Friday, 30 September 2011
Email Marketing: Campaign Analysis, Metrics, Best Practices
Macro Perspective: End to End means ABO.
For everything you do it is important to measure your effectiveness of all three phases of your effort:
Acquisition. Behavior. Outcomes.
If your measurement effort is missing one of those three, you’ll be less successful than you deserve to be. So for our email campaign analysis let’s look at metrics using that framework.
Beyond the standard tactical stuff like number of emails sent etc., here are the metrics I’d recommend to analyze your acquisition greatness:
- Delivery rate = (# of emails sent – # of bounce backs) / # of emails sent
- Open rate = # of emails opened / # of emails delivered
- Click-to-deliver rate (CTDR) = # of clicks / # of emails delivered
- Subscriber retention rate = # subscribers – bounce backs – unsubscribes / # subscribers
- Bounce Rate = # of email campaign visits with a single Page View / # of email campaign visits
- Depth of Visit = percent of email campaign visits that last longer than xx pages
- Actions Completed = percent of email campaign visits that watched a video
- Macro Conversion Rate = # of One Big Thing / # of email campaign visits
- Average Revenue per Email Sent = total revenue / # of emails sent
- Micro Conversion Rate = # of Many Small Things / # of email campaign visits
- Average Economic Value per Email Sent = total economic value / # of emails sent
- Profitability = (revenue generated – campaign cost – cost of goods sold) / # of emails sent
5 Places to Get Ideas for Great Quality Content
Q/A Sites
Q/A sites are one of the best places to find great content ideas. Just think about it, this is the place where people go to find out things that interest them, so you are bound to find a few questions that will be of great interest to your readers. Since these questions are already asked that means that people want to know about them. It is very easy to see why Q/A sites are great places to fish for ideas, find something that people want and then deliver on the topic.
Social Networks
Social networks are similar to Q/A sites. People post opinions, ideas, questions, all in one. Sure this can be a great place to find ideas, depending on your niche you may have more options than others, but for each niche this can work great. For Facebook you can always visit business pages, people tend to ask a fair bit of questions on the active ones. For Google+, well if you are in SEO/IM/SMO or anything alike, this is the best place to go idea fishing. And Twitter… well anything you want you can find on Twitter, people ask, people talk, identifying a popular topic way before Google sees it is easy, so you can use that. And never forget LinkedIn, this platform has a great deals of though leaders that inspired me to write some posts only based on a two line ideas some of them have.
News Sites
News are always a good thing to write about, but covering news is not the only good thing that comes from following news sites for your market, you can also cover news from your own perspective. With SEO as the topic that goes perfect, every time Google updates something you can see plenty of SEO’s speculating as to what impact we can see in the future and how we should go with it. This approach can be used for a large specter of topics, so don’t skip it, or in the end just be one of the first to cover some news and you will get some traffic. Also, you can use regular TV news to find ideas for content.
Google Alerts
Now this is a no brainer, whenever I start a new blog I setup a few alerts surrounding my niche so I can stay on top of the game. This is a valid practice all of you should use, it’s easy, doesn’t require research or search, just setup the alerts and follow up on anything of interest you find, you can learn a lot about your market by using this nifty feature Google provides.
Forums
Forums have seen a slight downgrade each year following the expansion of social media, but in some cases that only helped us get rid of the spammers and some of the forums are run by the tough leaders in our industry. I still use forums and I found some amazing questions, and suggestions that always inspire me to find out more about a certain topic and even write about it, so don’t skip this content idea dinosaur and its infinite wisdom.
Of course there are more places you can go to find ideas for your content; you can get ideas from friends, co-workers, events, videos, slides, trends or search suggestions, we all have our sources, these are just some of the favorites I like to use. If you have some more cool places to dig up content ideas please share them in the comments.
Red Digital launched India's biggest location based social networking initiative using foursquare.
Social media specialist, Red Digital, today launched India's biggest location based social networking initiative for its client Monginis using foursquare. The national launch kicks off with special offers across 447 Monginis outlets across India. This is the largest deployment of foursquare in India and Monginis is hoping to latch on to the location based social networking bandwagon already prevalent in the western world.
Red Digital will help Monginis manage their foursquare presence, along with other social media such as Facebook and Twitter, in order to engage customers and build brand loyalty. Monginis already has over 40,000 fans on its Facebook fan page, which will also provide the impetus to grow foursquare check-ins.
Users can list their favorite food items and also add tips to the outlets they have visited. Frequent visits to Monginis outlets can help customers earn points and also achieve the title of Mayor for that particular location. Mayors are the most loyal customers a brand can have, which is why
Monginis has rolled out rewards for the Mayor of each outlet and is also in the process of introducing check-in deals. Foursquare helps in gamification of a loyalty program, adding to the fun of collecting points by making the information public. It gives loyal customers bragging rights and an ego boost when they walk into a store where their loyalty is valued.
Foursquare is a location-based social networking website for mobile devices. It allows users to connect with friends and keep a track of the favorite places to visit in and around the city. It has acquired more than 10 million users worldwide since its inception in 2009 and records 3 million check–ins per day.
