Live Blogging SMX: Real Life Link Building

June 8th, 2010 Ryan Jones

Link Building can be boring. Let’s hope this isn’t about top 10 lists and the same old shit we’ve already heard.

Roger Montti – b2b links are a challenge. Use allintitle: “keyword” to find sites that link to relevant resources.

Backlink Trolling – see who’s linking to your competitors and cherry pick the best ones. You can’t just rely on this technique though. It’ll only make you “as good” as your competitor, not better. Ideally you want to find sites that don’t link to your competition. Work with a reputable link building agency for link acquisition.

linkdomain:relatedsite.com – site:relatedsite.com “sponsors” will find sponsorship opportunities that youre competitors are using.

Did you know that .us sites can’t hide site ownership? Just a thought.

Industry associations are a great way to get links. Spam thought: Creating a fake industry association is a great way to get people to pay you for links!

Paid Links. we all do it, we’re all discrete about it. If you’re not discrete you’re welcoming a reputation management issue.

So far, much of this presentation is the same old crap we’ve been talking about for years. Now I see why Danny Sullivan hates putting together link building panels.

Danny’s Tip: Don’t ask him or Matt Cutts for a paid link.

Ok Arnie Kuenn’s turn now.

Have fun and be creative. Do a little research before you contact somebody asking for a link.

Build a relationship with the site you’re asking for a link on.

Find broken links, email the webmaster and let them know about the broken links while suggesting your own site as a resource to be added.

Hmm. Offer to write a guest post for a blog and offer to promote that post on your twitter account. This works great if you have a good twitter following.

This is the guy behind the “google to start SEO agency” story that made rounds in late April after newsvine didn’t get the april fools joke.

Chris Bennett is up now.

Infographics are cheesy but they seem to work very well for making something boring interesting. This makes sense because I’ve retweeted a few of his graphics in the past without even knowing it.

Offer to “guest viral” content out to other sites.

Gil Reich: Being an authority starts with claiming that you are.

No offense to Gil, he’s really entertaining, but I think I’ve become generally bored with link building in general. This time slot needed something better. Owell.

Stop trying to figure out what people/engines perceive as trusted and authoritative and work on becoming trusted and authoritative.

Debra Mastaler – i don’t know who she is but she likes the queen of england. #random

How can you get even more links out of your content? Recommends Dapper.net also rss mix. Also check out Yoast’s wordpress rss footer plugin. http://yoast.com/wordpress/rss-footer

Don’t chase links, chase the community! That’s solid advice.

You can’t fight wikipedia? Sure you can: I did.

Interesting idea: use chat roulette with a sign saying “link to me.” Not sure I like it, but it’s creative.

Buy old websites that have links. I’ve tried this myself but I’m not a big fan. Purchasing a live site that still exists though does have some legs to it – especially for microsites.

My (ever evolving) Summary: Link building is hard, and most SEOs don’t want to do hard work. That’s why we keep wanting link building sessions, but when it comes down to it the only good methods are the tried and true ones: build quality content. Good content will go viral with very little effort and it helps users.

Thought of the day: We’d get a lot more links by just all linking to each other than by sitting in a room for an hour talking about link building.

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