Masterbaiter Lyndon Antcliff caused quite a lot of stir when he published that the news item about a boy ordering hookers with a stolen credit card was in fact a linkbait. Jonathan Crossfield almost instantly responded asking if this is a ‘right’ approach, but with 500k in traffic and over 1,600 links, you can’t deny that it was a very successful linkbait.

And also:

• Patrick Altoft explains how you can build a link building machine
• Do you have a team of link builders (or other employees)? Justilien gives tips on how to keep them motivated
• Based on Pierre Far’s findings, a Digg front page will bring you near 1,200 links within a month on average
• This week’s Link Week column was titled ‘An embarassement of dead link riches‘
• Loren Baker asked if it’s worth joining the Yahoo Directory for $299/yr (and got some interesting reactions)
• Angela Moore explains why you shouldn’t be worried if you see that your link numbers are dropping
• One that I missed earlier is Brian Chappell’s post about when you should be worried if you’re buying links

This is a post from Wiep's Link Building blog

Link Building this Week (20.2008)

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According to the Google AdWords help center, “This keyword is not permitted to show your ads in the targeted location.”

Google still displays ads for keywords like ‘linkbuilding‘, ‘link baiting‘ and even ‘purchase links‘, though.

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Google Doesn't Allow Link Building Ads

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An interesting discussion is the one that Hugo Guzman (partially) started, with his post about how clients can help you with the link building campaign they’ve hired you for. Brian Turner mentioned a few excellent points in his reply to Hugo’s post; Why link building is risk management. In my opinion, the ideal situation is, like Dana Larson added later on in the discussion as well, that a link marketer should work together with the client to get the best links possible.

And also:

• Lee Odden provided a few excellent tips on content centered link building
• Aaron Wall discussed the same topic as well, with his post about Strategic content as marketing for link building
• Search Engine War decided to take a look ahead with their post about A future without links
• Jeffrey Smith asked ‘Are you an SEO link opportunist?‘
• Michael Martinez wrote about Link building versus SEO
• Sage Lewis talked about Giving links away (well, I’ll have two please )

This is a post from Wiep's Link Building blog

Link Building this Week (19.2008)

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The first part of this series was a selection of tips on how to use your surroundings to come up with interesting ideas that can lead to great amounts of traffic, attention and links. After you’ve carefully selected the idea of your choice, it’s time to prepare yourself thoroughly and to turn that idea into a content page that’s capable of reaching the audience that you’ve always wanted to target.

Creating Killer Content

There are many characteristics of killer content, most of which are important enough to make or break your launch. Misuse of images, boring pages, bad language or other distracting factors can lead to failure. Remember that a even a flagship is as strong as its weakest link.

      Your flagship does not necessarily have to be a boat, by DC3-Detroit

Headline

A superb headline can create a massive amount of attention for just a mediocre article, but a bad headline can result in a killer peace of content that doesn’t get noticed. Make sure to give your content the headline that it deserves, but don’t overdo it.
Also, don’t forget to try to get a related keyword into your headline. Because a part of the webmasters that link to your page will use the original title as anchor text, this will increase the possibility that you’ll end up ranking for those keywords. Don’t force in a keyword, though. A good headline prevails over a keyword rich headline.

First paragraph

Although you may choose to submit your own piece of content to Digg and StumbleUpon (or let someone submit it for you), you’ll probably -and hopefully- won’t submit it to every social media platform out there. If you want to increase the chance of hitting the frontpage of social news sites that you don’t even know exist, you’ll have to make sure that the first paragraph is a great one. People who submit stuff to social media websites regularly -me included-, often use the first (or one of the first) lines of text and use it as the description of the submission. Make it easier for them AND make it more likely to hit the front page by creating your own description that’s disguised as an opening paragraph.

Content

The appearance of a page can either be informational (mostly text), it can be visual (images all over the place), or it can be usable (a tool, or movable objects). Of course, a page can be a mix of the above, but usually, only one will be the upper hand. Make sure

Informational page
If you’ve created an information page, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t use images, but use them wisely. The text is the most important of the page, so make sure that the images you use don’t distract your readers. In stead, you could spice it up a notch with graphical text images, a great header, or interesting charts for example. The images must serve the rest of the content. Oh, and don’t forget to use that spell check.

Visual page
If you’re building a page that’s mostly visual, it’s tempting to stuff it with as many images and as many different colors as possible. However, using too many images, a lot of different colors, or even mixing up different styles can make your page look cluttered and unclear. If you focus on a single (or just a few) images in stead, take your time when selecting colors and try to keep the page in a single style, it’ll be much easier to ‘understand’ and to digest. Try to avoid the most common stock images, though, or try to make them look differently in stead.