Thursday, 29 September 2011
9 Facebook Marketing Strategies to Build Super Fans
#1: Give your page a human touch
#2: Become a content machine
#3: Cultivate engagement with two-way dialogue
#4: Create consistent calls to action
#5: Make word-of-mouth advocacy easy
#6: Encourage fan-to-fan conversations
#7: Focus on smart branding
#8: Be deliberate and manage expectations
#9: Monitor, measure, and track
6 Principles of Social Networking Fan creation
#1: Listen first and never stop listening
As tempting as it may be to join the conversation, keep in mind that communication is 50% listening and 50% talking.
Your customers want to be heard and social media provides a channel that really allows you to listen on a large scale. Some (free) ways to listen on social media include:
- Google Alerts
- Technorati search blog
- Twitter search
- Facebook search
- YouTube search
- TweetBeep
For more advanced listeners with a higher volume of conversations to listen to,consider using paid listening platforms such as Meltwater Buzz, Parature, Radian 6, Sysomos and Vocus.
Remember to not just search for your brand name, but also for your competitors’ names and words and phrases that your customers use.
#2: Be authentic
As organizations grow large, they develop processes and models to enhance efficiency. Unfortunately those processes also make it difficult to be personal and authentic when dealing with customers.
Social media provides an opportunity to reverse this trend and actually ‘be human’ in dealing with customers. Some ways to be authentic include:
- Be an “improv show,” not a musical—brands need to think less about putting on a show for their customers and instead focus on building an excellent team that is flexible, able to go with the flow, responsive and engaged.
- Develop an authentic voice—consider what your brand or organization is all about. Think about how you can convert your mission statement or About Us page into a conversation piece. Let the world know your company’s personality while showing that you truly care about your customers.
- Just be real—drop the PR-speak or legalese from your organization’s communication. If you sound robotic or scripted in your social media conversations, you’ll turn off customers. Let people hear your real, human voice in all of your interactions and they will trust you and even buy from you.
#3: Provide value—for free!
The more valuable content you can share with your fans and followers, the greater the trust and reputation you’ll build with them.
Share your expertise without expectation or marketing-speak and you’ll create an even better name for yourself. Some ways to provide free value include:
- Start a blog to share resources, advice and tips that your prospects will find useful.
- Write white papers to solve customers’ problems.
- Create ‘how-to’ videos.
And don’t worry about giving away too much information. It’s rare that you could give away so much information that people could afford to do everything on their own. In any case, they’re not the experts, you are—and eventually they’ll need your expertise to help them solve their problems.
#4: Share stories (they’re your social currency)
Every brand has at least one story to tell. Social media (especially blogs and online video) allow you to share stories with your customers, prospects and the world. Ask yourself the following questions:
- How did your company get started?
- How did you survive the toughest times?
- What kind of funny or interesting things have happened involving your customers or staff over the years?
- Which employees’ lives have changed as a result of working for you?
- Which charitable organizations has your company or its staff supported?
Remember, stories humanize brands and make them ‘talk-able’ online and offline. And they can be told by anyone—customers, employees or management. They just need to be real.
#5: Admit when you screw up, and then leverage your mistakes
Being able to say “I’m sorry” when you make a mistake goes a long way toward making up for your error. Companies are made up of people and everyone makes mistakes.
Here are some ways to say that you’re sorry:
- Have the highest-ranking person (or another executive) at the organization say it through a brief online video.
- Use the appropriate social media channel to respond quickly when a bad situation arises.
- Don’t stop at “I’m sorry.” Apologize individually to each person’s complaint and continue to follow up.
By responding swiftly and showing that you care, you can take a serious mistake, turn it around and end up with an even stronger reputation than you had before!
#6: Consistently deliver excitement, surprise and delight
On social media, you’re not just competing with your real-life competitors; you’re competing with all of your customers’ friends and the brands they’re connected to.
So the way to stand out is to create as many “Wow!” moments as possible. Here are some ideas:
- Provide unexpected value—try listening to conversations that are not necessarily about your company and then respond to questions not directly aimed at you. For example, Best Buy developed Twelpforce to answer people’s Twitter questions about electronic products.
- Create situations to bring people closer to your brand and strengthen that emotional connection. For example, Cisco Networking Academy delights their Facebook audience by actually allowing select customers to become administrators of their fan page (they have over 260,000 fans!).
- Sometimes a personal, unique response from a real person at a big company can really “wow” people, even more than the coolest contest or giveaway.
- Use surprise conversations. When the New York City Department of Health created their “NYC Condom Campaign” in late 2009, they used Twitter to search for people talking about “going out partying” or “looking to hook up” and then surprised them by responding with funny tweets such as “Pick me up, I’ll keep you covered,” or “Don’t leave home without me.”
Ask yourself how you can create conversations and situations that make people smile, while generating surprise. Remember, if you can truly reward your fans and followers, you’ll be able to energize a huge group of online advocates.
Thursday, 22 September 2011
Top 10 Ecommerce Strategies For 2011
Ecommerce changes rapidly each year, so consumers will be expecting more from online merchants in 2011. Embracing the latest techniques can invigorate your business and help increase sales. The 10 strategies below can help accelerate your ecommerce efforts throughout next year.
