#I should put this effort into actually journaling offline
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
Text
Jenny Han, To All The Boys I've Loved Before // Brenna Twohy // unknown // Florence + the Machine, "Long & Lost" // J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers // Aelsa Trevelyan, The Fernweh Saga, Book 1 // Euripides, Herakles // unknown // k.tolnoe // Taylor Swift, "Death By A Thousand Cuts" // Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
will you remember me when I'm gone? if we never meet again? if we can't? I'll remember you. I hope I'll see you again.
#on forgetting and remembering and the people we love#on growing up and growing out#of people of places#something something what is grief if not love#when you want to beg and plead w/ someone to come back or to stay but you know you can't so you just ask them to remember you#god I would've been so good at this shit when I was 17 and had folders and folders of quotes saved#trying to figure out what to tag this as for my own cataloguing purposes but also fearing it showing up in search tags#the duality of man#today's to do list included making myself sad about the people and places I've had to leave behind#web weaving#poetry#writing#quotes#lyrics#words#idk if i like this but i had to get the feelings out of my brain#so whatever#I should put this effort into actually journaling offline#I have a migraine i'm just going to post this and stop thinking abt it
70 notes
·
View notes
Note
Are you taking part in nanowrimo this year? If so do you have any tips?
As much as I still long to achieve nanowrimo someday, I don’t think this will be the year. I’m averaging about 500 words of fiction a day right now, handwritten, so it would take a miracle to get me to a place where I can triple that, realistically giving up my journaling in the process for much faster touch-typing. Nanowrimo is a challenge for me at the best of times. During 2020? Ehhh, unlikely to happen lol
The closest I got was around 30k one year and I got that far largely because I:
Had a very detailed outline prepared ahead of time. I did a lot of planning before November hit so that there was never a day where I was struggling to figure out what I needed to write. Even if I wasn’t sure how to craft the next scene I still had plenty more outlined to turn to
I had a project that I was really passionate about at the time. Thus, it was no hardship to put all my creative energy towards it for a month straight. That doesn’t often happen for me. I’m a multitasker at heart and could easily produce 1,667 words a day if it was across 3+ projects... but a single novel is much harder. So definitely choose something that you think you can sustain that passion for
I was diligent about setting aside time to work, usually at the end of the day. That meant I was writing even when I was exhausted and just wanted to watch TV, browse social media, etc. So again, if you’ve got a full schedule be prepared to use a lot of your free time writing. (Unless you’re blessed to be a fast writer, which I am not lol.)
Have some kind of support system, online or offline, to help motivate you. I had friends interested in the story and the act of them asking about it helped kickstart me whenever I was feeling unmotivated. Holding one another accountable for goals can help too
Be prepared for numerous Real Life Things to pop up that interfere with the challenge. This might mean that you suddenly have a weekend where you’re writing 3000k+ words, it might mean that you have to give up on hitting 50k completely. Don’t beat yourself up over it! I’ve done it numerous times :D
As much as I love the culture of nanowrimo - the “Yeah! You can do it! Get that novel draft done!” energy - as the years go by I’m finding myself disliking how easily it can turn into a pressure, rather than a fun event. It should be fun. So I suppose that’s the best tip I can give, coming from someone who’s never actually finished it: so long as you’re enjoying yourself you’re in great shape, even if you’re not meeting the minimums you’re “supposed” to hit. But if you find yourself overly stressed about it, treating your writing time like an awful chore you’d rather avoid? Avoid it! Change your goal to a smaller number. Set the project aside entirely. Write someone else. Whatever you need. There’s a difference between “Challenge yourself” and “Make yourself miserable in an effort to achieve the frankly insane goal of 50k words in a single, already stressful month.” Nanowrimo should always be the former 👍
15 notes
·
View notes
Text
eight Specialists Weigh in on the Previous, Current, and Future Evolution of Hyperlink Constructing
New Post has been published on http://tiptopreview.com/8-experts-weigh-in-on-the-past-present-and-future-evolution-of-link-building/
eight Specialists Weigh in on the Previous, Current, and Future Evolution of Hyperlink Constructing
For over 20 years, SEOs and content material entrepreneurs have constructed hyperlinks throughout the net to get their content material in entrance of their target market.
As Google grows smarter, so do these link-building SEOs – gone are the times of spammy hyperlink schemes and black hat web optimization. Enter fashionable hyperlink builders who’re centered on inserting top quality, related hyperlinks on websites assured to drive an important metrics: conversions and income.
However how far have we actually come, and are there any classes we will take from the previous to tell the place we go from right here? We requested eight hyperlink constructing specialists their ideas on this very query, in addition to what our readers can do to remain forward of the hyperlink constructing curve!
For extra hyperlink constructing suggestions, be sure you try our latest replace to The Newbie’s Information to Hyperlink Constructing:
Learn the Information!
How essential are hyperlinks, actually?
Traditionally, hyperlinks have been a sure-fire method to construct authority and visibility for what you are promoting. Nevertheless, as Google begins to concentrate on different ways equivalent to consumer expertise, will that change how hyperlinks issue into search visibility?
Russ Jones, Search Marketing consultant at Moz, says that the worth of a well-placed hyperlink isn’t going wherever: “Google will find more and more ways to extract value from the link graph and click stream data. The link remains king.”
Britney Muller provides that “If Google disappeared tomorrow, would you still get qualified traffic to your website (via your link profile)? That’s exactly how I believe we should be thinking about link building today.”
Backlinko founder, Brian Dean, has a special perspective:
“I think links will be less important as time goes on,” he says, however agrees that they’re going to at all times be a significant a part of the algorithm. “Links are actually a really good signal! Especially today with Google more focused on E-A-T, links are a great way to size up whether a site is credible or not. Without links, they’d have no real way of knowing if the content on a page is legit.”
Has the definition of a “high quality link” modified?
The brief reply is sure, and (shock!) it depends upon your objectives.
Within the early days, SEOs examined Google with sketchy hyperlink schemes. These low high quality hyperlinks provided a fast repair of hyperlink juice, and a lift in rankings. In the present day, hyperlink builders have ditched the black hat ways in favor of a extra related and consumer-focused strategy, and high quality over amount.
Carrie Rose, CEO at Rise at Seven, has this to say: “The definition of a high-quality link has massively changed over the years. Relevancy is a huge topic online right now — but what does a relevant link actually mean? Ultimately, we track that based on is it a link that is driving traffic to your website, of whom are your audience? Too many link building strategies focus too much on ‘link juice’ and SEO metrics such as DA — but care less about link engagement metrics. SEOs, link builders, and digital PRs should care more about understanding where their audience is, high traffic websites, and gaining links from there instead.”
Russ Jones agrees: “I believe that Google has dramatically increased the degree to which the relevancy of a link matters,” he says, including, “Google has placed greater influence on links that come from topical authorities as they combat issues like fake news and link spam. If this is the case, it means that link builders need to narrow their focus and fight for links from industry peers.”
As relevancy turns into extra essential, our specialists encourage different hyperlink builders to concentrate on the viewers slightly than the outlet.
Tamara Sykes, Public Relations Specialist at Postali, believes that “It’s obviously great to get a backlink in a recognizable outlet like the Wall Street Journal. However, if your audience isn’t there, it only serves half of its purpose. You’ll get a ‘vote’ from a high DA site to prove that yours is more trustworthy, but it may generate little to no traffic because the audience isn’t as invested in what content you have to offer.”
Domenica D’Ottavio, Advertising and marketing Supervisor at Fractl, prefers to diversify her hyperlink portfolios, noting that prime high quality hyperlinks can imply various things in several campaigns.
“The definition of a high-quality link can change depending on your goals,” she says. “Not all links are created equally for every business. In my opinion, the ideal portfolio has a 1) high volume of 2) relevant and 3) high-quality backlinks. If you’re a business in the personal finance space, for example, you might want a mix of links from sites like The Motley Fool, CNN Money, and smaller finance blogs like The Penny Hoarder, Budgets are Sexy, or I Will Teach You To Be Rich.”
Lastly, as with most issues in marketing and web optimization, Andy Crestodina of OrbitMedia reminds us that there are additionally a half dozen different elements to think about together with DA, comply with vs. nofollow, outgoing hyperlinks and far more! So be sure you take these elements into consideration as you develop your hyperlink constructing technique.
Image Source
The function of hyperlink constructing in web optimization is stronger than ever
Growing top quality content material and distributing that content material to revered websites in your goal market could be a particularly scalable and cost-effective method to construct and preserve authority in your area of interest. So, it’s not stunning that hyperlink constructing and digital PR is quickly changing into a core technique for a lot of manufacturers.
Carrie Rose highlights the truth that hyperlink constructing and digital PR industries have grown quickly:
“The responsibility to create good quality content and improve trust to a site no longer purely sits within SEO. Having a good link building strategy which is performing well can improve trust, authority, and therefore rankings for a site. High quality links and high traffic can also increase traffic in the masses… It also has a huge impact on branded search (the holy grail).”
Brian Dean agrees, saying “Content and links have always had significant overlap (after all, people generally link to a page based on the content on that page). But the tie between the two is stronger than ever. That’s because many other tried-and-true link building strategies (like large-scale guest posting) no longer work. Which means your link building efforts largely rely on the content that you’re putting out.”
Surena Chande believes that, general, the standard of hyperlink constructing campaigns has improved since Google’s E-A-T replace: “We’re producing more topic-relevant campaigns for our clients rather than thinking solely about ideas that would land coverage,” she says, including that SEOs and hyperlink builders are actually working collectively to “reevaluate their concepts and ensure they are true to a brand.”
Getting buy-in is simpler — in case you concentrate on the metrics that matter
Due to the additional visibility lately, our specialists agree that it’s simpler than ever to get the buy-in from higher-ups. “I don’t need to tell an executive that a link is like a vote. They know that now,” says Russ Jones. “I don’t have to say ‘80% of purchases online begin with a search’. They know that now, too.”
“Link building has a way of showing direct results for executives and stakeholders and therefore becomes easier to get the buy-in,” Carrie Rose says. “Traditional PR, creative, or offline marketing strategies are receiving less and less budget and attention because of its inability to prove ROI and we see that budget reallocated to link building and digital PR efforts.”
Andy Crestodina agrees: “Just show an executive the Moz Link Explorer ‘Compare Link Profiles’ report and they’ll get excited …or upset. Once a stakeholder sees the data, they usually want to take action. The key is to guide the ideas away from the spammy actions and toward high-quality content marketing and influencer outreach.”
With much less inner training and campaigning on the government stage, entrepreneurs are actually confronted with more durable questions round how their particular methods influence ROI. To take action, our specialists suggest maintaining issues easy and taking it sluggish.
“It’s important to explain that Domain Authority moves very slowly. It takes patience,” Andy says, including, “it’s a proxy metric for PageRank. It’s not Google. Focus on the actions, not the reports.”
When you want some assist breaking down metrics, try Andy’s Whiteboard Friday:
Russ Jones breaks issues down even additional: “Report simple campaign statistics such as: ‘referring domains and referring traffic are increasing’. Coupled with a generic metric like DA or PA, this gives stakeholders the most important answers about the quality of the link building campaign. Second, we report the increased traffic and rankings relative to competitors based on the work. It is important, though, to provide context wherever possible. If a competitor has been out-spending you and acquiring more links because of it, we shouldn’t let that go unreported.”
Tamara Sykes finds that it’s useful to supply some background on websites that hyperlink to her content material. “I go as far as to share what that website’s purpose is, who its audience is and the website’s SEO stats,” she says. “This helps me paint a picture of why this link is relevant to a brand, rather than sharing a number that only shows ‘Hey, we got 12 backlinks’.”
The place ought to hyperlink builders focus?
Google is getting higher and higher at recognizing top quality, related hyperlinks. “They’re super good at identifying links that don’t fit with a natural pattern. And it’s not just obvious black hat spam,” Brian Dean says. “Google can also filter out many grey hat approaches (like mass guest posting), which basically only leaves a handful of link building approaches: digital PR, targeted outreach, and content designed to get links.”
So in relation to hyperlink constructing technique, the place ought to hyperlink builders and digital PRs focus their efforts?
Get artistic
Take a look at out new content material mediums to face out from the pack!
Carrie Rose notes that, though we’re seeing extra automation in marketing, “Robots can’t manufacture creativity. That’s where the best links come from — where content is more creative than their competitors and brands are getting links others can’t replicate.”
Andy Crestodina recommends creating new instruments and authentic analysis that options bite-size, shareable nuggets equivalent to stats, graphs, and infographics. “These are 100-times more link-worthy than anything else on your domain,” he says.
Construct relationships
Because the market turns into extra saturated, it will likely be particularly essential for hyperlink builders and digital PRs to deepen relationships with revered publishers and authors of their trade. However you don’t have to overthink it.
Andy believes that slightly personalization goes a great distance: “Link building has a bad reputation for a good reason: spam. Spammers send cold emails to website owners, clogging our inboxes with the same messages.”
However how do you construct these connections within the first place?
Heat up the dialog by partaking with that creator or editor on social media! Domenica D’Ottavia makes use of Twitter to attach. “Twitter is an excellent tool for building those relationships with journalists,” she says. “Attain out to them, like their stuff, reply and retweet, present them you are an actual particular person… Once you lastly outreach them along with your hyperlink constructing undertaking, they will acknowledge your identify out of your interactions on Twitter and might be more likely to reply positively to your PR pitch.”
Others agree that the ROI of mass outreach continues to say no, remembering the times of in-person hyperlink constructing. “Believe it or not, I used to CALL people, introduce myself, explain how interesting I thought their ‘X’ business was,” says Britney Muller. “I’d ask some questions and then weave in a thoughtful proposition of us linking to each other’s websites.”
“People are becoming numb to any non-targeted outreach,” Brian Dean provides. “If you are good at personalization, there could still be a chance of securing links but the bar of what qualifies as ‘personalized’ is higher than ever. Now you almost need to mention their dog’s name to get a response.” (Observe to all of the hyperlink builders on the market: my canine’s identify is Ginger.)
Study extra about nice outreach from Britney’s Whiteboard Friday on the topic!
Faucet into influencer networks
Influencer marketing is a rising area and, no, it isn’t only for shopper manufacturers and Instagram. Leveraging specialists to raise your content material can seize the eye of your goal publishers and viewers.
Surena Chande says that “utilizing expert commentary is one of the strongest and most overlooked techniques in link building. If you have clients who are experts in their field or have access to the CEO, you can utilize them to build links with minimal effort for both you and your client.”
“Link building is influencer marketing,” says Andy Crestodina. “You’re pitching an influencer (usually blogger or editor) with a request, usually some kind of collaboration. When you combine influencer marketing with original research, you have the ingredients in place. Your content supports their content. Links begin to appear spontaneously. You’re attracting them. Do it right and high DA sites will link to you every few days. Magic.”
Image Source
Capitalize on trending matters
In a information cycle that’s consistently altering, sizzling matters can rise and fall within the blink of a watch. However when you’ve got your timing proper, you may trip the pattern wave to safe additional eyeballs from editors and readers.
“I believe that the pandemic, particularly the early stages in 2020, taught the industry a very harsh lesson in the form of reactive outreach and campaigns forming one of the best methods of outreach,” Surena Chande says. “I was so used to conceiving campaign ideas for large-scale interactive pieces, and the unpredictability of the situation taught us that we had to quickly change our approach to link building.”
“Jumping on a trending topic and creating a project or link building campaign around something that’s already earned the attention of journalists” says Domenica D’Ottavio, however notes to proceed with warning. “While newsjacking is a clever way to earn a ton of links very fast, it’s also pretty risky. You have to work around the clock to get your idea created before the topic has lost relevance, and it might flop if you’re too late to respond, wasting your investment.”
Our specialists additionally advise to remain on prime of the information throughout the net, learn articles from quite a lot of publications weekly, examine what journalists are asking for once they put out #journorequests, and analyze what angles they tackle matters as they go viral. This may guarantee that you’re effectively positioned when it comes time to pitch your content material.
Conclusion
On the finish of the day, hyperlink constructing has undergone some main modifications within the final 15 years (doubtless for the higher!), however what’s previous is new, and most of the identical guidelines proceed to use:
Related content material will at all times carry out as long as you goal the correct viewers
Hyperlinks stay a significant a part of how Google decided the experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness of a website.
Creativity and timeliness in hyperlink constructing might be rewarded
Huge thanks to our knowledgeable contributors:
Andy Crestodina
Britney Muller
Brian Dean
Carrie Rose
Domenica D’Ottavio
Russ Jones
Surena Chande
Tamara Sykes
Source link
0 notes
Text
8 Experts Weigh in on the Past, Present, and Future Evolution of Link Building
For over 20 years, SEOs and content marketers have built links across the web to get their content in front of their target audience.
As Google grows smarter, so do these link-building SEOs – gone are the days of spammy link schemes and black hat SEO. Enter modern link builders who are focused on placing high quality, relevant links on sites guaranteed to drive the most important metrics: conversions and revenue.
But how far have we really come, and are there any lessons we can take from the past to inform where we go from here? We asked eight link building experts their thoughts on this very question, as well as what our readers can do to stay ahead of the link building curve!
For more link building tips, be sure to check out our recent update to The Beginner’s Guide to Link Building:
Read the Guide!
How important are links, really?
Historically, links have been a sure-fire way to build authority and visibility for your business. However, as Google begins to focus on other tactics such as user experience, will that change how links factor into search visibility?
Russ Jones, Search Consultant at Moz, says that the value of a well-placed link isn’t going anywhere: “Google will find more and more ways to extract value from the link graph and click stream data. The link remains king.”
Britney Muller adds that “If Google disappeared tomorrow, would you still get qualified traffic to your website (via your link profile)? That’s exactly how I believe we should be thinking about link building today.”
Backlinko founder, Brian Dean, has a different perspective:
“I think links will be less important as time goes on,” he says, but agrees that they'll always be a major part of the algorithm. “Links are actually a really good signal! Especially today with Google more focused on E-A-T, links are a great way to size up whether a site is credible or not. Without links, they'd have no real way of knowing if the content on a page is legit.”
Has the definition of a “high quality link” changed?
The short answer is yes, and (surprise!) it depends on your goals.
In the early days, SEOs tested Google with sketchy link schemes. These low quality links offered a quick fix of link juice, and a boost in rankings. Today, link builders have ditched the black hat tactics in favor of a more relevant and consumer-focused approach, and quality over quantity.