Usable page
The fact that you’re creating a page that’s meant to be ‘used’, doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be interesting to look at. While the focus should be on clarity, ease of use and the end result, attractiveness definitely shouldn’t be neglected.

About page

Nothing is worse than reading a great post on a blog or a great article on a website, and you can’t find the name of the author anywhere. Or his or her email address.
Provide as much information as possible. This will not only look much more professional, but it’ll also help you to build a personal brand and it increases the chance of someone actually contacting you. You might provide a contact button, but if I can’t find out who to contact, I probably won’t give it a try.

Ask for help

I don’t consider myself to be a very good writer and I really suck at programming. Although I’m trying to improve it, I also can’t design very well. Just like me, you probably don’t own all of these skills as well, so that’s why you’ll have to get some help from time to time.

The relationship between the quality of content and the amount of attention is an exponential one. A slight increase in quality (the difference between your design skills and those of your friend/ colleague/ business partner) can cause a massive increase in attention. Don’t be afraid to ask for help, you can’t be the best in everything.

Besides increasing the possibility of success, asking help also saves you time and it can improve your business network as well.

Preparation

Unlike some seem to think, preparation does not start one day before the planned launch. Preparation starts on the day that you decide what you’re going to build, it’s more time consuming than most people think and it’s a key factor in any launch.

      Good preparation ensures a save flight, by The Library of Congress

Network like a pro

Networking does not start after your product launch, press release or whatever you’re distributing. It starts weeks before that. Contact journalists and try building up a relationship. This does not only benefit you now, but it will be an advantage when you’re trying to reach that bigger audience next time as well. A PR pitch has more effect if you know the one you’re sending the pitch to, even if you happen to know this person for just a short while yet.

Try to create a powerful social online profile, such as a Digg or StumbleUpon profile. You’ll need all the luck of the world if you try to reach Digg’s front page with a profile that you’ve created just ten minutes ago.

Use the people you know. Friends, family members or other people in your personal network that happen to know someone that owns a related website or that participates online in any way, might be able to help you promoting your piece as well. Don’t spam them for every thing you publish, though, or don’t look surprised if you have difficulties reaching them again if you do…

Preparing your target list

You’ve already done research in your niche and you’ve probably kept track of your competitors as well. Hopefully, you’ve saved all this data, because this data can jump start your target press list.
Check out which news websites, bloggers and portals have linked to related stories that went hot in the past and you’ll end up with a list of targets that are both interested in the subject and capable of making your launch a success.

Preparation Checklist

Although some of these points may seem silly, there are several things you shouldn’t forget to check. You wouldn’t be the first one that almost launched a very successful campaign, but ended up in a ‘Top 10 Stupid Marketing Mistakes of the Year’ list in stead…

bandwidth
- do you have sufficient bandwidth or do you have shared hosting?
email usage & contact info
- is important info, such as your email address, correctly displayed on your website and does it work?
double check the page
- double check for things like layout and multiple browser compatibilities. Let a friend check it out, for example.
statistics
- don’t forget to include your analytics code on the content page.
misspellings
- re-read the entire page word for word to make sure that everything is spelled out correctly.

In short

Even a slight mistake or less attractive feature can turn a great piece of content into an almost great piece of content. And almost great just isn’t good enough. If you can’t make something exceptional yourself, ask help, input or advice from someone who can.

Although some might try to, you can’t create a successful content marketing campaign overnight. Solid preparation is key and this starts days (but more often weeks) in advance. If you want to be successful next week, you’ll have to lay the foundation today and start building tomorrow.

Stay tuned -or subscribe to the RSS- for the last part of this series, which will be titled ‘Launching, Monitoring & After Care’.

This is a post from Wiep's Link Building blog

Building Link Targeted Content That Works: Step 2 of 3 - Creating Content & Preparation

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If you have a blog and hate the ‘great post’ or ‘thanks for info’ comments as much as I do, please do the same as I do: send an email to the commenter’s address with a link to both SearchMarketingSage’s post about Dofollow link building and to DoshDosh’ great article about Rethinking blog comments. That’ll teach ‘em. (well, probably not, but it’s worth a try )

And also:

• Ian Lurie listed 6 link building practices that scare the crap out of him
• Scott Clark wrote a great post about Social media marketing through links
• The role of outbound links was the title of Eric Enge’s latest post at SEOmoz
• Bob Massa picked up the question What to do when you run out of link building ideas
• David Harry published his Link builders guide to historical ranking factors
• Eric Ward discussed The art of opportunistic linking at SearchEngineLand
• Still avoiding Wikipedia during a link building campaign? You really shouldn’t…
• Justilien Gaspard explains why there are no free links
• Arnie Kuenn introduced ‘dofollow tuesday’ and started with a bunch of link tips for the automotive industry

