This question is asked a lot by our clients and I was glad to see Matt get it as a video topic. URL shorteners do pass link juice as long as they’re 301 redirects. This makes perfect sense because Google is counting signals from the likes of Twitter and Facebook in their ranking algorithm. He specifically states Bit.ly and Goo.gl as two that work well, and as you can see we use Bit.ly here. I also recommend setting up your Analytics to work with either tracker so you know how your content is doing.
Link Building
URL Shorteners Pass Link Juice
2 Comments
April 12 | Link Building Videos | Ryan Clark
Tagged Link Building, matt cutts, url shorteners
Google’s Spam Team’s Goals In 2011
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March 27 | News | Ryan Clark
Here’s a video with Matt Cutts talking about what Google’s spam team is going to be focusing on for the rest of 2011. While they’re just finishing up the Panda update, I have been getting the hints that links will be viewed differently in the coming year. Matt does quickly mention that link quality is going to get another look, and frankly it’s about bloody time. I have a post coming out soonish on just how Google might look at links as I have a decent guess at it. Link spam works way too easily still, and paid links by large companies seem to go unnoticed in large amounts. A quick look at any financial keyword’s top 10 listings will prove that theory within a minute, easy. I’m glad to hear that some more change is coming, and I can imagine it’s going to cause all sorts of fun (ie Panda update) for webmasters around the world.
Tagged 2011, google, Link Building, matt cutts
Link Building Reads For The Last Bit Of March
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March 23 | TWiLB | Ryan Clark
Since I’m due in meetings and what not, I thought I would do a quick round up post to all the latest and greatest posts on link building and other things. There’s always so much great content flying around on any given week, so it’s sad I can’t get to this more often. As always. I love it when you leave links to great articles I missed in the comments, so by all means go to town on that. This one will mark off a new linking format where I’ll try and encompass not only link building, but branding, marketing and news all together. If all your doing these days is link building, then may the Google gods have mercy on you!
Link Building Reads:
Picture courtesy of Benuski
– Original ideas for building content for links via Word Tracker
– Don’t Break The Cardinal Rule Of LinkBait via Linkspiel
– Building links to get to page one via Webmaster World
– How To Rank Nationally With Local Links via Search Engine Journal
– How To Make a Link Bait That Goes Viral via TechLunatic
– 51 Essential Link Building Tips via Econsultancy
– 40 SEO Strategies For Ecommerce Websites via Kaiser The Sage
Branding Strategies:
– Why Would You Follow A Celebrity on Twitter? via Brand Republic
– The Triumph of Coal Marketing via Seth Godin
– Strategic Copywriting via The Branding Blog
– Brand Naming: Don’t Be Afraid To Use Humor – via Branding Strategy Insider
– Should You Brand a #Hashtag? via Online Journalism Blog
– 5 Branding Secrets You Can Learn From Google via Rohit Bhargava
Social Media Marketing:
– How To Find Hidden SEO Opportunities on Twitter via Search Engine Journal
– Blogging is Dead via Scott Monty
– 50 LinkedIn Tips: Most of Which Are Awesome via Soshable
– The Seven Second Rule of Social Media via TooGoom
– 5 Tips For Building Promotions Around Events via Blue Glass
Tagged branding, ecommerce, Link Building, marketing, real estate
Link Building Freelancer Threatens A Client!
March 22 | Link Building | Ryan Clark
I was doing my morning help over at Google’s Webmaster Central and came across this somewhat scary post. I imagine many of you have hired a freelancer from one of “those” sites in the past, and I imagine most of you learned an important lesson. Those freelancers are mainly building junk/spam links, and it shouldn’t surprise you. While I imagine this happens more often that I’d like to know, there was some great info by a Google employee on the topic of spam links. To cap the post up for you first, this is what the site owner had to say;
I hired a freelancer to build links for my site, all white hat and above board. However when I came to check the links they were not very good quality and half of them were missing. After a dispute via Freelancer I agreed to pay half and he accepted that. Over the next couple of days he has sent me many emails saying that he would remove the links I paid for if I did not pay the rest of the cash for this month. I said that was not fair as I have paid for the links he has built. Now he has come back saying if I do not pay he will send 2000+ bad links to my site and wipe it from the search engines… I didn’t know what to do so I just paid him.
So here we have a sticky situation. Luckily for him, freelance link builders are cheap and he was able to bite the bullet. So I could stop there and we could all contemplate the thought of this happening to our business. First of all, don’t hire a freelancer from “one of those sites”, and stick with well known companies in the industry (cough cough). This is your business we’re talking about here, and no one should be held hostage for links!
So on to the next point of topic in this discussion. A lot of the people said don’t worry about it, those spam links can’t hurt you. This had me a little flabbergasted to say the least! Clearly, some of these consultants have never had a client with an anchor text filter penalty. I’ve heard this time and time again, that spam links cannot hurt you at all so don’t worry about it. I have never shared this thought, and we’ve dealt with so many inquiries from people with those exact penalties. Needless to say, I was pleased when a Google employee piped in on the conversation;
Google doesn’t penalize a site for having spammy links to the site unless we can tell that this was part of a link scheme.
–thejack (Google Employee)
So there you have it, a real world example of the dark side of marketing. This should also clear up any questions you had about getting hit by bad links. While it might be frustrating to see a competitor over take you in the short run, a quality marketing plan will prevail in the end.
Tagged Black Hat, freelancer, google, Link Building
ChamberofCommerce.com Needs Your Listing!