Carrie Rose, CEO at Rise at Seven, has this to say: “The definition of a high-quality link has massively changed over the years. Relevancy is a huge topic online right now — but what does a relevant link actually mean? Ultimately, we track that based on is it a link that is driving traffic to your website, of whom are your audience? Too many link building strategies focus too much on ‘link juice’ and SEO metrics such as DA — but care less about link engagement metrics. SEOs, link builders, and digital PRs should care more about understanding where their audience is, high traffic websites, and gaining links from there instead.”
Russ Jones agrees: “I believe that Google has dramatically increased the degree to which the relevancy of a link matters,” he says, adding, “Google has placed greater influence on links that come from topical authorities as they combat issues like fake news and link spam. If this is the case, it means that link builders need to narrow their focus and fight for links from industry peers.”
As relevancy becomes more important, our experts encourage other link builders to focus on the audience rather than the outlet.
Tamara Sykes, Public Relations Specialist at Postali, believes that “It’s obviously great to get a backlink in a recognizable outlet like the Wall Street Journal. However, if your audience isn’t there, it only serves half of its purpose. You’ll get a ‘vote’ from a high DA site to prove that yours is more trustworthy, but it may generate little to no traffic because the audience isn’t as invested in what content you have to offer.”
Domenica D'Ottavio, Marketing Manager at Fractl, prefers to diversify her link portfolios, noting that high quality links can mean different things in different campaigns.
“The definition of a high-quality link can change depending on your goals,” she says. “Not all links are created equally for every business. In my opinion, the ideal portfolio has a 1) high volume of 2) relevant and 3) high-quality backlinks. If you're a business in the personal finance space, for example, you might want a mix of links from sites like The Motley Fool, CNN Money, and smaller finance blogs like The Penny Hoarder, Budgets are Sexy, or I Will Teach You To Be Rich.”
Lastly, as with most things in marketing and SEO, Andy Crestodina of OrbitMedia reminds us that there are also a half dozen other factors to consider including DA, follow vs. nofollow, outgoing links and much more! So be sure to take these factors into consideration as you develop your link building strategy.
Image Source
The role of link building in SEO is stronger than ever
Developing high quality content and distributing that content to respected sites in your target market can be an extremely scalable and cost-effective way to build and maintain authority in your niche. So, it’s not surprising that link building and digital PR is rapidly becoming a core strategy for many brands.
Carrie Rose highlights the fact that link building and digital PR industries have grown rapidly:
“The responsibility to create good quality content and improve trust to a site no longer purely sits within SEO. Having a good link building strategy which is performing well can improve trust, authority, and therefore rankings for a site. High quality links and high traffic can also increase traffic in the masses… It also has a huge impact on branded search (the holy grail).”
Brian Dean agrees, saying “Content and links have always had significant overlap (after all, people generally link to a page based on the content on that page). But the tie between the two is stronger than ever. That's because many other tried-and-true link building strategies (like large-scale guest posting) no longer work. Which means your link building efforts largely rely on the content that you're putting out.”
Surena Chande believes that, overall, the quality of link building campaigns has improved since Google’s E-A-T update: “We’re producing more topic-relevant campaigns for our clients rather than thinking solely about ideas that would land coverage,” she says, adding that SEOs and link builders are now working together to “reevaluate their concepts and ensure they are true to a brand.”
Getting buy-in is easier — if you focus on the metrics that matter
Because of the extra visibility in recent years, our experts agree that it’s easier than ever to get the buy-in from higher-ups. “I don't need to tell an executive that a link is like a vote. They know that now,” says Russ Jones. “I don't have to say ‘80% of purchases online begin with a search’. They know that now, too.”
“Link building has a way of showing direct results for executives and stakeholders and therefore becomes easier to get the buy-in,” Carrie Rose says. “Traditional PR, creative, or offline marketing strategies are receiving less and less budget and attention because of its inability to prove ROI and we see that budget reallocated to link building and digital PR efforts.”
Andy Crestodina agrees: “Just show an executive the Moz Link Explorer ‘Compare Link Profiles’ report and they’ll get excited ...or upset. Once a stakeholder sees the data, they usually want to take action. The key is to guide the ideas away from the spammy actions and toward high-quality content marketing and influencer outreach.”
With less internal education and campaigning at the executive level, marketers are now faced with tougher questions around how their specific strategies impact ROI. To do so, our experts recommend keeping things simple and taking it slow. “It’s important to explain that Domain Authority moves very slowly. It takes patience,” Andy says, adding, “it’s a proxy metric for PageRank. It’s not Google. Focus on the actions, not the reports.”
If you need some help breaking down metrics, check out Andy’s Whiteboard Friday:
Russ Jones breaks things down even further: “Report simple campaign statistics such as: ‘referring domains and referring traffic are increasing’. Coupled with a generic metric like DA or PA, this gives stakeholders the most important answers about the quality of the link building campaign. Second, we report the increased traffic and rankings relative to competitors based on the work. It is important, though, to provide context wherever possible. If a competitor has been out-spending you and acquiring more links because of it, we shouldn't let that go unreported.”
Tamara Sykes finds that it’s helpful to provide some background on sites that link to her content. “I go as far as to share what that website’s purpose is, who its audience is and the website’s SEO stats,” she says. “This helps me paint a picture of why this link is relevant to a brand, rather than sharing a number that only shows ‘Hey, we got 12 backlinks’.”
Where should link builders focus?
Google is getting better and better at recognizing high quality, relevant links. “They're super good at identifying links that don't fit with a natural pattern. And it's not just obvious black hat spam,” Brian Dean says. “Google can also filter out many grey hat approaches (like mass guest posting), which basically only leaves a handful of link building approaches: digital PR, targeted outreach, and content designed to get links.” So when it comes to link building strategy, where should link builders and digital PRs focus their efforts?
Get creative
Test out new content mediums to stand out from the pack!
Carrie Rose notes that, even though we’re seeing more automation in marketing, “Robots can’t manufacture creativity. That's where the best links come from — where content is more creative than their competitors and brands are getting links others can't replicate.”
Andy Crestodina recommends creating new tools and original research that features bite-size, shareable nuggets such as stats, graphs, and infographics. “These are 100-times more link-worthy than anything else on your domain,” he says.
Build relationships
As the market becomes more saturated, it will be especially important for link builders and digital PRs to deepen relationships with respected publishers and authors in their industry. But you don’t need to overthink it.
Andy believes that a little personalization goes a long way: “Link building has a bad reputation for a good reason: spam. Spammers send cold emails to website owners, clogging our inboxes with the same messages.” But how do you build those connections in the first place?
Warm up the conversation by engaging with that author or editor on social media! Domenica D’Ottavia uses Twitter to connect. “Twitter is an excellent tool for building those relationships with journalists,” she says. "Reach out to them, like their stuff, respond and retweet, show them you're a real person… When you finally outreach them with your link building project, they'll recognize your name from your interactions on Twitter and will be much more likely to respond positively to your PR pitch.”
Others agree that the ROI of mass outreach continues to decline, remembering the days of in-person link building. “Believe it or not, I used to CALL people, introduce myself, explain how interesting I thought their ‘X’ business was,” says Britney Muller. “I’d ask some questions and then weave in a thoughtful proposition of us linking to each other's websites.”
“People are becoming numb to any non-targeted outreach,” Brian Dean adds. “If you are good at personalization, there could still be a chance of securing links but the bar of what qualifies as ‘personalized’ is higher than ever. Now you almost need to mention their dog's name to get a response.” (Note to all the link builders out there: my dog's name is Ginger.)
Learn more about great outreach from Britney's Whiteboard Friday on the subject!
Tap into influencer networks
Influencer marketing is a growing field and, no, it isn’t just for consumer brands and Instagram. Leveraging experts to elevate your content can capture the attention of your target publishers and audience.
Surena Chande says that “utilizing expert commentary is one of the strongest and most overlooked techniques in link building. If you have clients who are experts in their field or have access to the CEO, you can utilize them to build links with minimal effort for both you and your client.”
“Link building is influencer marketing,” says Andy Crestodina. “You’re pitching an influencer (usually blogger or editor) with a request, usually some kind of collaboration. When you combine influencer marketing with original research, you have the ingredients in place. Your content supports their content. Links begin to appear spontaneously. You’re attracting them. Do it right and high DA sites will link to you every few days. Magic.”
Image Source
Capitalize on trending topics
In a news cycle that is constantly changing, hot topics can rise and fall in the blink of an eye. But if you have your timing right, you can ride the trend wave to secure extra eyeballs from editors and readers.
“I believe that the pandemic, particularly the early stages in 2020, taught the industry a very harsh lesson in the form of reactive outreach and campaigns forming one of the best methods of outreach,” Surena Chande says. “I was so used to conceiving campaign ideas for large-scale interactive pieces, and the unpredictability of the situation taught us that we had to quickly change our approach to link building.”
“Jumping on a trending topic and creating a project or link building campaign around something that's already earned the attention of journalists” says Domenica D’Ottavio, but notes to proceed with caution. “While newsjacking is a clever way to earn a ton of links very fast, it's also pretty risky. You have to work around the clock to get your idea created before the topic has lost relevance, and it might flop if you're too late to respond, wasting your investment.”
Our experts also advise to stay on top of the news across the web, read articles from a variety of publications weekly, study what journalists are asking for when they put out #journorequests, and analyze what angles they take on topics as they go viral. This will ensure that you are well positioned when it comes time to pitch your content.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, link building has undergone some major changes in the last 15 years (likely for the better!), but what’s old is new, and many of the same rules continue to apply:
Relevant content will always perform so long as you target the right audience
Links remain a major part of how Google determined the expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness of a site.
Creativity and timeliness in link building will be rewarded
Big thank you to our expert contributors:
Andy Crestodina
Britney Muller
Brian Dean
Carrie Rose
Domenica D'Ottavio
Russ Jones
Surena Chande
Tamara Sykes
0 notes
Text
8 Experts Weigh in on the Past, Present, and Future Evolution of Link Building
For over 20 years, SEOs and content marketers have built links across the web to get their content in front of their target audience.
As Google grows smarter, so do these link-building SEOs – gone are the days of spammy link schemes and black hat SEO. Enter modern link builders who are focused on placing high quality, relevant links on sites guaranteed to drive the most important metrics: conversions and revenue.
But how far have we really come, and are there any lessons we can take from the past to inform where we go from here? We asked eight link building experts their thoughts on this very question, as well as what our readers can do to stay ahead of the link building curve!
For more link building tips, be sure to check out our recent update to The Beginner’s Guide to Link Building:
Read the Guide!
How important are links, really?
Historically, links have been a sure-fire way to build authority and visibility for your business. However, as Google begins to focus on other tactics such as user experience, will that change how links factor into search visibility?
Russ Jones, Search Consultant at Moz, says that the value of a well-placed link isn’t going anywhere: “Google will find more and more ways to extract value from the link graph and click stream data. The link remains king.”
Britney Muller adds that “If Google disappeared tomorrow, would you still get qualified traffic to your website (via your link profile)? That’s exactly how I believe we should be thinking about link building today.”
Backlinko founder, Brian Dean, has a different perspective:
“I think links will be less important as time goes on,” he says, but agrees that they'll always be a major part of the algorithm. “Links are actually a really good signal! Especially today with Google more focused on E-A-T, links are a great way to size up whether a site is credible or not. Without links, they'd have no real way of knowing if the content on a page is legit.”
Has the definition of a “high quality link” changed?
The short answer is yes, and (surprise!) it depends on your goals.
In the early days, SEOs tested Google with sketchy link schemes. These low quality links offered a quick fix of link juice, and a boost in rankings. Today, link builders have ditched the black hat tactics in favor of a more relevant and consumer-focused approach, and quality over quantity.
Carrie Rose, CEO at Rise at Seven, has this to say: “The definition of a high-quality link has massively changed over the years. Relevancy is a huge topic online right now — but what does a relevant link actually mean? Ultimately, we track that based on is it a link that is driving traffic to your website, of whom are your audience? Too many link building strategies focus too much on ‘link juice’ and SEO metrics such as DA — but care less about link engagement metrics. SEOs, link builders, and digital PRs should care more about understanding where their audience is, high traffic websites, and gaining links from there instead.”
Russ Jones agrees: “I believe that Google has dramatically increased the degree to which the relevancy of a link matters,” he says, adding, “Google has placed greater influence on links that come from topical authorities as they combat issues like fake news and link spam. If this is the case, it means that link builders need to narrow their focus and fight for links from industry peers.”
As relevancy becomes more important, our experts encourage other link builders to focus on the audience rather than the outlet.
Tamara Sykes, Public Relations Specialist at Postali, believes that “It’s obviously great to get a backlink in a recognizable outlet like the Wall Street Journal. However, if your audience isn’t there, it only serves half of its purpose. You’ll get a ‘vote’ from a high DA site to prove that yours is more trustworthy, but it may generate little to no traffic because the audience isn’t as invested in what content you have to offer.”
Domenica D'Ottavio, Marketing Manager at Fractl, prefers to diversify her link portfolios, noting that high quality links can mean different things in different campaigns.
“The definition of a high-quality link can change depending on your goals,” she says. “Not all links are created equally for every business. In my opinion, the ideal portfolio has a 1) high volume of 2) relevant and 3) high-quality backlinks. If you're a business in the personal finance space, for example, you might want a mix of links from sites like The Motley Fool, CNN Money, and smaller finance blogs like The Penny Hoarder, Budgets are Sexy, or I Will Teach You To Be Rich.”
Lastly, as with most things in marketing and SEO, Andy Crestodina of OrbitMedia reminds us that there are also a half dozen other factors to consider including DA, follow vs. nofollow, outgoing links and much more! So be sure to take these factors into consideration as you develop your link building strategy.
Image Source
The role of link building in SEO is stronger than ever
Developing high quality content and distributing that content to respected sites in your target market can be an extremely scalable and cost-effective way to build and maintain authority in your niche. So, it’s not surprising that link building and digital PR is rapidly becoming a core strategy for many brands.
Carrie Rose highlights the fact that link building and digital PR industries have grown rapidly:
“The responsibility to create good quality content and improve trust to a site no longer purely sits within SEO. Having a good link building strategy which is performing well can improve trust, authority, and therefore rankings for a site. High quality links and high traffic can also increase traffic in the masses… It also has a huge impact on branded search (the holy grail).”
Brian Dean agrees, saying “Content and links have always had significant overlap (after all, people generally link to a page based on the content on that page). But the tie between the two is stronger than ever. That's because many other tried-and-true link building strategies (like large-scale guest posting) no longer work. Which means your link building efforts largely rely on the content that you're putting out.”
Surena Chande believes that, overall, the quality of link building campaigns has improved since Google’s E-A-T update: “We’re producing more topic-relevant campaigns for our clients rather than thinking solely about ideas that would land coverage,” she says, adding that SEOs and link builders are now working together to “reevaluate their concepts and ensure they are true to a brand.”
Getting buy-in is easier — if you focus on the metrics that matter
Because of the extra visibility in recent years, our experts agree that it’s easier than ever to get the buy-in from higher-ups. “I don't need to tell an executive that a link is like a vote. They know that now,” says Russ Jones. “I don't have to say ‘80% of purchases online begin with a search’. They know that now, too.”
“Link building has a way of showing direct results for executives and stakeholders and therefore becomes easier to get the buy-in,” Carrie Rose says. “Traditional PR, creative, or offline marketing strategies are receiving less and less budget and attention because of its inability to prove ROI and we see that budget reallocated to link building and digital PR efforts.”
Andy Crestodina agrees: “Just show an executive the Moz Link Explorer ‘Compare Link Profiles’ report and they’ll get excited ...or upset. Once a stakeholder sees the data, they usually want to take action. The key is to guide the ideas away from the spammy actions and toward high-quality content marketing and influencer outreach.”
With less internal education and campaigning at the executive level, marketers are now faced with tougher questions around how their specific strategies impact ROI. To do so, our experts recommend keeping things simple and taking it slow. “It’s important to explain that Domain Authority moves very slowly. It takes patience,” Andy says, adding, “it’s a proxy metric for PageRank. It’s not Google. Focus on the actions, not the reports.”
If you need some help breaking down metrics, check out Andy’s Whiteboard Friday:
Russ Jones breaks things down even further: “Report simple campaign statistics such as: ‘referring domains and referring traffic are increasing’. Coupled with a generic metric like DA or PA, this gives stakeholders the most important answers about the quality of the link building campaign. Second, we report the increased traffic and rankings relative to competitors based on the work. It is important, though, to provide context wherever possible. If a competitor has been out-spending you and acquiring more links because of it, we shouldn't let that go unreported.”
Tamara Sykes finds that it’s helpful to provide some background on sites that link to her content. “I go as far as to share what that website’s purpose is, who its audience is and the website’s SEO stats,” she says. “This helps me paint a picture of why this link is relevant to a brand, rather than sharing a number that only shows ‘Hey, we got 12 backlinks’.”
Where should link builders focus?
Google is getting better and better at recognizing high quality, relevant links. “They're super good at identifying links that don't fit with a natural pattern. And it's not just obvious black hat spam,” Brian Dean says. “Google can also filter out many grey hat approaches (like mass guest posting), which basically only leaves a handful of link building approaches: digital PR, targeted outreach, and content designed to get links.” So when it comes to link building strategy, where should link builders and digital PRs focus their efforts?
Get creative
Test out new content mediums to stand out from the pack!
Carrie Rose notes that, even though we’re seeing more automation in marketing, “Robots can’t manufacture creativity. That's where the best links come from — where content is more creative than their competitors and brands are getting links others can't replicate.”
Andy Crestodina recommends creating new tools and original research that features bite-size, shareable nuggets such as stats, graphs, and infographics. “These are 100-times more link-worthy than anything else on your domain,” he says.
Build relationships
As the market becomes more saturated, it will be especially important for link builders and digital PRs to deepen relationships with respected publishers and authors in their industry. But you don’t need to overthink it.
Andy believes that a little personalization goes a long way: “Link building has a bad reputation for a good reason: spam. Spammers send cold emails to website owners, clogging our inboxes with the same messages.” But how do you build those connections in the first place?
Warm up the conversation by engaging with that author or editor on social media! Domenica D’Ottavia uses Twitter to connect. “Twitter is an excellent tool for building those relationships with journalists,” she says. "Reach out to them, like their stuff, respond and retweet, show them you're a real person… When you finally outreach them with your link building project, they'll recognize your name from your interactions on Twitter and will be much more likely to respond positively to your PR pitch.”
Others agree that the ROI of mass outreach continues to decline, remembering the days of in-person link building. “Believe it or not, I used to CALL people, introduce myself, explain how interesting I thought their ‘X’ business was,” says Britney Muller. “I’d ask some questions and then weave in a thoughtful proposition of us linking to each other's websites.”
