Market Research for Link Building – Who You Can Get Links From

Syndicated From: SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/uSyuOvU2Ka4/market-research-link-building

Posted by Paddy_Moogan

Following on from my debut SEOmoz blog post on How to Get Links in Tough Industries, I wanted to go into a bit more detail about the processes you can use to find people who are likely to link to you.  Using the right processes to identify the leaders in your industry can give you a much better return on your time spent link building.  This is for two reasons -

1. You are finding people with a genuine interest in your industry who are more likely to reply to you
2. You are finding people who are influential which can lead to more links from their audience

We all know that link building is hard, it takes time, patience and an uncanny ability to handle rejection.  I often like to talk about improving your link building conversion rate, if you can do this then you are making your life a lot easier.  This post is designed to help improve your link building conversion rate by reaching out to the right people.

Here is a quick visual to show you the basic process of what you are doing:

This is the process I like to work to when getting links from specific targets.  It is very simple but from experience, many people struggle with finding the right people to get links from.   Here are some specific ways you can find these people.  I’ll probably cover the other areas in more detail in a subsequent post.

Getting Inspiration

I like to start the process by brainstorming a few ideas of what type of people are interested in my topic, luckily I’ve got some great colleagues to bounce ideas off and help with this process.  If you tend to struggle with this process, Spezify is quite a nice tool for visualizing a topic and seeing what is happening online related to that topic.  This can often give you some links to places you may not have previously thought of to reach out to.

Find Influential Tweeters

Although strictly speaking, Twitter is not good for building links,  finding people on Twitter who have a large number of followers and have a lot of influence can be very useful in spreading the word for you.  These people usually have their own websites outside of Twitter too that may be of help to you for traditional link building.

So how do you find people on Twitter who are influential?

WeFollow is a nice little tool for this, a quick test of “SEO” as a keyword proves to be pretty accurate to me:

You now have a list of influential people from within your industry.  What next?

• Follow them
• Make a note of what they like to tweet about
• Check their personal websites for more info
• Look at what type of stuff they retweet
• Retweet their stuff
• Interact with them constructively
• Ask for their opinion on something

By doing all of these things, you are building a relationship with this person and finding out what it takes to get their attention.  You are also learning about what interests them and what type of content you need to create to get them to tweet about it.  You are also opening a channel of communication with them which you can use to push your own content when the time is right.  Once you have built up a rapport with this person, you are in a good position to send them a link to your content and ask for their opinion on it.

Find Local People

This is something that I’ve found to work very well when doing outreach.  If you’re fortunate enough to live quite close to someone who you can get a link from, mention it when you contact them.  This works very well if you are a small local business who is trying to get some attention and help from local people.  It can be a little difficult to find these type of people but here are a couple of ideas -

Search Twitter Local

You can find people who are tweeting about your topic within a certain number of miles of your location.  Just head over to Twitter Advanced Search and look for this section:

Local Directories

Dmoz has section dedicated to listing websites because they are based in a certain area.  For example, if I’d just launched a website which was for my music DJ service in Stratford-upon-Avon, I may want to contact a few people on this page to let them know about it.

There are literally tons of local directories where you can find people to contact, here is a UK list and here is a US list.  These lists were originally designed as places for you to get links from, but there is nothing to stop you getting creative and getting links from the places on these directories too!

Foursquare

Whilst you are following influential people on Twitter, you may notice that they are using Foursquare to check-in to various places.  If these places just happen to be in your local area, then there is the possibility of contacting them and seeing if they want to meet for a coffee.  This is probably more useful for finding business contacts and networking as it is for link building but it is worth mentioning as a method of finding people who are local to you.  Even if you don’t meet someone, you can still get an indicator of what area they are in and use this as a hook in your opening email or phone call.

Survey your Customers

I’m a big fan of getting your customers to help you with link building.  The idea in relation to this post is to find out from your customers who they follow in your industry and what sites they visit for information.

This is incredibly easy to setup and can provide you with real, actionable data.  If your website has a big Twitter following, you can even ask the question in a Tweet or send out an email to previous customers.  You only need to ask a couple of questions along the lines of -

• Are you active on Twitter?  If so, who do you follow for information about your topic here?
• Do you frequently visit blogs and websites on your topic here, if so which are your favorite?
• Are you a member of any forums on your topic here, if so which ones?

You can get all of the replies together and see which sites or tweeters or mentioned the most.  Then you have a quality, targeted list of people to go after to get links.

Forums

Noooo!  Forums are no good for link building I hear you shout.  For the record, they can be good for link building, but thats a discussion for another day   What we are interested in is what makes a forum active and who the key leaders and influencers are.  There are ways you can use this information to your advantage and get links from places outside of the forum.

First of all how to find the forums which are active.  We just use a couple of simple Google search tools:

All I’ve done is searched for my keyword which is link building, clicked on discussions on the left hand side, then selected from the past 24 hours.  Nice and simple and I’ve now ended up with 50k + results.