Dynamic personalization (aka collective intelligence)
Your site is collecting analytics data from thousands of visitors every day, and has been for years. How much of this data are you utilizing? Dynamic personalization puts it to use, immediately and with surgical precision. When a customer visits your site — without even logging in — a shopper’s persona is defined within a few interactions, and business rules are applied to surface relevant content and functionality. Dynamic personalization providers such as Baynote and RichRelevance can provide the tools to best serve your customers’ individual interests and shopping habits.
Social network integration
Social networking isn’t exactly new, but social shopping imperatives are constantly evolving. At the most basic level, integrating a “share” button that enables users to share your content to their favorite social networking destinations is a good first step, as is integrating Facebook “like” button functionality. At a slightly higher level of customization and effort, there are login and review/ratings integration tools such as Facebook Connect. Sites like Social Commerce Today stay on top of social shopping trends and provide more robust examples of retailers leveraging social shopping integrations.
Mobile sites
Over the past year, we have seen massive increases in traffic and transactions completed at client mobile sites. The age of the mobile site is truly upon us. Mobile consumers have different needs than users browsing on the desktop, and mobile devices have their own set of capabilities and limitations. A dedicated mobile site experience is a must for progressive ecommerce retailers.
Location-based tie-ins
The GPS capabilities of mobile devices usher in a new era of exciting location-based cross-channel promotion capabilities. Examples include promoting products that were shopped for online when the shopper is in proximity to a physical store, pushing promotions available at nearby physical locations, and providing interactive directions and pickup and availability notifications for previously viewed items. Apps like Foursquare allow you to extend your reach by pushing promotions and specials and rewarding repeat shopping.
Experiential user interface
Beyond simply being easy to use, modern ecommerce sites for innovative brands can be experiential and immersive, transforming shoppers into brand loyalists by evoking an emotional reaction. For example, Lowe’s Sunnyville provides a game-based metaphor for shopping for lawn and garden products and project planning.
Contextual visualization
Shoppers increasingly expect to visualize how a product will fit into their life and style. Retailers that allow shoppers to visualize how products look on them and match with other products they are shopping for or already own will have a significant leg up in the ecommerce marketplace.
Dynamic grid expansion and liquid layouts
Ecommerce sites are typically designed to work in 1024×768 resolution in order to support users with older technology. Trapping your product display in this fixed width doesn’t cater well to the increasingly larger percentage of users who browse your site at resolutions of 1280, 1440, or 1600. Utilize liquid layouts to automatically size your product display based on the shoppers’ resolution. Alternatives include showing more images at once, and dynamically scaling to larger images on both category listing and product detail pages.
We have found that the “view all” link is the most clicked link on the most ecommerce category listing pages. Shoppers don’t want to page through screens of products – they want to see all of them at once. Consider an infinite scroll metaphor in order to display large sets of products in a scrollable list, rather than asking shoppers to jump page to page.
Minimize UI cruft
Shoppers come to your site to see your products, not your fancy navigation systems. Yet most ecommerce sites spend a majority of screen real estate dedicated to navigation and ancillary functionality, and a minority of real estate dedicated to product. Modern ecommerce websites will reverse the trend and dedicate 75 percent of screen real estate to show product, with 25 percent for supporting navigation, not the other way around.
Rich DHTML and AJAX
Dynamic HTML and AJAX technologies have been a boon to shoppers the world over. Instead of having to reload a page every time the shopper clicks, these technologies enable a world of rich interactions that are nearly instantaneous. While not new, most sites are still just scratching the surface of how to use these technologies in a robust manner. Here are some examples of how to take your DHTML into the modern era:
- Mega drop down: Mega dropdowns offer large panels that are easy to access, break navigation choices into logical groupings, and can feature dynamic or interactive content.
- Robust wizards and comparison tools: Guiding shoppers to products that are relevant to them based on their needs and providing detailed, interactive comparisons between products can be taken to the next level using DHTML and AJAX.
- One page checkout: Why make your shoppers click through multiple page reloads, when you can let them complete their purchase all on one page?
- Product option selection: Showing product availability in different option combinations (for example, colors and sizes) is a common UI problem.
- DHTML kung fu: Individually, DHTML techniques like promo carousels, tabs, scrollers, and other DHTML widgets can be powerful merchandising tools individually. Combined, they can allow you to take your site to new heights.
Get textual
Designers have been limited to a handful of “web-safe” fonts since the dawn of the web, and have had to hardcode anything else into images, slowing downloads and making custom messaging and personalization difficult and time-consuming. Not anymore. With the advent of HTML5 and font-serving technologies such as TypeKit, the web designers’ typographic palette has been opened up as never before. This isn’t just a design nicety, but rather a critical innovation that will allow savvy companies to deliver targeted, personalized message in brand-consistent ways for the first time. The impact doesn’t stop there; not having to use images for any custom fonts leads to faster page downloads and great accessibility of type to search engines and disabled users.
Wednesday, 21 September 2011
Google adds Contract Advertising to its roster in India
The search giant works with a cluster of agencies, both in the space of creative and activation, for its seven products in India.