“People are becoming numb to any non-targeted outreach,” Brian Dean adds. “If you are good at personalization, there could still be a chance of securing links but the bar of what qualifies as ‘personalized’ is higher than ever. Now you almost need to mention their dog's name to get a response.” (Note to all the link builders out there: my dog's name is Ginger.)
Learn more about great outreach from Britney's Whiteboard Friday on the subject!
Tap into influencer networks
Influencer marketing is a growing field and, no, it isn’t just for consumer brands and Instagram. Leveraging experts to elevate your content can capture the attention of your target publishers and audience.
Surena Chande says that “utilizing expert commentary is one of the strongest and most overlooked techniques in link building. If you have clients who are experts in their field or have access to the CEO, you can utilize them to build links with minimal effort for both you and your client.”
“Link building is influencer marketing,” says Andy Crestodina. “You’re pitching an influencer (usually blogger or editor) with a request, usually some kind of collaboration. When you combine influencer marketing with original research, you have the ingredients in place. Your content supports their content. Links begin to appear spontaneously. You’re attracting them. Do it right and high DA sites will link to you every few days. Magic.”
Image Source
Capitalize on trending topics
In a news cycle that is constantly changing, hot topics can rise and fall in the blink of an eye. But if you have your timing right, you can ride the trend wave to secure extra eyeballs from editors and readers.
“I believe that the pandemic, particularly the early stages in 2020, taught the industry a very harsh lesson in the form of reactive outreach and campaigns forming one of the best methods of outreach,” Surena Chande says. “I was so used to conceiving campaign ideas for large-scale interactive pieces, and the unpredictability of the situation taught us that we had to quickly change our approach to link building.”
“Jumping on a trending topic and creating a project or link building campaign around something that's already earned the attention of journalists” says Domenica D’Ottavio, but notes to proceed with caution. “While newsjacking is a clever way to earn a ton of links very fast, it's also pretty risky. You have to work around the clock to get your idea created before the topic has lost relevance, and it might flop if you're too late to respond, wasting your investment.”
Our experts also advise to stay on top of the news across the web, read articles from a variety of publications weekly, study what journalists are asking for when they put out #journorequests, and analyze what angles they take on topics as they go viral. This will ensure that you are well positioned when it comes time to pitch your content.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, link building has undergone some major changes in the last 15 years (likely for the better!), but what’s old is new, and many of the same rules continue to apply:
Relevant content will always perform so long as you target the right audience
Links remain a major part of how Google determined the expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness of a site.
Creativity and timeliness in link building will be rewarded
Big thank you to our expert contributors:
Andy Crestodina
Britney Muller
Brian Dean
Carrie Rose
Domenica D'Ottavio
Russ Jones
Surena Chande
Tamara Sykes
0 notes
Text
8 Experts Weigh in on the Past, Present, and Future Evolution of Link Building
For over 20 years, SEOs and content marketers have built links across the web to get their content in front of their target audience.
As Google grows smarter, so do these link-building SEOs – gone are the days of spammy link schemes and black hat SEO. Enter modern link builders who are focused on placing high quality, relevant links on sites guaranteed to drive the most important metrics: conversions and revenue.
But how far have we really come, and are there any lessons we can take from the past to inform where we go from here? We asked eight link building experts their thoughts on this very question, as well as what our readers can do to stay ahead of the link building curve!
For more link building tips, be sure to check out our recent update to The Beginner’s Guide to Link Building:
Read the Guide!
How important are links, really?
Historically, links have been a sure-fire way to build authority and visibility for your business. However, as Google begins to focus on other tactics such as user experience, will that change how links factor into search visibility?
Russ Jones, Search Consultant at Moz, says that the value of a well-placed link isn’t going anywhere: “Google will find more and more ways to extract value from the link graph and click stream data. The link remains king.”
Britney Muller adds that “If Google disappeared tomorrow, would you still get qualified traffic to your website (via your link profile)? That’s exactly how I believe we should be thinking about link building today.”
Backlinko founder, Brian Dean, has a different perspective:
“I think links will be less important as time goes on,” he says, but agrees that they'll always be a major part of the algorithm. “Links are actually a really good signal! Especially today with Google more focused on E-A-T, links are a great way to size up whether a site is credible or not. Without links, they'd have no real way of knowing if the content on a page is legit.”
Has the definition of a “high quality link” changed?
The short answer is yes, and (surprise!) it depends on your goals.
In the early days, SEOs tested Google with sketchy link schemes. These low quality links offered a quick fix of link juice, and a boost in rankings. Today, link builders have ditched the black hat tactics in favor of a more relevant and consumer-focused approach, and quality over quantity.
Carrie Rose, CEO at Rise at Seven, has this to say: “The definition of a high-quality link has massively changed over the years. Relevancy is a huge topic online right now — but what does a relevant link actually mean? Ultimately, we track that based on is it a link that is driving traffic to your website, of whom are your audience? Too many link building strategies focus too much on ‘link juice’ and SEO metrics such as DA — but care less about link engagement metrics. SEOs, link builders, and digital PRs should care more about understanding where their audience is, high traffic websites, and gaining links from there instead.”
Russ Jones agrees: “I believe that Google has dramatically increased the degree to which the relevancy of a link matters,” he says, adding, “Google has placed greater influence on links that come from topical authorities as they combat issues like fake news and link spam. If this is the case, it means that link builders need to narrow their focus and fight for links from industry peers.”
As relevancy becomes more important, our experts encourage other link builders to focus on the audience rather than the outlet.
Tamara Sykes, Public Relations Specialist at Postali, believes that “It’s obviously great to get a backlink in a recognizable outlet like the Wall Street Journal. However, if your audience isn’t there, it only serves half of its purpose. You’ll get a ‘vote’ from a high DA site to prove that yours is more trustworthy, but it may generate little to no traffic because the audience isn’t as invested in what content you have to offer.”
Domenica D'Ottavio, Marketing Manager at Fractl, prefers to diversify her link portfolios, noting that high quality links can mean different things in different campaigns.
“The definition of a high-quality link can change depending on your goals,” she says. “Not all links are created equally for every business. In my opinion, the ideal portfolio has a 1) high volume of 2) relevant and 3) high-quality backlinks. If you're a business in the personal finance space, for example, you might want a mix of links from sites like The Motley Fool, CNN Money, and smaller finance blogs like The Penny Hoarder, Budgets are Sexy, or I Will Teach You To Be Rich.”
Lastly, as with most things in marketing and SEO, Andy Crestodina of OrbitMedia reminds us that there are also a half dozen other factors to consider including DA, follow vs. nofollow, outgoing links and much more! So be sure to take these factors into consideration as you develop your link building strategy.
Image Source
The role of link building in SEO is stronger than ever
Developing high quality content and distributing that content to respected sites in your target market can be an extremely scalable and cost-effective way to build and maintain authority in your niche. So, it’s not surprising that link building and digital PR is rapidly becoming a core strategy for many brands.
Carrie Rose highlights the fact that link building and digital PR industries have grown rapidly:
“The responsibility to create good quality content and improve trust to a site no longer purely sits within SEO. Having a good link building strategy which is performing well can improve trust, authority, and therefore rankings for a site. High quality links and high traffic can also increase traffic in the masses… It also has a huge impact on branded search (the holy grail).”
Brian Dean agrees, saying “Content and links have always had significant overlap (after all, people generally link to a page based on the content on that page). But the tie between the two is stronger than ever. That's because many other tried-and-true link building strategies (like large-scale guest posting) no longer work. Which means your link building efforts largely rely on the content that you're putting out.”
Surena Chande believes that, overall, the quality of link building campaigns has improved since Google’s E-A-T update: “We’re producing more topic-relevant campaigns for our clients rather than thinking solely about ideas that would land coverage,” she says, adding that SEOs and link builders are now working together to “reevaluate their concepts and ensure they are true to a brand.”
Getting buy-in is easier — if you focus on the metrics that matter
Because of the extra visibility in recent years, our experts agree that it’s easier than ever to get the buy-in from higher-ups. “I don't need to tell an executive that a link is like a vote. They know that now,” says Russ Jones. “I don't have to say ‘80% of purchases online begin with a search’. They know that now, too.”
“Link building has a way of showing direct results for executives and stakeholders and therefore becomes easier to get the buy-in,” Carrie Rose says. “Traditional PR, creative, or offline marketing strategies are receiving less and less budget and attention because of its inability to prove ROI and we see that budget reallocated to link building and digital PR efforts.”
Andy Crestodina agrees: “Just show an executive the Moz Link Explorer ‘Compare Link Profiles’ report and they’ll get excited ...or upset. Once a stakeholder sees the data, they usually want to take action. The key is to guide the ideas away from the spammy actions and toward high-quality content marketing and influencer outreach.”
With less internal education and campaigning at the executive level, marketers are now faced with tougher questions around how their specific strategies impact ROI. To do so, our experts recommend keeping things simple and taking it slow. “It’s important to explain that Domain Authority moves very slowly. It takes patience,” Andy says, adding, “it’s a proxy metric for PageRank. It’s not Google. Focus on the actions, not the reports.”
If you need some help breaking down metrics, check out Andy’s Whiteboard Friday:
Russ Jones breaks things down even further: “Report simple campaign statistics such as: ‘referring domains and referring traffic are increasing’. Coupled with a generic metric like DA or PA, this gives stakeholders the most important answers about the quality of the link building campaign. Second, we report the increased traffic and rankings relative to competitors based on the work. It is important, though, to provide context wherever possible. If a competitor has been out-spending you and acquiring more links because of it, we shouldn't let that go unreported.”
Tamara Sykes finds that it’s helpful to provide some background on sites that link to her content. “I go as far as to share what that website’s purpose is, who its audience is and the website’s SEO stats,” she says. “This helps me paint a picture of why this link is relevant to a brand, rather than sharing a number that only shows ‘Hey, we got 12 backlinks’.”
Where should link builders focus?
Google is getting better and better at recognizing high quality, relevant links. “They're super good at identifying links that don't fit with a natural pattern. And it's not just obvious black hat spam,” Brian Dean says. “Google can also filter out many grey hat approaches (like mass guest posting), which basically only leaves a handful of link building approaches: digital PR, targeted outreach, and content designed to get links.” So when it comes to link building strategy, where should link builders and digital PRs focus their efforts?
Get creative
Test out new content mediums to stand out from the pack!
Carrie Rose notes that, even though we’re seeing more automation in marketing, “Robots can’t manufacture creativity. That's where the best links come from — where content is more creative than their competitors and brands are getting links others can't replicate.”
Andy Crestodina recommends creating new tools and original research that features bite-size, shareable nuggets such as stats, graphs, and infographics. “These are 100-times more link-worthy than anything else on your domain,” he says.
Build relationships
As the market becomes more saturated, it will be especially important for link builders and digital PRs to deepen relationships with respected publishers and authors in their industry. But you don’t need to overthink it.
Andy believes that a little personalization goes a long way: “Link building has a bad reputation for a good reason: spam. Spammers send cold emails to website owners, clogging our inboxes with the same messages.” But how do you build those connections in the first place?
Warm up the conversation by engaging with that author or editor on social media! Domenica D’Ottavia uses Twitter to connect. “Twitter is an excellent tool for building those relationships with journalists,” she says. "Reach out to them, like their stuff, respond and retweet, show them you're a real person… When you finally outreach them with your link building project, they'll recognize your name from your interactions on Twitter and will be much more likely to respond positively to your PR pitch.”
Others agree that the ROI of mass outreach continues to decline, remembering the days of in-person link building. “Believe it or not, I used to CALL people, introduce myself, explain how interesting I thought their ‘X’ business was,” says Britney Muller. “I’d ask some questions and then weave in a thoughtful proposition of us linking to each other's websites.”
“People are becoming numb to any non-targeted outreach,” Brian Dean adds. “If you are good at personalization, there could still be a chance of securing links but the bar of what qualifies as ‘personalized’ is higher than ever. Now you almost need to mention their dog's name to get a response.” (Note to all the link builders out there: my dog's name is Ginger.)
Learn more about great outreach from Britney's Whiteboard Friday on the subject!
Tap into influencer networks
Influencer marketing is a growing field and, no, it isn’t just for consumer brands and Instagram. Leveraging experts to elevate your content can capture the attention of your target publishers and audience.
Surena Chande says that “utilizing expert commentary is one of the strongest and most overlooked techniques in link building. If you have clients who are experts in their field or have access to the CEO, you can utilize them to build links with minimal effort for both you and your client.”
“Link building is influencer marketing,” says Andy Crestodina. “You’re pitching an influencer (usually blogger or editor) with a request, usually some kind of collaboration. When you combine influencer marketing with original research, you have the ingredients in place. Your content supports their content. Links begin to appear spontaneously. You’re attracting them. Do it right and high DA sites will link to you every few days. Magic.”
Image Source
Capitalize on trending topics
In a news cycle that is constantly changing, hot topics can rise and fall in the blink of an eye. But if you have your timing right, you can ride the trend wave to secure extra eyeballs from editors and readers.
“I believe that the pandemic, particularly the early stages in 2020, taught the industry a very harsh lesson in the form of reactive outreach and campaigns forming one of the best methods of outreach,” Surena Chande says. “I was so used to conceiving campaign ideas for large-scale interactive pieces, and the unpredictability of the situation taught us that we had to quickly change our approach to link building.”
“Jumping on a trending topic and creating a project or link building campaign around something that's already earned the attention of journalists” says Domenica D’Ottavio, but notes to proceed with caution. “While newsjacking is a clever way to earn a ton of links very fast, it's also pretty risky. You have to work around the clock to get your idea created before the topic has lost relevance, and it might flop if you're too late to respond, wasting your investment.”
Our experts also advise to stay on top of the news across the web, read articles from a variety of publications weekly, study what journalists are asking for when they put out #journorequests, and analyze what angles they take on topics as they go viral. This will ensure that you are well positioned when it comes time to pitch your content.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, link building has undergone some major changes in the last 15 years (likely for the better!), but what’s old is new, and many of the same rules continue to apply:
Relevant content will always perform so long as you target the right audience
Links remain a major part of how Google determined the expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness of a site.
Creativity and timeliness in link building will be rewarded
Big thank you to our expert contributors:
Andy Crestodina
Britney Muller
Brian Dean
Carrie Rose
Domenica D'Ottavio
Russ Jones
Surena Chande
Tamara Sykes
0 notes
Text
Aryion (Eka's Portal) is now purging users over COVID discussion
Some important clarification before we begin: I wanted this journal to be less of a mad rant and more of a much needed discussion, thus I'll be more calm and rational unlike my previous rants. I wasn't sure if I was going to talk about this but I felt I needed to, both to get it off my chest and to try sparking some debate over what the hell is going on on this planet. Please read and share this one especially if you care for freedom to speak. My goal isn't to point fingers at the website over how I was treated, but to raise awareness and address what's happening online and offline alike. I'll try to be balanced and describe what happened accurately, though of course this represents my own perspective.
Two days ago I was shocked by a completely unexpected decision by the admin of Eka's Portal to permanently ban me from the platform, after over 10 years of being an active user who never even dreamed of starting trouble there. It followed a blog I posted in the night of Joe Biden's inauguration. The reason for my ban wasn't any of the harsh things I said about that, despite my journal being a rather heated rant on society and politics: It came from one obscure sentence in the middle of the post, in which my only crime was to use the term "imaginary deadly pandemic". If anyone finds this surprising you read correctly: It was confirmed to be the cause, I was not informed of any other reason except for that particular sentence. To the satisfaction of those who see me as a heretic, I've been depressed baffled and even more deep in thought after this happened out of nowhere: It's a community I cared a lot about, followed art and spoke with friends on, and there are both artists I watched there and friends I spoke to who I may not be able to find elsewhere. Despite explaining this as well as what I'll say below to the admin, I'm still seen as someone who committed a capital crime by using those words; I won't reveal exact details from a private discussion without permission, but will say I felt addressed as someone who just committed a murder for which I'm irredeemable and deserve to be hung at the gallows.
Before I proceed let's clarify some things. First of all I don't deny that COVID exists in some form and there is some kind of pandemic going on; I didn't use the term "imaginary pandemic" but rather "imaginary DEADLY pandemic" as my intent was to address the apocalyptic hysteria surrounding this flu. I think anyone, especially among those who have doubts about what's happening, could easily find themselves using such a choice of words... I understand they weren't accurate and ideal, but they were no obscene crime that should terrify anyone in such a way nor warrant such an extreme reaction. I also shouldn't need to explain that a vent journal is something you write in a moment of distress to calm down: It's not a moment when people use the best choice of words and will carefully read everything they say before they say it, which to my knowledge isn't considered a crime and is something people generally do. Needless to say that sentence was in no way intended to tell people to do anything: In no form did I suggest anyone to not wear a mask, even to not get that vaccine despite having huge concerns about it and expressing them indirectly. The actual discussion was about the way COVID was added on top of racial justice as a means of dividing people between good and bad while controlling them through fear. Despite this I was accused of "spreading misinformation", a term that's recently become popular and is used to shut down people who have different opinions from the mainstream. I pledged that if I were unbanned, I would cease all social and political discussion on the site, to prevent any risk of such a thing happening again... despite even this I'm still considered someone who's sole purpose was to spread disinformation, despite such discussion taking place in secondary journals while my main reason for being there was community related stuff.
This event was a self fulfilling prophecy, which exemplified exactly the things I've been ranting about like a madman for the past months, which many surely thought I was exaggerating with: The rise of radicalism fueled by fear... which first started with things like racial justice or child safety, and is now doubled down by this pandemic story. Whether or not COVID-19 really is a public health crisis in secondary plane, what it is first and foremost is a social and political crisis! A rift is growing even faster dividing people between two categories: The chad mainstreamist who follows the science and is politically correct and a responsible citizen, versus the virgin conspiracist who thinks people in powerful positions aren't always right and is a fascist for disagreeing with what the mainstream declared is truth or justice. The first category has every social right that's still available to the general population, while the second needs to be "socially exterminated" because their beliefs make them a danger to others; You no longer matter as a person, the only thing that matters is if you're on our side or not! This is what's now being implemented by those who not long ago preached tolerance and being decent toward others no matter their beliefs.
COVID brought an existing freedom of speech crisis to a new level: We're at the stage where addressing a flu by the wrong pronouns can get you removed from a community you've been with for a third of your life. And I know what many will say: A private entity censoring you isn't the same thing as the government doing it. Which I fully agree with, government regulation is by far the scariest beast here! However this doesn't mean it's not a problem at all... it's a very big problem as many of us are recently learning: Literally anything you say, no matter how random or seemingly insignificant, puts you at great risk... to the point where it's practically unsafe to have any social conversation in any community you care about unless you're carefully going to say what everyone likes to hear. This is absolutely unhealthy, we live in a sick world and barely anyone even notices it... one that has NOTHING to do with the way I imagined modern society even 5 years ago let alone as I grew up. It's an unimaginable regression back into 1930's - 1960's era strictness: This is no free world, it's an "everyone in line" type of strict that mirrors Chinese if not North Korean mentality and social design, this abomination is a parody of hell itself.
