Link Building Fundamentals
Presented by Adam Audette
www.AudetteMedia.com
A Brief History
★ MMG offered SEO and link building in 1996
★ “Webmaster’s Guide to Search Engines”
★ Link Building Pre-Google
• Bill Hunt & Jeremy Sanchez, Global Strategies/Ogilvy
• Derrick Wheeler, Microsoft
• Detlev Johnson, SearchReturn
• Marshall Simmonds & Adam Sherk, NYT & Define Search
• Andre Jensen, Consultant
Other Bend OR Search Marketers
• Paul Owen, MarketLeap/Acxiom Digital
A Brief History
★ Some engines DID rank by link popularity
Source: archive.org 1996 SearchEngineWatch.com/features
Link Building Yesterday
★ Nofollow? didn’t exist
★ All about traffic
★ Mostly non-commercial
★ Easy but confused
★ Naive and innocent
Link Building Yesterday
Link Building Today
★ Competitive
★ Expensive
★ Paranoia
★ Almost Infinite
★ Many links worth little
★ It’s Hard!
★ Can be Daunting
Link Building Today
What is a Quality Link?
★ Difficult to obtain
★ Contains a human element
★ Has (perceived) credibility
★ Comes from an authority source
★ Requires an investment
★ Contextual
★ Relevant
11
Link Building Chaos
Focus on Your Market
Focus on Your Market
Market X
Market X
Channels of Discussion
Blogs Forums
Social Media
DirectoriesResource Sites
Advocacy Sites
Influencers
News Sites
Email Lists
Market X
Hubs
Authority Sites
Organizations
Link Sources
High Authority Sites
Key Influencers & Advanced Social Media
PR & Basic Social Media, Partnerships
Niche Directories, Article Sites, etc
Blogs, Forums, Profiles, Email Lists
General Directories, Organizations, Classifieds
Hard
Easy
Build Links Strategically
★ Link Development Triangle
★ Create Content for specific link targets
★ Quality Resources Build Links
★ Quality Resources Ease Solicitation
★ There aren’t any Shortcuts
★ Quality Trumps Quantity
★ Your Neighborhood Matters
★ ... but you have to reach out first!
Conclusions
★ Use the Best Tools Available
★ Links Reflect Relevance, Contribution
• SEO for Firefox: tools.seobook.com
• Juicy Link Finder: seomoz.org/tools
• Hub finder: LinkHounds.com
• Other Tools - ask me
• Google Alerts: google.com/alerts➡ "key phrase" [library] [resources] [links] [sites] site:[.us] [.edu] [.gov] [.mil]
★ Focus on Quality, not Quantity
★ Content is still King