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Link Building this Week (18.2008)

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And also:

• Roger Montti explains that link building is as easy as tuning in, turning on and linking out
• Michael Martinez talked about the Mechanics of linking
• Jane Copland analyzed a very effective trafficbait (I wouldn’t call it a very effective linkbait yet…)
• The SEL LinkWeek Column (this week by Rae Hoffman) was titled Link development tool shortcuts for Firefox
• Jeffrey Smith wrote about Deep links & the power of anchor text

And a few recaps of the SBM & SMX:

• SBM Unleashed: Link Building
• SBM Unleashed: Viral Marketing Workshop
• SMX Social: Linkbait- Chumming for Traffic
  

This is a post from Wiep's Link Building blog

Link Building this Week (17.2008)

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1. What is it that you think that a link builder does all day?
Because having ‘link builder’ as a job title sounds like you’re either working on a construction ground or in a factory, I like to hire link marketers in stead. You need passion, determination, knowledge, vision and excellent communication skills, so it really isn’t that boring, simplistic task that lots of people think it is.

This would probably keep you in the race:
Things like creating content, networking, following SEO news, following general news, negotiating terms, researching link profiles and advising clients in their communication strategy are also part of a link marketer’s job.

This probably wouldn’t:
“It’s a mix of spamming forums, hunting for blogs with the dofollow plugin and playing pong.”
Well, actually, that last part is true…

2. What’s your personal stance in the paid link discussion?
There are only two answers that would bug me off here. If you either don’t care about Google’s guidelines and keep buying links like you always did, or if you agree with the big G for the full 100% and fill out paid link reports on a daily basis, I probably wouldn’t hire you.

This would probably keep you in the race:
If you can separate your personal, greyish hat, affiliate website that has around a hundred anchor text rich paid links pointing at it (most of which are for testing reasons, of course ) from a client’s website, you’re pretty safe here.

This probably wouldn’t:
“Well, the reason why I applied here, is because Google trimmed the PageRank of most of my websites. Because my income was based solely on text link ads on those sites, and I have absolutely no clue how to monetize the sites now, I thought I’d give it a shot…”

3. Which link or which achievement are you the most proud of?
Pride is a sign of passion and that’s what you need in this job. Not everyone can live with promoting someone else’s website for a living. If you’re able reach the top 3 for a highly competitive keyword, you might be good at building links. If you can be proud of a client that you’ve helped to reach the top 3 for a highly competitive keyword, then you might be a good link marketer.

This would probably keep you in the race:
“Are you familiar with the ‘web promotion’ category in the Yahoo Directory? I was the one that requested Jerry Yang to create that one a while ago…”

This probably wouldn’t:
“I guess getting banned from MSN because of link spamming is quite an achievement…”

4. Let’s say www.onlinebookstore.com, a website that sells books online, is one of our customers. How would you start such a campaign?
I have to admit that this is a tricky one, but it’s very easy at the same time. How tempting it may be to start listing several websites and tactics that you could use, you really need more info here. What if the homepage was the nightmare of every search engine robot? What are the goals and what’s the current situation? What’s the background of the store and to what countries do they ship? There’s just too many questions that have to be answered first…

This would probably keep you in the race:
Ask questions! You can only provide the best service if you know all the details.

This probably wouldn’t:
“I’d use an Indian directory submission program to get onlinebookstore.com listed in about 2,000 general directories for about $249,-. With anchor text variation, of course: you can pick two different ones!”

5. What determines the value of a link?
There are numerous different factors that you could list here, but the main point here is that you can tell that no two links are equal and that the value of a link depends on the situation.

This would probably keep you in the race:
Naming factors like traffic, relevancy, anchor text, authority and/ or link age would make you score a few points. Mentioning the link value factors document would be a bonus point.

This probably wouldn’t:
“It’s a combination of the page’s PageRank, Alexa ranking and the asking price of the link at Text Link Ads.”

Besides information (and perhaps a bit of entertainment), this post also has another function; we‘re actually looking for people that breathe search, including for someone with link marketing experience. So if you’re interested and/ or if this post triggered you, feel free to drop me a note

This is a post from Wiep's Link Building blog

Link Building Job Interview? Here's 5 Questions to Ask

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And also:

• Scott Hendison explains why you should think outside the link
• Eric Ward introduced the Manifest Linking Destiny
• Bill Slawski explains Microsoft’s patent about ranking domains (and links) based on domain maturity in language that you and I can understand
• The original title may be somewhat misleading; Vertical Measures’ latest post is about brainstorming and getting your content noticed to attract more links
• Really aggressive GoogleBowling: Youmoz member Calamier suddenly got thousands of extra (spammy) backlinks

This is a post from Wiep's Link Building blog

Link Building this Week (16.2008)

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Every page on social media website Sphinn has a numbered list of the ten most Sphunn upcoming news items. This feature of the internet marketing news portal looks perfectly normal if you use Firefox (or any other version of IE), but the latest Beta version sure finds it difficult to count properly.