I predict no one will escape being affected unless something is done to change course immediately. Certain people seem to think that because they're on the "good side" it's someone else's problem, only those who disagree with them have to suffer which is great from their perspective. Remember that the world is changing: Today the planet freaks out over COVID or racism... eventually those things will go away, and in their place new ones will be added by those who enjoy or need division: Racism will be replaced with some other ism... once people get bored of fearing COVID or everyone becomes immune to it, the medical industry will likely identify the new most aggressive virus in circulation and continue the trend with that... it's possible that entirely new controversies we can't even imagine now will be put in circulation. At some point it's going to be something you too no longer agree with: Once you dare to speak incorrectly of what the world decided, you'll be the next to see what it's like to be this lesser person who everyone treats like a leper that's plaguing others. Will you shut up and pretend to agree with everyone even if you don't, fearing that if you're outed as a "disagreer" you'll be the next to go?
Back to the issue at hand, from a perspective on how the internet works: Many people, including the creator of the practical internet Tim Berners Lee, agree that entities have too much power over individuals. If Google or Facebook or Twitter don't like you, you will be shut down and told to find another platform to migrate to, ignoring the fact that they're in limited supply and all suffer from the same issues often using the same criteria. Fandoms such as furries or vore fans suffer from this too at a smaller scale: If Dragoneer or someone he appointed moderator are having a bad day, good luck finding each of your favorite artists there on another art site... a problem that may be worse on Eka's Portal as it's also a big community but ran more directly by one admin, who in the past I praised but can now see their judgment is unbalanced and bound to harm some users. To me this indicates the internet was poorly designed... which makes some sense since until 5 years ago no one thought the web would need to resist an ideological onslaught that will infiltrate every community and make one half of the world turn against the other. For a long time I've dreamed of building a fully decentralized platform, which could act as both an art gallery and an alternative to Youtube and forums. Unfortunately I don't have the knowledge nor energy to make such a thing, though this experience has me thinking back to that plan... I should leave this one up to a future journal.
I feel like saying more but am unsure what I could possibly say any more. At this point part of me wants to go in full isolation: I expect this sort of thing to keep happening, and until it starts affecting even more people the majority won't realize how bad it's getting. I don't know to what extent I even want to create content any more... for who am I creating it, how worth it is the effort spend on every project, where can I even safely post it any more? I need to keep my Patreon going, but even there I barely make any income, and as of this month I can no longer use the money anyway since Payoneer is being a pest about agreeing to send a new card. I'll be honest: Part of me wants to try and end it again, you can't understand how much... I won't because I know it's wrong, plus I live with my mother who I don't want to put through more hardships. Some of us weren't meant to live on this world, I can tell you all this for a fact. If I had any idea it would be like this I'd have refused to be born on this Earth and experience this life even if it meant fighting the gods themselves! This world is irredeemable, I don't see it ever coming back from the low it's fallen to... if another giant meteor hit it would truly be an act of mercy to all.
0 notes
Text
Hey fellow spinsters!
So I’m not really active on Spinster Bootcamp much anymore when it comes to creating content (not that I was even very reliable in my posting schedule when I was more active, but still...) but that really only means that I haven’t prioritized taking the time to write up stuff on here, I haven’t given up on my interests related to it entirely. Offline, I’ve been doubling down on all of it and over the past couple years been having SO MANY conversations about these things IRL with friends, constantly researching/reading/learning as much as I can, and really giving a lot of thought to how I can keep these conversations going and reach/engage with more people. I started thinking about putting in the effort to make Spinster Bootcamp a proper blog with maybe regular contributors or something, but so far it just doesn’t seem like the right medium for the subject matter. So I’ve been giving a lot of thought to how to go about discussing these same subjects but in a different medium.
What I really want is to essentially continue having the conversations I’m having with friends about spinsterhood (especially queer spinsterhood), the solitude/loneliness dichotomy, the intersection of work and solitude and the idea of secular vocation, etc (and honestly so much more than I’m only just starting to really get a handle on and unearth), but in a much more public manner. Which, honestly, people who know me IRL will tell you that me wanting to talk publicly about things that are so important and personal to me is shocking, BUT, I think that is why the medium it is done in matters. If this hypothetical project is just a blog with me doing most of the writing/editing and a few contributors when I can get them, then it is going to be mostly me writing from my own singular perspective, which is not the conversation I want to have. I am finally in a place I think where I feel confident to add my voice to the discussion without always second guessing it (just *mostly* second guessing it), but I don’t want to be the only perspective I am putting out there, and even though I would be asking for other people to engage in discussion with me it seems like an inherently skewed platform that won’t lead to balanced discussion. I also don’t want to commit to a blog type structure where you need to post regularly. I want to be able to essentially have moments during the year when I am working on this project a lot, and then times when I am not. I have a lot of interests, and while I’m very interested in doing something with this, I know myself enough to know that if it is something that I feel I have to keep up with regularly in order to keep people interested I will become 110% uninterested. I like having conversations about these things, and then going back to my own solitude to mull it over for awhile, and then doing more research, and then having more conversations later, and I suppose that sort of pacing is much more in line with how I would feel comfortable running a project like this.
So the first of two formats I have been considering instead is some sort of publication, think like a quarterly magazine or journal (could be hard copy or online) where people could submit essays, short stories, personal anecdotes, fiction, non-fiction, comics, anything goes really. I’m very open to the forms the writing takes as long as it is related to the overarching subject. I guess depending on interest/amount of contributions then I would figure out how large to make it/how often to publish it/etc. I haven’t really given it much thought behind that, and I admittedly know very little about self publishing, not to mention the amount of work and rounding up of contributors that that would entail. Then editing/curating for quality on top of that makes me kinda stressed just thinking about it.
The second format that I have given much more thought to and am currently favoring is a podcast. I know, I know, that might sound weird right after I said in an above paragraph that I don’t want to be the only voice. But that’s the thing! I wouldn’t be the only voice on it, it just would be my actual voice doing about half or less of the talking, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it is just me speaking from my own personal viewpoint. The thing I like about how I have been interacting with these subjects recently is that the amount of people I talk to about these things IRL has somehow tripled. Talking about these things even with the small variety of people in my small social circle has been so comforting in a way that all my years of reading and research or even talking with people online never has been. I think there is something to be said about actually hearing another human speak about these things, and not just reading their words. It feels a little more like comfortable discussion with real people rather than academic analysis that can sometimes to me feel a little too impersonal. Or at least I suppose I am finding that that makes a big difference for me. And besides, what I really want is to keep having those IRL discussions, just in a more public manner, and what better way to do that, than to literally record those discussions and release them to the public?
That being said, there would definitely be themes or specific subject matter for each episode, and it would likely be me speaking with 1-3 people individually about the subject matter for that episode, with the guests ideally dominating most of the conversation. Obviously once again the ability to gather contributors and find an audience will dictate how many episodes there would be per season and how often they are released, but I like the idea of doing maybe 6ish less than an hour long episodes per season, and releasing just one season a year. If there were more demand or enough contributors then I could see doing two seasons a year, but not more than that. Think like small audio miniseries I guess? Not so much a routine subscription to content as a special thing that happens once in awhile.
SO here is where I would like some input after all that rambling! I am taking a podcasting workshop this upcoming Saturday. It is being run by another queer woman who has created radio/podcast content that I have really enjoyed, so I am excited about that. From what I understand we will be covering both technical aspects of creating a podcast, as well as the storytelling aspects. I don’t really know how much we are expected to have fully fleshed out ideas going in. I know the things that are important to me to have for this sort of project, but I would love to have some more info to work with on what sort of things people would like to hear from a Spinter Bootcamp-esque podcast. Are there subjects/people/concepts you are dying to hear someone talk about? Is there anything you would be into coming on the podcast and talking about? (I am gonna need a regular stream of contributors, might as well start sourcing some of them now!) Is there anything that you constantly see happening anytime you read or discuss these sort of subjects that you think should be avoided or talked about in a different manner? Do you feel SO STRONGLY that a podcast is a terrible medium for this and you have a much better suggestion for how to go about this? I’m partial to the podcast idea but I’m not married to it yet. That’s part of taking this workshop, to dip my toe in and see if it really is the format that I think I could work with the best.
I think I’m finally done talking at all of you now haha. Please let me know if you have any thoughts about this hypothetical project though! Big or small I would love to hear all of them and I will definitely keep everyone updated with what I decide to do and how the process progresses.
#omg such a long post I'm so sorry#clearly I need to work on editing and conciseness#whoops#spinster#spinster bootcamp
51 notes
·
View notes
Link
It feels a little weird to conduct my day to day affairs, lately. I feel like political news is the only thing to talk and think about, the only important thing happening. I’m need to find a work/life/resistance balance, I think, because right now I feel like all I do is work/resistance, interrupted by the occasional dinner break. My boss wants to have career planning conversations at work and I’m filled with utter apathy. And a tiny voice in the back of my head going, okay, you need to put forth an effort here; you’re going to regret it if you don’t.
Is anyone else feeling this? How are you dealing?
Lady Scientists
+ From Nylon: 10 Black Women in Academia That You Need To Know About.
+ NASA Cassini Project Scientist Linda Spilker and mission planner Molly Bittner took questions on Facebook Live about the latest science orbit of the Juno mission: a close flyby with the craft plunging in close to graze Jupiter’s rings. Easily the best piece of news I took in this past week.
Via NASA.
+ Mathematician Adriana Salerno is starting a blog called inclusion/exclusion with a solid group of editors that includes women, people of color, immigrants, and members of the LGBTQ community. The first post is up and I’m adding it to my RSS feed, maybe you want to too.
+ There were a lot of women tweeting under the hashtag #actuallivingscientist (a visibility thing) over the past several days! Showing us how they dress like women (a ridiculous thing Trump said). Let us bask in their glory.
View image on Twitter
Hi, I'm Becka. I do science in Utah's #wetlands, they're neat. I like plants, climbing, & marsh yoga #actuallivingscientist#DressLikeAWoman
I'm an #ActualLivingScientist who works on cancer therapeutics. And who sometimes wears mismatched gloves #DressLikeAWoman #womeninSTEM
I'm an #ActualLivingScientist working towards my PhD in biochemistry so I can study the effects of space travel on the human body
Hi, I'm Janet & I study how endangered hawks live in an environment with lots of human development. I like coffee! #actuallivingscientist
#actuallivingscientist doing drug development research and growing a baby at the same time #DressLikeAWoman
+ Here’s an interview with Ashley Spindler, a bisexual, trans woman astrophysicist who loves Stargate SG-1 and studies Galaxy Evolution. Check out the rest of the LGBT STEM blog for more; it’s an ongoing series.
Meltdown
+ On Sunday, the House Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology published a press release alleging, based on questionable evidence, that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) “manipulated climate records.” It didn’t.
+ Trump’s EPA pick appears to have made a false statement under oath in Senate hearing. He denies it.
+ Washington D.C. police subpoenaed Facebook to hand over data on protestors. I feel a creeping sense of unease about organizing on Facebook, which is why I set up my 10/100 huddle group on Slack. I don’t know if that’s necessary or the best thing to do, but just be careful with your data, okay?
+ Here’s a list of all the US elected officials who deny climate change.
+ Did you read Ali’s coverage on net neutrality yet?
It’s got nothing to do with “free data” or healing the divide. It’s got to do with corporations and their now-unimpeded plans to profit off both consumers and content creators, streaming service providers and whoever else they can make a buck off of. The reason we regulate the internet to assure neutrality is so we don’t wind up with a dystopia where a company can buy incentivized speed or priority, thus incentivizing consumers to use one service over another. Should this truly be an indication of the FCC’s direction over the next four years, it will impact independent websites and services as the dystopia expands.
+ The Sunlight Foundation is now tracking US government data going offline.
+ Trump continues to wage war on truth and push his lies. We’re not buying it, and I’m actually not going to spend time rehashing the latest offenses at this particular juncture. But I’ll be in the comments if there’s anything you want to chat about!
Can’t Hold Us Down
+ Seattle librarians are teaching kids how to spot fake news.
+ Yesterday, Science Europe released a practical guide to improving gender equality in research organizations.
+ Researchers analyzed more than 33,000 FOIA requests to see what successful requests had in common. (Spoiler: not actually all that much?)
+ Thought this was an interesting perspective from Lucy Kellaway: “I am difficult at work and proud of it.”
+ Brianna Wu Is Here, Queer and Running for Congress in Massachusetts. Continues to be a badass and a heartthrob.
+ The March for Science now has a date: April 22, 2017. They have a rad vision and specifically strive for intersectionality. I feel good about it.
Geekery Grab Bag
+ The Andromeda Galaxy is colliding with the Milky Way, and Ariel Waldman would like to tell you about it.
+ The fivethirtyeight R package package was released, with data sets from dozens of data journalism stories, including stories about police killings in the US, references to presidential candidates in hip-hop lyrics, and a complete worked analysis of movies satisfying the Bechdel Test. Seems neat!
+ Those were drones in the Gaga halftime show.
+ Here’s a relaxing video of someone making tiny succulents out of clay:
My guess is aloe vera, fenestraria rhopalophylla, sansevieria, gollum jade, echeveria.
#women in stem#women in science#science#scientist#women#dresslikeawoman#feminism#feminist#feminists#feminist movement
16 notes
·
View notes
Text
Amazing Tips on Getting Cheap Prom Dress
All youngsters will want to look their best on promenade night time. If you wish to look fabulous on the prom evening, you'll have to pick apparel that can compliment you in each manner. Finding nice promenade attire is not powerful. However, discovering low cost promenade attire that looks good is moderately difficult. Not all students will be capable to spend huge amounts of cash to buy the most effective promenade apparel. In this article, we are going to talk about a couple of ideas that will provide help to to discover a low cost promenade dress that can look nice on you.
Strive classic prom attire
Generally, folks would assume that any classic merchandise is pricey. The fact is, vintage attire can be purchased for lots much less money than the costume out there in department shops. In case you scout the local vintage shops, you need to be capable of find a classic promenade gown at affordable prices. However, if you're not too eager on showing up on the promenade evening in a vintage prom costume, take a look at the tricks to comply with.
Closet Raids
If you're able to spend some time raiding closets of your family and pals, you would possibly be capable to decide up good prom apparel at zero value. Many women may have their promenade dresses of their closet and this provides you the chance to find prom attire with out having to spend cash. The one money you may have to spend is to make the costume suit you.
Low cost Shopping
Do not shy away from Discount Procuring. If you happen to assume that each one discount retailers sell sub customary dresses, you are improper. You can find good low cost prom apparel from low cost outlets, offered you are patient.
Online shopping
The costs of merchandise in on-line stores, are usually cheaper than the retail stores. Most brands have on-line stores, from the place you'll be able to pick good promenade attire at very low-cost prices. Online purchasing offers you the opportunity to go looking and evaluate the various options out there to you, thereby permitting you to find the most effective promenade apparel for that big day.
TMake the prom gown your self
If you understand how to sew, you can save some huge cash by making the prom gown on your own. You will discover promenade prom 2018 apparel patterns and stitching directions on-line that will help you create your personal promenade apparel.
Decorate
Even a simple promenade costume can look fabulous through the use of the best equipment. The money that you just save by buying a simple prom gown or gown can be used to buy accessories that will aid you to make the easy gown into something that is distinctive and attractive.
Promenade is one of the milestone occasions in any young lady's life, and looking good is vital. But oftentimes wanting good comes with a price tag that's simply past reach. The excellent news is that there are low cost prom attire in the marketplace that may look just pretty much as good as these designer label attire that many individuals robotically turn to. Getting the look you want may be achieved on a funds. Let us take a look at the place to purchase low-cost promenade dresses that rival even the hottest appears on the runway.
Outlets
Outlet stores or outlet malls are a fantastic supply of low-cost fashions for the promenade. Most outlet stores stock the most effective manufacturers from high designers - with a catch. The clothes that's bought in these stores is final runs, left over stock and shelf pulls. More often than not this inventory has been faraway from the shop shelves as a result of the shop no longer has a sufficient amount of the stock to warrant protecting a small number of gadgets, or as a result of it didn't sale on a clearance rack. Different objects in outlet shops were returned to a major department store because of an imperfection of flaw; issues like a hem coming undone or a zipper that's tough to tug are easy fixes that any seamstress can treatment for a very small price.
Clearance Racks
It's also possible to discover low-cost prom clothes on the clearance rack at many dress shops or bridal retailers. When a particular type of costume has been less than a big seller, the remainder of the clothes of that type ends up on a clearance rack. You'll be able to plan on saving thirty p.c or more on clothes which might be much less popular, despite the fact that they may be just as lovely as a often priced costume.
Consignment Shops
Many girls put on their prom costume only once, and for only a few hours at that. As soon as the massive evening is over, the dress sometimes has plenty of fates. It may possibly find yourself in the back of the closet in the dry cleaner's bag, as a hand-me-all the way down to a younger sister or pal, or in a consignment shop. Low cost promenade clothes in consignment outlets are often discounted by as much as seventy five% off the unique retail, that means that a costume with very little mileage could be bought for little or no money.
As an added bonus, whenever you save massive by buying an affordable promenade costume, you will have sufficient left over to buy the equipment that you just want to go with the gown - or better but, lease a limo for your big night.
Teens these days are imagining on tips on how to standout throughout their promenade night, properly a minimum of most of them are. But it is a good thing, it's always clever to try to stand out above the remainder. With regards to promenade nights, this isn't undoubtedly an exception. You need to dress up something eye-catching, formal, elegant, and trendy yet striving to maintain an innocent and sweet impact. Not an easy activity I would say.
Getting a promenade gown to mirror all that wants numerous centered effort and let's not ignore the fact that we'd like cash as well. As youngsters would, they think about an evening of grandeur and worthy of shelling out a great deal of money to simply look dashing, lovely, grand and fabulous. Although there are the practical ones who go towards such kind of pondering.
Most dad and mom who've received not much to boast of financially may think it is impractical to be spending too much for a prom costume. Actually, a very fabulous prom costume can be utilized only as soon as besides when there might be different essential balls when the gown may be reused. In this case, these practical dad and mom may go for those low cost prom attire.
