BONUS ONLINE CONTENT LINK. RANK. 24/7 SEO SUPPORT: ACCESS FREE DOWNLOADS, INTERACTIVE TOOLS, HOW-TO VIDEOS, AND MORE! PROFIT. ULTIMATE U L T I The web today is comprised of trillions of links. Who links to your site and how they link to it is the fundamental factor driving M A your search engine rank and your website traffic. The question is—how do you control this? Link building expert Eric Ward and T GUIDE TO E online marketer Garrett French provide the answers. Simplifying the complex world of web links, Ward and French show you, G U step by step, how to employ a link-building campaign to attract quality links, drive more traffic, and dramatically boost your I D E search rank. T O Eric Ward is hands-down the smartest thinker in the space when Eric Ward has been building links and educating people on how to LINK it comes to link building. I guarantee this book will open up any do it the right way since before even search engines decided links mental blocks you’ve had about where to get started and set you were important. Read and learn! L on a path to becoming a link magnet. Danny Sullivan, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of I N Mike Grehan, Publisher of Search Engine Watch and ClickZ.com, SearchEngineLand.com K Producer SES International, and SEMPO Board of Directors Eric is the undisputed master of quality link building. We’ve B If you’re in SEO, and take your job seriously, you know Eric and worked together for years, and he’s frequently surprised me with U Garrett. When Eric and Garrett talk about link building, you listen. new insights and little-known, and easily executed, strategies to IL The only issue when they talk is–there’s too much genius to write build our customers’ backlink portfolios. D Building it all down. So, when they do the writing down for you, you buy the I Richard Stokes, CEO of AdGooroo.com and author of Mastering N book and read it. Twice. At least. You won’t regret it. Search Advertising - How the Top 3% of Search Advertisers Dominate G Joost de Valk, Founder and CEO of Yoast.com Google AdWords and The Ultimate Guide to Pay-Per-Click Advertising Eric Ward founded the Web’s first link-building and content-publicity service NetPOST. Today, he provides strategic-linking consulting and training via EricWard.com. Ward, a.k.a LinkMoses, publishes a private linking tactics newsletter called LinkMoses Private, and has developed content linking strategies for PBS.org, WarnerBros, The Discovery Channel, National W  Build backlinks Geographic, and TVGuide.com. Eric has spoken at over 150 web industry events and contributes to search industry news sites A SearchEngineLand.com and SearchEngineWatch.com. R D &  Earn a higher search engine rank F Garrett French is the founder of Citation Labs, a boutique agency that specializes in custom link-building tools and services RE  Increase the authority and popularity of your site to solve large-scale marketing problems. He is also an online marketing consultant working with major companies in customer N C relationship management, consumer packaged goods, and online health information. H ISBN-13: 978-1-59918-442-5 ISBN-10: 1-59918-4-427 $21.95 ERIC WARD & GARRETT FRENCH Business / Online Marketing / e-Commerce Cover design by Andrew Welyczko entrepreneurpress.com “Eric Ward and Garrett French have put together a solid, easy-to-read link-building primer. The book provides simple explanations and straightforward advice when it comes to building links; chapters are well outlined and flow from point to point. If you are new to link building this book is a great resource for anyone looking for tools, tactics, and case studies to learn from.” —Debra Mastaler, President of alliance-link.com “Eric Ward has been a thought leader in how to build links the right way since before there even was a right way. His extensive relationship building background mixed with challenging projects has given him insights and methodologies that are advanced and increasingly necessary in today’s internet marketing world. He has brought his many years of hard fought experience to the pages of this book, and I heartily recommend it to anyone seeking to grow their skills.” —Bruce Clay, CEO of International SEO firm bruceclay.com, and author of Search Engine Optimization All-In-One for Dummies “Eric Ward pioneered the practice of link building as a marketing channel and continues to be among the thought leaders of the field. His expertise and hands-on experience are virtually unmatched, and I’d recommend his book to anyone who uses links to help grow their business.” —Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEOmoz.org “Those who want link building done right by the best in the business flock to Eric Ward and count themselves lucky that the maestro isn’t booked into the next millennium.” —Jim Sterne, targeting.com, Founder of the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit and Founding President and current Chairman of the Digital Analytics Association “An SEO classic! This link-building book by far provides the very best advice, stories and actionable white-hat link-building tips. This is the best link-building book I have ever read!” —Nick Stamoulis, Founder of SEO Firm BrickMarketing.com “For anyone who’s been ‘hit’ by Panda, Penguin, or any other algorithmic update by Google, this book is a must-read. It’s time to quit looking over your shoulder and start building links that will stand the test of time.  Eric has been one of the foremost thought leaders on link building since before links became a dominant ranking factor, so there’s no one better to train you on seeking out and acquiring the high-quality links that will bring you visibility and mindshare that go far beyond search engine results. —David Mihm, DavidMihm.com, Co-Founder of GetListed.org “Eric Ward is the old school mac daddy link master.” —Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Online Marketing, Publisher of toprankblog.com “Eric’s skill at website promotion is legendary. We’ve been using his services since 1995, and on more than one occasion had to work closely with our hosting service to keep our servers up under the high traffic loads that resulted from Eric’s publicity!” —Amy Strycula, Founder of CatsPlay.com “Eric Ward has been building links and educating people on how to do it the right way since before even search engines decided links were important. Read and learn!” —Danny Sullivan, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of SearchEngineLand.com “Eric Ward is hands-down the smartest thinker in the space when it comes to link building. I guarantee this book will open up any mental blocks you’ve had about where to get started and set you on a path to becoming a link magnet.” —Mike Grehan, Publisher of Search Engine Watch and ClickZ.com, Producer SES International, and SEMPO Board of Directors “If you’re in SEO and take your job seriously, you know Eric and Garrett. When Eric and Garrett talk about link building, you listen. The only issue when they talk is—there’s too much genius to write it all down. So, when they do the writing down for you, you buy the book and read it. Twice. At least. You won’t regret it.” —Joost de Valk, Founder and CEO of Yoast.com “Eric is the undisputed master of quality link building. We’ve worked together for years and he’s frequently surprised me with new insights and little-known, and easily executed, strategies to build our customers’ backlink portfolios. —Richard Stokes,CEO of AdGooroo.com and author of Mastering Search Advertising—How the Top 3% of Search Advertisers Dominate Google AdWords and The Ultimate Guide to Pay-Per-Click Advertising Entrepreneur Press, Publisher Cover Design: Andrew Welyczko Production and Composition: Eliot House Productions © 2013 by Entrepreneur Media Corporation All rights reserved. Reproduction or translation of any part of this work beyond that permitted by Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act without permission of the copyright owner is unlawful. Requests for permission or further information should be addressed to the Business Products Division, Entrepreneur Media Inc. