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Scott Clark - Internet Marketing and UX Design Consultant since 1996

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I recently presented a concept called “Future Proof SEO” in Lexington which compared how well the typical website are servicing the needs of link builders who are trying to address major ranking factors, and wanted to post the highlights here.

The "Minivan" website has content doing many things - and it makes it hard to build links

First, I used my minivan example again.  Most websites are like minivans – they are designed to do lots of things at a barely competent level.  They can accelerate to highway speeds (eventually,) seat several people in relative comfort, and drive pretty much anywhere you like safely.   But competitive web landscapes are not places for mediocre performance.  You need to think like an F1 car.  These cars are ultra-high performance.  The suspension and aerodynamics are set up for each track and you must even consider the weather before the race.

Links and Shares Drive Page Rank, Citation Signals and Site Authority.  Irresistible, high-value content drives links.  This is the Essence of Modern, Future-Proof SEO

On a minivan website, you have the usual content – working to service both the link building and due-diligence roles.  ”About us,” “history” and “products” may be important for the visitor to use after they’ve found the site, but may not really ideal for linkbuilding.   This is why many sites end up only ranking for branded terms, such as the name of their company!

The real volume is in keyphrase searches which do not include the brand.  And here’s where things get tough.  You have thousands of other sites competing on the same “track.”   You need purpose-built, high-performance tools at your disposal.  And that means an amazing content strategy.

The links that you can get to obtain this ranking are generally going to require richer content which is contextually very similar or complimentary to the content you’re getting a link from.  A blog post, for example, which expands on an idea from a popular blogger and supports outreach to that blogger.   Another example might be an article which summarizes a presentation or convention combined with an invitation to link to it to the conference organizer.  Perhaps a great explanatory video which directly addresses a textual blog post on an authority site.  I call these more dynamic elements of the site “Porous” content because they’re specially designed to flow link-juice.  They are nimble, contextual and high-octane.  They also typically require a solid Content Management Tool with decent SEO friendliness or configurability

So how do you find a way for your website to service these two needs?

  • due-diligence / transactional visitors
  • link building / SEO

I propose you begin thinking of your site as a conceptually divided space.   One part of the site (often a blog) is set up to use for link building.  Here is where the gifts of content you create will be posted.  The URLs of these will share the top-level-domain of your main site so that inbound links share page-ranking juice site-wide, lifting the entire domain as you make progress with fresh content.   This may be a reviews library, an article library, or a blog.  It varies by site.  But the key is you will use a content management system to regularly post SEO-friendly content there.  Simultaneously to ranking improvement, this portion of your site will also be sent traffic from social media shares and other organic sources.

Once you begin thinking this way (and setting the architecture of the site to achieve it) you will find link building becomes a bit more spontaneous and faster.   It makes it clearer how links will provide value to the site, and helps you stop stressing about how you’re going to build more links to that spartan product page!

Here (gray arrows representing links) - the site continues to service the due-diligence clients and transactional visits - but has a porous content area ready for linkbuiding

(race image photo by Oh-Barcelona on Flickr and used under Creative Commons license.)

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Just got this new study which discusses link building outreach with some very interesting take-aways.   I liked this because it aligned with much advice I give my clients on internal link building activity.

The key takeaways from this study are:

  • Social-based Link Building has yet to be largely adopted and therefore continues to be an opportunity for link builders that are ahead of the curve.
  • A large portion of the web is not worth link building efforts because they do not pass intense algorithmic or manual review. Choose your prospects wisely based on the metrics available to you through tools like Open Site Explorer and actually visiting the site.
  • Female Link Builders get better response rates, but male link builders get slightly better close rates. SEO teams should invest more resources in quality training for both genders.
  • Longer emails perform result in more link activations than shorter emails. Keep your outreach contextual and specific to the prospect.
  • A logo is a trust signal to invest in. Phone numbers and profiles are not.
  • Friday, Saturday, and Sunday prove to be the best days to send initial outreach emails. Use Boomerang to schedule.
  • The late night hours are the best times to send initial outreach emails. Use Boomerang to schedule.
  • Using someone’s name is far more effective than not. Use Rapportive so you can find out who the person is on the other end of that email address.
  • Using a generic salutation is more effective than addressing the website if you don’t have a name, but again a specific salutation significantly trumps both.
  • Be persistent to close links. The majority of closed links happen after the 2nd email.
  • However if you continue on beyond the 4th your chances increase tremendously. Use Boomerang to schedule follow ups.

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SEO Implications of Reduced Corporate Blogging

January 30, 2012

Today I saw an article on ReadWrite that caught my attention…”Blogging declines across Inc 500” which referred to a study from Umass called “Blogging declines as newer tools rule.”  The number dropped from 50% to 37% of companies maintaining corporate blog.  Facebook and Twitter, in the meantime continue to grow.   This stands to reason [...]

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Multiple Admin Support on Google Plus Pages Now Available

January 3, 2012

Previously, I had posted about the lack of multiple managers for Google Plus pages, a fact that made creation and delegation of such pages awkward in the real world.  Well, I can say now that the feature is available.  (h/t/  Impulse Webdesign for emailing me about it while I was on holiday.)   I am looking forward [...]

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[updated] Multiple Admins in Google Plus Pages for Businesses – Seriously?

November 8, 2011

(New! Google has fast-tracked this fix….and it is now available!!) I wanted to put up a quick post to express my disappointment that Google has not made even the most basic administrative feature for the real world available in its launch of Google+ Pages.  This is a continuation of its previous omission from allowing multiple [...]

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Internet Explorer Users’ Health Tip

October 14, 2011

  A bit of fun this Friday:

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