I recently started using Google’s Voice & Video Chat for Gmail which is a welcomed free tool in my opinion…especially for us link builders. I tend to do a lot of direct emailing for clients, and the ability to have this kind of access to my link prospects is going to open things up quite a bit. With all those Gmail contacts you’re collecting I implore you to take a chance and try to chat with webmasters and site owners face to face. I’m sure by now a lot of you have cold called webmasters which we all know brings in mixed results. If it’s easy enough for Grandma, then it surely is easy enough for a skilled SEO such as yourself.

I just saw a post by Loren Baker about this very slick looking software suite from the fine folks at BlueGlass and just had to post about it. This software takes your marketing campaign to the next level with organization, analytic and work flow tools to make life easier. They have been private for a while, and this is the launch of a private beta in which you can sign up for. Loren did an amazing post on SEJ about the software, so there is no need for me to do it again, however I urge you to take the time to watch this video on how it all comes together.

Raven SEO has recently put out a slick new commercial in HD showcasing all the features of their marketing tool suite. The tools are really coming together and so is Raven’s online marketing efforts for itself. If you’re looking for an all-in-one SEO toolbox then I suggest you check them out for at least the backlink analyzer, social media monitoring and of course the stats!

BuzzStream is a must have tool for any search marketing consultant out there, never mind us link builders. With that being said, they now have some really cool new backlink analysis tools on the market. I was quite pleased to see how they`re actively monitoring certain key elements if your link campaign, a feature which most other tools are not doing. BuzzStream now emails you on changes such as when a link goes from followed to nofollow. This is just the next step of total link management and if you`re in a heated niche, this information is going to give you the advantage. I can also see this being used to monitor your competitors as well…oh the possibilities!

• Changes to the page it is linking
• Changes to nofolllow/dofollow status
• Changes to anchor text
• Changes to the number of outbound links on the pages

Read New Release: Improved Filtering, Link Checking and Reporting.

SEO Steve takes some time to make a nice little video on the link building features of BuzzStream. This social media monitoring software is a great asset to any link building campaign, and you’ll quickly see just what you can do. I’m about to write a post on their new backlink monitoring addition which is just rolling out today. For more cool videos you can check Steve’s video podcast on Youtube called SEO Expert TV.

Here’s another cool feature displayed out on video for your low attention span folks like myself. I cannot stress the importance of management in any long term or large linking campaigns. There are few tools out there for this, and I’ve yet to see something public that matches Raven’s setup. This will give you a clear idea of how you can track links, find new link targets based on a quality score and then keep that data for future analysis in your Raven site profile. To see more features of of this awesome software check out my Raven SEO Link Building Management page.

For some reason everyone is press release crazy at this time of year so I’m always testing and trying out new sites. There are a lot of press release services out there so it’s hard to pick which one to go with, and it really depends on who you want to target. Chances are good that if your industry is big enough, there will be a niche specific distribution network out there to target. If you want to get some news out to as many people as possible, then you need to play some with of the big boys. I’ve recommended PRWeb many times before, and most of you most likely use them on a monthly basis.

I’m going to urge you to check over 24-7 Press Release for your next PR blast because they’ve got a whole other network you might want to tap into. These folks are one of the bigger players in the PR world and you get a pretty sweet deal out of what they charge. There are several press release packages that range from free to the mid hundreds which isn’t too much of a problem for most medium to large corporations. It also doesn’t hurt to take advantage of getting a link from their site alone which is quite authoritative, and is only going to do your link profile some good.

The different packages which you can see if my poorly edited photo can be seen here in better detail, but take a close look. Tons of affordable options to choose from but my choice would be the $139 package which gets you a nice report which is great for clients. The one thing  I didn’t see listed in these options was the business directory that 24-7 Press Release has on their site. It is an extra cost but if you check out the indexing rate, Pagerank on the internal pages and the Alexa of these folks then you’ll quickly see it’s worth the cost.

I always like to go through the more popular categories of news releases and sniff out their backlinks to see how the news did for them. This should give you an idea of the type of sites you may have the potential to get your news listed on. You might even be able to sniff out a few places within your industry that you can submit your news directly to.  There are always little link building gems to be found in your niche so make sure to give it a good look.

The fine folks over at SEOmoz have just released access to a new and sexy (I know I have a problem) backlink analysis and reporting tool powered by Linkscape. If you don’t already know about the SEOmoz Pro Tools then let me give you a piece of information that should make your mouth water. Linkscape now contains over 700 billion links from nearly 65 billion pages on the web, so that’s a no brainer for any link builder.

Open Site Explorer is a clean and easy to use interface much like Link Diagnosis except it has so much data I nearly had to change my underpants. For the next 33 hours it is fully open to the public for usage so I suggest you get on it and start playing with it. The best part I think is so far from what I’ve seen are the filtering options which is going to make my life a whole lot easier.

Rand just finished up a meaty post on Open Site Explorer which sums up pretty much everything I’d comment on, so go read his post on it. This is definitely going to be worth the purchase if you’re serious about your link profile, and of course that of your competitor’s!

You and I both know that there are a lot of excessive link spammers out there, especially when it comes to blogs. If you like at programs like Xrumor, they target weak guestbook scripts, insecure forums and out of date blog comment systems. I’m not sure why I haven’t heard of Bad Behavior until now, but it is definitely worth tinkering around with. There is a wordpress plugin for the likes of me and the other millions of users, but there is also some code to easily integrate into your PHP framework.

I’m planning on getting a forum of sorts going on here soon and the last one was overrun with link spam. Bad Behavior analyzes incoming HTTP headers, the IP address, and other data to determine if it is coming up rotten. Since it is mostly acting at the TCP level you don’t have to worry about the site loading slowly. They’ve tested it successfully on a site with over 100,000 unique visitors a day. There is actually quite a lot to the inner workings of Bad Behavior and they graciously have provided a wealth of information on how it works.

Bad Behavior complements other link spam solutions by acting as a gatekeeper, preventing spammers from ever delivering their junk, and in many cases, from ever reading your site in the first place. This keeps your site’s load down, makes your site logs cleaner, and can help prevent denial of service conditions caused by spammers.

This plugin is of course free and done out of hate for spam, so if you too hate spam as much, make sure to donate to their efforts. I’m going to be testing the plugin out over the next month so I’ll update this thread with any notes on how it performs. If you have any questions ask away in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer them.

Download Link: Get Bad Behavior Here
Blocked Googlebot Warning: http://expressionengine.com/forums/viewthread/63850/
Thanks to Alex from Application Developer who pointed out this to me.