Certainly, the instances are hard. However this should not cause the youngsters like you to be depressed. You can nonetheless be modern without spending too much. There are a diverse line of cheap prom dresses however are equally trendy. After all, it is not a matter of how a lot cash you've got spent in your promenade costume. However it is a matter of how good you carry the promenade dress and the impression you are able to create.
What to Do
What you simply need is to muster the patience to buy around for the stylish but low cost prom attire. You may even design your personal promenade dress. Seek guides from trend and teenage magazines such as Seventeen, Prom Journal, and Your Prom. Don't fail to pay attention to your hair and complexion colours as well as your body kind. Once you go to the malls, take time to seek out stores that supply discounts on signature manufacturers.
Going surfing may also be a fantastic assist. Procuring these days is no longer restricted to walking by means of the aisles of those department stores. Online shopping is now the present trend! You can visit web sites that promote a good deal of discount for designer clothes. In case you suppose you've fallen in love with considered one of their products, you can at all times contact their hotline and place your order.
As girls all around the nation prepare for prom there are some of these girls that have the laborious life of a good funds. We all know that promenade clothes are almost as important as the wedding dress a girl wears to their wedding ceremony, so this can be a disturbing scenario for a younger lady. Nevertheless, there may be nothing stopping you from discovering the deal of your life if you happen to simply take the time to go discount looking.
Low cost promenade clothes aren't necessarily in every single place to be found once you near the date of your promenade, as a result of as promenade nears everyone is searching for a dress, and the shops will not be marking down costs when demand is excessive. As an alternative, begin in search of your dress means forward of the necessary night. Some suggest beginning as early as 6 months beforehand, and that is probably not a nasty concept if you want to have the ability to decide up a costume on sale.
You can too log on to seek out your prom gown, as you'll find 1000's of different dresses obtainable to you. The average price of a promenade gown bought on the Internet should be at the very least 10% decrease than a dress purchased offline. However it would not cease there! If you are going to wait for a local store to put their dresses up on the market you'll have to be very affected person, as a result of it would never occur. However, on the Internet there are all the time many shops that have sales, both because they are clearing out older merchandise or as a result of they are making an attempt to attract prospects such as you. You see, the market is far greater on-line, and the competitors for you money is stronger than for an area retailer that has a monopoly on the close by area or city.
If you're in search of a promenade gown below one hundred dollars, Amazon.com is actually an ideal place to look. They've promenade attire starting as low as 20-30$, that are easy, but lovely. Gojane.com is one other online shop that has a nice collection of reasonably priced promenade clothes. Just do a search online for "cheap promenade clothes" and you will have enough results to browse to fill a few hours.
Now, what if you're eyeing a designer promenade costume but can't afford one? Effectively, have you ever thought-about carrying a pre-owned promenade costume? This might sound like an terrible idea, however once you start serious about it, these attire are often in mint condition, they have been dry cleaned, and normally start at 50% off the cost of a new promenade gown.
Each woman gets excited by the point that their school announces that the prom night is just a few months away. Unfortunately, not everyone has sufficient money to purchase for the most elegant looking prom clothes which might be out there in most couture retailers. However, this shouldn't be a reason to stop you from getting that gown for this memorable event. There are actually cheap prom dresses that are not simply value-efficient, however very glamorous at the identical time.
Remember that if you are aiming for your promenade dresses, it is important that you simply start searching no less than a couple of months earlier than the event. Costume retailers are normally aware concerning the date that these proms from totally different faculties would be held. Subsequently, if the demand for such attire is excessive, it's unlikely that they might give reductions or have elegant dresses that are 30 to 50 p.c off. Whereas others search for inexpensive dresses for prom as early as three to 4 months ahead of the highly anticipated second, there are some who get their cheap attire at the very least six months prior to the promenade date. Although this can be a superb concept, you simply need to just remember to will still keep your body so the gown can still fit when the prom evening comes.
There are additionally some outlets where yow will discover costume worn by bridesmaids as well. While others would allow you to rent these secondhand bridesmaids attire you can all the time ask if they might sell it to you as an alternative. The worth could be two times decrease than the cost of buying a model new dress. Often these gowns are nonetheless in good situation and had gone through a laundry store before they dangle it in their boutiques.
In fact, you'll be able to at all times look for economical dress on the Web. You could have a wider selection since hundreds of internet sites are providing this type of service and the competition is definitely tight especially because the promenade season comes. Other than the cheap value, there are some web sites that also provide discounts as well especially if you buy it a couple of months earlier than the promenade evening. The perfect factor in regards to the cheap prom clothes is that it is unlikely that you will see the same design on boutiques close to you. These are more distinctive and stylish which may help you stand out throughout the prom.
0 notes
Text
8 Experts Weigh in on the Past, Present, and Future Evolution of Link Building
For over 20 years, SEOs and content marketers have built links across the web to get their content in front of their target audience.
As Google grows smarter, so do these link-building SEOs – gone are the days of spammy link schemes and black hat SEO. Enter modern link builders who are focused on placing high quality, relevant links on sites guaranteed to drive the most important metrics: conversions and revenue.
But how far have we really come, and are there any lessons we can take from the past to inform where we go from here? We asked eight link building experts their thoughts on this very question, as well as what our readers can do to stay ahead of the link building curve!
For more link building tips, be sure to check out our recent update to The Beginner’s Guide to Link Building:
Read the Guide!
How important are links, really?
Historically, links have been a sure-fire way to build authority and visibility for your business. However, as Google begins to focus on other tactics such as user experience, will that change how links factor into search visibility?
Russ Jones, Search Consultant at Moz, says that the value of a well-placed link isn’t going anywhere: “Google will find more and more ways to extract value from the link graph and click stream data. The link remains king.”
Britney Muller adds that “If Google disappeared tomorrow, would you still get qualified traffic to your website (via your link profile)? That’s exactly how I believe we should be thinking about link building today.”
Backlinko founder, Brian Dean, has a different perspective:
“I think links will be less important as time goes on,” he says, but agrees that they'll always be a major part of the algorithm. “Links are actually a really good signal! Especially today with Google more focused on E-A-T, links are a great way to size up whether a site is credible or not. Without links, they'd have no real way of knowing if the content on a page is legit.”
Has the definition of a “high quality link” changed?
The short answer is yes, and (surprise!) it depends on your goals.
In the early days, SEOs tested Google with sketchy link schemes. These low quality links offered a quick fix of link juice, and a boost in rankings. Today, link builders have ditched the black hat tactics in favor of a more relevant and consumer-focused approach, and quality over quantity.
Carrie Rose, CEO at Rise at Seven, has this to say: “The definition of a high-quality link has massively changed over the years. Relevancy is a huge topic online right now — but what does a relevant link actually mean? Ultimately, we track that based on is it a link that is driving traffic to your website, of whom are your audience? Too many link building strategies focus too much on ‘link juice’ and SEO metrics such as DA — but care less about link engagement metrics. SEOs, link builders, and digital PRs should care more about understanding where their audience is, high traffic websites, and gaining links from there instead.”
Russ Jones agrees: “I believe that Google has dramatically increased the degree to which the relevancy of a link matters,” he says, adding, “Google has placed greater influence on links that come from topical authorities as they combat issues like fake news and link spam. If this is the case, it means that link builders need to narrow their focus and fight for links from industry peers.”
As relevancy becomes more important, our experts encourage other link builders to focus on the audience rather than the outlet.
Tamara Sykes, Public Relations Specialist at Postali, believes that “It’s obviously great to get a backlink in a recognizable outlet like the Wall Street Journal. However, if your audience isn’t there, it only serves half of its purpose. You’ll get a ‘vote’ from a high DA site to prove that yours is more trustworthy, but it may generate little to no traffic because the audience isn’t as invested in what content you have to offer.”
Domenica D'Ottavio, Marketing Manager at Fractl, prefers to diversify her link portfolios, noting that high quality links can mean different things in different campaigns.
“The definition of a high-quality link can change depending on your goals,” she says. “Not all links are created equally for every business. In my opinion, the ideal portfolio has a 1) high volume of 2) relevant and 3) high-quality backlinks. If you're a business in the personal finance space, for example, you might want a mix of links from sites like The Motley Fool, CNN Money, and smaller finance blogs like The Penny Hoarder, Budgets are Sexy, or I Will Teach You To Be Rich.”
Lastly, as with most things in marketing and SEO, Andy Crestodina of OrbitMedia reminds us that there are also a half dozen other factors to consider including DA, follow vs. nofollow, outgoing links and much more! So be sure to take these factors into consideration as you develop your link building strategy.
Image Source
The role of link building in SEO is stronger than ever
Developing high quality content and distributing that content to respected sites in your target market can be an extremely scalable and cost-effective way to build and maintain authority in your niche. So, it’s not surprising that link building and digital PR is rapidly becoming a core strategy for many brands.
Carrie Rose highlights the fact that link building and digital PR industries have grown rapidly:
“The responsibility to create good quality content and improve trust to a site no longer purely sits within SEO. Having a good link building strategy which is performing well can improve trust, authority, and therefore rankings for a site. High quality links and high traffic can also increase traffic in the masses… It also has a huge impact on branded search (the holy grail).”
Brian Dean agrees, saying “Content and links have always had significant overlap (after all, people generally link to a page based on the content on that page). But the tie between the two is stronger than ever. That's because many other tried-and-true link building strategies (like large-scale guest posting) no longer work. Which means your link building efforts largely rely on the content that you're putting out.”
Surena Chande believes that, overall, the quality of link building campaigns has improved since Google’s E-A-T update: “We’re producing more topic-relevant campaigns for our clients rather than thinking solely about ideas that would land coverage,” she says, adding that SEOs and link builders are now working together to “reevaluate their concepts and ensure they are true to a brand.”
Getting buy-in is easier — if you focus on the metrics that matter
Because of the extra visibility in recent years, our experts agree that it’s easier than ever to get the buy-in from higher-ups. “I don't need to tell an executive that a link is like a vote. They know that now,” says Russ Jones. “I don't have to say ‘80% of purchases online begin with a search’. They know that now, too.”
“Link building has a way of showing direct results for executives and stakeholders and therefore becomes easier to get the buy-in,” Carrie Rose says. “Traditional PR, creative, or offline marketing strategies are receiving less and less budget and attention because of its inability to prove ROI and we see that budget reallocated to link building and digital PR efforts.”
Andy Crestodina agrees: “Just show an executive the Moz Link Explorer ‘Compare Link Profiles’ report and they’ll get excited ...or upset. Once a stakeholder sees the data, they usually want to take action. The key is to guide the ideas away from the spammy actions and toward high-quality content marketing and influencer outreach.”
With less internal education and campaigning at the executive level, marketers are now faced with tougher questions around how their specific strategies impact ROI. To do so, our experts recommend keeping things simple and taking it slow. “It’s important to explain that Domain Authority moves very slowly. It takes patience,” Andy says, adding, “it’s a proxy metric for PageRank. It’s not Google. Focus on the actions, not the reports.”
If you need some help breaking down metrics, check out Andy’s Whiteboard Friday:
Russ Jones breaks things down even further: “Report simple campaign statistics such as: ‘referring domains and referring traffic are increasing’. Coupled with a generic metric like DA or PA, this gives stakeholders the most important answers about the quality of the link building campaign. Second, we report the increased traffic and rankings relative to competitors based on the work. It is important, though, to provide context wherever possible. If a competitor has been out-spending you and acquiring more links because of it, we shouldn't let that go unreported.”
Tamara Sykes finds that it’s helpful to provide some background on sites that link to her content. “I go as far as to share what that website’s purpose is, who its audience is and the website’s SEO stats,” she says. “This helps me paint a picture of why this link is relevant to a brand, rather than sharing a number that only shows ‘Hey, we got 12 backlinks’.”
Where should link builders focus?
Google is getting better and better at recognizing high quality, relevant links. “They're super good at identifying links that don't fit with a natural pattern. And it's not just obvious black hat spam,” Brian Dean says. “Google can also filter out many grey hat approaches (like mass guest posting), which basically only leaves a handful of link building approaches: digital PR, targeted outreach, and content designed to get links.” So when it comes to link building strategy, where should link builders and digital PRs focus their efforts?
Get creative
Test out new content mediums to stand out from the pack!
Carrie Rose notes that, even though we’re seeing more automation in marketing, “Robots can’t manufacture creativity. That's where the best links come from — where content is more creative than their competitors and brands are getting links others can't replicate.”
Andy Crestodina recommends creating new tools and original research that features bite-size, shareable nuggets such as stats, graphs, and infographics. “These are 100-times more link-worthy than anything else on your domain,” he says.
Build relationships
As the market becomes more saturated, it will be especially important for link builders and digital PRs to deepen relationships with respected publishers and authors in their industry. But you don’t need to overthink it.
Andy believes that a little personalization goes a long way: “Link building has a bad reputation for a good reason: spam. Spammers send cold emails to website owners, clogging our inboxes with the same messages.” But how do you build those connections in the first place?
Warm up the conversation by engaging with that author or editor on social media! Domenica D’Ottavia uses Twitter to connect. “Twitter is an excellent tool for building those relationships with journalists,” she says. "Reach out to them, like their stuff, respond and retweet, show them you're a real person… When you finally outreach them with your link building project, they'll recognize your name from your interactions on Twitter and will be much more likely to respond positively to your PR pitch.”
Others agree that the ROI of mass outreach continues to decline, remembering the days of in-person link building. “Believe it or not, I used to CALL people, introduce myself, explain how interesting I thought their ‘X’ business was,” says Britney Muller. “I’d ask some questions and then weave in a thoughtful proposition of us linking to each other's websites.”
“People are becoming numb to any non-targeted outreach,” Brian Dean adds. “If you are good at personalization, there could still be a chance of securing links but the bar of what qualifies as ‘personalized’ is higher than ever. Now you almost need to mention their dog's name to get a response.” (Note to all the link builders out there: my dog's name is Ginger.)
Learn more about great outreach from Britney's Whiteboard Friday on the subject!
Tap into influencer networks
Influencer marketing is a growing field and, no, it isn’t just for consumer brands and Instagram. Leveraging experts to elevate your content can capture the attention of your target publishers and audience.
Surena Chande says that “utilizing expert commentary is one of the strongest and most overlooked techniques in link building. If you have clients who are experts in their field or have access to the CEO, you can utilize them to build links with minimal effort for both you and your client.”
“Link building is influencer marketing,” says Andy Crestodina. “You’re pitching an influencer (usually blogger or editor) with a request, usually some kind of collaboration. When you combine influencer marketing with original research, you have the ingredients in place. Your content supports their content. Links begin to appear spontaneously. You’re attracting them. Do it right and high DA sites will link to you every few days. Magic.”
Image Source
Capitalize on trending topics
In a news cycle that is constantly changing, hot topics can rise and fall in the blink of an eye. But if you have your timing right, you can ride the trend wave to secure extra eyeballs from editors and readers.
“I believe that the pandemic, particularly the early stages in 2020, taught the industry a very harsh lesson in the form of reactive outreach and campaigns forming one of the best methods of outreach,” Surena Chande says. “I was so used to conceiving campaign ideas for large-scale interactive pieces, and the unpredictability of the situation taught us that we had to quickly change our approach to link building.”
“Jumping on a trending topic and creating a project or link building campaign around something that's already earned the attention of journalists” says Domenica D’Ottavio, but notes to proceed with caution. “While newsjacking is a clever way to earn a ton of links very fast, it's also pretty risky. You have to work around the clock to get your idea created before the topic has lost relevance, and it might flop if you're too late to respond, wasting your investment.”
Our experts also advise to stay on top of the news across the web, read articles from a variety of publications weekly, study what journalists are asking for when they put out #journorequests, and analyze what angles they take on topics as they go viral. This will ensure that you are well positioned when it comes time to pitch your content.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, link building has undergone some major changes in the last 15 years (likely for the better!), but what’s old is new, and many of the same rules continue to apply:
Relevant content will always perform so long as you target the right audience
Links remain a major part of how Google determined the expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness of a site.
Creativity and timeliness in link building will be rewarded
Big thank you to our expert contributors:
Andy Crestodina
Britney Muller
Brian Dean
Carrie Rose
Domenica D'Ottavio
Russ Jones
Surena Chande
Tamara Sykes
0 notes
Text
8 Experts Weigh in on the Past, Present, and Future Evolution of Link Building
For over 20 years, SEOs and content marketers have built links across the web to get their content in front of their target audience.
As Google grows smarter, so do these link-building SEOs – gone are the days of spammy link schemes and black hat SEO. Enter modern link builders who are focused on placing high quality, relevant links on sites guaranteed to drive the most important metrics: conversions and revenue.
But how far have we really come, and are there any lessons we can take from the past to inform where we go from here? We asked eight link building experts their thoughts on this very question, as well as what our readers can do to stay ahead of the link building curve!
For more link building tips, be sure to check out our recent update to The Beginner’s Guide to Link Building:
Read the Guide!
How important are links, really?
Historically, links have been a sure-fire way to build authority and visibility for your business. However, as Google begins to focus on other tactics such as user experience, will that change how links factor into search visibility?
Russ Jones, Search Consultant at Moz, says that the value of a well-placed link isn’t going anywhere: “Google will find more and more ways to extract value from the link graph and click stream data. The link remains king.”
Britney Muller adds that “If Google disappeared tomorrow, would you still get qualified traffic to your website (via your link profile)? That’s exactly how I believe we should be thinking about link building today.”
Backlinko founder, Brian Dean, has a different perspective:
“I think links will be less important as time goes on,” he says, but agrees that they'll always be a major part of the algorithm. “Links are actually a really good signal! Especially today with Google more focused on E-A-T, links are a great way to size up whether a site is credible or not. Without links, they'd have no real way of knowing if the content on a page is legit.”
Has the definition of a “high quality link” changed?
The short answer is yes, and (surprise!) it depends on your goals.
In the early days, SEOs tested Google with sketchy link schemes. These low quality links offered a quick fix of link juice, and a boost in rankings. Today, link builders have ditched the black hat tactics in favor of a more relevant and consumer-focused approach, and quality over quantity.
Carrie Rose, CEO at Rise at Seven, has this to say: “The definition of a high-quality link has massively changed over the years. Relevancy is a huge topic online right now — but what does a relevant link actually mean? Ultimately, we track that based on is it a link that is driving traffic to your website, of whom are your audience? Too many link building strategies focus too much on ‘link juice’ and SEO metrics such as DA — but care less about link engagement metrics. SEOs, link builders, and digital PRs should care more about understanding where their audience is, high traffic websites, and gaining links from there instead.”
