Want Google rankings? Build up your links!

Blog carnivals: That you should be blogging is a given. Blogs generally attract more links than e-commerce sites. But did you know that there are such things as “blog carnivals”? You can find a directory of these — organized by topic — at Blogcarnival.org.

Blog carnivals link out to worthy sites on a constant basis. A blog carnival is a topically focused “traveling road show” of sorts, where the participating bloggers take turns sharing their newest finds in the topic of interest by posting to their blog a compilation of such items (which could include articles, blog posts, events, products, videos, etc.).

If the carnival rotates weekly, then one blogger takes on the first week, another blogger the second, and so on until the cycle repeats. If you were to contact the upcoming week's blogger with some helpful suggestions for content (and links!) to feature, your e-mail or call is likely to be well received.

Contests: Release a contest into the blogosphere. With a contest, the devil's in the details. You must get everything right: the prizes, judges, judging criteria, media partners, and so on. Most contests fall flat; they are simply unremarkable.

I love Seth Godin's definition of remarkable: “worth remarking about.” Something about the contest must be worth remarking — blogging — about. For an example, see “A winning Web contest,” at right.

Multi-author blogs: Many blogs are actively seeking, or are at least receptive to, new authors joining their ranks. I've contributed to a number of group blogs over the years — MarketingProfs Daily Fix, SearchEngineLand.com, iEntry/WebProNews, and Shop.org Blog to name a few. (Incidentally, if you're a Shop.org member, you, too, could blog on Blog.Shop.org, assuming you are contributing something worth reading.)

Any group blog periodically needs new blood, so don't be shy about stepping up for one. Your approach, though, is critical. Think of this as pitching to write a column for a magazine. Approaching an editor cold, whether it's a magazine editor or a blog editor, probably won't get you very far.

This is where an introduction from someone the editor knows will be invaluable. How do you quickly find someone the editor knows? Use LinkedIn. It will tell you who in your network is also connected to that editor.

Seeking SEO help

If you wish to outsource your link building, be careful. Make sure you don't hire the kind of firm that sends out unqualified, impersonal, grammatically incorrect — and thus spammy-sounding link requests — using cheap third-world labor. These sorts of firms tend to raise the ire of Webmasters, thus damaging your brand. You're not necessarily safe even if you go with a large domestic firm, as they may in turn outsource the work to an overseas link-building sweatshop.

Hiring a link builder who sends out unsolicited requests (i.e., spam) could be your undoing — we're all sick to death of link-request spam. Be aware that these sorts of disreputable firms also pollute the blogosphere on your behalf with useless keyword-rich link-containing comments to numerous blogs.

A good SEO firm should also be a good link-building firm, but this is not always the case. In fact, it is not often the case. On-page SEO and technical tweaks like rewrites and redirects are very differenat animals from the outside-the-box thinking and unbridled creativity required for link building, and link baiting in particular.

But whether your company is risk averse or trend-setting, whether you have the resources or not, you can't afford to neglect the link-building pillar. There's gold in them thar links!

Stephan Spencer (sspencer@netconcepts.com) is founder/president of search marketing firm Netconcepts, inventor of the automated natural search technology platform GravityStream, and co-author of the book The Art of SEO, published by O'Reilly.

HOOKING UP WITH A LINK BUILDER

Hiring a link-building consultant or agency? Here are a few things to look for when selecting a service provider.

For starters, you should expect to see examples of creative, out-of-the-box thinking, as well as demonstrable success with link bait being well received by social news and social bookmarking communities. The company will also need the tools necessary to do the job well, such as LinkScape, Raven, BuzzStream, SQUID, Enquisite and Internet Marketing Ninjas, and SEO Book tools like the Hub Finder, and so on.

Happy customer references should be a requirement, and the company should have a good reputation in the industry (as judged by mentions on SEO blogs, forums, etc.). Ideally, you'll want to see evidence of thought leadership, such as industry conference speaking, magazine articles, quotes in mainstream media, and a great blog.

Link-building industry veteran Eric Ward also advises that you ensure you are given a rationale as to why the vendor wants to pursue any given target. Ward recommends that you demand final approval on every target site the company contact, as well as final approval before you agree to link back or pay for a link.

Finally, Ward says to make sure you are provided with a stated deliverable and that you have agreed to it, and that you will be given at least monthly reports of progress. It's also probably worth getting an expert to review the contract.
— SS

A WINNING WEB CONTEST

We are Netconcepts earlier this year created a “Free Business Cards for Life” contest for our client OvernightPrints.com as a way to boost its rankings and build links. We partnered with the Internet celebrity and “Technorati 100” blogger Jeremy Schoemaker (a.k.a. “Shoemoney), who has quite a following, so gaining his involvement was a real coup.

The contest was to design Jeremy's business card; the winner received “free business cards for life.” The cost to our client for the prize (and the contest overall, for that matter) was negligible: The fine print capped the winnings at 1,000 business cards per year for a maximum of 20 years.

The link exposure this contest garnered was priceless. We received some great, keyword-rich links from Jeremy's Top 100 blog, Shoemoney.com. Jeremy even posted a video about it to YouTube. A number of design sites listed/linked to the contest. Several bloggers did, too.

The ultimate goal was the rankings that resulted from the links. Check Overnight Prints' ranking in Google for “business cards.” Not too shabby! And what did Jeremy get out of the deal? A killer new business card design printed and shipped to his door courtesy of Overnight Prints. This just goes to show that you don't need a big budget, just a big idea — along with solid planning and execution.
— SS