I just got back from attending the Link Ninjas seminar hosted by Jim Boykin of We Build Pages. Two days of link training sandwiched between two 8-hour rounds of air and ground travel and I'm feeling both educated and exhausted. Man, I hate flying these days.
Link Ninjas was great, and not just because I can now tell people I've had "secret ninja training." The seminar was a great opportunity to meet people in the industry, including Jim, Todd Malicoat, and Aaron Wall, and other SEOs from as far away as London and Montreal. As SEOs are wont to do, there was much in the way of eating, drinking, and making merry (if you can count playing electronic darts as making merry) at the SEO pow-wow after the first day of training.
The Ninja training itself was quite informative. I'd been doing link building for some of our clients for a while now, but even though I knew how to do it, I definitely wasn't performing nearly as effectively as I could have been. After seeing presentations from the We Build Pages crew, including Sean, Jim, Todd, and Justilien and then one by Aaron Wall, I learned a good deal of new tips and tricks, particularly pertaining to SEO community tools and resources I hadn't been using. Check out Mr. Ploppy's Tool Lists on StuntDubl for most of the goods (sorted by categories). Link building is a time consuming process... I feel kind of silly for not guessing that someone would have automated some of the most obnoxious stuff already.
Whereas day one had helped synthesize and solidify a lot of concepts I had understood only nebulously, day two was hands on work with a client, utilizing on-site SEO and link techniques. Among the gems I picked up, here are a few that worked particularly well for us:
- Build in less competitive, more locally targeted areas to get higher-quality, organic (looking), and authoritative links
_ - Fine-tune our neighborhood by associating ourselves with high-trust resources
_ - Analyzing allinanchor ratings versus competitors' using We Build Pages' Cool SEO Tool can hint at whether you're targeting one phrase too much or too little
Come Monday, when I get back down to it, I'm going to start cranking out some quality links. But it's Friday-- and 6PM at that-- so that means it's time for sushi, sake, and slacking, for that's what ninjas do on the weekends!
Hi Kat,
Could you expand on this point:
"Build in less competitive, more locally targeted areas to get higher-quality, organic (looking), and authoritative links"
I don't understand what you mean by locally targeted areas?
Thanks!
Essentially, I'm talking about targeting the Long Tail (as it relates to your site). For example, if you sell fish in wisconsin, targeting "wisconsin" keywords too, rather than just "fish."
Cliff - If you want link requests to look like they're going to a real person, I just send them out first to some of my friends who run blogs - if they don't catch on... bingo!
Seriously, though - testing is the way to go and personalization is the best. Find out the name of the site owner - tell them you read their blog/site/whatever and enjoy it. Give them an anecdote about their hometown - like "hey, those Pitsburgh Steelers look pretty tough... it will be sad to see them fall against a bunch of kids from the Northwest!"
Be honest, open, upfront and take on projects worthy of links - that's our strategy :)
Thanks Rand..
I agree completely in that personalization seems to be the key and I constantly have my link builders trying to create a long term mutual advantageous partnership with webmasters rather then just requesting a link.
Although Seattle is a great team, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching them wipe the floor with Indy, I think Jerome is well deserving of the SuperBowl!
Hey Critter... the trick with subject lines is to vary them to make sure that, first of all, you don't get caught in any spam filters. Second, they recommended getting straight to the point with money (if you're purchasing) to draw attention. Finally, refer to the site you're interested in getting a link from within the subject line, but don't copy and paste a link, handwrite it (with caps, if necessary), to make it look like it was really generated by a human being and is not a form letter. For example:
Ad prices on WaffleWorld.com or Advertising on WaffleWorld's website
It's hardly a science, I think, since people's reactions to emails soliciting something from them are widely varied, even if there is money involved. Phone calls are by and large more effective if you can reach someone. But I hate them, as I suspect many other people do too.
Sounds like quite the session Kate! I would be very interested to hear about the theories and practices discussed at the session last week as I tend to do link building completely out of the box and achieve decent success from it.
My question is, regarding sending link requests that don't look like spam, bur rather seem like a real person? I actually write my link emails one-by-one and still find it hard to make the email look like its personal and from me. ANy suggested 'subjects' discussed?
Rand, I'll be watching carefully to see if Seattle close the deal for a chance into Superbowl!
Critter
They touched on this, yes. They recommended short and to-the-point sales pitches ignoring all details (self-promotion, complements, etc.) except asking price and detailing the site which the ad would be for.
But we didn't much address non-advertising solicitations. As far as asking for a link on a resources page, I've had mixed luck. I really haven't been link building long enough to know what works best.
The biggest critical mistake I can think of is making your email too closely resemble an auto-generated spam message. You've got to avoid headers that might trigger spam filters or that might cause someone to delete the message. The biggest way to get a response is to get them to read the email in the first place... and the best way to do that is to seem like a real person.
I had sushi, sake, and slacked today! So, am I a ninja? :p
Very jealous that you were able to attend the training... Thanks for the synopsis!
Thank you Kate!
Hi Kat, would you mind telling us if they talked about "how to ask for a link". I am usually pretty succesful in getting positive answers to my link requests, but sometimes, people just ignore the emails we sent them. What would be a great approach to get links? Also, do you things there are critical mistakes to avoid? Thank you!