Life After Link Building

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Reboot your thinking about link building and start to focus on making better content.

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Life After Link Building

presented by Woj Kwasi

Reboot...

A New Approach to Marketing Your Site

Woj Kwasi

15 years experience • Web Development • SEO • Online Marketing

Head Honcho: Kwasi Studios

Kwasi Studios

Websites for Robots & Humans

Inbound Marketing & Content Strategy

Who Likes Link Building?

Got better things to do

with your budget?

Links Are Important

Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote by page A for page B.

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/40349?hl=en

Snowball Effect

Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily & help to make other pages "important."

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/40349?hl=en

Natural vs Unnatural

"...algorithms can distinguish natural links from unnatural links."

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/40349?hl=en

Natural Links

These links develop as part of the dynamic nature of the web when other sites find your content valuable & think it would be helpful for their visitors.

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/40349?hl=en

Unnatural Links

Unnatural links to your site are placed there specifically to make your site look more popular to search engines.

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/40349?hl=en

Google's Bottom Line

Only natural links are useful for the indexing & ranking of your site.

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/40349?hl=en

BUT HOW DO I GET

NATURAL LINKS???

Don't Forget The SEO Pyramid Get all of these things right

http://moz.com/blog/whiteboard-friday-the-seo-fundamentals-pyramid

For Best Results…

…start with a strong base build upwards

http://moz.com/blog/whiteboard-friday-the-seo-fundamentals-pyramid

Today's Basic SEO Principles

Authors

Content

Links

Rankings

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq7FHxkIQCw (c/o @dejanseo)

CREATE GREAT

CONTENT

GREAT AUTHORS

EARNS GREAT LINKS

GREAT CONTENT

CREATE GREAT

RANKINGS

GREAT LINKS

Don't Rely Soley on SEO Index search is no longer the dominant method used

Other Search Combined >= Indexed Search

These channels need to be part of your digital strategy

Inbound Marketing

Traditional methods of link building now need to include social media & other search channels

http://www.kunocreative.com/blog/bid/69900/2012-Will-Divide-SEO-Practitioners-Into-Two-Camps

So, IS Link Building Dead??

Just Consider a Different Approach

DO #RCS

Measure Beyond Rankings

Total Traffic &

Sources

Conversion Rate

Educate Your Clients

…AND THEN?

Create Awesome

Content

Change Your Focus

http://moz.com/ugc/how-to-do-seo-in-2013

Google Mission Statement 1998 Google's mission is to organize the world's information,

making it universally accessible & useful.

Google Mission Statement 2013 Google's mission is to organize the world's information

& make it universally accessible & useful.

What's Changed 1998 to Now?

We're talking trillions of pages

Quick Delivery

Quality & Relevance

War Against Spam

Change your Focus NOW!

Earn Your Links

Focus on creating content

How Do I Create Content?

Start With Your Own Backyard

Check Your Inventory

Do a Content Audit

Do a Site Crawl

Export URLs into Excel

Include Real Titles

…META Descriptions

How easy or difficult is finding a page when navigating the site? • Scored from 1-5

(5 = easy to find)

Findability

Quality of the page? • Structure • Writing • Clarity • Tone

Usability

Simple or complex?

Written for its ideal audience?

Knowledge Level

What type of call to action is needed?

Is there one?

How effective is it?

Actionability

Who is the page is pitched at? Who should it be pitched at?

Audience determined by various personas.

Audience

Name, Title Age, Gender, Location, Family Life, Likes/Dislikes

Personas

http://marketingbeforefunding.com/2013/02/26/complete-guide-to-creating-a-customer-persona-for-your-startup/ Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasontravis/

Michael, the MD of the

investment bank, mid 40s, wants the deal to run smoothly & for the clients to be happy and confident with their choice. He isn't likely to spend much time using the software at all. He is much more interested in face to face relationships and good news.

Meet Michael

Minimum Viable Persona

Is content accurate & up to date?

Accuracy

Any 1s, 2s, 3s & 4s ? Fix these first! Identify The Problem Areas

Improve User Experience

User Experience Drives Links

It‘s Time to… Get

Creative

A Lecture on Creativity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijtQP9nwrQA

To Get Into the Open Mode...

#1 SPACE Somewhere quiet Seal Yourself Off

#2 TIME For a specific duration - 1.5 hours

#3 TIME Persevere More pondering time

#4 Confidence Fear of making a mistake Openness to anything

#5 HUMOUR Laughter brings relaxation Gets us open faster

Play is distinct from “ordinary” life both as to locality & duration Johan Huizinga - Dutch Historian

Want Some

Samples?

Random Affinities

http://moz.com/blog/growing-your-audience-with-random-affinities

Two ideas + no obvious connection except audience = random affinity

- Ian Laurie

Visualise Data

http://www.birchstudio.com/blog/data-visualization/

http://www.birchstudio.com/blog/data-visualization/

Inbound Marketing Chart

Inbound Marketing Town!

Keyword Research?

Keyword Research? Content Idea Research!

Ubersuggest.org

People are Asking

Questions

…and They Want Answers!

Soovle.com

Use Social Media

...Carefully!

Dogs or Cats?

Target Multiple Personas

Who Doesn’t Enjoy a

GOOD Infographic

Or a Good Picture?

Get Interactive

http://debt.co.uk/football/wages/

http://debt.co.uk/football/wages/

http://www.slideshare.net/hawkt/an-event-apart-five-big-asasea-takeaways

Promote an Event with Slideshare

Make a Video

Dollar Shave Club

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUG9qYTJMsI

Tippexperience

http://www.youtube.com/user/tippexperience

Cater for ALL Platforms!

TEST Experiment

TEST!!

http://unbounce.com/landing-page-examples/36-landing-page-designs-critiqued-for-conversion/

http://unbounce.com/landing-page-examples/36-landing-page-designs-critiqued-for-conversion/