The search giant, Google, has added Contract Advertising to its roster of agencies in India. The company works with a cluster of agencies in India, including Propaganda India (Bengaluru), BBH and others, both in the space of creative and activation.
Industry sources close to the development confirmed the news to afaqs! on ground of anonymity.
Currently, Google has seven products in India, including Chrome, AdSense, AdWord, Gmail and Google Earth, amongst others. The company follows its international pattern in India, wherein it awards various projects to different agencies from the roster. Furthermore, at times, it also works with two agencies on one project.
In September 2010, the search giant, in an effort to increase Chrome's market share in India, had launched its first print campaign - a full back-page advertisement, across the country. The company used all major newspapers including The Times of India, Economic Times, Mint, Hindu and other leading papers.
Once again, earlier this year, Google had launched a series of television commercials for Chrome, based on the concept, 'The Web is What You Make of it'. Conceptualised by BBH India, the commercial showcased how the web changed the lives of millions. One of the ads, titled Archana's Kitchen, tells the story of Archana Doshi from Tamil Nadu, who used the web to take forward her passion for cooking through Blooking (blog-cooking). The company also launched various digital activities, giving a further push to the television campaign.
According to several media reports, Google has predicted that India will add 200 million internet users in the next two years. Furthermore, the search giant expects India to reach at least 300 million internet users by 2014, from the 100 million users now, with telecom service providers investing in high speed wireless infrastructure and smartphones becoming cheaper.
For the record, Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, while they were attending Stanford University as PhD candidates. It was first incorporated as a privately held company on September 4, 1998, and its initial public offering followed on August 19, 2004. The web giant has recently launched its brand new social network, Google +.
Monday, 19 September 2011
Link Building checklist
Love for Lists
1. Build a "101 list". These get Dugg all the time, and often become "authority documents". People can't resist linking to these (hint, hint).
2. Create 10 easy tips to help you [insert topic here] articles. Again, these are exceptionally easy to link to.
3. Create extensive resource lists for a specific topic (see Mr Ploppy for inspiration).
4. Create a list of the top 10 myths for a specific category.
5. Create a list of gurus/experts. If you impress the people listed well enough, or find a way to make your project look somewhat official, the gurus may end up linking to your site or saying thanks. (Sometimes flattery is the easiest way to strike up a good relationship with an "authority".)
Developing Authority & Being Easy to Link At
6. Make your content easy to understand so many people can understand and spread your message. (It's an accessibility thing.)
7. Put some effort in to minimize grammatical or spelling errors, especially if you need authoritative people like librarians to link to your site.
8. Have an easily accessible privacy policy and about section so your site seems more trustworthy. Including a picture of yourself may also help build your authority.
PPC as a Link Building Tool
9. Buy relevant traffic with a pay per click campaign. Relevant traffic will get your site more visitors and brand exposure. When people come to your site, regardless of the channel in which they found it, there is a possibility that they will link to you.
News & Syndication
10. Syndicate an article at EzineArticles, GoArticles, iSnare, etc. The great thing about good article sites is that their article pages actually rank highly and send highly qualified traffic.
11. Submit an article to industry news site. Have an SEO site? Write an article and submit to WebProNews. Have a site about BLANK? Submit to BLANKinformationalsite.com.
12. Syndicate a press release. Take the time to make it GOOD (compelling, newsworthy). Email it to some handpicked journalists and bloggers. Personalize the email message. For good measure, submit it to PRWeb, PRLeap, etc.
13. Track who picks up your articles or press releases. Offer them exclusive news or content.
14. Trade articles with other webmasters.
15. Email a few friends when you have important relevant news asking them for their feedback and/or if they would mind referencing it if they find your information useful.
16. Write about, and link to, companies with "in the news" pages. They link back to stories and blog posts which cover their developments. This is obviously easiest if you have a news section or blog. Do a Google search for [your industry + "in the news"].
17. Perform surveys and studies that make people feel important. If you can make other people feel important they will help do your marketing for you for free. Salary.com did a study on how underpaid mothers were, and they got many high quality links.
Directories, Meme Trackers & Social Bookmarking
18. This tip is an oldie but goodie: submit your site to DMOZ and other directories that allow free submissions.
19. Submit your site to paid directories. Another oldie. Just remember that quality matters.
20. Create your own topical directory about your field of interest. Obviously link to your own site, deeplinking to important content where possible. Of course, if you make it into a truly useful resource, it will attract links on its own.
21. Tag related sites on sites like Del.icio.us. If people find the sites you tag to be interesting, emotionally engaging, or timely they may follow the trail back to your site.
22. If you create something that is of great quality make sure you ask a few friends to tag it for you. If your site gets on the front page of Digg or on the Del.icio.us popular list, hundreds more bloggers will see your site, and potentially link to it.
23. Look at meme trackers to see what ideas are spreading. If you write about popular spreading ideas with plenty of original content (and link to some of the original resources), your site may get listed as a source on the meme tracker site.