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Counting Isn't as Easy as 1-2-3 for IE8

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Start Close

While it usually is best to enter a brainstorming session with a blank mindset, it’s even better to check what you’ve got first. Good ideas are often closer than you think.

      Things can be closer than you think, by Pictophelia

- Your own website
If your website isn’t a brand new one, you probably have at least a few pages that managed to attract a few or more good links. You can either investigate why these pages got mentioned elsewhere (and use that info for a new article), or find your best one, improve it and launch V2.

- Your own head
What kind of resources are you missing in your niche? What kind of tool have you always wanted to use but couldn’t find? What kind of content would make you go ‘WOW’? Build it!

Brainstorming for Ideas

The great thing about brainstorming is that you can’t brainstorm the wrong way. Of course, there are guidelines you can follow and techniques you can use, but in theory, every method you use to come up with new ideas would be considered brainstorming. Effective brainstorming, however…

      Brainstorming, by faroekat

Like I said earlier, it can be quite effective to start a brainstorming session with an empty mind. Because your link targeted mind probably even rattles on in your sleep, it might be useful to invite someone that isn’t that much into links as you are. Some people always invite the client they’re working for, but I don’t think that’s best in every situation. No matter how hard you try, for some types of personality, tunnel vision is an almost certainty. On the other hand, bringing in the knowledge of your client does add extra value.

More tips for your brainstorming session:

• Appoint one person to lead the discussion and to write down all ideas.
• Record everything to make sure that you don’t miss anything. And to be able to provide evidence to the client that you haven’t been drinking all afternoon, of course
• Encouraging your fellow brainstormers to participate, encouraging great ideas and encouraging to shout out everything that comes up is key to a harmonized brainstorm session.
• More suggested reads; JPB’s creative pages, MindTools brainstorming and Brainstorming.co.uk.

Furthermore, one of the most important things to keep in mind during a brainstorming session is that you shouldn’t settle for the first reasonably good idea you come up with. Good ideas arise pretty quickly, great ideas need time to grow. The best tip I can probably give you is to just start a session. Brainstorm with a few colleagues about a simple item, such as what you’ll be having for lunch or how you can improve your working conditions. You could even be brainstorming about how to brainstorm. Evaluate that session afterwards and learn from it. Experience will lead to inspiration.

Researching for Inspiration

After your brainstorming session, where you’ve probably generated over a few dozen ideas, you might be tempted to drill the list down to the most useful ideas straight away. In stead, letting these ideas soak for a short while and researching ideas that have worked in the past, researching ideas that have failed in the past and researching your niche might be a better solution. Don’t take a short cut by copying the ideas you come across, but use them as inspiring input.

      Doing research, by revlimit

Think Social

The voice of the community will show you what might work.

- Use Digg’s search function
Look for relevant articles, posts or pages that have made it to Digg’s front page in the past by entering a relevant keyword in the search box. This might give you some inspiration and it should give you an idea of what might work in your niche.

- Stumble upon related pages
Use StumbleUpon to find pages that are related to the content you want to promote. Check what kind of pages receive lots of thumbs up and positive research. You’ll not only come across at least a few great pages you’ve never seen before, but you’ll also get an impression of popular stuff in your area.

- Del.icio.us popular
One way to use Del.icio.us, is to use the ‘popular’ section to see what’s hot in your niche, for example popular in link building. If you can’t find popular posts in your niche, you can always broaden your search query or use the regular tag function.

- Your favorite news site
That news website you visit every day (whether it’s a big news site or just a local one) has historical data of what kind of related articles or posts have made it to the front page. Do a site query to find relevant news articles that got mentioned on the news site earlier.

- Social Niche sites
Is it difficult to find related stuff on one of the big social media websites, or are you looking for more targeted traffic? There’s a social media website for nearly every niche, so don’t just refrain yourself to the mainstream sites.

Think Niche

Only here will history, relevance and authority show up.

- Your competitor
Some people can’t stand it when a competitor gets mentioned on a popular news or niche website. In stead of enviously watching how they get all the attention, you could also see this as an opportunity and investigate why they got mentioned. If you don’t follow your competitors on a r