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting or other professional services. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ward, Eric. Ultimate guide to link building : build backlinks, earn a higher search engine rank, increase the authority and popularity of your site / by Eric Ward and Garrett French. p. cm. ISBN-13: 978-1-59918-442-5 (alk. paper) ISBN-10: 1-59918-442-7 (alk. paper) ebook ISBN: 978-1-61308-180-8 1. Websites—Design. 2. Website development. I. French, Garrett. II. Title. TK5105.888.W3615 2013 006.7—dc23 2012037716 Printed in the United States of America 17 16 15 14 13 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii Foreword by Mike Grehan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xv Introduction by Ken McGaffin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix chapter 1 A Brief Introduction to Search, Links, and Link Building . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 A Brief History of Links and Search Engines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Enter Google . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 chapter 2 What Makes a Website Link-Worthy? . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 chapter 3 Link-Building Campaign Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Planning Campaign Scope: Six Factors That Impact Campaign Design. . 16 chapter 4 Toward Effective Link-Building Campaign Metrics . . . . . 21 Link Building as Search Engine Impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Link Building as Market Engagement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 chapter 5 Linkable Assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Linkable Asset Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Common Linkable Asset Categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Identifying Competitor and Other Market-Determined Linkable Assets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 vii ULTIMATE GUIDE TO LINK BUILDING A Process for Identifying and Evaluating Your Existing Linkable Assets . . 32 chapter 6 Link Opportunity Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Going from Linkable Assets to Link Opportunity Types. . . . . . . . . . . 35 Common Link Opportunity Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 chapter 7 How to Conduct a Link Opportunity Analysis for Your Keyword Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Know Your Market-Defining Keywords (MDKWs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Design Queries for Each Opportunity Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Analyzing Your Results and Simple Recalibrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 chapter 8 Link Prospecting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Common Link-Prospecting Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Anatomy of a Productive Link-Prospecting Query. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 The Tilde: Advanced Operators in Link Prospecting . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 chapter 9 Competitor Backlink Prospecting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Tools for Pulling Competitor Backlinks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 chapter 10 Automating Your Link Prospecting with RSS Aggregation . . . 67 Set Up Several Keyword-Based RSS Monitors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 chapter 11 List-Scrape Prospecting for Link Builders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 List Hunting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Aligning Your Pitch with the Available List. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 A Note on Blog List Scraping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Spray and Pray?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 chapter 12 Link Prospect Qualification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Qualifying Link Prospects Based on Available Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 The Tool for Faster Metrics-Based Qualification. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Making “By-Hand” Prospect Qualifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Tools for Faster By-Hand Qualification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 55 Link-Opportunity Qualifiers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 viii n CONTENTS ULTIMATE GUIDE TO LINK BUILDING chapter 13 What Is Link Trust? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Spotting Signs of Trust. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 chapter 14 Relationship Building: Preciprocation, from Relationships to Links, and Developing Your Content Promotion Network . . . . . . . . . . 85 The Preciprocation Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Building Preciprocated Relationships into Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 Develop Your Content Promotion Network (to Tap into Others’ Networks) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Overpreciprocating: The Dangers of Always Being the “Platform” . . . . . 89 chapter 15 Analyzing Market Pains to Create Highly Linkable Content . . 91 How-Tos, Guides, and Other Informational Wonders for DIYers and Curious Prospects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Identifying Linkable Content in Your Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 Process and Tools for Identifying Linkable Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 Remember: Linkable Content Can Generate Conversions, Too! . . . . . . 96 Engaging Your Internal Thought Leaders and Subject Matter Experts . . 97 Tip-Based Content—How to Research, Scale, and Promote . . . . . . . . . 98 chapter 16 Link Acquisition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Designing the Pitch: Before Sending Your Link Acquisition Emails . . . . 103 Warmer Relations: Sending “Preciprocation” Signals in Every Email . . . 104 Demonstrating Concern for Their Audience’s Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . .104 Suggesting “Mentions” or “Sharing” Instead of Requesting Links . . . . . 105 How Much Customization Is Enough for Your Outreach? . . . . . . . . . 105 Sending Your Emails: Gulp . . . Executing That Irrevocable Moment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .106 Handling Outreach Responses: Ignores, Accepts, Declines, and Counters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Acquisition Tracking: Keeping Tabs on Your Efforts . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Submission Acquisition: Covering Your Bases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Link Relationship Management Tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .110 chapter 17 What a Link Request Might Look Like . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 12 Elements of Irresistible Submission Requests. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .113 CONTENTS n ix