Local & Business Links
24. Join the Better Business Bureau.
25. Get a link from your local chamber of commerce.
26. Submit your link to relevant city and state governmental resources. (Easier in some countries than in others.)
27. List your site at the local library's Web site.
28. See if your manufacturers or retailers or other business partners might be willing to link to your site.
29. Develop business relationships with non-competing businesses in the same field. Leverage these relationships online and off, by recommending each other via links and distributing each other's business cards.
30. Launch an affiliate program. Most of the links you pick up will not have SEO value, but the added exposure will almost always lead to additional "normal" links.
Easy Free Links
31. Depending on your category and offer, you will find Craigslist to be a cheap or free classified service.
32. It is pretty easy to ask or answer questions on Yahoo! Answers and provide links to relevant resources.
33. It is pretty easy to ask or answer questions on Google Groups and provide links to relevant resources.
34. If you run a fairly reputable company, create a page about it in the Wikipedia or in topic specific wikis. If it is hard to list your site directly, try to add links to other pages that link to your site.
35. It takes about 15 minutes to set up a topical Squidoo page, which you can use to look like an industry expert. Link to expert documents and popular useful tools in your fields, and also create a link back to your site.
36. Submit a story to Digg that links to an article on your site. You can also submit other content and have some of its link authority flow back to your profile page.
37. If you publish an RSS feed and your content is useful and regularly updated, some people will syndicate your RSS content (and some of those will provide links… unfortunately, some will not).
38. Most forums allow members to leave signature links or personal profile links. If you make quality contributions some people will follow these links and potentially read your site, link at your site, and/or buy your products.
Have a Big Heart for Reviews
39. Most brands are not well established online, so if your site has much authority, your review related content often ranks well.
40. Review relevant products on Amazon.com. We have seen this draw in direct customer enquiries and secondary links.
41. Create product lists on Amazon.com that review top products and also mention your background (LINK!).
42. Review related sites on Alexa to draw in related traffic streams.
43. Review products and services on shopping search engines like ePinions to help build your authority.
44. If you buy a product or service you really like and are good at leaving testimonials, many of those turn into links. Two testimonial writing tips — make them believable, and be specific where possible.
Blogs & the Blogosphere
45. Start a blog. Not just for the sake of having one. Post regularly and post great content. Good execution is what gets the links.
46. Link to other blogs from your blog. Outbound links are one of the cheapest forms of marketing available. Many bloggers also track who is linking to them or where their traffic comes from, so linking to them is an easy way to get noticed by some of them.
47. Comment on other blogs. Most of these comments will not provide much direct search engine value, but if your comments are useful, insightful, and relevant they can drive direct traffic. They also help make the other bloggers become aware of you, and they may start reading your blog and/or linking to it.
48. Technorati tag pages rank well in Yahoo! and MSN, and to a lesser extent in Google. Even if your blog is fairly new you can have your posts featured on the Technorati tag pages by tagging your posts with relevant tags.
49. If you create a blog make sure you list it in a few of the best blog directories.
Design as a Linking Element
50. Web 2.0-ify your site. People love to link to anything with AJAX. Even in the narrowest of niches, there is some kind of useful functionality you can build with AJAX.
51. Validate and 508 your site. This (indirect) method makes your site more trustworthy and linkable, especially from governmental sites or design-oriented communities. There are even a few authoritative directories of standards-compliant sites.
52. Order a beautiful CSS redesign. A nice design can get links from sites like CSS Vault.
Hire Help
53. Hire a publicist. Good old fashioned 'PR' (not PageRank) can still work wonders. Andy Hagans now offers a link baiting publicity service.
54. Hire a consultant. Yes, you can outsource link building. Just make sure to go with someone good. We recommend WeBuildPages, Debra Mastaler and, ahem, Andy Hagans.
Link Trading
55. Swap some links. What?! Did we really just recommend reciprocal link building? Yes, on a small scale, and with relevant partners that will send you traffic. Stay away from the link trading hubs and networks.
56. In case you didn't get the memo — when swapping links, try to get links from within the content of relevant content pages. Do not try to get links from pages that list hundreds of off topic link partners. Only seek link exchanges that you would consider pursuing even if search engines did not exist. Instead of thinking just about your topic when exchanging links, think about demographic audience sets.
Buying Sites, Renting Links & Advertisements
57. Rent some high quality links from a broker. Text Link Ads is the most reputable firm in this niche.
58. Rent some high quality links directly from Web sites. Sometimes the most powerful rented links come direct from sites not actively renting links.
59. Become a sponsor. All sorts of charities, contests, and conferences link to their sponsors. This can be a great way to gain visibility, links, and a warm feeling in your heart.
60. Sell items on eBay and offer to donate the profits to a charity. Many charities will link both to the eBay auction and to your site.
61. Many search algorithms seem biased toward older established sites. It may be faster to buy an old site with a strong link profile, and link it to your own site, than to try to start building authority links from scratch.
Use the Courts (Proceed with Caution)
62. Sue Google.
63. Get sued by a company people hate. When Aaron was sued by Traffic Power, he got hundreds or thousands of links, including links from sites like Wired and The Wall Street Journal.
Freebies & Giveaways
64. Hold a contest. Contests make great link bait. A few-hundred-dollar prize can result in thousands of dollars worth of editorial quality links. Enough said.
