What link building tactics do you use?

Is link building  dead?

in short link building is not dead, and will not die any time soon!

That being said we do need to understand the many issues that surround link building, and the implications of your personal link building strategies.  In the past when things in search first started out links were the primary SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicator) and links were gamed to the extent that Google and other search engines started showing very distorted and poor SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages)

see previous post discussing the value of a link in 2014

The search engines thus introduced algorithms that started to look for patterns that these so called BLACK HAT search engine optimisation practitioners were using, and started penalizing those who they thought were cheating or gaming the system.  Google now has a number of NAMED ALGORITHMS , as well as many un-named algorithms,  that look into these matters and related matters where Search Engine Optimisation Technical staff and online marketing practitioners SPAM the search engines in a variety of different ways using many different techniques.

Some of these named algorithms include :

>>  PANDA

>>  PENGUIN

>>  HUMMING BIRD

>>  PIGEON

These algorithms help to improve the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages) and some are punitive, while others add value to the work of those who apply recommended tactics that are rather technical and difficult to implement, such as Google's author and publisher programs that are connected to Google plus.

This short video below will help you understand why I say that link building will not die any time soon, but link building has changed and it is now necessary to selectively screen out bad links and focus exclusively on high quality links from reputable sources when ever possible.  The question asked was does Google have a version of search where back links are excluded.  listen to what  +Matt Cutts had to say then evaluate your own situation.

The question thus becomes  What is link building and why is it important?

In short links, some times called HYPERLINKS are the tools that you use to allow  the end user, or your audience to move from one place on the internet to another, and are the only tool that search engines have of locating your online content.  If there are no links pointing to your page, then a search engine has no means of locating your page, and it will thus never be found in search.  In the past the more inbound links a page had the better it did in search results.

Link building is the process that you follow to ensure that your web pages or blog posts acquire in bound links, be they internally from   pages within your own web site /  blog or externally from some other online resource.

Today, due to the amount of SPAM generated by so called BLACK HAT SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION this is no longer true, and Google as well as all other search engines now use the quality of links more than the quantity of links.  Then  within Google search there is the issue of PANDA and PENGUIN  which both have negative or punitive tools that tackle SPAM and bad quality web pages

It is thus important that you understand the  need to have a link building policy in place, and that this link building policy needs to be well documented and shared with every person who has anything to do with your total marketing plan.  Bad links can come from a number of sources, and those who do not know about these issues can very inadvertently make use of a link building farm or some other bad tactic, thinking that they are helping your marketing efforts.   New employees or  junior marketers who have not been exposed to the impacts of bad links may not understand what a link farm is, and believe they are being helpful in getting traffic to your pages.

DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF BAD LINKS TO SINK YOUR ONLINE MARKETING EFFORTS,  BE CAREFUL WHEN DEVELOPING YOUR LINK BUILDING POLICY

The social media is currently a very big source of links to your online content, and as such you do need to have a social media policy in place to deal with these issues. Once again Your social media policy needs to be well documented and shared with everybody who has anything to do with your marketing, be it online or not.  You need to remember that all your offline marketing has a very big impact on your online marketing in many ways, especially when it comes to issues around search. You will need to include your link building policy within your social media marketing policy,as they are very interconnected.

Off line marketing has strange impacts on your intended target audience, and this is where you should use terminology and language that is specific to your business interests.  Your target audience will be induced to use the words and language in your off line marketing to search online to discover more about your company, your products or your services, and you need to be aware of this in your online marketing, especially in your social media marketing, as this is where you will have direct one on one conversations with your target audience as well as many others who may or may not have a direct interest in your product, service or business proposition.

The people who you have conversations with online within the social media space, may or may not decide to place links within their posts to your web pages or blogs, and as such you need to influence these OUT SIDERS in a positive manner so that any links that they may place within their social media posts are positive and  relevant to pages within your web site or blog.

These issues are also confounded and confused when marketers say that you should not be doing any link building at all.  Link building as a term is also a very difficult term to come to grips with in the current scenario where past link building practices have destroyed web sites through their spam attacks and the use of link farms.  Link building has definitely changed a great deal over the last few years, and is now a very delicate art that is not properly understood.  On the one hand an online resource must have inbound links, these links need to be of high quality and carry some authority to have any success in the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages) and on the other hand excessive links as well as links of low quality can cause a web site or blog some serious damage within the SERP's.