Now where this helps us for link building is being able to find which people on these forums are moderators and ones which are active contributors.  This is the equivalent of finding people who are influential on Twitter which I described above.  Most forums will have this easily accessible although you may need to register.  You are looking for a list of “Top Posters” or “Top Contributors”.

Once you have found these people, see if their profiles or footers contain links to their Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin or personal blog.  Then you can see if they may be interested in your website, hopefully they are which makes them a primary candidate to get a link from!

The one big advantage of this approach is that if they talk about you on their blog, its perfectly reasonable for you to ask them to mention it on the forum which means even more exposure (and links) for you.

Facebook

I love this one!  Using the Facebook Ads system, you can carry out research into the likes and interests of the gazillions (ok millions) of Facebook users.  So within a few minutes you can have a list of people who you know are interested in a certain topic.  From here, you have a couple of options -

• You could then start a PPC campaign on Facebook which aims to grab their details in exchange for some kind of incentive, for example you could try and target users who have their own blogs.  You can ask them to submit a story, blog about a topic, upload a picture, loads of stuff to try and capture this type of user
• Join the group with the other members and interact with them and the admins of the group.  This is a similar approach as you’d take in forums to try and work out who may be in a position to help you push your content on the group and external sites

Advanced Search Operators

We are getting more into “traditional” SEO here as opposed to market research but this is another favourite of mine but with a bit of a twist.  Firstly though I’d advise you to go take a look at the SEOmoz Guide on Advanced Search Operators.

Another great place to start is the SEOmoz Link Acquisition Assistant (PRO Only).  This tool does a lot of the hard work for you and can find lots of places to get links from as well as making you think a bit more about how you can tweak the operators to your own needs.

Here are a few of my personal favourites when it comes to advanced queries.

This will restrict results to only UK Universities which mention blogs.  If you are in the US, just swap out .ac.uk and put in .edu:

keyword here inurl:.ac.uk +blogs

Same as above but this will only show results with blogs in the URL:

keyword here inurl:.ac.uk inurl:blogs

This one is designed to help you find blogs which are active, therefore giving you a better chance of getting a link.  This query only shows me results which have published posts in July 2010.  This isn’t perfect as all blogs work differently but you will still get some good results.

keyword here inurl:2010/07

My best advice here is to just go and experiment and keep tweaking queries until they give you the results you need.  By doing this you are filtering out all the websites which are not right for you and therefore improving your efficiency and link building conversion rate.  Here is a useful reference guide for a ton of Google advanced operators.

The Twist…

Don’t do what everyone else does and start at page 1 of the search results.  These guys get link requests all day long!

Start at page 10 of results.  These guys are less likely to get link requests if they are not always at the top of Google, so you could have a better chance of getting their attention and getting the link you want.  The websites may be of a lower quality but as long as you use your due diligence and analysis, you will still get some good quality sites and valuable links.

Bonus Random Tip

I’m often asked about finding people who can guest blog for you on a particular subject.  This advanced search query may help a little to find these people.

keyword here inurl:author

Because of the way that some blogs work, they often put “author” in the URL of pages which contain all the posts by a writer as well as contact details.  Here is an example using Danny’s page at SEOmoz.

As always I welcome your feedback and additional ideas in the comments below.  I’ll do my best to reply to any questions.

This also seems like a good time to shamelessly plug the Distilled & SEOmoz Pro SEO Seminar in London.  I attended this event last year, before I joined Distilled.  Of the conferences I went to, it was one of the best in terms of actionable tips and quality of the talks.  I’d highly advise you to take a look if you are looking for some advanced SEO strategies.

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Read other posts by this Author: Paddy_Moogan

Top 7 Ways to Increase Link Popularity with Content on Your Site

Syndicated From: Search Engine Journal http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SearchEngineJournal/~3/zrClaCZoWWs/

Building links is still a big topic with SEOs and site owners alike and we’re all a bit fed up with trying to get reciprocal links. While it may be more fun, using social media channels to build links take a lot of time and may not suit everyone. So it’s time to get creative and come up with some content you can put on your site that attracts more links to your site.

Here’s my Top 7 Ways to Increase Link Popularity with Content on Your Site:

1. Top 10 Lists (or Top 5, 25, 100 or maybe just 7)

From the FBI’s Most Wanted to Dave Letterman’s Top Ten, people love these lists! They also love to pass the information on to their circle of friends or colleagues.  Pick a topic that will be of interest to your target market and do a bit a research to come up with the definitive list for that topic.

http://www.askmen.com/microsites/top_10_cities/

This Top 10 webpage from 2008 still does well on search engines.  I like the way you see the info without scrolling and the advertising fits in well.

2. Videos

We all know YouTube is hot, a popular search engine in itself, but if you embed good videos on your own site, it will attract visitors and links to the page. If you have an interesting collection of videos others have done, people will be more likely to link to your page, rather than to the source video site.

