Link Building

Guest Blogging Link Building Strategies & Tactics

September 7 | Link Building | Ryan Clark

We’ve recently launched our guest blogging link building service after getting a little bit more in our groove. While we’ve always incorporated the tactic into our campaigns, there’s now enough to go on to create a campaign based on just straight guest blogging. Keep in mind we don’t recommend guest blogging as your sole link building strategy, but it definitely is in heavy rotation for our established clients and in heavy demand for our potential clients. If you’re in a competitive niche then guest blogging can be a huge help in ranking for those hard to rank keywords. It’s also a great way to splash in targeted anchor text links(don’t over do it) that are in content – my favorite!

Like I mentioned, there is a lot of work involved in guest blogging, especially if you’re doing it right. There are so many things we factor in to ensure that the utmost quality is being applied to every guest blogging venture. So that means not only finding great blogs to get involved with, it means taking the time to create awesome content. A lot of the guest blogging taking place these days is really on the junk end of things. I want to steer clear of that and make sure it doesn’t become a baron wasteland like article marketing has become. The cliché is a cliché because it’s true. The quality of the content should always be paramount.

I’ll be covering not only a variety of ways to land guest blogging gigs, but also which content is going to fair well on which blogs. Keep in mind that if you score a really influential blog, you best not be bringing boring content to the table. A really great piece of content on the right blog can produce some serious link juice, and a lot of that is going to funnel your way! On the other hand, a fluff piece will establish you as somebody who writes fluff pieces with everybody who reads the article. There are hundreds of guest blogging opportunities just waiting for your touch out there so pay attention and learn something new.

Guest Blogging Services:

We’ll start with the easy bit first because there are a few guest blogging services out there that can make life a little easier. If I could give any advice/wisdom about this form of discovery, it would be to be very careful. With ease comes great lack of quality in a lot of cases, and you have to keep a sharp eye to get your work in the best spots. I tend to notice a lot of the blogs have too lax of a policy and a lot of garbage content is spewed out. Lazy webmasters are too easily swayed by free content, even if it is sub par.

MyBlogGuest.com – This is by far the best option for quick and good access to a bunch of different types of blogs. While there are still a lot of low quality blogs I wouldn’t touch with a 10 foot pole, the good outweighs the bad for sure. It’s a great community as well and it makes the whole process a lot more easy to handle. A pro account is $20 and simply requires that you submit articles into a pool; it is honestly the easiest way to get content published on blogs that you don’t run. The free accounts don’t let you release articles into the pool, but making connections with other members is still a very good way to get your content published.

Guest Blogging Network – I’ll be honest and say I had never heard of or seen this service prior to writing this post. It looks like they connect you with writers when they have a match in their network. Sadly, I wish I could say more but you’ll just have to check it out yourself and see if anything good comes of it. We’ll be doing the same in the coming months.

Web Traffic Control – This is another guest blogging network that connects writers and webmasters for guest blogging ease. It’s also a service we’ve never tried so if you have, let us all know in the comments below! I’ll be signing up today and Geoff is going to let me know whether it’s worth your time. He’s currently doing a big guest blogging campaign for a client so he was pleased to find this out.

Linknami Guest Blog Network – Linknami has an extensive guest blogging network that you can join for free! We’ve been checking it out for a while now and, while there are quite a few low quality blogs involved, there are some gems worth sniffing out for serious topical links. It’s growing rapidly as well so I’d definitely recommend checking out Linknami.

BlogSynergy.com – Believe it or not, this is yet another service that helps connect writers and blog owners to get their guest posting on! (I told you guest blogging was popular). I’ve yet to use this service as well, so once again I’m sorry for the lack of hard data here. You can however go check out some of the sites in the network to get an idea of what’s there. As usual, a lot of lower quality blogs where owners just want content to be wrapped with their Adsense.

The Guest Blogger @ LinkedIn – This is a private LinkedIn group that I’d recommend joining for the networking. There are just about 500 group members and the ratio of bloggers to webmasters is pretty good. Like the other sources though, there is still a good deal of junk in there so I’d only expect to find a few gems!