The guys at +Moz recently published an article called The beginners guide to link building   which I have found very helpful, and shared with my audience in other places.  The G+ post embedded below is actually what inspired this post, as I commented there  and had an interesting conversation with both  +Mike Gracia and +William Rock   Take some time and read the comments as I believe they will help you to understand the great difficulties that we as online marketers have in dealing with the changes in SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) issues as well as how different people interpret the terminology within the  search engine optimisation world.  Please remember that these are sensitive issues, and need great care, so ask for second and third opinions, then apply your own mind and be aware of those who are willing to game the system.
  

THERE IS LOTS OF BAD ADVICE OUT THERE 

Why Should people connect with you?

Why Should people connect with you?

This is a very powerful and important question that all business owners need to answer, and they do need to be honest to the point of being brutal when they answer this question.

Online marketing is a very complicated affair, and there are so many different aspects that one needs to get under control, that it is very scary for all small business owners. There is so much help online for each segment, that it boggles the mind, and confuses the issue even more.

So where does one start with these issues?

Start with documenting your business purpose, aims and objectives, then evaluate these and compare them with your current marketing efforts, and understand what this means for your target audience.  Are you chasing the numbers, or are you trying to have a conversation with your audience?

If you are chasing the numbers then your audience will see this and ignore you, how ever if you are trying to have a conversation with your audience, they will interpret this and respond appropriately.

People will connect with you if you give them the opportunity, and respond appropriately when they take up your offer. Its kind of like walking down the street, if you avoid eye contact with every body and look the other way,  why should they stop and speak about the weather.  On the other hand if you look at people and greet them, then perhaps you may be able to strike up a conversation and discuss the weather,  a local event or some other common issue.  If you are all salesy and just push your self onto people and start talking about a product you want to sell, asking then to buy your stuff, then most will also ignore you and walk on past, or even worse call some back up and get you chased out of their space, and if you are in a shopping mall call security and get you turfed out of the building.

 

Being online is no different to life in the real world when it comes to behavioral issues, and trying to connect  online has the same principals and issues as trying to connect with people in real life as this short video (just under half an hour) with +Jason T. Wiser  and +Yifat Cohen explains quite well

This video is part of Jasons HOA's that he holds to promote his business interests, actually  highlights some of the related issues.   Watch the video and enjoy the feeling that you get when things fall into place so that you have a better understanding of why your target audience would want to connect with you.

Once again #FUFISM or Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media is all about using the social media as a communication tool to integrate all your marketing into one solid well oiled marketing machine, so think carefully about why your target audience should connect with you within the social media space and do what needs to be done so that your target audience feels comfortable connecting with you within the platforms that you make available to them, and that you respond to the attempts that your audience makes to interact with you.

Google plus engaement issues from a #FUFISM perspective

Google plus is a great platform for a variety of reasons, with the primary one being that you will have a foot in the door as far as Google Search is concerned.  Google has many indexing issues with other social media platforms, and the walled garden effect is often very serious, with all non public posts being excluded from Google's sphere of influence.

Getting traction within any specific market is an ongoing issue that needs due diligence and proper interpretation of your target market audience, and when using the social media you need to ensure that those who follow you, or are within your social network form part of your target market audience. This means that you need to do true, in-depth target market research, and have a very clear understanding of who your target audience is and how you are going to interact with them in a manner that allows you to place your call to action statements. Google plus has specific options for you to do this via specialist business pages that are directly linked to your personal profile and associated page.

You do need to separate your personal life from your business life when doing any social media marketing. Failure to do this will lead to poor branding and mixed signals to your target audience.  You personal profile should be used as a platform to brand yourself as an ambassador for your business and community related pages within all social media platforms, and you should never be salesy or pushy within your personal profile page.  This sounds very easy, but is infact a really difficult thing to do.

You personal profile page describes you as an individual, and is where your personality and industry specific knowledge will shine through and allow others to interact and engage with you on a personal level.  once you have a personal connection then you may, if appropriate, lead this person down the conversion path to become a client, customer or fellow activist in your cause.

You should have a business page in place,  where you do business related stuff and push you business opportunities through links to your web site, your blog and other online resources.  You should also have a community page in place where your business issues are discussed in depth and you mange various sectors of your business opportunities, through different categories within the community,  informing those who have taken the time to join your community of your services, products, events and other areas of interest.

As an individual you should also be a member of  various communities that have links to your business model, your products, your services or the events that you handle. This is industry specific, and you will need to choose these after studying your intended target audience and their social media habits, so that you can lead them to your business page or your community without being pushy or obnoxious in any way.

Your entire marketing team needs to be up to speed with he various platforms and different sections of each platform that you, as an individual are using, so that your personal and business profiles can be used to the best advantage to interact with your
target audience in the most appropriate manner.

A post by +curator Circle  discussing some of these related issues within Google plus itself.

