As the link-building tactic shot down by the Big G, online marketing wonders what's left. Guest blogging has been devalued, alongside all other scalable methods known for creating links, including comments, forums, article marketing and directories. These there is a sound almost like dirty words in today's marketing environment, but for years they have been the way to rank. So now? What can you do to get your site to rank?
Everyone is now touting the advantage of content marketing as the only safe left tactic. But what happens when everyone starts doing it? Mark Shaeffer of BusinessesGrow coined a term called Shock Content. There is simply too much content in production. So, is content marketing a sustainable model for all companies that want to improve their presence in Google Organic?
Everyone is now touting the advantage of content marketing as the only safe left tactic. But what happens when everyone starts doing it? Mark Shaeffer of BusinessesGrow coined a term called Shock Content. There is simply too much content in production. So, is content marketing a sustainable model for all companies that want to improve their presence in Google Organic?
Link Building Security Strategies
Let's start by changing the paradigm. "Link building" is over, done, kaput. One of the known methods used to create links are now on Google's radar to penalize. They really, really, really don't want anyone to "build" links. They want everyone to contain the building that they can monetize. Think. All these large long tail items you create will help improve relevance which in turn helps them improve their profitability. If the bond building is out, what can you do?
Forget Link Building, think Link Earning link
The concept of a winning link is one we have all heard of, but have difficulty transforming into an evolutionary methodology. Great content can't provide links. But great content can be the foundation for which you implement other methods for WIN links. The best way to do this is to use integrated online marketing.
How to use integrated content marketing to gain links and social signals
Before you think the links you need to think about the content. Content marketing is the basis of an integrated marketing strategy. Your social, paid, and organic promotions depend, very authoritative quality content.
Once you've created incredible resources, get your content in front of people with social media. Create a community by building a committed audience willing to share and that your content.
Amplify your content using paid social channels as well as direct awareness to increase the visibility of your content. Marty Weintraub, who invented "paid organic amplifcation" teaches marketing how to amplify content using Facebook for years.
The combination of content, social media and paid leads social to visibility in links that turn to those coveted Social Signals links that help you classify organically.
The pursuit of psychographic, semantic, Persona and search keywords will drive the content creation strategy which in turn will bring in more users of different stages of the sales funnel.
The goal:
Build high-quality content assets that can be placed in front of a socially engaged and psychographic targeted audience that then shares and links to your content - of course. No signature, no manufacturing profiles links ... fair and genuine allocation shares with great content.
Scaling Link Earning
Once you have a lot of content, how do you guarantee the visibility of that content?
Let's start by discussing some of the different types of content that can have traction in this oversaturated environment.
Vanity Bait - Round-up articles
Have you been emailed a question by bloggers as part of a round-up where your response is grouped with that of other influencers? These positions tend to be vast, knowledge-packed, and a real resource. And guess what happens when it is published? Your email influencers that are published in the content room and announce that the content is live. What are 9 out of 10 people going to do? Share socially - why not show this mention? So you generated content and social signals with a bit of high-end, targeted awareness.
Interviews
Influencers must make themselves known too and love in general to share their knowledge. Establish links with high-level industry influencers and ask them if they are willing to be questioned. Google Hangouts are a great way to create video content that is very shareable. I recently interviewed Jesse Wojdylo about a Hangout, and his part of our interview sparked some nice social activity for both of us.
Investigations
Using SurveyMonkey to create surveys can generate a plethora of pieces of content that contain both statistical data, as well as many other potential content elements. Instead of just regurgitating what everyone is talking about, why not get real data that you can turn into blog posts, infographics, white papers and case studies?
Computer graphics
I know this is an ancient practice that has been abused, but there is still tremendous value in creating infograhics. People love visual content and infographics are a great way to convey a message without annoying people with a lot of text. People's attention span spans ever shorten, so that they are engaged with beautiful visuals that are also instructive. Combining infographics with direct awareness, even offering to write custom intros for infographics, can generate excellent results for earned links.
Amplify your content with paid social ads
Now that you've created all these pieces of content, how can you guarantee eyeballs? Place this content in front of the people who are most likely to share and link to it. Using Facebook ads is the most accurate method because of the highly advanced targeting capabilities. In a groundbreaking post from 2012, Marty Weintraub describes a precise method for amplifying content using Facebook. You can use other social promotion channels and, including Twitter, Reddit, and Stumbleupon.
And Jolie ... Please don't forget Google Plus
Even if it's not a link-building tactic, you really can't ignore Google Plus. Google said they will use social signals in the future, and the only signals they fully control are those of their own social platform. We're already seeing more in the Google Page rankings, and the trend will only continue. In the same way that you use links to build authority, now you need to build links to build social authority, which is in turn connected to your site and persona that you publish on the web.
Direct awareness is a crucial element
Even when you place content in front of people, the most effective way to generate links and mentions is by direct radiation. This awareness is what leads to connections made for interviews and round-up posts. When promoting an infographic, finding people who have shared contextual infographics and talking to them to you will lead you to links. Maybe they don't see your post about promoting your Facebook infographic, but if you get to them by email, Facebook or Twitter, then its possible, they will share the infographic. Direct awareness is the jelly in a PB-J sandwich - you really can't practice Link without Earning awareness.
Don't forget to track!
Before you start your integrated marketing campaign, make sure you have clear goals with associated key performance indicators (KPIs). Tracking these KPI years will help you identify which content elements work best, move into both social and biological outcomes, and course conversions. It will help you stimulate the content creation strategy.
Guest Blogging is not dead
Who am I to contradict Google's web spam head? What I'm going to say, of someone who spends 80% of his time doing link audits, analyzing link profiles, and doing a competitive analysis - is that most of the connections Matt has uttered as "dead" aren't really. What died is "Building the Link Footprint." If all your links are invited messages, then yes, this will result in your site being penalized. If you have money terms in your anchor, Penguin will probably catch you at some point. If too many of your link reports create a footprint, then building your link is not safe and will lead to manual or algorithmic sanctions. If I thought guest posting was dead, I wouldn't be writing here, what would I? SEJ is a valuable site and most of us who deeply understand the industry will continue to share our voice and ideas through this and other high quality industry sites.
As many have said, use the display of high quality customers as a small part of your Internet marketing campaign and you will have no problem. Be sure to change your link profile and use different types of link-winning sources and you'll stay safe from Google's dangerous animals.