Hunting Down Prime Blog Targets:

This is by far the best method for a multitude of reasons. Going after blogs that don’t usually allow guest bloggers is always going to be the better link. I like to target the biggest blogs in the target vertical first, for not only the link, but for the branding and social media push. Riding off the coat tails of the established site is really going to give your content a huge push. That’s a nice set of extra features and will save you some time.

Like any good link building, this is all about building relationships with those influential people in your industry. I’m going to have to beat that into a lot of people’s brains, so I apologize if you’re getting sick of hearing it. These relationships will net the best links and make it really hard for your competition to keep up. While they’re doing the usual lame link building, you’re out there building your brand, which will last for years to come… not just the next 6 months.

Google Queries – There are a bunch of queries you can use to find guest blogging opportunities and I’ll run down a few of them. For the most part, just see who’s ranking in your industry and follow them socially, email them personally and even see if you can get a phone/Skype conversation out of them. Anything to make them connect with you and open up their world of connections. These search queries should get you going and lead you down a whole new path:

- intitle:write for us + “keyword/location”
- intitle:submit guest post + “keyword/location”
- intitle:guest blog for us + “keyword/location”
- intitle:submit blog post + “keyword/location”
- intitle:guest blogging opportunity + “keyword/location”

Twitter – I will state time and time again, Twitter is a great tool for building relationships that lead to links. All you can do here is reTweet your targets content, talk with them and get on their radar. If you email them later about writing for his/her blog, you can mention your past interaction: “hey, it’s so-and-so from Twitter”. I find that doing something for them before asking anything of them is a good strategy. If you notice anything that might make them more money or save them time, drop them a hint.

Bring Your Content A-Game:

Why would you waste your and the webmaster’s time with boring old content? So you land a writing chance on the biggest blog in your vertical, what kind of content are you thinking about? It better be viral/link bait in nature or I’m going to come down to your office and smack you good and hard! Since this blog is going to have an amazing reach to just about every corner of your niche, you’ll want to make sure your content gets that full potential.

Infographics - Put yourself in the blog owner’s shoes. If you got offered a custom infographic for your blog would you turn it down? I think not! This is a sure fire way of not only score a link from their blog, but the viral nature of the post should fire a lot of link juice you way. Not only that, you’ll get some much needed brand recognition. If you provide an embed code, make sure to include a link first to the host blog and a provided by link to yours and score some extra link action (booyah)!

The Ever So Popular List - Lists have always done well and they’re not quite done yet. Just take a look around your niche to see what’s popped on other social media sites and start gathering ideas. Obviously you cannot just copy another idea, so see where there’s a gap and start writing away. Picture and video lists really do well and they’re entertaining enough for the low attention span generation that we all know and love.

Cover An Event Or News - There’s always something going on in an industry so take note and see what’s doable. We’ve helped clients cover a conference and write about it for an industry blog which lead to a lot of positive results. Hot news can also be a “Godsend” if you can play down an angle and get people talking. The more controversial the subject the better!

Do Whatever…. - Everyone else is NOT doing! Amazing content that stands out from the norm is the best advice I can give. Research, research, research! There’s so much rehashed content being covered in every industry that it’s getting quite ridiculous(just look at 90% of the SEO blogs out there).

Resources:

There are a ton of guest blogging resources out there so I of course want to hear what you got in our comments. I’ve rounded up some of the posts I’ve bookmarked over the years, so hopefully you find a bunch of useful tips and tricks, so get guest blogging!