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March 16 | Link Building | Ryan Clark
With the recent string of top notch business/company directories I’ve been finding great places to build links, expand your business and build your brand better. I recently talked about getting listed with Company.com and Manta.com, and now I bring you ChamberOfCommerce.com. I really like these types of sites as they provide legit businesses with a place to network and build trust online. Currently this website is for US businesses only, so us Canadians weren’t able to sign up and build a legit profile.
The links are cloaked so there’s no link juice being passed, but that’s fine with us. Not every link needs to be follow/dofollow to have value. While there are varying levels of accounts you can get from free to costly, I’d hope the more expensive monthly accounts come with some sort of added benefit…but now I’m getting into paid link territory. There’s not much else offered here that’s unique at the moment other than business advice and guidance from industry professionals. That’s nothing to shake a stick at but it definitely won’t come cheap!
Rand Talks About Preventing Link Based Penalties
March 15 | Link Building Videos | Ryan Clark
It has been a while since I posted a Whiteboard Friday post from the fine folks at SEOmoz. So when I saw Rand rocking that snazzy sweater, I just new I had to do my part and share it here. I wish more people would watch this video because they have no idea the nightmare that is cleaning it all up. This video covers a whole spectrum of linking topics that will cause trouble, as well what to do to stay out of the black hole that Google can put you in at a moments notice. I highly recommend checking out their original post because they graciously provided a transcript.
Tagged Link Building, link penalties, seomoz, whiteboard friday
Snowmageddon For Building Links
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February 3 | Link Bait Tactics | Ryan Clark
While the US is getting pounded by snow left, right and center, how many businesses are taking advantage of it? There are plenty of you out there who would benefit from this situation. Products that come to mind are candles, blankets, battery powered heaters and so forth. I’m making this post as more of an inquiry to our readers, I’d love to see who actually saw it as a business opportunity?
There is a whole host of opportunities to take advantage of before a storm like this hits. Group deal sites would have been my #1 choice for getting the word out quick on your deals, not to mention the plethora of other coupon/deal sites you could have used. Social media obviously could have played a huge role here, especially if you utilized a viral marketing campaign from your blog/website. “Top 10 Products You’ll Need To Survive Snowmageddon?”
Here’s a great example of the Weather.com network getting a stink load of attention thanks to their anchorman Jim Cantore. This single video got the Weather Network a whole lot more traffic for free despite the amount of people glued to their website and channel. It’s interesting just to see how much more traffic an event like this will show up, sadly I have to use Alexa for the meantime.
If you’re able to catch some amazing content to utilize for business then all the power to you. I’d start thinking of what you can do for the next snowstorm. While our clients kept asking us how much snow we were getting up here in British Columbia, they were shocked to hear we get snow maybe twice a year. Not all Canadians live in a winter wonderland, although we do live in a rainy blunderland :)
Tagged ecommerce, Link Building, snowmageddon
Valentine’s Day Marketing For Links & Branding
January 17 | Link Building | Ryan Clark
Valentine’s Day is coming up whether you like it or not. Depending on which market you’re in, it could be a a good day for marketing not only in the link department, but in branding and social media as well. Companies selling flowers, candies, gifts and other romantic items have a slough of opportunities to take advantage of. I also look at it as a way to build some deep links to your internal product pages, something that is not always so easy to accomplish.
I always recommend to our clients to build a custom landing page for the day which can stand a chance for ranking, as well re-use over the years. This gives you a chance to build some strong link power to the page, and from there funnel that link juice into your weaker product pages. I love the idea for that, and the fact you can re-use the page next year and continue on in the same fashion. Take what you can from this and I hope this fake holiday brings your company some business, because that’s what it’s all really for after all.
Facebook & Twitter:
If you have a large following on these two sites then great, if not then make it another opportunity to gain more followers with your promotions. It’s nearly at the point where reaching individual people will be way easier through these social media platforms, so make sure your promotion involves being active on one of them. I usually recommend to our clients to make a contest up that involves Tweeting something, or at the very least, they have to be a part of the company Page to get in on the action. If you make the promotion involve user generated media, then you stand a greater chance of having your product seen due to the customer showing off their entry.
Coupon Marketing:
A quick Google search for Valentine’s Day coupons brings up all the usual suspect sites where you can submit your special coupons. This also will lead you to special coupon sites that only deal with this days deals. After some browsing down after the 3rd a 4th page it was also apparent that there were some old coupon pages that you could attempt a good old fashioned direct email campaign out on.
Google Discussions & Blog Search:
I’m a huge fan of Google’s blog search, and even more the Discussions section of their ever growing list of useful tools. A search here for Valentine’s Day Deals brings up over 250,000 results….needless to say that’s going to take forever and a day to break down by even a team of marketers. While this is an ok example, use my advice to sniff out the more niche opportunities within your companies market.
In Closing:
While this wasn’t a huge list, this should be enough of a start to keep you very busy from now until the 14th of February. There are other things you can do to attract attention, so get your thinking cap on and figure out what else lies out there. While I’m not the first to write on the topic, I can lend you some more help by linking these great posts on the subject;
– 20 Valentines Day Marketing Ideas for Ecommerce via Get Elastic
– 10 Great Valentines Day Marketing Tips via Flower Shop Network
– Valentine’s Day Marketing Ideas via Josh Whitford
– E-mailed With Love: Valentine’s Day Marketing Tips via Ecommerce Guide
– More Valentine’s Day Marketing Ideas via Gooruze
Tagged Link Building, valentines day
