Although I don’t spend as much time on online marketing forums as I used to, I still try to read the most interesting threads on a few forums. WebmasterWorld is one of these forums, and threads like this link building case study thread are the reason why. And if you happen to like reading case studies just as much as I do, here’s two more.

Another great read is this NY Times article about a Penn study on virality. The researchers studied a list of well-e-mailed articles, checking it every 15 minutes for over 6 months, analyzing the content of thousands of articles and checking for factors like the placement in the paper or on the Web home page. Great stuff…

And also:

• A resource for information visualisation & infographics – Tom Critchlow
• Popularity matters, ignore at your own peril – Adam Singer
• How to write linkbait – Sam Tilston
• Pulling a Kesey (or tripping link filters) – Debra Mastaler
• Using bit.ly for spying, link building and happiness – Jim Gianoglio
• Quality link building starts with questions – Wil Reynolds
• Blogging etiquette – Tamar Weinberg
• Running giveaway competitions for links and SEO – Rob Ousbey
• An interview with Debra Mastaler – Zach Daniel
• Link building strategies video – Ian Lurie
• Things to consider when adding linkbaiting to your online marketing strategy – Lyndon Antcliff

This post, Link Building this Month (02.2010), was published on Wiep's link building blog. Visit the site to read more stuff, or to join the link building conversation.

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Every new year usually starts with awards, recaps (see earlier link), resolutions (mine is better time management) and predictions. Debra Mastaler asked all Link Week columnists what they think 2010 will bring, and this is the result. As you can see, group interviews can be a great way to create great, linkable content.

And also:

• The psychology behind link giving – David Snyder
• Linkable asset inventory – Garrett French
• Link building checklist – Mark Nunney
• Top searches can attract top links – Debra Mastaler
• How to drive more links via public relations – Jeremy Bencken
• Linkfromdomain: a link building tip for Bing.com – Will Critchlow
• How to woo a blogger – Lisa Barone
• Guest blogging: the ultimate guide – Glen Allsopp
• Getting links for a poker site is easier than you think – Lyndon Antcliff
• How to measure link building – Michael Martinez

This post, Link Building this Month (01.2010), was published on Wiep's link building blog. Visit the site to read more stuff, or to join the link building conversation.

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1. Link Development Training: How Link Building for SEO is Like Picking Up a Girl – Todd Malicoat
Unfortunately, Todd doesn’t write tons of articles anymore, but when he does, they’re usually great. In this post, he explains how he trains new link builders and which tools and approach he uses. Great stuff.

2. 101 Advanced Tips For The Next Time You Buy Text Link Ads – Gab Goldenberg
Even when you don’t buy links, there’s lots of tips you can get out of Gab’s post. Just replace ‘buy’ for ‘talk your way into…’ or ‘offer services/ a discount/ anything else in exchange for…’, and you’re good to go.

3. 21 Tips to Earn Links and Tweets to Your Blog Post – Rand Fishkin
Rand shares 21 great tips for optimizing your content in a way that you maximize its linking potential. Just try to implement all these tips in one of your articles, and you’ll end up with some killer content.

And here’s a few more excellent articles:

General

• Link building ranking factors – SEOmoz
• Why link building may not work – Michael Martinez
• How to buy links with maximum juice and minimum risk – Lisa Barone
• 17 Ways search engines judge the value of a link – Rand Fishkin
• Link building from A to Z – yours truly (yes, I hate including my own stuff, but couldn’t find a good 5th article…)

Finding & evaluating prospects

• 21 Link builders share advanced link building queries – Garrett French
• Link building evaluation guide – David Snyder
• The link builders guide to analyzing SERP dominators for link opportunities – Garrett French
• Link buying: the good, the bad and the ugly – Aaron Wall
• A big bunch of link building ideas – Debra Mastaler

Webmaster outreach

• Link building outreach: 5 steps to maximize the value of every opportunity – Garrett French
• Get your link building requests answered – Mat Siltala
• 10 Tips for requesting link exchanges – Steven Snell
• How to woo a blogger (and get covered) – Lisa Barone
• 10 Reasons why journalists will write about your website – Ken McGaffin

Content & link baiting

• What makes a link worthy post, part 1 and part 2 – Casey Henry
• How to research, create and distribute highly linkable content – Garrett French
• Getting links and content from Flickr – Lisa Barone
• The psychology of a linkbait – Ryan Caldwell
• How to promote good content – Lisa Barone

Most viewed posts of Wiep.net

1. 69 Link building strategies for 2009 (I know, it’s a post from 2008)
2. The perfect link request email template
3. Indispensable link building tools
4. 10 Questions to ask a new link marketing client
5. Advertising strategies that improve your link popularity
6. A good alt is better than a bad anchor
7. SEO Motivators (also a post from 2008)

This basically wraps up 2009. I hope this year has been as good for you as it was for me. All the best wishes for 2010!

This post, Link Building this year, was published on Wiep's link building blog. Visit the site to read more stuff, or to join the link building conversation.