65. Build a tool collection. Original and useful tools (and collections of tools) get a lot of link love. What do you think ranking for mortgage calculator is worth?
66. Create and release open source site design templates for content management systems like Wordpress. Don't forget the "Designed by example.com" bit in the footer!
67. Offer free samples in exchange for feedback.
68. Release a Firefox extension. Make sure you have a download and/or support page on your site which people can link to.
Conferences & Social Interaction
69. It is easy to take pictures of important events and tell narratives about why they are important. Pictures of (drunk?) "celebrities" in your industry make great link bait.
70. Leverage new real world relationships into linking relationships. If you go to SEO related conferences, people like Tim Mayer, Matt Cutts, and Danny Sullivan are readily accessible. Similarly, in other industries, people who would normally seem inaccessible are exceptionally accessible at trade conferences. It is much easier to seem "real" in person. Once you create social relationships in person, it is easy to extend that onto the web.
71. Engaging, useful, and interesting interviews are an easy way to create original content. And they spread like wildfire.
30 Bad Ways to Build Links
Here are a few link buiding methods that may destroy your brand or get your site banned/penalized/filtered from major search engines, or both.
Directories
72. Submit your site to 200 cheesy paid directories (averaging $15 a pop) that send zero traffic and sell offtopic run-of-site links.
Forum Spam
73. List 100 Web sites in your signature file.
74. Exclusively post only when you can add links to your sites in the post area.
75. Post nothing but "me too" posts to build your post count. Use in combination with a link-rich signature file.
76. Ask questions about who provides the best [WIDGET], where [WIDGET] is an item that you sell. From the same IP address create another forum account and answer your own question raving about how great your own site is.
77. As a new member to various forums, ask the same question at 20 different forums on the same day.
78. Post on forum threads that are years outdated exclusively to link to your semi-related website.
79. Sign up for profiles on forums you never intend on commenting on.
Blog Spam
80. Instead of signing blog comments with your real name, sign them with spammy keywords.
81. Start marketing your own site hard on your first blog comment. Add no value to the comment section. Mention nothing other than you recently posted on the same subject at _____ and everyone should read it. Carpet bomb dozens of blogs with this message.
82. Say nothing unique or relevant to the post at hand. Make them assume an automated bot hit their comments.
83. Better yet, use automated bots to hit their comments. List at least 30 links in each post. Try to see if you can hit any servers hard enough to make them crash.
84. Send pings to everyone talking about a subject. In your aggregation post, state nothing of interest. Only state that other people are talking about the topic.
85. Don't even link to any of the sites you are pinging. Send them pings from posts that do not even reference them.
Garbage Link Exchanges
86. Send out link exchange requests mentioning PageRank.
87. Send link exchange emails which look like an automated bot sent them (little or no customization, no personal names, etc.).
88. Send link exchange requests to Matt Cutts, Tim Mayer, Tim Converse, Google, and Yahoo!.
89. Get links from nearly-hidden sections of websites listing hundreds or thousands of off topic sites.
Spam People in Person
90. Go to webmaster conferences and rave about how rich you are, and how your affiliates make millions doing nothing.
91. Instead of asking people what their name is, ask what their URL is. As soon as you get their URL ask if they have linked to your site yet and if not, why not.
Be Persistant
92. Send a webmaster an alert to every post you make on your website.
93. Send a webmaster an email every single day asking for them to link to your website.
94. Send references to your site to the same webmaster from dozens of different email accounts (you sly dog).
95. If the above do not work to get you a free link, offer them $1 for their time. Increase your offer by a dollar each day until they give in.
Getting Links by Being a Jerk
96. Emulate the RIAA. When in doubt, file a lawsuit against a 12-year-old girl. (Failing that, obtain bad press by any means necessary.)
97. Steal content published by well known names. Strip out any attribution. Aggregate many popular channels and just wait for them to start talking about you.
98. Send thousands of fake referrals at every top ranking Web site, guaranteeing larger boobs, a 14-inch penis (is that length or girth?), or millions of dollars in free, unclaimed money.
99. Wear your URL on your t-shirt. Walk or drive your car while talking on a cell phone or reading a book. When you run into other people say "excuse you, jerk".
100. Spill coffee on people or find creative ways to insult people to coax them into linking at your site.
101. Sue other webmasters for deep linking to your site. Well, this is more "hilariously dumb" than it is a "bad linking practice".
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1. Build a "101 list". These get Dugg all the time, and often become "authority documents". People can't resist linking to these (hint, hint).
2. Create 10 easy tips to help you [insert topic here] articles. Again, these are exceptionally easy to link to.
3. Create extensive resource lists for a specific topic (see Mr Ploppy for inspiration).
4. Create a list of the top 10 myths for a specific category.
5. Create a list of gurus/experts. If you impress the people listed well enough, or find a way to make your project look somewhat official, the gurus may end up linking to your site or saying thanks. (Sometimes flattery is the easiest way to strike up a good relationship with an "authority".)
Developing Authority & Being Easy to Link At
6. Make your content easy to understand so many people can understand and spread your message. (It's an accessibility thing.)