You can embed other people’s videos on your site, making sure that they are relevant to your topic (and to get permission and provide attribution, etc.) but it’s not so difficult to produce your own videos.  Digital webcams have come down in price and are easy to use, but you could even just create a nice slideshow from images you have that will highlight your products, work you’ve done, etc.

http://g.sports.yahoo.com/soccer/world-cup/blog/dirty-tackle

Yahoo’s Dirty Tackle blog has been very popular during the World Cup, mainly for its regular posts with videos of highlights and funny moments in the sport.

3. Images

Not as dynamic as video, but people do like to look at ‘pretty pictures’. Whether you create them yourself or get permission to use others images, look for those related to your topic and reinforce the points you are trying to make.  Think beyond photographs – relevant diagrams and charts will also be of great interest.

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/global/led-by-facebook-twitter-global-time-spent-on-social-media-sites-up-82-year-over-year/

Sites like Nielsen use charts and diagrams on a regular basis to provide an easy way for people to take in the stats provided.

4. Interview an Expert or Industry Leader

Don’t we all want to know what the experts think and how they do what they do?  You’d be surprised how willing most industry experts/leaders are to do a quick interview; whether it be in person or over the phone/Skype, etc.

Make sure you are prepared and professional. Agree on topics (try to find something that’s timely and hasn’t been covered a million times) and keep to the time allowed.  It’s a sure thing that the person interviewed will link to your interview, giving your site even more exposure.

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9624

Linux Journal’s Interview with pen source advocate Simon Pipps from 2007 still comes high in search results.

5. How To’s / Tutorials

These days the internet is a person’s main way to find out how to do things, whether via an article or a video.  You can easily write step by step tutorials or articles about an area that you are knowledgeable in. Even better, do a quick How To video, even if just a screencast.  Besides showing people that you know your business and providing helpful information for people, it’s very likely that people will then link to your page.

http://www.neckties.com/content/howtotieatie.html

Neckties.com includes an instructional animated video to help their customers, as well as draw prospective buyers to the site.

7. Free Downloads

People can’t resist free stuff!  Have you created (or commissioned) an app or a script that you can provide for free?  Less technical? Then you can you create helpful checklists or other articles as PDFs that people can download.

https://www.mynrma.com.au/cps/rde/xchg/mynrma/hs.xsl/free_used_car_checklist.htm

Australia’s NRMA provides a FREE Used Car Buying Guide Checklist for visitors to download as a PDF.

7. Commission a Study or Report

People love statistics! Do your own market research or commission an agency or university and put together a study or report that’s relevant to your industry.

http://mulley.ie/facebook/

Ireland’s Mulley Communications commissioned a Facebook Study by a division of the National College of Ireland, “made possible” with an “Innovation Voucher” funded by a government agency. (This is also a good example of providing a download and embedding a video!)

When deciding on content make sure you are focused on your target market and what will be of interest to them to ensure that it will also be something that they’d want to share by placing a link on their own sites.  What to consider:

1. Is my market more likely to link to content that’s funny, serious or informative – or a mix?
2. Is the content fresh and original?  Don’t just copy a list or article from someone else’s site, even if you give attribution.  If you don’t have original information on a topic, compile interesting information from a number of relevant sites and put it together in a new way, making it your own.  There may be times when it’s best to include a quote or excerpt from the original site, but be sure to give proper attribution and you may get a [link] friend for life!
3. Do I make it easy for people to link to my content? Are the URLs on your site not only SEO friendly, but people friendly?  Yes, it’s easy to copy and past a URL, but if your URL is particularly long and doesn’t reflect the content of the page it may put someone off from doing the link.
4. Does my overall site merit getting links from others?  Is it overloaded with AdWords?  Is the site user friendly? Does the site look professional?  Even if you have the most interesting article ever, people will be less likely to link to it if the rest of your site doesn’t live up to it.
5. Are you being generous with your link love?   As they say ‘give and ye shall receive’ and the same is true with links.  Just make sure the links you post are relevant for your visits and that the sites are high quality.
6. How do I get people to link to my page in an SEO friendly way? Short of telling people how to put the link, you can influence the link text people use in the link to your page. They are likely to use your keyphrase in your link text if you are using them properly on the page yourself. Some may still just put the URL as the link text, so if you are using keyphrases in your URL, that will help.  Some may use the title of the page, video, image, download, etc., so be sure to use your keyphrases in any of these areas as well.

As you build up the quality content on your site you will find that more people are linking to the homepage of your site, as well as the pages with specific content, as the site itself will be seen as a useful or interesting resource overall.

Rather than obsessing over what’s going to get you the most links; keep focused on providing good, interesting, relevant content for the visitors to your site and the links will follow.

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

Top 7 Ways to Increase Link Popularity with Content on Your Site

Read other posts by this Author: Ann Donnelly

The importance of building links to your website

The importance of building links to your website.