- http://www.verticalmeasures.com/guest-blogging/25-guest-blogging-resources-2010/
- http://weblogs.about.com/b/2008/07/21/what-is-guest-blogging.htm
- http://www.viperchill.com/guest-blogging/
- http://www.seo.com/blog/guest-blogging-efforts/
- http://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-guest-blogging-is-getting-huge/24818/

Tagged guest blogging, Link Building

Why We Don’t Rely On Google For Clients

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September 2 | Link Building | Ryan Clark

I’m a huge fan of the saying, “don’t keep all your eggs in one basket”, and that is sound advice for every business. There are so many companies out there relying solely on free Google traffic, and this is a scary thing. I’d like to talk a little about why we don’t care too much about search engine traffic for leads. Hopefully this wakes some of you up to start thinking about a better business plan.

I’m taking a break from writing a post on B2B marketing strategies because I’d like to vent a little. Google’s SERPs for anything worth ranking for is still being dominated by nefarious link building tactics, and I haven’t seen much change in 5 years. They tell you to write great content to obtain links, while this does work, it’s a big fat joke if you actually want to make any money.

Let’s take our company for example. We’d ideally want a top 10 ranking for the keyword “link building service”, but a quick look at the top 10 shows nothing but paid links and link spam ranking almost everyone. Everything from low quality linking services to paid link building companies are showing up here. Only one legit and respectable SEO firm stands in the top 10 which is shocking. Half of the other sites ranking there have been there for years on paid links and spammed anchor text links. I’m not going to name names, but it’s pretty lame of Google.

The results will be a little bit different for everyone, but this is the current outlook of “link building service” in Google;

This is a shame because it will only lead to more companies blindly signing up and paying for lousy link marketing tactics. I hate this! So many companies are going to be putting their business at risk without even knowing it. While I know this won’t last forever, you should be well aware of the coming link valuation changes to Google in the next year.

I know a lot of our readers are seeing the same thing for their SERPs and are sitting on the fence about going with a different hat, and I don’t blame them. Hell, I’ve even thought about dipping into the grey areas to get more bang for my Google buck. Thankfully our networking, online relationships and branding keeps bringing in the clients.

So to sum things up, this is why building relationships online should be your key focus. Becoming a leader in your niche/industry will keep your business thriving, so keep fighting the good fight. Great content does attract links but it’s a harder thing to do these days, and it isn’t cheap to do properly. Keep being creative, don’t copy what others are doing and network in your industry as if you business relied on it(because it does).

Tagged Link Building

Google PageRank Explained For Modern Times

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August 24 | Link Building | Geoff

I imagine Rand had been getting quite sick of answering so many questions about PageRank and its (un)importance when it comes to SEO. So so so many people still think obtaining PageRank is the be all end all in this game, and that’s the last thing you should be worrying about. In this day and age, it’s all about great content and a well built website to make the rest follow. Rand does a really bloody good job of explaining the system for anyone else out there still wondering what to make of it all.

Tagged pagerank, rand fishkin, seomoz, whiteboard friday

Link Wheel Links Cause Possible Penalty?

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August 18 | Link Building | Ryan Clark

Can you get penalized for building a link wheel? Well that’s something that’s debated quite a bit these days and I’m on the side of them being a method you should most likely steer clear of. Why do I state that? Well it is clearly a link scheme defined by Google’s linking guidelines because they’re used to inflate your rankings. The other problem is that 99% of the link wheels created out there are being done with spun low quality content, and then blasted with Xrumer, Scrapebox and whatever other spam tool out there. I’m not one to judge at all here, for those doing it clearly know it works well and is making people money.

When it comes to building links the legit way for a business you plan on keeping high in the SERPs, then this isn’t a method you want to dabble with. I’ve written about the Pros & Cons of the Link Wheel before, but we’re certainly a company that won’t ever be offering this service any time soon. While I’ll agree link wheels form naturally in the wild through the magic of social media, the obvious ones will be easily sniped by Google.

I’ve constantly stated that you can find me helping out in Google’s Webmaster Help, and I’m running across more and more link wheel related issues on the boards. As you can see in the video above, SEO firms are offering this service to a more business oriented crowd, and this could potentially lead to disaster. I’d recommend at least offering a warning about these methods to clients before blindly leading them down that path.