7. Put some effort in to minimize grammatical or spelling errors, especially if you need authoritative people like librarians to link to your site.
8. Have an easily accessible privacy policy and about section so your site seems more trustworthy. Including a picture of yourself may also help build your authority.
PPC as a Link Building Tool
9. Buy relevant traffic with a pay per click campaign. Relevant traffic will get your site more visitors and brand exposure. When people come to your site, regardless of the channel in which they found it, there is a possibility that they will link to you.
News & Syndication
10. Syndicate an article at EzineArticles, GoArticles, iSnare, etc. The great thing about good article sites is that their article pages actually rank highly and send highly qualified traffic.
11. Submit an article to industry news site. Have an SEO site? Write an article and submit to WebProNews. Have a site about BLANK? Submit to BLANKinformationalsite.com.
12. Syndicate a press release. Take the time to make it GOOD (compelling, newsworthy). Email it to some handpicked journalists and bloggers. Personalize the email message. For good measure, submit it to PRWeb, PRLeap, etc.
13. Track who picks up your articles or press releases. Offer them exclusive news or content.
14. Trade articles with other webmasters.
15. Email a few friends when you have important relevant news asking them for their feedback and/or if they would mind referencing it if they find your information useful.
16. Write about, and link to, companies with "in the news" pages. They link back to stories and blog posts which cover their developments. This is obviously easiest if you have a news section or blog. Do a Google search for [your industry + "in the news"].
17. Perform surveys and studies that make people feel important. If you can make other people feel important they will help do your marketing for you for free. Salary.com did a study on how underpaid mothers were, and they got many high quality links.
Directories, Meme Trackers & Social Bookmarking
18. This tip is an oldie but goodie: submit your site to DMOZ and other directories that allow free submissions.
19. Submit your site to paid directories. Another oldie. Just remember that quality matters.
20. Create your own topical directory about your field of interest. Obviously link to your own site, deeplinking to important content where possible. Of course, if you make it into a truly useful resource, it will attract links on its own.
21. Tag related sites on sites like Del.icio.us. If people find the sites you tag to be interesting, emotionally engaging, or timely they may follow the trail back to your site.
22. If you create something that is of great quality make sure you ask a few friends to tag it for you. If your site gets on the front page of Digg or on the Del.icio.us popular list, hundreds more bloggers will see your site, and potentially link to it.
23. Look at meme trackers to see what ideas are spreading. If you write about popular spreading ideas with plenty of original content (and link to some of the original resources), your site may get listed as a source on the meme tracker site.
Local & Business Links
24. Join the Better Business Bureau.
25. Get a link from your local chamber of commerce.
26. Submit your link to relevant city and state governmental resources. (Easier in some countries than in others.)
27. List your site at the local library's Web site.
28. See if your manufacturers or retailers or other business partners might be willing to link to your site.
29. Develop business relationships with non-competing businesses in the same field. Leverage these relationships online and off, by recommending each other via links and distributing each other's business cards.
30. Launch an affiliate program. Most of the links you pick up will not have SEO value, but the added exposure will almost always lead to additional "normal" links.
Easy Free Links
31. Depending on your category and offer, you will find Craigslist to be a cheap or free classified service.
32. It is pretty easy to ask or answer questions on Yahoo! Answers and provide links to relevant resources.
33. It is pretty easy to ask or answer questions on Google Groups and provide links to relevant resources.
34. If you run a fairly reputable company, create a page about it in the Wikipedia or in topic specific wikis. If it is hard to list your site directly, try to add links to other pages that link to your site.
35. It takes about 15 minutes to set up a topical Squidoo page, which you can use to look like an industry expert. Link to expert documents and popular useful tools in your fields, and also create a link back to your site.
36. Submit a story to Digg that links to an article on your site. You can also submit other content and have some of its link authority flow back to your profile page.
37. If you publish an RSS feed and your content is useful and regularly updated, some people will syndicate your RSS content (and some of those will provide links… unfortunately, some will not).
38. Most forums allow members to leave signature links or personal profile links. If you make quality contributions some people will follow these links and potentially read your site, link at your site, and/or buy your products.
Have a Big Heart for Reviews
39. Most brands are not well established online, so if your site has much authority, your review related content often ranks well.
40. Review relevant products on Amazon.com. We have seen this draw in direct customer enquiries and secondary links.
41. Create product lists on Amazon.com that review top products and also mention your background (LINK!).
42. Review related sites on Alexa to draw in related traffic streams.
43. Review products and services on shopping search engines like ePinions to help build your authority.
44. If you buy a product or service you really like and are good at leaving testimonials, many of those turn into links. Two testimonial writing tips — make them believable, and be specific where possible.
Blogs & the Blogosphere
45. Start a blog. Not just for the sake of having one. Post regularly and post great content. Good execution is what gets the links.
46. Link to other blogs from your blog. Outbound links are one of the cheapest forms of marketing available. Many bloggers also track who is linking to them or where their traffic comes from, so linking to them is an easy way to get noticed by some of them.
47. Comment on other blogs. Most of these comments will not provide much direct search engine value, but if your comments are useful, insightful, and relevant they can drive direct traffic. They also help make the other bloggers become aware of you, and they may start reading your blog and/or linking to it.
