David Snyder - Internet and Startup Enthusiast
When I entered this line of work I found the hardest part of learning how to build links was figuring out which strategies were sound, and which were a waste of time.
Time could be wasted for a plethora of reasons.
1) The tactic you are using was completely valid two years ago, but now due to changes in algo and environment they are no longer worth your time
2) They are so despised by fellow webmasters that they may not be worth your time
And the list goes on.
It is the chicken before the egg of the online industry.
Which comes first usability or SEO?
Designers and developers often take one stance on the issue, and SEOs another. I am not sure there is a right or wrong answer. Despite how many in our industry present information the only way we can quantify any degree of success in what we do is by measuring how profitable a web property is (I know not all websites operate for revenue, but who cares about them?).
Profitable sites have been built without sound search engine optimization.
Profitable sites have been built with poor usability.
Neither of these points can be argued.
But in a fantasy land of project perfection, sound SEO can lead to high quality usability. Here the two concepts can dance in a green meadow beneath a candy rainbow; also known as Canada (SES Toronto trip showed me how majestic it is North of border)
I am a slave to writing about things that I see and do in my everyday SEO efforts or searching.
To me theory often fails to show value in terms of dollars. And I am in this business to make dollars.
I have been doing a lot of eCommerce searching lately since my birthday is coming up next weekend, and I need to figure out what I want. What I have found are a ton of search results that are too specific. They go beyond the generic term I am looking for, and send me to pages with very specific products that are not what I am looking for. This fact can mean death for an eCommerce site, which should be leading generic terms to non-product, more category oriented terms.
Let’s use the example of a website that sells televisions.
Optimizing a site for search often revolves around your ability to gain links from high quality sources.
Protecting your brand on the web is often connected to your ability to quickly and transparently address issues that may soil your reputation.
Both of these important Internet marketing tactics, need to be cultivated through a healthy foundation of market contacts.
I discussed one way I address this during my in-house, enterprise work in my Site Rejuvenation post. A few comments were made about the time consuming nature of this concept. It is time consuming, but the point of the plan is to gain the high quality links in rich text that can make or break an SEO campaign. Market networking and Site Rejuvenation don’t take any more time than most spend purchasing links, and their effects have more upside.
I just returned from SES Toronto where I had the privelage to participate on a panel with Lee Odden and Chris Winfield on Twitter.
It was a great session and a great experience all around. I was able to speak with some of the top minds in search and social media, about what they are doing to make themselves and others money.
It has been a long, great week for me. My new son Dominick Angel Snyder was born, and I am prepping for my trip to SES Toronto to speak on a panel about Twitter use.
Thought I would try to get a quick post in to feed the masses.
Analytics are a permanent part of the Internet marketing landscape, yet very few marketers know enough about how to parse though the click stream data to use it effectively. You can have thousands of dollars in analytics software, but without an understanding of what to do with that data you are pretty much throwing good money after bad.
Links are the fuel that push search engine results.
You can build the best race car on the track, through strong on-page optimization efforts, but without gas what good is a fast car?
Like most energy sources quality links are becoming increasingly difficult to come by at low cost.
There are endless ways to create low quality links, but if you are optimizing a site through purely ethical methods, low quality links will do little if anything for your rankings. You really need to find ways to create lasting, quality links that can help drive your optimization efforts forward.
It has long been held in the SEO industry that .edu links can be the key to developing quality link equity when utilizing purely white hat optimization techniques. These links represent such high quality that they can often add more equity than even multiple high authority sites.
The reason for the weight given to .edu sites has nothing to do with their TLD, but is in the difficulty in obtaining, and thus manipulating them for search ranking benefit.
Finding methods to achieve sustainable .edu links can be difficult. One method often used by SEOs is the utilization of college job boards for finding not only talented prospective employees, but also high quality links.
In obtaining high quality authoritative links, I often find that being transparent and working with a sense of building a lasting relationship can benefit both parties.
Coming from a background in education I have been able to develop a link building technique that not only serves my purposes as an SEO, but also the educational community I am looking to gain links from.
By building educational lessons and units around concepts central to your market, you can create viral link bait that can lead to long lasting linking relationships with .edu sources.
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