So clearly link wheels work well, and I’ve personally seen a few that were done so professionally that I don’t think Google would ever have caught on. The site it was ranking for was within the finance niche and has been ranking top 5 for nearly two years now on nothing but a giant elaborate link wheel. While that’s all good and dandy, I’d still have a hard time sleeping at night, wondering if Google will have caught on and sent my site into it’s -50 black hole.

Now I’ve been in many verbal web arguments over whether link wheels are a spam link building tactic. Looking at Google’s TOS it is an obvious YES YES YES. I don’t care what else you have to say about it, you’re never going to be right in saying otherwise. I’ve said this before, but link schemes are considered a no-no, and by looking at the picture below, do you not see something that could be defined as a scheme?

Live Cases Of People Being Penalized?

So let’s get into the examples where people are talking about real world examples of sites getting in trouble, people talking about whether it’s spam or not and whatever else. The Google Crawling, Indexing and Ranking section of their webmaster help is full of those examples and I highly recommend you read through these to further ease your mind. With that being said, feel free to post up if you’ve had a problem or want to vent why you think they shouldn’t be considered a black hat tactic.

- http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=5d58a7d8d4202170&hl=en
- http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=7a00668e8f6aec39&hl=en
- http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=6de8a41394ea9df2&hl=en
- http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=4041e919ec2611ad&hl=en
- http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=3e8893966e432139&hl=en
- http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=75617ba48a9a6518&hl=en
- http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=50788bc7fcbb9c8c&hl=en

These are just some of the posts that are popping up lately over there and I’d expect to be seeing more. I know I’m not the only one who’s been seeing different behaviour towards links right around the time of Panda. It makes sense as well because Google is having a really hard time locking down the link spam that takes place. It is still quite evident that links will rank you just fine still, even if you have down right crap content. While it may not last for more than 2 weeks, there are keywords out there that make enough money to make it worth building another site for the next two weeks.

I’m just trying to define some sort of line because a lot of businesses out there are using link services out there and have no idea what they’re getting. You may also have nothing but great results from a proper link wheel, but do you really want to risk waking up one day to a bunch of devalued links?

Tagged Link Building, link wheel, link wheels

Link Building F$%# Up Of The Day

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July 22 | Link Building | Ryan Clark

Only once in a blue moon do I get out my mocking stick and put the smack down on some idiot link builder who is clearly smoking some crack. This is just one of thousand of examples why you need to be very careful in whom you hire to build links for you. There are a lot of lousy ways to do it, and there are some really stupid ways as well…this one being the latter. The link spammer either is up for link builder dummy of the year, or it’s just automated software. I think it’s an actual human because I’ve never seen a robot post on Google Webmaster Central before. This thread is also being spotlighted in my next post because it brings up another linking issue that we all should have a look at. For now, here is the post that made me lol!

Click Here To View The Post

Tagged Link Building

Buy Espresso Beans: Panda Results Study 1

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July 15 | Link Building | Ryan Clark

This is the first post of ten in our series covering Google Panda results, and this round covers the buy espresso beans keyword. I stated in the first post that I will randomly pick the search term at the start of writing, and being in a Starbucks this was one that came to mind. I also periodically buy my espresso beans online so this should be an interesting first look at what’s going on in the SERPs.

What are we looking for? Well a set of common factors that might help us all determine more of what Google is looking for, and in return help rank your website better. Panda was all about bringing up the high quality content, and especially it is here to return the most relevant search results. Since I’m interpreting the results, I may not be correct in my assumptions so feel free to call me out on them in the comments.

This first look is ecommerce in nature, so who knows what we’ll find out. I don’t imagine online shops need to worry as long as they have unique product descriptions, a good link profile, a social media presence and the usual on-page SEO factors. I’m still a big believer in links are king when it comes to ecommerce, so we’ll see what we notice after a few experiments.