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Also, Garrett French’ compilation of dozens of very useful advanced search link building queries was an excellent read. I’m pretty sure that nearly anybody would find at least one new query he or she didn’t think of yet.  And if you didn’t: how about keeping track of (relevant) companies going out of business in your neighborhood, and checking out their link profiles? :)

Everybody and their dog knows that having good content improves your chances of getting good links, but how do you come up with good ideas? Of course, analyzing success stories is a good starting strategy, and from their on, it’s basically just thinking outside the box.

And also:

• 11 Effective, efficient ways to use limited time to build links – Debra Mastaler
• The disproportionate value of deeplinks – Eric Enge
• The new rules of international link building – Andy Atkins Kruger
• The holiday link building blitz: a plan for ecommerce sites – Garrett French
• 10 Reasons why good link builders fail – Angela Moore
• Effective link building, one major ingredient – Lynn Terry
• 7 Ways to maximize your internal linking value – Thinkseer
• How to buy links with maximum juice and minimum risk (Pubcon) – Lisa Barone

Tools:

• I came across Tynt last month, but Patrick Altoft mentioned a similar tool today that’s certainly worth checking out as well: Link building pro.
• Cemper.com’s Link Research Tools will be leaving beta soon. I hope to review some of their tools (along with a few others) later this month.

PS – If you think I missed one or more interesting link building articles last month, feel free to mention it in the comments ;)

This post, Link Building this Month (11.2009), was published on Wiep's link building blog. Visit the site to read more stuff, or to join the link building conversation.

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Let’s start with one of the best posts I’ve read in a while – Gab’s 101 link buying tips. Whether you buy links or not, there are lots of useful tips in there for everyone!

If you rather not buy your way to the top, you’ll have to learn the art of web promoting. And this art starts by fully understanding why people share stuff with each other, and/ or how you can persuade them into doing so. From there on, you can move on to creating the right content and thinking about the right promotion strategy. The actual contacting of webmasters, either by phone or email, is the last (but also very important) part of the process.

And also:

• SMX East: Ask the linkbuilders – Lisa Barone
• Link building using Delicious – Wil Reynolds
• DMOZ: A solid directory or the great pumpkin of search? – Debra Mastaler
• The anchor text sparsity problem – Bill Slawski
• What is the perfect link? – Michael Martinez
• A marketing role in product development – creating buzz… & links! – Todd Heim
• Recovering from link building mistakes – Eric Ward
• Offer testimonials, get links – Rand Fishkin
• Advanced link building: clone your most successful link profiles – Ken Lyons
• Link building: not just off-page anymore – Julie Joyce
• The best linking expert you can know – Micheal Martinez
• Mining 31,500,000 free links for the take – Ruud Hein
• Google trust rank patent granted – Bill Slawski

PS – Lots of people I talk to about link building are always on the lookout for shortcuts. There. Aren’t. Any. Nifty tools like this come close, but it will always be lots of work.

PPS – Shaun Anderson is giving away free link building ebooks this week. Yes, that’s even more link building tips to digest.

This post, Link Building this Month (10.2009), was published on Wiep's link building blog. Visit the site to read more stuff, or to join the link building conversation.

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At Tribal, I’ve had the opportunity to interview dozens of potential link builders, and certainly know how difficult this can be. Useful tips like the 5 questions for link builders that Angela Moore listed, may help you to select the right people, and to build a great team of link builders.

If you would base your link building strategy solely on what people say in forums, or what they write about in blogs, it probably won’t bring you optimal results. Despite what some may say, reciprocal links can still be worthwhile, some directories are still very useful, and even some link buys can be very powerful. Even irrelevant links can help you to get better rankings :)

And also:

• Link building outreach: 5 Steps to maximize the value of every opportunity – Garrett French
• 17 Ways search engines judge the value of a link – Rand Fishkin
• Link building through relationships – Jake Matthewas
• Why ranking top 3 in Bing is important for link building – Dave Naylor
• How to get the anchor text you want without even asking – Kelvin Newman
• A link building rule to cut out and keep – Rob Ousbey
• Practical guide to finding link bait inspiration – Ann Smarty
• Why linkbait is a tactic the search engines will always value – Rand Fishkin
• 18 Must follow link building experts on Twitter – Melanie Nathan
• Search engines applying different anchor text relevance from the same site and related site links – Bill Slawski
• 17 Motivations for linking – Zach Daniels

This post, Link Building this Month (09.2009), was published on Wiep's link building blog. Visit the site to read more stuff, or to join the link building conversation.

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One of the best articles I’ve read in a while is Ken McGaffins list with 10 reasons why journalists may write about your site. Only link marketers who fully understand why people link to other sites in their niche can be optimally successful. Also, knowing the basics and trying to avoid PR mistakes and pitch no-nos can help as well :)

You probably haven’t missed SEOmoz launching their updated Search Engine Ranking Factors document, which they have expanded with a link building section as well now. The Search Engine Ranking Factors definitely are a good read – if you’re looking for more info on link value and valuating links, you can either read David Snyder or Jon Henshaws latest article.