Pinterest and FUFISM

 FUFISM back ground info

#FUFISM or Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media has many facets and covers a large spectrum of different strategies. Each social media platform has its own traits and needs to have its own set of in-house rules that need to be made available to all people working on your marketing team.

This means that your marketing management team need to determine a platform specific policy for each social media platform which your marketing team should have access to.  Each Member of your marketing team actually needs to have a copy of  each separate social media platform's policies and procedures after being work-shopped on the main purpose of using that platform within your total marketing strategy.

To some this may sound like a bit of over kill from managements directives, but if not done,  the results will not be any where near what they should be.  One must remember that the purpose of using social media as a marketing tool is to get the end user or your intended target market to specific pages within your website, where he / she will be expected to follow your call to action statement.

So how does PINTEREST fit into this picture?

Pinterest is a picture / image sharing social media platform that has many unique characteristics and we will focus primarily on the ability to have themed pin boards for pictures in selected categories. If you are not familiar with pinterest then you should take a short detour to www.pinterest.com and have a peep see what all the fuss is about before reading further.

The first step in this process of using pinterest as a marketing tool is to write up the purpose of using pinterest along with a set of aims and objectives as well as an in-house policy document on how the rest of your marketing team should interact with your pinterest profile and boards.  Each specific marketing campaign should have its own separate documentation for your pinterest profile, and share the pin boards that you have in place.

To be able to write up the purpose of using pinterest as a marketing tool one needs to understand what pinterest does and how this is done.  see http://business.pinterest.com/whats-pinterest/ for details

PINTEREST purpose related issues

From a FUFISM perspective pinterest is an image sharing platform that allows your marketing team to use a single  image reference in ALL other social media platforms in a way that it will funnel your intended target market back to the page where that specific image with its associated call to action live, in anticipation, waiting for your intended target audience to be enticed into clicking on your call to action statement.  This means that the original image MUST be enticing,  and clearly depict something that your target audience will relate to, such as your product or a very descriptive image that reflects your service or the idea that you are trying to convey to your intended target audience. see http://www.pinterest.com/pin/100275529177237087/  Remember that once an end user clicks on your pin he / she will be taken back to the original page where the image was first pinned.

Use a URL shortening service and generate a user friendly URL that will help you entice an end user to click on the link to your pin. example http://bit.ly/hashtag-marketing   this link  opens a page discussing hash tag marketing (#hashtagmarketing) in this blog.

Pinterest is a powerful social media platform that is growing into a must have marketing tool, as it adds very large volumes of SEOVI (Search Engine Optimization Value Indicators) to your online work. Pinterest has a large domain authority that spreads an awful lot of SEO value and is instrumental in elevating many web sites higher into the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages)  If you can get others to re-pin your pins and share them, then the social signals associated with your pin will add further SEOVI to your pinterest profile, which in turn will boost your other SEO efforts. Pinterest adds true value to your semantic profile within all search engines, and this is of extreme importance within Google with the advent of Google Humming Bird Algorithm which has a very large focus on semantic issues.

IMAGE NAMING and descriptions

Referencing your pinterest pins in posts within other social media platforms adds extra value to your pinterest profile as a whole and the specific pin in particular.  You need to make use of this through using an integrated approach, and ensuring that you mention your pinterest pins in the correct context within your social media posts on all other social media platforms.  This is not such a difficult thing to accomplish when your marketing campaign  is put together from a FUFISM perspective, where the big picture is properly in the central marketing focal area, and your pages where your call to action statements are properly constructed using the image which you will pin within your pinterest profile as a visual hook with the in page assembly, using well thought through

• image file names
• Image descriptions
• image titles
• image alt text
• image key words

PIN BOARD NAMES within pinterest.

This set of target market orientated image expansion tactics needs to be well thought through and be  well documented so that your copy writers who construct your other social media posts can use the same set of key words during their efforts to entice your intended target market to click on the link back to your page. The description of your pin within your pinterest profile should also contain as many of these words in well constructed sentences or partial sentences as you can so that they make clear and meaningful impacts on your intended target market should they read them.  This is also very critical from a semantic perspective as these efforts will add tremendous semantic value to both your pin and the original web page where your image and related call to action statements reside.

You will need to take some time and effort in evaluating the naming process of your different boards within your pinterest profile, and ensure that each individual board is named  and described with your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) tactics in mind. These pin board names and descriptions must fit into the rest of your marketing plan, as they will be associated with your web site, blog and other online marketing avenues.

For more help in setting up your pinterest profile and related in-page SEO issues  contact our friendly staff at pinterst.help@info4u.co.za,  visit our Google plus page or ask your question in a comment on this post.