From what I’m seeing already, Google has a good chunk of these search results correct in my mind, but there are a few here that I don’t think fit the bill. Take a look;

First Result: Passion For Coffee

Domain Links: 124
Page Links: 0

This to me is content made for the search engine and just talks about the different types of espresso you can buy. The page has some adsense on it, but other than that there is no way I’m going to end up buying any espresso from this site. So I was quite shocked to see this as the first result for this search term. Any actual online shop selling espresso beans shouldn’t have to put much effort into out ranking this site for the top spot. I have no idea why Starbucks.com isn’t outranking this.

Second Result: Starbucks

Domain Links: 200,000+

I could have guessed Starbucks would be ranking in the top 10 for this search query, although I’m surprised their Espresso page isn’t showing up. While they don’t have the right string of keywords anywhere to be seen, the slight mention of beans and espresso is enough drop them into the top 10. So the rankings here are easily nabbed due to them being a huge brand and having an even larger link profile. Although you think Google would rank the Starbucks Store Espresso page which actually sells the beans….

Third Result: Wikipedia

Domain Links: Millions
Page Links: 2500(ish)

The word buy isn’t even on this page, so content targeting is a big giant fail here in we’re wanting to be specific. I know Wikipedia ranks for damn near every keyword, but in this case I don’t see why it’s ranking so highly for this term. To me, it’s the link profile that’s doing it because even a search term for refined like “where to buy espresso beans”, Wikipedia is still in the top 5 results.

Fourth Result: Espresso Guy

Domain Links: 939
Page Links: 305

This result is in my opinion a good one. This site is dedicated to espresso coffe and provides just about everything you need to know from history, to beans types and where to buy the goods. The page ranking has great content, little ads and at the bottom lists a few different places to buy espresso beans. Even though I’d expect an online shop to be somewhere in the top 5 results, this page does a great job of informing first, then offering a multitude of buying options.

Fifth Result: Flying Bean

Domain Links: 1128

Flying Bean is a well known online shop that has been around for a long time, and I’ve even been a customer of their sampler pack! The shop CMS they’re using is pretty ghetto, but they have accumulated tons of natural links over the years, have unique written content and offer a lot of unique product. Their product pages however have little to no content on them, mostly just a one or two sentence description and that’s it…no customer reviews, ratings or anything fancy. This is definitely a hint that you don’t need a lot of content in the ecommerce sector so long as your product is unique.

Sixth Result: iGourmet

Domain Links: 27,000
Page Links: 61

This result is is ranking well even though it’s just a made for search engines landing page that feeds into their online shop. They have a strong link profile, but the content in their shop is just manufacturer product descriptions. Every page also has a few extra page length in blank white text as well which is caused by their hideous sidebar setup. If this isn’t an example of links over content I don’t know what is!

Seventh Result: Coffee Nuts

Domain Links: 19
Page Links: 0

I have no clue how this site is ranking and I don’t think it’s for the content. To me the page looks like jumped copied content that has a lot of grammatical errors. So folks, I’m at a loss at explaining this result being in the top 10…care to elaborate?

Eighth Result: Woot Deals

Domain Links: 14,200
Page links: 0

This page has a lot of good chatter from folks interested in espresso, and they’re getting a lot of answers back. While there are no links to the page, Woot.com is no slouch when it comes to having a killer link profile. As for the content, it’s 100% unique and user generated, so I imagine the time-on-site factor here is helping quite a bit as well. I spent a couple minutes reading through all the answers and actually found it useful myself.

Ninth Results:Cerini Coffee

Domain Links: 830
Page Links: 8

This is the type of site I’d expect to get in a search for this query, and when it comes to an ecommerce page ranking well, content is not really much of a factor. I will say that as long as it’s unique and properly laid out you can get in the top 10. On a page like this, you don’t really need or want much content, just enough to lead into the shopping results on the page.

Tenth Result: Coffee Review

Domain Links: 28,000
Page Links: 1

This page is broken down into 5 different sections that all cover a different aspect of espresso. I personally wouldn’t have structured it like this but it seems to be doing ok. This is a relevant search result from one of the biggest coffee sites on the web, so no surprise here. I am a little shocked this isn’t ranking within the top 5 results though.