Russ Jones agrees: “I believe that Google has dramatically increased the degree to which the relevancy of a link matters,” he says, adding, “Google has placed greater influence on links that come from topical authorities as they combat issues like fake news and link spam. If this is the case, it means that link builders need to narrow their focus and fight for links from industry peers.”
As relevancy becomes more important, our experts encourage other link builders to focus on the audience rather than the outlet.
Tamara Sykes, Public Relations Specialist at Postali, believes that “It’s obviously great to get a backlink in a recognizable outlet like the Wall Street Journal. However, if your audience isn’t there, it only serves half of its purpose. You’ll get a ‘vote’ from a high DA site to prove that yours is more trustworthy, but it may generate little to no traffic because the audience isn’t as invested in what content you have to offer.”
Domenica D'Ottavio, Marketing Manager at Fractl, prefers to diversify her link portfolios, noting that high quality links can mean different things in different campaigns.
“The definition of a high-quality link can change depending on your goals,” she says. “Not all links are created equally for every business. In my opinion, the ideal portfolio has a 1) high volume of 2) relevant and 3) high-quality backlinks. If you're a business in the personal finance space, for example, you might want a mix of links from sites like The Motley Fool, CNN Money, and smaller finance blogs like The Penny Hoarder, Budgets are Sexy, or I Will Teach You To Be Rich.”
Lastly, as with most things in marketing and SEO, Andy Crestodina of OrbitMedia reminds us that there are also a half dozen other factors to consider including DA, follow vs. nofollow, outgoing links and much more! So be sure to take these factors into consideration as you develop your link building strategy.
Image Source
The role of link building in SEO is stronger than ever
Developing high quality content and distributing that content to respected sites in your target market can be an extremely scalable and cost-effective way to build and maintain authority in your niche. So, it’s not surprising that link building and digital PR is rapidly becoming a core strategy for many brands.
Carrie Rose highlights the fact that link building and digital PR industries have grown rapidly:
“The responsibility to create good quality content and improve trust to a site no longer purely sits within SEO. Having a good link building strategy which is performing well can improve trust, authority, and therefore rankings for a site. High quality links and high traffic can also increase traffic in the masses… It also has a huge impact on branded search (the holy grail).”
Brian Dean agrees, saying “Content and links have always had significant overlap (after all, people generally link to a page based on the content on that page). But the tie between the two is stronger than ever. That's because many other tried-and-true link building strategies (like large-scale guest posting) no longer work. Which means your link building efforts largely rely on the content that you're putting out.”
Surena Chande believes that, overall, the quality of link building campaigns has improved since Google’s E-A-T update: “We’re producing more topic-relevant campaigns for our clients rather than thinking solely about ideas that would land coverage,” she says, adding that SEOs and link builders are now working together to “reevaluate their concepts and ensure they are true to a brand.”
Getting buy-in is easier — if you focus on the metrics that matter
Because of the extra visibility in recent years, our experts agree that it’s easier than ever to get the buy-in from higher-ups. “I don't need to tell an executive that a link is like a vote. They know that now,” says Russ Jones. “I don't have to say ‘80% of purchases online begin with a search’. They know that now, too.”
“Link building has a way of showing direct results for executives and stakeholders and therefore becomes easier to get the buy-in,” Carrie Rose says. “Traditional PR, creative, or offline marketing strategies are receiving less and less budget and attention because of its inability to prove ROI and we see that budget reallocated to link building and digital PR efforts.”
Andy Crestodina agrees: “Just show an executive the Moz Link Explorer ‘Compare Link Profiles’ report and they’ll get excited ...or upset. Once a stakeholder sees the data, they usually want to take action. The key is to guide the ideas away from the spammy actions and toward high-quality content marketing and influencer outreach.”
With less internal education and campaigning at the executive level, marketers are now faced with tougher questions around how their specific strategies impact ROI. To do so, our experts recommend keeping things simple and taking it slow. “It’s important to explain that Domain Authority moves very slowly. It takes patience,” Andy says, adding, “it’s a proxy metric for PageRank. It’s not Google. Focus on the actions, not the reports.”
If you need some help breaking down metrics, check out Andy’s Whiteboard Friday:
Russ Jones breaks things down even further: “Report simple campaign statistics such as: ‘referring domains and referring traffic are increasing’. Coupled with a generic metric like DA or PA, this gives stakeholders the most important answers about the quality of the link building campaign. Second, we report the increased traffic and rankings relative to competitors based on the work. It is important, though, to provide context wherever possible. If a competitor has been out-spending you and acquiring more links because of it, we shouldn't let that go unreported.”
Tamara Sykes finds that it’s helpful to provide some background on sites that link to her content. “I go as far as to share what that website’s purpose is, who its audience is and the website’s SEO stats,” she says. “This helps me paint a picture of why this link is relevant to a brand, rather than sharing a number that only shows ‘Hey, we got 12 backlinks’.”
Where should link builders focus?
Google is getting better and better at recognizing high quality, relevant links. “They're super good at identifying links that don't fit with a natural pattern. And it's not just obvious black hat spam,” Brian Dean says. “Google can also filter out many grey hat approaches (like mass guest posting), which basically only leaves a handful of link building approaches: digital PR, targeted outreach, and content designed to get links.” So when it comes to link building strategy, where should link builders and digital PRs focus their efforts?
Get creative
Test out new content mediums to stand out from the pack!
Carrie Rose notes that, even though we’re seeing more automation in marketing, “Robots can’t manufacture creativity. That's where the best links come from — where content is more creative than their competitors and brands are getting links others can't replicate.”
Andy Crestodina recommends creating new tools and original research that features bite-size, shareable nuggets such as stats, graphs, and infographics. “These are 100-times more link-worthy than anything else on your domain,” he says.
Build relationships
As the market becomes more saturated, it will be especially important for link builders and digital PRs to deepen relationships with respected publishers and authors in their industry. But you don’t need to overthink it.
Andy believes that a little personalization goes a long way: “Link building has a bad reputation for a good reason: spam. Spammers send cold emails to website owners, clogging our inboxes with the same messages.” But how do you build those connections in the first place?
Warm up the conversation by engaging with that author or editor on social media! Domenica D’Ottavia uses Twitter to connect. “Twitter is an excellent tool for building those relationships with journalists,” she says. "Reach out to them, like their stuff, respond and retweet, show them you're a real person… When you finally outreach them with your link building project, they'll recognize your name from your interactions on Twitter and will be much more likely to respond positively to your PR pitch.”
Others agree that the ROI of mass outreach continues to decline, remembering the days of in-person link building. “Believe it or not, I used to CALL people, introduce myself, explain how interesting I thought their ‘X’ business was,” says Britney Muller. “I’d ask some questions and then weave in a thoughtful proposition of us linking to each other's websites.”
“People are becoming numb to any non-targeted outreach,” Brian Dean adds. “If you are good at personalization, there could still be a chance of securing links but the bar of what qualifies as ‘personalized’ is higher than ever. Now you almost need to mention their dog's name to get a response.” (Note to all the link builders out there: my dog's name is Ginger.)
Learn more about great outreach from Britney's Whiteboard Friday on the subject!
Tap into influencer networks
Influencer marketing is a growing field and, no, it isn’t just for consumer brands and Instagram. Leveraging experts to elevate your content can capture the attention of your target publishers and audience.
Surena Chande says that “utilizing expert commentary is one of the strongest and most overlooked techniques in link building. If you have clients who are experts in their field or have access to the CEO, you can utilize them to build links with minimal effort for both you and your client.”
“Link building is influencer marketing,” says Andy Crestodina. “You’re pitching an influencer (usually blogger or editor) with a request, usually some kind of collaboration. When you combine influencer marketing with original research, you have the ingredients in place. Your content supports their content. Links begin to appear spontaneously. You’re attracting them. Do it right and high DA sites will link to you every few days. Magic.”
Image Source
Capitalize on trending topics
In a news cycle that is constantly changing, hot topics can rise and fall in the blink of an eye. But if you have your timing right, you can ride the trend wave to secure extra eyeballs from editors and readers.
“I believe that the pandemic, particularly the early stages in 2020, taught the industry a very harsh lesson in the form of reactive outreach and campaigns forming one of the best methods of outreach,” Surena Chande says. “I was so used to conceiving campaign ideas for large-scale interactive pieces, and the unpredictability of the situation taught us that we had to quickly change our approach to link building.”
“Jumping on a trending topic and creating a project or link building campaign around something that's already earned the attention of journalists” says Domenica D’Ottavio, but notes to proceed with caution. “While newsjacking is a clever way to earn a ton of links very fast, it's also pretty risky. You have to work around the clock to get your idea created before the topic has lost relevance, and it might flop if you're too late to respond, wasting your investment.”
Our experts also advise to stay on top of the news across the web, read articles from a variety of publications weekly, study what journalists are asking for when they put out #journorequests, and analyze what angles they take on topics as they go viral. This will ensure that you are well positioned when it comes time to pitch your content.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, link building has undergone some major changes in the last 15 years (likely for the better!), but what’s old is new, and many of the same rules continue to apply:
Relevant content will always perform so long as you target the right audience
Links remain a major part of how Google determined the expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness of a site.
Creativity and timeliness in link building will be rewarded
Big thank you to our expert contributors:
Andy Crestodina
Britney Muller
Brian Dean
Carrie Rose
Domenica D'Ottavio
Russ Jones
Surena Chande
Tamara Sykes
0 notes
Text
8 Experts Weigh in on the Past, Present, and Future Evolution of Link Building
For over 20 years, SEOs and content marketers have built links across the web to get their content in front of their target audience.
As Google grows smarter, so do these link-building SEOs – gone are the days of spammy link schemes and black hat SEO. Enter modern link builders who are focused on placing high quality, relevant links on sites guaranteed to drive the most important metrics: conversions and revenue.
But how far have we really come, and are there any lessons we can take from the past to inform where we go from here? We asked eight link building experts their thoughts on this very question, as well as what our readers can do to stay ahead of the link building curve!
For more link building tips, be sure to check out our recent update to The Beginner’s Guide to Link Building:
Read the Guide!
How important are links, really?
Historically, links have been a sure-fire way to build authority and visibility for your business. However, as Google begins to focus on other tactics such as user experience, will that change how links factor into search visibility?
Russ Jones, Search Consultant at Moz, says that the value of a well-placed link isn’t going anywhere: “Google will find more and more ways to extract value from the link graph and click stream data. The link remains king.”
Britney Muller adds that “If Google disappeared tomorrow, would you still get qualified traffic to your website (via your link profile)? That’s exactly how I believe we should be thinking about link building today.”
Backlinko founder, Brian Dean, has a different perspective:
“I think links will be less important as time goes on,” he says, but agrees that they'll always be a major part of the algorithm. “Links are actually a really good signal! Especially today with Google more focused on E-A-T, links are a great way to size up whether a site is credible or not. Without links, they'd have no real way of knowing if the content on a page is legit.”
Has the definition of a “high quality link” changed?
The short answer is yes, and (surprise!) it depends on your goals.
In the early days, SEOs tested Google with sketchy link schemes. These low quality links offered a quick fix of link juice, and a boost in rankings. Today, link builders have ditched the black hat tactics in favor of a more relevant and consumer-focused approach, and quality over quantity.
Carrie Rose, CEO at Rise at Seven, has this to say: “The definition of a high-quality link has massively changed over the years. Relevancy is a huge topic online right now — but what does a relevant link actually mean? Ultimately, we track that based on is it a link that is driving traffic to your website, of whom are your audience? Too many link building strategies focus too much on ‘link juice’ and SEO metrics such as DA — but care less about link engagement metrics. SEOs, link builders, and digital PRs should care more about understanding where their audience is, high traffic websites, and gaining links from there instead.”
Russ Jones agrees: “I believe that Google has dramatically increased the degree to which the relevancy of a link matters,” he says, adding, “Google has placed greater influence on links that come from topical authorities as they combat issues like fake news and link spam. If this is the case, it means that link builders need to narrow their focus and fight for links from industry peers.”
As relevancy becomes more important, our experts encourage other link builders to focus on the audience rather than the outlet.
Tamara Sykes, Public Relations Specialist at Postali, believes that “It’s obviously great to get a backlink in a recognizable outlet like the Wall Street Journal. However, if your audience isn’t there, it only serves half of its purpose. You’ll get a ‘vote’ from a high DA site to prove that yours is more trustworthy, but it may generate little to no traffic because the audience isn’t as invested in what content you have to offer.”
Domenica D'Ottavio, Marketing Manager at Fractl, prefers to diversify her link portfolios, noting that high quality links can mean different things in different campaigns.
“The definition of a high-quality link can change depending on your goals,” she says. “Not all links are created equally for every business. In my opinion, the ideal portfolio has a 1) high volume of 2) relevant and 3) high-quality backlinks. If you're a business in the personal finance space, for example, you might want a mix of links from sites like The Motley Fool, CNN Money, and smaller finance blogs like The Penny Hoarder, Budgets are Sexy, or I Will Teach You To Be Rich.”
Lastly, as with most things in marketing and SEO, Andy Crestodina of OrbitMedia reminds us that there are also a half dozen other factors to consider including DA, follow vs. nofollow, outgoing links and much more! So be sure to take these factors into consideration as you develop your link building strategy.
Image Source
The role of link building in SEO is stronger than ever
Developing high quality content and distributing that content to respected sites in your target market can be an extremely scalable and cost-effective way to build and maintain authority in your niche. So, it’s not surprising that link building and digital PR is rapidly becoming a core strategy for many brands.
Carrie Rose highlights the fact that link building and digital PR industries have grown rapidly:
“The responsibility to create good quality content and improve trust to a site no longer purely sits within SEO. Having a good link building strategy which is performing well can improve trust, authority, and therefore rankings for a site. High quality links and high traffic can also increase traffic in the masses… It also has a huge impact on branded search (the holy grail).”
Brian Dean agrees, saying “Content and links have always had significant overlap (after all, people generally link to a page based on the content on that page). But the tie between the two is stronger than ever. That's because many other tried-and-true link building strategies (like large-scale guest posting) no longer work. Which means your link building efforts largely rely on the content that you're putting out.”
Surena Chande believes that, overall, the quality of link building campaigns has improved since Google’s E-A-T update: “We’re producing more topic-relevant campaigns for our clients rather than thinking solely about ideas that would land coverage,” she says, adding that SEOs and link builders are now working together to “reevaluate their concepts and ensure they are true to a brand.”
Getting buy-in is easier — if you focus on the metrics that matter
Because of the extra visibility in recent years, our experts agree that it’s easier than ever to get the buy-in from higher-ups. “I don't need to tell an executive that a link is like a vote. They know that now,” says Russ Jones. “I don't have to say ‘80% of purchases online begin with a search’. They know that now, too.”
“Link building has a way of showing direct results for executives and stakeholders and therefore becomes easier to get the buy-in,” Carrie Rose says. “Traditional PR, creative, or offline marketing strategies are receiving less and less budget and attention because of its inability to prove ROI and we see that budget reallocated to link building and digital PR efforts.”
Andy Crestodina agrees: “Just show an executive the Moz Link Explorer ‘Compare Link Profiles’ report and they’ll get excited ...or upset. Once a stakeholder sees the data, they usually want to take action. The key is to guide the ideas away from the spammy actions and toward high-quality content marketing and influencer outreach.”
With less internal education and campaigning at the executive level, marketers are now faced with tougher questions around how their specific strategies impact ROI. To do so, our experts recommend keeping things simple and taking it slow. “It’s important to explain that Domain Authority moves very slowly. It takes patience,” Andy says, adding, “it’s a proxy metric for PageRank. It’s not Google. Focus on the actions, not the reports.”
If you need some help breaking down metrics, check out Andy’s Whiteboard Friday:
Russ Jones breaks things down even further: “Report simple campaign statistics such as: ‘referring domains and referring traffic are increasing’. Coupled with a generic metric like DA or PA, this gives stakeholders the most important answers about the quality of the link building campaign. Second, we report the increased traffic and rankings relative to competitors based on the work. It is important, though, to provide context wherever possible. If a competitor has been out-spending you and acquiring more links because of it, we shouldn't let that go unreported.”
Tamara Sykes finds that it’s helpful to provide some background on sites that link to her content. “I go as far as to share what that website’s purpose is, who its audience is and the website’s SEO stats,” she says. “This helps me paint a picture of why this link is relevant to a brand, rather than sharing a number that only shows ‘Hey, we got 12 backlinks’.”
Where should link builders focus?
Google is getting better and better at recognizing high quality, relevant links. “They're super good at identifying links that don't fit with a natural pattern. And it's not just obvious black hat spam,” Brian Dean says. “Google can also filter out many grey hat approaches (like mass guest posting), which basically only leaves a handful of link building approaches: digital PR, targeted outreach, and content designed to get links.” So when it comes to link building strategy, where should link builders and digital PRs focus their efforts?
Get creative
Test out new content mediums to stand out from the pack!
Carrie Rose notes that, even though we’re seeing more automation in marketing, “Robots can’t manufacture creativity. That's where the best links come from — where content is more creative than their competitors and brands are getting links others can't replicate.”
Andy Crestodina recommends creating new tools and original research that features bite-size, shareable nuggets such as stats, graphs, and infographics. “These are 100-times more link-worthy than anything else on your domain,” he says.
Build relationships
As the market becomes more saturated, it will be especially important for link builders and digital PRs to deepen relationships with respected publishers and authors in their industry. But you don’t need to overthink it.
Andy believes that a little personalization goes a long way: “Link building has a bad reputation for a good reason: spam. Spammers send cold emails to website owners, clogging our inboxes with the same messages.” But how do you build those connections in the first place?
Warm up the conversation by engaging with that author or editor on social media! Domenica D’Ottavia uses Twitter to connect. “Twitter is an excellent tool for building those relationships with journalists,” she says. "Reach out to them, like their stuff, respond and retweet, show them you're a real person… When you finally outreach them with your link building project, they'll recognize your name from your interactions on Twitter and will be much more likely to respond positively to your PR pitch.”
Others agree that the ROI of mass outreach continues to decline, remembering the days of in-person link building. “Believe it or not, I used to CALL people, introduce myself, explain how interesting I thought their ‘X’ business was,” says Britney Muller. “I’d ask some questions and then weave in a thoughtful proposition of us linking to each other's websites.”
“People are becoming numb to any non-targeted outreach,” Brian Dean adds. “If you are good at personalization, there could still be a chance of securing links but the bar of what qualifies as ‘personalized’ is higher than ever. Now you almost need to mention their dog's name to get a response.” (Note to all the link builders out there: my dog's name is Ginger.)
Learn more about great outreach from Britney's Whiteboard Friday on the subject!