And also:

• Advanced article marketing – Jannifer Mattern
• My favorite link building lie – Eric Ward
• Five approached to creating a link building strategy – Angela Moore
• Three internal links SEO gurus ignore – Michael Martinez
• Link building through social media; is it that difficult? – Ravi Venkatesan
• Finding sites to buy links on with a little help from Google – Marcus Tandler
• How a search engine might analyze the linking structure of a web site – Bill Slawski
• Link building for small ecommerce sites – Rob Ousbey
• Natural Link Building : Create an Online Presence and Linkable Brand – Loren Baker
• 230 Link bait ideas – Thomas M. Schmitz
• How to get dofollow links from Wikipedia articles – Tom Demers
• A case study: Using contests to build links – Debra Mastaler
• 3 Ways to measure link investment risk – Michael Martinez
• Why reciprocal links will always be viable – Eric Ward

 Natural Link Building : Create an Online Presence and Linkable Brand

This post, Link Building this Month (08.2009), was published on Wiep's link building blog. Visit the site to read more stuff, or to join the link building conversation.

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A good link marketing strategy contains several different tactics. You want to avoid *just* having link spikes, and should aim for a natural link growth profile instead. In my opinion, the optimal approach to reach this, is to start with a foundation of ’single’ links first. This could include a handful of directories, business listings, interviews and other low hanging fruit.Try to get a good flow of continuous links going at the same time, for example by publishing a large amount of images, while providing the right creative common attribution info. Or just by launching a blog, where you add good content on a regular basis. From there, you can move on to the ‘peak’ links; press releases and linkbait.

Let’s start with the first of the two. This can be very effective, but sending out mass press releases can also be one of the most ineffective link building tactics, if you’re ‘just sending out press releases to get more links’. Try to understand why press releases get rejected, avoid the most common press release pitfalls, and understand that web PR is all about relationships, you’ll have much more success.

Linkbait starts with a good idea. For those of you who just ran out of good ideas: Lucy Langdon listed a few ways to come up with great new ones, and Garrett French went even deeper into the process of researching, creating & distributing linkbait content. Oh, and don’t forget to measure your success…

And also:

• Whom did you wake up with this morning? – Christoph Cemper
• 10 Link building strategies for new website or business owners – Greg Shuey
• The 5 B’s of bad link building – Pete Caputa
• When your link portfolio is devalued – Eric Ward
• Link building: a balancing act – Julie Joyce
• Adam Lasnik offers link building advice – Michael Martinez
• Google’s Vince update – Brand or no brand? – Richard Baxter
• Page segmentation and link building & Understanding linking intent; the spam connection – Dave Harry

This post, Link Building this Month (07.2009), was published on Wiep's link building blog. Visit the site to read more stuff, or to join the link building conversation.

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Link research is a very important part of a link marketing campaign. Tools like MajesticSEO or Linkscape can be very useful, but I’d recommend reading Garrett French’s link builder’s guide to analyzing SERP dominators for link opportunities as well. Combine these two things, and you’ll end up with a killer list of link targets.

When you’ve identified the most relevant and credible link targets, it’s time to contact them. If you’re not sure how to do this, one thing you could do is to ask advice from people who receive lots of link requests or press releases every day. These people can tell you which messages stand out from the crowd, and might be successful because of that.

And also:

• Content aggregation for links, traffic and buzz – Adam Singer
• Strategic link building for SEO – Lee Odden
• Link building Q&A with Ben Wills – Andy Beal
• 10 Link bait tips – Lyndon Antcliff
• Buzz is a vital element of digital PR – Adam Singer

Btw, feel free to share your favorite link marketing related posts of last month in the comments, if you feel that I missed something…

This post, Link Building this Month (06.2009), was published on Wiep's link building blog. Visit the site to read more stuff, or to join the link building conversation.

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All these different types of goals also show you that -although pitching your site is part of a link marketer’s daily routine- link marketing is more than just sending out link requests. During any good link marketing training you’ll learn that link marketing is just a search engine optimized form of marketing. And that there are no secrets.

And also:

• How being pet friendly became a link building opportunity – Wil Reynolds
• Trust and link building – Eric Enge
• Prepare yourself for link building – Court Tuttle
• Discrete viral factors that cause people to share crappy content – Brian Chappell
• Easy widgets for link building – Michael Martinez
• 17 Ways to accelerate links to your link bait (and other highly linkable content) – Garrett French
• Free links: The three principles – Melanie Nathan
• Effective link building strategies for successful link acquisition – Augusto Ellacuriaga
• Inbound link building quality flowchart – Nicolas Prudhon
• Distribute your link sources – Eric Enge
• And the last link of this month points to an article that I wrote for Youmoz; Link building from A to Z

This post, Link Building this Month (05.2009), was published on Wiep's link building blog. Visit the site to read more stuff, or to join the link building conversation.

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