Final Thoughts:

Perhaps not the best keyword idea to go on, but being off the top of my head at the time it’s a decent start to the 10 posts. High quality content doesn’t seem to play any sort of a role in these listings, and it’s still down to brand size and link profiles. I’d love to hear what your thoughts are on these results as well so please speak up! I hope in the coming posts to get all different sorts of queries that really bring in a good mix of results.

Tagged panda case study

Panda Ranking Factors: A Look At 10 Search Results

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July 15 | Link Building | Ryan Clark

While a few version of Google’s Panda update has completed, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at 10 different SERP results and poke around to see what we can find. I know a lot of people are complaining about the amount of junk results still showing up, the cheaters who are still link spamming for years and years, as well an influx of socially mashed content sites. I’m going to pick 10 different keywords off the top of my head at the start of each post. I’m going to look around me and come up with the search term by seeing what products are around me at the time. I’m usually at home, the office or working from a Starbucks somewhere here in Victoria, so I shouldn’t have a problem finding a good keyword to break down.

The whole purpose of this experiment should hopefully bring forth a lot of common factors into the open that we can go on. While Panda was supposed to weed out lousy content, I have a feeling that links are also getting a slightly different look. I’m aware this claim has been denounced by others, but we’ll wait and see what kind of things we see after these 10 posts. I’m also aware of the fact that the data pulled might not reflect any solutions or solid evidence, but I hope something good comes of it. I’ll be using Cemper’s Link Research Tools to pull all the data I need, so thanks to him and his team for hooking a nerd up!

Since sites to naughty things to rank hard, we’ll have to keep in mind that what we look at that day most certainly may not be the case next month. I’ll not only be looking at links of course, but the content on site as well as the social media metrics in hopes this pin points a lot of common themes. This will be especially interesting within the ecommerce realm because I will look at a few shopping related search results.

I hope to hear a lot of chatter on these posts from the readers here because I’m getting a little tired of the comment spam coming in. This post will also be a jump off spot for all the posts, so you can come back over time to jump around to the results you want to look at. There’s no doubt I’ll miss something in my analysis, so if you see something I forgot and you mention it, you’ll score yourself a nice link from that post!

The Post Index:

1) Search Result Of The Day – Buy Espresso Beans
2) TBA
3) TBA
4) TBA
5) TBA
6) TBA
7) TBA
8) TBA
9) TBA
10) TBA

Tagged panda ranking factors

Interview With Leah Baade: Content Ninja

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June 13 | Link Building | Ryan Clark

I had the pleasure of meeting and sitting down with copywriter and content ninja Leah Baade here in Victoria BC. It was nice to finally meet more people face to face instead of just Twitter or some forum. Leah is someone who knows quality content, something a lot of people still struggle to do well in this day and age. While we have our own perspectives on how to produce link worthy content, it’s always good to hear from the industry pro’s who frankly just do it better than the rest. I’d like to thank Leah for taking the time to meet with a stranger, and thanks for introducing me to Habit coffee here in Victoria…they have excellent beanage!

Introduction

I’m a copywriter and I also offer content marketing and social media consulting and management. I
recently took a video sales letter course with Chris Haddad and Lou D’Alo. It’s the new school version
of the old school direct mail approach – people are so much more highly engaged with video. It’s a lot of
fun to tell the sales story via video.

Content strategies that actually benefit the user:

A lot of people feel overwhelmed by the amount of content that needs to be created for the various platforms that exist now. And once that content is there, how can it be crafted into useful information that engages and converts?

It’s really not that scary when you start with the knowledge base within your company. And all of that information can be gleaned from your employees and repurposed for the various mediums.

The blog is a great platform for demonstrating your expertise and knowledge in your market. Answer questions, comment on recent market trends, interview other experts, post how-to videos – you’re limited only by your imagination. Hosted on the company’s main website, the blog is a huge boon for SEO. Not only are you helping your customers and readers, you’re helping yourself!