Tap into influencer networks
Influencer marketing is a growing field and, no, it isn’t just for consumer brands and Instagram. Leveraging experts to elevate your content can capture the attention of your target publishers and audience.
Surena Chande says that “utilizing expert commentary is one of the strongest and most overlooked techniques in link building. If you have clients who are experts in their field or have access to the CEO, you can utilize them to build links with minimal effort for both you and your client.”
“Link building is influencer marketing,” says Andy Crestodina. “You’re pitching an influencer (usually blogger or editor) with a request, usually some kind of collaboration. When you combine influencer marketing with original research, you have the ingredients in place. Your content supports their content. Links begin to appear spontaneously. You’re attracting them. Do it right and high DA sites will link to you every few days. Magic.”
Image Source
Capitalize on trending topics
In a news cycle that is constantly changing, hot topics can rise and fall in the blink of an eye. But if you have your timing right, you can ride the trend wave to secure extra eyeballs from editors and readers.
“I believe that the pandemic, particularly the early stages in 2020, taught the industry a very harsh lesson in the form of reactive outreach and campaigns forming one of the best methods of outreach,” Surena Chande says. “I was so used to conceiving campaign ideas for large-scale interactive pieces, and the unpredictability of the situation taught us that we had to quickly change our approach to link building.”
“Jumping on a trending topic and creating a project or link building campaign around something that's already earned the attention of journalists” says Domenica D’Ottavio, but notes to proceed with caution. “While newsjacking is a clever way to earn a ton of links very fast, it's also pretty risky. You have to work around the clock to get your idea created before the topic has lost relevance, and it might flop if you're too late to respond, wasting your investment.”
Our experts also advise to stay on top of the news across the web, read articles from a variety of publications weekly, study what journalists are asking for when they put out #journorequests, and analyze what angles they take on topics as they go viral. This will ensure that you are well positioned when it comes time to pitch your content.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, link building has undergone some major changes in the last 15 years (likely for the better!), but what’s old is new, and many of the same rules continue to apply:
Relevant content will always perform so long as you target the right audience
Links remain a major part of how Google determined the expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness of a site.
Creativity and timeliness in link building will be rewarded
Big thank you to our expert contributors:
Andy Crestodina
Britney Muller
Brian Dean
Carrie Rose
Domenica D'Ottavio
Russ Jones
Surena Chande
Tamara Sykes
0 notes
Text
8 Experts Weigh in on the Past, Present, and Future Evolution of Link Building
For over 20 years, SEOs and content marketers have built links across the web to get their content in front of their target audience.
As Google grows smarter, so do these link-building SEOs – gone are the days of spammy link schemes and black hat SEO. Enter modern link builders who are focused on placing high quality, relevant links on sites guaranteed to drive the most important metrics: conversions and revenue.
But how far have we really come, and are there any lessons we can take from the past to inform where we go from here? We asked eight link building experts their thoughts on this very question, as well as what our readers can do to stay ahead of the link building curve!
For more link building tips, be sure to check out our recent update to The Beginner’s Guide to Link Building:
Read the Guide!
How important are links, really?
Historically, links have been a sure-fire way to build authority and visibility for your business. However, as Google begins to focus on other tactics such as user experience, will that change how links factor into search visibility?
Russ Jones, Search Consultant at Moz, says that the value of a well-placed link isn’t going anywhere: “Google will find more and more ways to extract value from the link graph and click stream data. The link remains king.”
Britney Muller adds that “If Google disappeared tomorrow, would you still get qualified traffic to your website (via your link profile)? That’s exactly how I believe we should be thinking about link building today.”
Backlinko founder, Brian Dean, has a different perspective:
“I think links will be less important as time goes on,” he says, but agrees that they'll always be a major part of the algorithm. “Links are actually a really good signal! Especially today with Google more focused on E-A-T, links are a great way to size up whether a site is credible or not. Without links, they'd have no real way of knowing if the content on a page is legit.”
Has the definition of a “high quality link” changed?
The short answer is yes, and (surprise!) it depends on your goals.
In the early days, SEOs tested Google with sketchy link schemes. These low quality links offered a quick fix of link juice, and a boost in rankings. Today, link builders have ditched the black hat tactics in favor of a more relevant and consumer-focused approach, and quality over quantity.
Carrie Rose, CEO at Rise at Seven, has this to say: “The definition of a high-quality link has massively changed over the years. Relevancy is a huge topic online right now — but what does a relevant link actually mean? Ultimately, we track that based on is it a link that is driving traffic to your website, of whom are your audience? Too many link building strategies focus too much on ‘link juice’ and SEO metrics such as DA — but care less about link engagement metrics. SEOs, link builders, and digital PRs should care more about understanding where their audience is, high traffic websites, and gaining links from there instead.”
Russ Jones agrees: “I believe that Google has dramatically increased the degree to which the relevancy of a link matters,” he says, adding, “Google has placed greater influence on links that come from topical authorities as they combat issues like fake news and link spam. If this is the case, it means that link builders need to narrow their focus and fight for links from industry peers.”
As relevancy becomes more important, our experts encourage other link builders to focus on the audience rather than the outlet.
Tamara Sykes, Public Relations Specialist at Postali, believes that “It’s obviously great to get a backlink in a recognizable outlet like the Wall Street Journal. However, if your audience isn’t there, it only serves half of its purpose. You’ll get a ‘vote’ from a high DA site to prove that yours is more trustworthy, but it may generate little to no traffic because the audience isn’t as invested in what content you have to offer.”
Domenica D'Ottavio, Marketing Manager at Fractl, prefers to diversify her link portfolios, noting that high quality links can mean different things in different campaigns.
“The definition of a high-quality link can change depending on your goals,” she says. “Not all links are created equally for every business. In my opinion, the ideal portfolio has a 1) high volume of 2) relevant and 3) high-quality backlinks. If you're a business in the personal finance space, for example, you might want a mix of links from sites like The Motley Fool, CNN Money, and smaller finance blogs like The Penny Hoarder, Budgets are Sexy, or I Will Teach You To Be Rich.”
Lastly, as with most things in marketing and SEO, Andy Crestodina of OrbitMedia reminds us that there are also a half dozen other factors to consider including DA, follow vs. nofollow, outgoing links and much more! So be sure to take these factors into consideration as you develop your link building strategy.
Image Source
The role of link building in SEO is stronger than ever
Developing high quality content and distributing that content to respected sites in your target market can be an extremely scalable and cost-effective way to build and maintain authority in your niche. So, it’s not surprising that link building and digital PR is rapidly becoming a core strategy for many brands.
Carrie Rose highlights the fact that link building and digital PR industries have grown rapidly:
“The responsibility to create good quality content and improve trust to a site no longer purely sits within SEO. Having a good link building strategy which is performing well can improve trust, authority, and therefore rankings for a site. High quality links and high traffic can also increase traffic in the masses… It also has a huge impact on branded search (the holy grail).”
Brian Dean agrees, saying “Content and links have always had significant overlap (after all, people generally link to a page based on the content on that page). But the tie between the two is stronger than ever. That's because many other tried-and-true link building strategies (like large-scale guest posting) no longer work. Which means your link building efforts largely rely on the content that you're putting out.”
Surena Chande believes that, overall, the quality of link building campaigns has improved since Google’s E-A-T update: “We’re producing more topic-relevant campaigns for our clients rather than thinking solely about ideas that would land coverage,” she says, adding that SEOs and link builders are now working together to “reevaluate their concepts and ensure they are true to a brand.”
Getting buy-in is easier — if you focus on the metrics that matter
Because of the extra visibility in recent years, our experts agree that it’s easier than ever to get the buy-in from higher-ups. “I don't need to tell an executive that a link is like a vote. They know that now,” says Russ Jones. “I don't have to say ‘80% of purchases online begin with a search’. They know that now, too.”
“Link building has a way of showing direct results for executives and stakeholders and therefore becomes easier to get the buy-in,” Carrie Rose says. “Traditional PR, creative, or offline marketing strategies are receiving less and less budget and attention because of its inability to prove ROI and we see that budget reallocated to link building and digital PR efforts.”
Andy Crestodina agrees: “Just show an executive the Moz Link Explorer ‘Compare Link Profiles’ report and they’ll get excited ...or upset. Once a stakeholder sees the data, they usually want to take action. The key is to guide the ideas away from the spammy actions and toward high-quality content marketing and influencer outreach.”
With less internal education and campaigning at the executive level, marketers are now faced with tougher questions around how their specific strategies impact ROI. To do so, our experts recommend keeping things simple and taking it slow. “It’s important to explain that Domain Authority moves very slowly. It takes patience,” Andy says, adding, “it’s a proxy metric for PageRank. It’s not Google. Focus on the actions, not the reports.”
If you need some help breaking down metrics, check out Andy’s Whiteboard Friday:
Russ Jones breaks things down even further: “Report simple campaign statistics such as: ‘referring domains and referring traffic are increasing’. Coupled with a generic metric like DA or PA, this gives stakeholders the most important answers about the quality of the link building campaign. Second, we report the increased traffic and rankings relative to competitors based on the work. It is important, though, to provide context wherever possible. If a competitor has been out-spending you and acquiring more links because of it, we shouldn't let that go unreported.”
Tamara Sykes finds that it’s helpful to provide some background on sites that link to her content. “I go as far as to share what that website’s purpose is, who its audience is and the website’s SEO stats,” she says. “This helps me paint a picture of why this link is relevant to a brand, rather than sharing a number that only shows ‘Hey, we got 12 backlinks’.”
Where should link builders focus?
Google is getting better and better at recognizing high quality, relevant links. “They're super good at identifying links that don't fit with a natural pattern. And it's not just obvious black hat spam,” Brian Dean says. “Google can also filter out many grey hat approaches (like mass guest posting), which basically only leaves a handful of link building approaches: digital PR, targeted outreach, and content designed to get links.” So when it comes to link building strategy, where should link builders and digital PRs focus their efforts?
Get creative
Test out new content mediums to stand out from the pack!
Carrie Rose notes that, even though we’re seeing more automation in marketing, “Robots can’t manufacture creativity. That's where the best links come from — where content is more creative than their competitors and brands are getting links others can't replicate.”
Andy Crestodina recommends creating new tools and original research that features bite-size, shareable nuggets such as stats, graphs, and infographics. “These are 100-times more link-worthy than anything else on your domain,” he says.
Build relationships
As the market becomes more saturated, it will be especially important for link builders and digital PRs to deepen relationships with respected publishers and authors in their industry. But you don’t need to overthink it.
Andy believes that a little personalization goes a long way: “Link building has a bad reputation for a good reason: spam. Spammers send cold emails to website owners, clogging our inboxes with the same messages.” But how do you build those connections in the first place?
Warm up the conversation by engaging with that author or editor on social media! Domenica D’Ottavia uses Twitter to connect. “Twitter is an excellent tool for building those relationships with journalists,” she says. "Reach out to them, like their stuff, respond and retweet, show them you're a real person… When you finally outreach them with your link building project, they'll recognize your name from your interactions on Twitter and will be much more likely to respond positively to your PR pitch.”
Others agree that the ROI of mass outreach continues to decline, remembering the days of in-person link building. “Believe it or not, I used to CALL people, introduce myself, explain how interesting I thought their ‘X’ business was,” says Britney Muller. “I’d ask some questions and then weave in a thoughtful proposition of us linking to each other's websites.”
“People are becoming numb to any non-targeted outreach,” Brian Dean adds. “If you are good at personalization, there could still be a chance of securing links but the bar of what qualifies as ‘personalized’ is higher than ever. Now you almost need to mention their dog's name to get a response.” (Note to all the link builders out there: my dog's name is Ginger.)
Learn more about great outreach from Britney's Whiteboard Friday on the subject!
Tap into influencer networks
Influencer marketing is a growing field and, no, it isn’t just for consumer brands and Instagram. Leveraging experts to elevate your content can capture the attention of your target publishers and audience.
Surena Chande says that “utilizing expert commentary is one of the strongest and most overlooked techniques in link building. If you have clients who are experts in their field or have access to the CEO, you can utilize them to build links with minimal effort for both you and your client.”
“Link building is influencer marketing,” says Andy Crestodina. “You’re pitching an influencer (usually blogger or editor) with a request, usually some kind of collaboration. When you combine influencer marketing with original research, you have the ingredients in place. Your content supports their content. Links begin to appear spontaneously. You’re attracting them. Do it right and high DA sites will link to you every few days. Magic.”
Image Source
Capitalize on trending topics
In a news cycle that is constantly changing, hot topics can rise and fall in the blink of an eye. But if you have your timing right, you can ride the trend wave to secure extra eyeballs from editors and readers.
“I believe that the pandemic, particularly the early stages in 2020, taught the industry a very harsh lesson in the form of reactive outreach and campaigns forming one of the best methods of outreach,” Surena Chande says. “I was so used to conceiving campaign ideas for large-scale interactive pieces, and the unpredictability of the situation taught us that we had to quickly change our approach to link building.”
“Jumping on a trending topic and creating a project or link building campaign around something that's already earned the attention of journalists” says Domenica D’Ottavio, but notes to proceed with caution. “While newsjacking is a clever way to earn a ton of links very fast, it's also pretty risky. You have to work around the clock to get your idea created before the topic has lost relevance, and it might flop if you're too late to respond, wasting your investment.”
Our experts also advise to stay on top of the news across the web, read articles from a variety of publications weekly, study what journalists are asking for when they put out #journorequests, and analyze what angles they take on topics as they go viral. This will ensure that you are well positioned when it comes time to pitch your content.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, link building has undergone some major changes in the last 15 years (likely for the better!), but what’s old is new, and many of the same rules continue to apply:
Relevant content will always perform so long as you target the right audience
Links remain a major part of how Google determined the expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness of a site.
Creativity and timeliness in link building will be rewarded
Big thank you to our expert contributors:
Andy Crestodina
Britney Muller
Brian Dean
Carrie Rose
Domenica D'Ottavio
Russ Jones
Surena Chande
Tamara Sykes
0 notes
Text
8 Experts Weigh in on the Past, Present, and Future Evolution of Link Building
For over 20 years, SEOs and content marketers have built links across the web to get their content in front of their target audience.
As Google grows smarter, so do these link-building SEOs – gone are the days of spammy link schemes and black hat SEO. Enter modern link builders who are focused on placing high quality, relevant links on sites guaranteed to drive the most important metrics: conversions and revenue.
But how far have we really come, and are there any lessons we can take from the past to inform where we go from here? We asked eight link building experts their thoughts on this very question, as well as what our readers can do to stay ahead of the link building curve!
For more link building tips, be sure to check out our recent update to The Beginner’s Guide to Link Building:
Read the Guide!
How important are links, really?
Historically, links have been a sure-fire way to build authority and visibility for your business. However, as Google begins to focus on other tactics such as user experience, will that change how links factor into search visibility?
Russ Jones, Search Consultant at Moz, says that the value of a well-placed link isn’t going anywhere: “Google will find more and more ways to extract value from the link graph and click stream data. The link remains king.”
Britney Muller adds that “If Google disappeared tomorrow, would you still get qualified traffic to your website (via your link profile)? That’s exactly how I believe we should be thinking about link building today.”
Backlinko founder, Brian Dean, has a different perspective:
“I think links will be less important as time goes on,” he says, but agrees that they'll always be a major part of the algorithm. “Links are actually a really good signal! Especially today with Google more focused on E-A-T, links are a great way to size up whether a site is credible or not. Without links, they'd have no real way of knowing if the content on a page is legit.”
Has the definition of a “high quality link” changed?
The short answer is yes, and (surprise!) it depends on your goals.
In the early days, SEOs tested Google with sketchy link schemes. These low quality links offered a quick fix of link juice, and a boost in rankings. Today, link builders have ditched the black hat tactics in favor of a more relevant and consumer-focused approach, and quality over quantity.
Carrie Rose, CEO at Rise at Seven, has this to say: “The definition of a high-quality link has massively changed over the years. Relevancy is a huge topic online right now — but what does a relevant link actually mean? Ultimately, we track that based on is it a link that is driving traffic to your website, of whom are your audience? Too many link building strategies focus too much on ‘link juice’ and SEO metrics such as DA — but care less about link engagement metrics. SEOs, link builders, and digital PRs should care more about understanding where their audience is, high traffic websites, and gaining links from there instead.”
Russ Jones agrees: “I believe that Google has dramatically increased the degree to which the relevancy of a link matters,” he says, adding, “Google has placed greater influence on links that come from topical authorities as they combat issues like fake news and link spam. If this is the case, it means that link builders need to narrow their focus and fight for links from industry peers.”
As relevancy becomes more important, our experts encourage other link builders to focus on the audience rather than the outlet.
Tamara Sykes, Public Relations Specialist at Postali, believes that “It’s obviously great to get a backlink in a recognizable outlet like the Wall Street Journal. However, if your audience isn’t there, it only serves half of its purpose. You’ll get a ‘vote’ from a high DA site to prove that yours is more trustworthy, but it may generate little to no traffic because the audience isn’t as invested in what content you have to offer.”
Domenica D'Ottavio, Marketing Manager at Fractl, prefers to diversify her link portfolios, noting that high quality links can mean different things in different campaigns.
“The definition of a high-quality link can change depending on your goals,” she says. “Not all links are created equally for every business. In my opinion, the ideal portfolio has a 1) high volume of 2) relevant and 3) high-quality backlinks. If you're a business in the personal finance space, for example, you might want a mix of links from sites like The Motley Fool, CNN Money, and smaller finance blogs like The Penny Hoarder, Budgets are Sexy, or I Will Teach You To Be Rich.”
Lastly, as with most things in marketing and SEO, Andy Crestodina of OrbitMedia reminds us that there are also a half dozen other factors to consider including DA, follow vs. nofollow, outgoing links and much more! So be sure to take these factors into consideration as you develop your link building strategy.
Image Source
The role of link building in SEO is stronger than ever
Developing high quality content and distributing that content to respected sites in your target market can be an extremely scalable and cost-effective way to build and maintain authority in your niche. So, it’s not surprising that link building and digital PR is rapidly becoming a core strategy for many brands.
Carrie Rose highlights the fact that link building and digital PR industries have grown rapidly:
“The responsibility to create good quality content and improve trust to a site no longer purely sits within SEO. Having a good link building strategy which is performing well can improve trust, authority, and therefore rankings for a site. High quality links and high traffic can also increase traffic in the masses… It also has a huge impact on branded search (the holy grail).”
Brian Dean agrees, saying “Content and links have always had significant overlap (after all, people generally link to a page based on the content on that page). But the tie between the two is stronger than ever. That's because many other tried-and-true link building strategies (like large-scale guest posting) no longer work. Which means your link building efforts largely rely on the content that you're putting out.”
