the Rand to reply and he did that (clearly shows he was reading you) and the reply was very good actually… does he tries to shut you up? I guess no!
Might be you had a bad experience in the beginning (may be) but remember building virtual relationship that turns in to real obviously needs your time and interest… stop communicating with people as part of your job and do it naturally and you will see the change…
I can see, slighly, where you are coming from however I don't think Rand meant to come across in this way.
Give and ye shall receive.
I don't mean to be rude but from your comments I can see why you may be having a difficult time in forming relationships & getting links via Twitter - or even believing in that possiblity.
I have not been able to use Twitter to get dozens of links myself but its been barely 5-6 months since I even tried and I did get in good terms with couple of folks in the same industry (selling different stuff) and 2 of them (1 super high auth) ended up as a guest post (backlink). Don't expect Twitter to get you easy links in short time - its a long term strategy that requires some smarts (using right auto tools - nonspammy ones) and lot of patience & persistence. Also, the # of links you might acquire on Twitter is not a lot but the quality of those links can be really high and may be worth several links that your average link builder gets you, so its definitely worth considering IMHO.
Twitter is a great way to do SEO
Great uptodate information for Social and Oranic Search Marketing People.
twitter is good social networking site and many people get benifit from it. its good for the business promotion.