Don’t overlook repurposing information. For example, take the information from news releases and
work them into blog posts, videos for your YouTube channel, photos for your flickr stream, and post
links to those places on your Facebook and Twitter accounts. The same information can trickle down
into each place, all driving traffic back to your website in the process.

Of course, finding time within your organization to facilitate this process can be a challenge. It can also
be difficult to figure out how to use the content in your favour, not just to get hits on your site, but
to get repeat visitors and, in time, engage those visitors and convert them to customers. A consultant
will be able to put together a cohesive content marketing strategy and even help put the information
together.

Have any tips for creating content that attracts links?

It’s all about providing value that is interesting and accessible.

It starts with eye-catching headlines that coerce people to click through to read/view the content in the
first place. In her book, Web Copy that Sells, Maria Veloso talks about the Zeigarnik effect; it’s the idea that people are compelled by the mental tension that comes from uncompleted tasks – this is ultimately what drives people to click through and keep reading.

Next, the content needs to be clear and easy to scan with a secondary readership path. Very few people actually take the time to read right through webpages unless they’re absolutely sure that it’s valuable content. Include bullet points and numbered lists, and emphasize keywords and phrases by putting them in bold or italics.

Make your content relevant and unique, and answer questions and solve problems. Break solutions
down into step-by-step instructions, or offer checklists that people will find useful in your niche. Provide
content that makes you an invaluable resource for your visitors. Other content ideas include everything
from an app or widget to contests and free giveaways.

Finally, reciprocation works – particularly on social platforms. Build up your network of like-minded
individuals, have conversations, and share their links. You’ll see your network grown exponentially.

Any thoughts on how brands should direct their content focus post Google Panda?

The whole point of Panda was to give legitimate websites a leg-up over content farmers, and help their web content rank better in the SERPs. Unfortunately, a lot of good businesses have been penalized despite having great quality content, while others have jumped up to the top of the search results. While Google’s algorithms remain a mystery there are some things you can always do to avoid being penalized.

The same factors as ever apply here – and they’re pretty much common sense. Pages with original, quality content, lots of backlinks, and low bounce rates will rank higher. Focus on your keyword strategy and SEO your content. And authority is key. It’s not going to be enough to outsource your copy to just anyone any more. Your content needs to be really good, written by real experts in your niche, or at least someone who will spend the time to thoroughly research the topic. Posts need to be longer than before to have impact – think at least 1,000 words, or even upwards or 2,000 or 3,000 words in length. Guest posting also works in your favour – get your name out there and start writing or providing interviews for other sites.

It’s a good idea to develop an integrated social media strategy for your brand or business; that can
contribute backlinks and SEO benefits, a process that take a good deal of time. It will also be a great
traffic source if have been affected by the Panda update. Social media ads an element of social proof for
Google, and a trail of links to follow.

Would you recommend a different content strategy for social media vs your company website?

Your company’s website is where people go to find your address, services, quotes, etc. It’s formal and
probably doesn’t change very often.

Social media is great for showing the human element of your company. It’s on all the time, 24 hours
a day. This is where you can really respond to comments, join conversations, and get to know your
demographic by asking questions or listening to what they’re already saying. It’s also a place where you
can give your fans and customers a behind the scenes look at your business. You can post pictures of
your office golf tournaments, lunch parties, etc. so that they can get to know your staff.

When you’re starting, make sure that your company has clear social media guidelines laid out.
Depending on the type and size of your business consider encouraging all of your employees to
participate. Amber Naslund (@ambercadabra), coauthor of The Now Revolution recently said that social media is currently a position, but in the future it will become a skill; just like we used to hire typists, today we’re all expected to have typing as a skill.

How can people get in touch with you?

I’m pretty much always on Twitter @leahbade (http://twitter.com/leahbaade) – just send me an @mention. You can also send me an email [leahbaade@gmail.com] or visit my website: http://www.leahbaade.com.