Surena Chande believes that, overall, the quality of link building campaigns has improved since Google’s E-A-T update: “We’re producing more topic-relevant campaigns for our clients rather than thinking solely about ideas that would land coverage,” she says, adding that SEOs and link builders are now working together to “reevaluate their concepts and ensure they are true to a brand.”
Getting buy-in is easier — if you focus on the metrics that matter
Because of the extra visibility in recent years, our experts agree that it’s easier than ever to get the buy-in from higher-ups. “I don't need to tell an executive that a link is like a vote. They know that now,” says Russ Jones. “I don't have to say ‘80% of purchases online begin with a search’. They know that now, too.”
“Link building has a way of showing direct results for executives and stakeholders and therefore becomes easier to get the buy-in,” Carrie Rose says. “Traditional PR, creative, or offline marketing strategies are receiving less and less budget and attention because of its inability to prove ROI and we see that budget reallocated to link building and digital PR efforts.”
Andy Crestodina agrees: “Just show an executive the Moz Link Explorer ‘Compare Link Profiles’ report and they’ll get excited ...or upset. Once a stakeholder sees the data, they usually want to take action. The key is to guide the ideas away from the spammy actions and toward high-quality content marketing and influencer outreach.”
With less internal education and campaigning at the executive level, marketers are now faced with tougher questions around how their specific strategies impact ROI. To do so, our experts recommend keeping things simple and taking it slow. “It’s important to explain that Domain Authority moves very slowly. It takes patience,” Andy says, adding, “it’s a proxy metric for PageRank. It’s not Google. Focus on the actions, not the reports.”
If you need some help breaking down metrics, check out Andy’s Whiteboard Friday:
Russ Jones breaks things down even further: “Report simple campaign statistics such as: ‘referring domains and referring traffic are increasing’. Coupled with a generic metric like DA or PA, this gives stakeholders the most important answers about the quality of the link building campaign. Second, we report the increased traffic and rankings relative to competitors based on the work. It is important, though, to provide context wherever possible. If a competitor has been out-spending you and acquiring more links because of it, we shouldn't let that go unreported.”
Tamara Sykes finds that it’s helpful to provide some background on sites that link to her content. “I go as far as to share what that website’s purpose is, who its audience is and the website’s SEO stats,” she says. “This helps me paint a picture of why this link is relevant to a brand, rather than sharing a number that only shows ‘Hey, we got 12 backlinks’.”
Where should link builders focus?
Google is getting better and better at recognizing high quality, relevant links. “They're super good at identifying links that don't fit with a natural pattern. And it's not just obvious black hat spam,” Brian Dean says. “Google can also filter out many grey hat approaches (like mass guest posting), which basically only leaves a handful of link building approaches: digital PR, targeted outreach, and content designed to get links.” So when it comes to link building strategy, where should link builders and digital PRs focus their efforts?
Get creative
Test out new content mediums to stand out from the pack!
Carrie Rose notes that, even though we’re seeing more automation in marketing, “Robots can’t manufacture creativity. That's where the best links come from — where content is more creative than their competitors and brands are getting links others can't replicate.”
Andy Crestodina recommends creating new tools and original research that features bite-size, shareable nuggets such as stats, graphs, and infographics. “These are 100-times more link-worthy than anything else on your domain,” he says.
Build relationships
As the market becomes more saturated, it will be especially important for link builders and digital PRs to deepen relationships with respected publishers and authors in their industry. But you don’t need to overthink it.
Andy believes that a little personalization goes a long way: “Link building has a bad reputation for a good reason: spam. Spammers send cold emails to website owners, clogging our inboxes with the same messages.” But how do you build those connections in the first place?
Warm up the conversation by engaging with that author or editor on social media! Domenica D’Ottavia uses Twitter to connect. “Twitter is an excellent tool for building those relationships with journalists,” she says. "Reach out to them, like their stuff, respond and retweet, show them you're a real person… When you finally outreach them with your link building project, they'll recognize your name from your interactions on Twitter and will be much more likely to respond positively to your PR pitch.”
Others agree that the ROI of mass outreach continues to decline, remembering the days of in-person link building. “Believe it or not, I used to CALL people, introduce myself, explain how interesting I thought their ‘X’ business was,” says Britney Muller. “I’d ask some questions and then weave in a thoughtful proposition of us linking to each other's websites.”
“People are becoming numb to any non-targeted outreach,” Brian Dean adds. “If you are good at personalization, there could still be a chance of securing links but the bar of what qualifies as ‘personalized’ is higher than ever. Now you almost need to mention their dog's name to get a response.” (Note to all the link builders out there: my dog's name is Ginger.)
Learn more about great outreach from Britney's Whiteboard Friday on the subject!
Tap into influencer networks
Influencer marketing is a growing field and, no, it isn’t just for consumer brands and Instagram. Leveraging experts to elevate your content can capture the attention of your target publishers and audience.
Surena Chande says that “utilizing expert commentary is one of the strongest and most overlooked techniques in link building. If you have clients who are experts in their field or have access to the CEO, you can utilize them to build links with minimal effort for both you and your client.”
“Link building is influencer marketing,” says Andy Crestodina. “You’re pitching an influencer (usually blogger or editor) with a request, usually some kind of collaboration. When you combine influencer marketing with original research, you have the ingredients in place. Your content supports their content. Links begin to appear spontaneously. You’re attracting them. Do it right and high DA sites will link to you every few days. Magic.”
Image Source
Capitalize on trending topics
In a news cycle that is constantly changing, hot topics can rise and fall in the blink of an eye. But if you have your timing right, you can ride the trend wave to secure extra eyeballs from editors and readers.
“I believe that the pandemic, particularly the early stages in 2020, taught the industry a very harsh lesson in the form of reactive outreach and campaigns forming one of the best methods of outreach,” Surena Chande says. “I was so used to conceiving campaign ideas for large-scale interactive pieces, and the unpredictability of the situation taught us that we had to quickly change our approach to link building.”
“Jumping on a trending topic and creating a project or link building campaign around something that's already earned the attention of journalists” says Domenica D’Ottavio, but notes to proceed with caution. “While newsjacking is a clever way to earn a ton of links very fast, it's also pretty risky. You have to work around the clock to get your idea created before the topic has lost relevance, and it might flop if you're too late to respond, wasting your investment.”
Our experts also advise to stay on top of the news across the web, read articles from a variety of publications weekly, study what journalists are asking for when they put out #journorequests, and analyze what angles they take on topics as they go viral. This will ensure that you are well positioned when it comes time to pitch your content.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, link building has undergone some major changes in the last 15 years (likely for the better!), but what’s old is new, and many of the same rules continue to apply:
Relevant content will always perform so long as you target the right audience
Links remain a major part of how Google determined the expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness of a site.
Creativity and timeliness in link building will be rewarded
Big thank you to our expert contributors:
Andy Crestodina
Britney Muller
Brian Dean
Carrie Rose
Domenica D'Ottavio
Russ Jones
Surena Chande
Tamara Sykes
0 notes
Text
8 Experts Weigh in on the Past, Present, and Future Evolution of Link Building
For over 20 years, SEOs and content marketers have built links across the web to get their content in front of their target audience.
As Google grows smarter, so do these link-building SEOs – gone are the days of spammy link schemes and black hat SEO. Enter modern link builders who are focused on placing high quality, relevant links on sites guaranteed to drive the most important metrics: conversions and revenue.
But how far have we really come, and are there any lessons we can take from the past to inform where we go from here? We asked eight link building experts their thoughts on this very question, as well as what our readers can do to stay ahead of the link building curve!
For more link building tips, be sure to check out our recent update to The Beginner’s Guide to Link Building:
Read the Guide!
How important are links, really?
Historically, links have been a sure-fire way to build authority and visibility for your business. However, as Google begins to focus on other tactics such as user experience, will that change how links factor into search visibility?
Russ Jones, Search Consultant at Moz, says that the value of a well-placed link isn’t going anywhere: “Google will find more and more ways to extract value from the link graph and click stream data. The link remains king.”
Britney Muller adds that “If Google disappeared tomorrow, would you still get qualified traffic to your website (via your link profile)? That’s exactly how I believe we should be thinking about link building today.”
Backlinko founder, Brian Dean, has a different perspective:
“I think links will be less important as time goes on,” he says, but agrees that they'll always be a major part of the algorithm. “Links are actually a really good signal! Especially today with Google more focused on E-A-T, links are a great way to size up whether a site is credible or not. Without links, they'd have no real way of knowing if the content on a page is legit.”
Has the definition of a “high quality link” changed?
The short answer is yes, and (surprise!) it depends on your goals.
In the early days, SEOs tested Google with sketchy link schemes. These low quality links offered a quick fix of link juice, and a boost in rankings. Today, link builders have ditched the black hat tactics in favor of a more relevant and consumer-focused approach, and quality over quantity.
Carrie Rose, CEO at Rise at Seven, has this to say: “The definition of a high-quality link has massively changed over the years. Relevancy is a huge topic online right now — but what does a relevant link actually mean? Ultimately, we track that based on is it a link that is driving traffic to your website, of whom are your audience? Too many link building strategies focus too much on ‘link juice’ and SEO metrics such as DA — but care less about link engagement metrics. SEOs, link builders, and digital PRs should care more about understanding where their audience is, high traffic websites, and gaining links from there instead.”
Russ Jones agrees: “I believe that Google has dramatically increased the degree to which the relevancy of a link matters,” he says, adding, “Google has placed greater influence on links that come from topical authorities as they combat issues like fake news and link spam. If this is the case, it means that link builders need to narrow their focus and fight for links from industry peers.”
As relevancy becomes more important, our experts encourage other link builders to focus on the audience rather than the outlet.
Tamara Sykes, Public Relations Specialist at Postali, believes that “It’s obviously great to get a backlink in a recognizable outlet like the Wall Street Journal. However, if your audience isn’t there, it only serves half of its purpose. You’ll get a ‘vote’ from a high DA site to prove that yours is more trustworthy, but it may generate little to no traffic because the audience isn’t as invested in what content you have to offer.”
Domenica D'Ottavio, Marketing Manager at Fractl, prefers to diversify her link portfolios, noting that high quality links can mean different things in different campaigns.
“The definition of a high-quality link can change depending on your goals,” she says. “Not all links are created equally for every business. In my opinion, the ideal portfolio has a 1) high volume of 2) relevant and 3) high-quality backlinks. If you're a business in the personal finance space, for example, you might want a mix of links from sites like The Motley Fool, CNN Money, and smaller finance blogs like The Penny Hoarder, Budgets are Sexy, or I Will Teach You To Be Rich.”
Lastly, as with most things in marketing and SEO, Andy Crestodina of OrbitMedia reminds us that there are also a half dozen other factors to consider including DA, follow vs. nofollow, outgoing links and much more! So be sure to take these factors into consideration as you develop your link building strategy.
Image Source
The role of link building in SEO is stronger than ever
Developing high quality content and distributing that content to respected sites in your target market can be an extremely scalable and cost-effective way to build and maintain authority in your niche. So, it’s not surprising that link building and digital PR is rapidly becoming a core strategy for many brands.
Carrie Rose highlights the fact that link building and digital PR industries have grown rapidly:
“The responsibility to create good quality content and improve trust to a site no longer purely sits within SEO. Having a good link building strategy which is performing well can improve trust, authority, and therefore rankings for a site. High quality links and high traffic can also increase traffic in the masses… It also has a huge impact on branded search (the holy grail).”
Brian Dean agrees, saying “Content and links have always had significant overlap (after all, people generally link to a page based on the content on that page). But the tie between the two is stronger than ever. That's because many other tried-and-true link building strategies (like large-scale guest posting) no longer work. Which means your link building efforts largely rely on the content that you're putting out.”
Surena Chande believes that, overall, the quality of link building campaigns has improved since Google’s E-A-T update: “We’re producing more topic-relevant campaigns for our clients rather than thinking solely about ideas that would land coverage,” she says, adding that SEOs and link builders are now working together to “reevaluate their concepts and ensure they are true to a brand.”
Getting buy-in is easier — if you focus on the metrics that matter
Because of the extra visibility in recent years, our experts agree that it’s easier than ever to get the buy-in from higher-ups. “I don't need to tell an executive that a link is like a vote. They know that now,” says Russ Jones. “I don't have to say ‘80% of purchases online begin with a search’. They know that now, too.”
“Link building has a way of showing direct results for executives and stakeholders and therefore becomes easier to get the buy-in,” Carrie Rose says. “Traditional PR, creative, or offline marketing strategies are receiving less and less budget and attention because of its inability to prove ROI and we see that budget reallocated to link building and digital PR efforts.”
Andy Crestodina agrees: “Just show an executive the Moz Link Explorer ‘Compare Link Profiles’ report and they’ll get excited ...or upset. Once a stakeholder sees the data, they usually want to take action. The key is to guide the ideas away from the spammy actions and toward high-quality content marketing and influencer outreach.”
With less internal education and campaigning at the executive level, marketers are now faced with tougher questions around how their specific strategies impact ROI. To do so, our experts recommend keeping things simple and taking it slow. “It’s important to explain that Domain Authority moves very slowly. It takes patience,” Andy says, adding, “it’s a proxy metric for PageRank. It’s not Google. Focus on the actions, not the reports.”
If you need some help breaking down metrics, check out Andy’s Whiteboard Friday:
Russ Jones breaks things down even further: “Report simple campaign statistics such as: ‘referring domains and referring traffic are increasing’. Coupled with a generic metric like DA or PA, this gives stakeholders the most important answers about the quality of the link building campaign. Second, we report the increased traffic and rankings relative to competitors based on the work. It is important, though, to provide context wherever possible. If a competitor has been out-spending you and acquiring more links because of it, we shouldn't let that go unreported.”
Tamara Sykes finds that it’s helpful to provide some background on sites that link to her content. “I go as far as to share what that website’s purpose is, who its audience is and the website’s SEO stats,” she says. “This helps me paint a picture of why this link is relevant to a brand, rather than sharing a number that only shows ‘Hey, we got 12 backlinks’.”
Where should link builders focus?
Google is getting better and better at recognizing high quality, relevant links. “They're super good at identifying links that don't fit with a natural pattern. And it's not just obvious black hat spam,” Brian Dean says. “Google can also filter out many grey hat approaches (like mass guest posting), which basically only leaves a handful of link building approaches: digital PR, targeted outreach, and content designed to get links.” So when it comes to link building strategy, where should link builders and digital PRs focus their efforts?
Get creative
Test out new content mediums to stand out from the pack!
Carrie Rose notes that, even though we’re seeing more automation in marketing, “Robots can’t manufacture creativity. That's where the best links come from — where content is more creative than their competitors and brands are getting links others can't replicate.”
Andy Crestodina recommends creating new tools and original research that features bite-size, shareable nuggets such as stats, graphs, and infographics. “These are 100-times more link-worthy than anything else on your domain,” he says.
Build relationships
As the market becomes more saturated, it will be especially important for link builders and digital PRs to deepen relationships with respected publishers and authors in their industry. But you don’t need to overthink it.
Andy believes that a little personalization goes a long way: “Link building has a bad reputation for a good reason: spam. Spammers send cold emails to website owners, clogging our inboxes with the same messages.” But how do you build those connections in the first place?
Warm up the conversation by engaging with that author or editor on social media! Domenica D’Ottavia uses Twitter to connect. “Twitter is an excellent tool for building those relationships with journalists,” she says. "Reach out to them, like their stuff, respond and retweet, show them you're a real person… When you finally outreach them with your link building project, they'll recognize your name from your interactions on Twitter and will be much more likely to respond positively to your PR pitch.”
Others agree that the ROI of mass outreach continues to decline, remembering the days of in-person link building. “Believe it or not, I used to CALL people, introduce myself, explain how interesting I thought their ‘X’ business was,” says Britney Muller. “I’d ask some questions and then weave in a thoughtful proposition of us linking to each other's websites.”
“People are becoming numb to any non-targeted outreach,” Brian Dean adds. “If you are good at personalization, there could still be a chance of securing links but the bar of what qualifies as ‘personalized’ is higher than ever. Now you almost need to mention their dog's name to get a response.” (Note to all the link builders out there: my dog's name is Ginger.)
Learn more about great outreach from Britney's Whiteboard Friday on the subject!
Tap into influencer networks
Influencer marketing is a growing field and, no, it isn’t just for consumer brands and Instagram. Leveraging experts to elevate your content can capture the attention of your target publishers and audience.
Surena Chande says that “utilizing expert commentary is one of the strongest and most overlooked techniques in link building. If you have clients who are experts in their field or have access to the CEO, you can utilize them to build links with minimal effort for both you and your client.”
“Link building is influencer marketing,” says Andy Crestodina. “You’re pitching an influencer (usually blogger or editor) with a request, usually some kind of collaboration. When you combine influencer marketing with original research, you have the ingredients in place. Your content supports their content. Links begin to appear spontaneously. You’re attracting them. Do it right and high DA sites will link to you every few days. Magic.”
Image Source
Capitalize on trending topics
In a news cycle that is constantly changing, hot topics can rise and fall in the blink of an eye. But if you have your timing right, you can ride the trend wave to secure extra eyeballs from editors and readers.
“I believe that the pandemic, particularly the early stages in 2020, taught the industry a very harsh lesson in the form of reactive outreach and campaigns forming one of the best methods of outreach,” Surena Chande says. “I was so used to conceiving campaign ideas for large-scale interactive pieces, and the unpredictability of the situation taught us that we had to quickly change our approach to link building.”
“Jumping on a trending topic and creating a project or link building campaign around something that's already earned the attention of journalists” says Domenica D’Ottavio, but notes to proceed with caution. “While newsjacking is a clever way to earn a ton of links very fast, it's also pretty risky. You have to work around the clock to get your idea created before the topic has lost relevance, and it might flop if you're too late to respond, wasting your investment.”
Our experts also advise to stay on top of the news across the web, read articles from a variety of publications weekly, study what journalists are asking for when they put out #journorequests, and analyze what angles they take on topics as they go viral. This will ensure that you are well positioned when it comes time to pitch your content.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, link building has undergone some major changes in the last 15 years (likely for the better!), but what’s old is new, and many of the same rules continue to apply:
Relevant content will always perform so long as you target the right audience
Links remain a major part of how Google determined the expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness of a site.
Creativity and timeliness in link building will be rewarded
Big thank you to our expert contributors:
Andy Crestodina
Britney Muller
Brian Dean
Carrie Rose
Domenica D'Ottavio
Russ Jones
Surena Chande
Tamara Sykes
https://ift.tt/3pVgACQ
0 notes