48. Technorati tag pages rank well in Yahoo! and MSN, and to a lesser extent in Google. Even if your blog is fairly new you can have your posts featured on the Technorati tag pages by tagging your posts with relevant tags.
49. If you create a blog make sure you list it in a few of the best blog directories.
Design as a Linking Element
50. Web 2.0-ify your site. People love to link to anything with AJAX. Even in the narrowest of niches, there is some kind of useful functionality you can build with AJAX.
51. Validate and 508 your site. This (indirect) method makes your site more trustworthy and linkable, especially from governmental sites or design-oriented communities. There are even a few authoritative directories of standards-compliant sites.
52. Order a beautiful CSS redesign. A nice design can get links from sites like CSS Vault.
Hire Help
53. Hire a publicist. Good old fashioned 'PR' (not PageRank) can still work wonders. Andy Hagans now offers a link baiting publicity service.
54. Hire a consultant. Yes, you can outsource link building. Just make sure to go with someone good. We recommend WeBuildPages, Debra Mastaler and, ahem, Andy Hagans.
Link Trading
55. Swap some links. What?! Did we really just recommend reciprocal link building? Yes, on a small scale, and with relevant partners that will send you traffic. Stay away from the link trading hubs and networks.
56. In case you didn't get the memo — when swapping links, try to get links from within the content of relevant content pages. Do not try to get links from pages that list hundreds of off topic link partners. Only seek link exchanges that you would consider pursuing even if search engines did not exist. Instead of thinking just about your topic when exchanging links, think about demographic audience sets.
Buying Sites, Renting Links & Advertisements
57. Rent some high quality links from a broker. Text Link Ads is the most reputable firm in this niche.
58. Rent some high quality links directly from Web sites. Sometimes the most powerful rented links come direct from sites not actively renting links.
59. Become a sponsor. All sorts of charities, contests, and conferences link to their sponsors. This can be a great way to gain visibility, links, and a warm feeling in your heart.
60. Sell items on eBay and offer to donate the profits to a charity. Many charities will link both to the eBay auction and to your site.
61. Many search algorithms seem biased toward older established sites. It may be faster to buy an old site with a strong link profile, and link it to your own site, than to try to start building authority links from scratch.
Use the Courts (Proceed with Caution)
62. Sue Google.
63. Get sued by a company people hate. When Aaron was sued by Traffic Power, he got hundreds or thousands of links, including links from sites like Wired and The Wall Street Journal.
Freebies & Giveaways
64. Hold a contest. Contests make great link bait. A few-hundred-dollar prize can result in thousands of dollars worth of editorial quality links. Enough said.
65. Build a tool collection. Original and useful tools (and collections of tools) get a lot of link love. What do you think ranking for mortgage calculator is worth?
66. Create and release open source site design templates for content management systems like Wordpress. Don't forget the "Designed by example.com" bit in the footer!
67. Offer free samples in exchange for feedback.
68. Release a Firefox extension. Make sure you have a download and/or support page on your site which people can link to.
Conferences & Social Interaction
69. It is easy to take pictures of important events and tell narratives about why they are important. Pictures of (drunk?) "celebrities" in your industry make great link bait.
70. Leverage new real world relationships into linking relationships. If you go to SEO related conferences, people like Tim Mayer, Matt Cutts, and Danny Sullivan are readily accessible. Similarly, in other industries, people who would normally seem inaccessible are exceptionally accessible at trade conferences. It is much easier to seem "real" in person. Once you create social relationships in person, it is easy to extend that onto the web.
71. Engaging, useful, and interesting interviews are an easy way to create original content. And they spread like wildfire.
30 Bad Ways to Build Links
Here are a few link buiding methods that may destroy your brand or get your site banned/penalized/filtered from major search engines, or both.
Directories
72. Submit your site to 200 cheesy paid directories (averaging $15 a pop) that send zero traffic and sell offtopic run-of-site links.
Forum Spam
73. List 100 Web sites in your signature file.
74. Exclusively post only when you can add links to your sites in the post area.
75. Post nothing but "me too" posts to build your post count. Use in combination with a link-rich signature file.
76. Ask questions about who provides the best [WIDGET], where [WIDGET] is an item that you sell. From the same IP address create another forum account and answer your own question raving about how great your own site is.
77. As a new member to various forums, ask the same question at 20 different forums on the same day.
78. Post on forum threads that are years outdated exclusively to link to your semi-related website.
79. Sign up for profiles on forums you never intend on commenting on.
Blog Spam
80. Instead of signing blog comments with your real name, sign them with spammy keywords.
81. Start marketing your own site hard on your first blog comment. Add no value to the comment section. Mention nothing other than you recently posted on the same subject at _____ and everyone should read it. Carpet bomb dozens of blogs with this message.
82. Say nothing unique or relevant to the post at hand. Make them assume an automated bot hit their comments.
83. Better yet, use automated bots to hit their comments. List at least 30 links in each post. Try to see if you can hit any servers hard enough to make them crash.
84. Send pings to everyone talking about a subject. In your aggregation post, state nothing of interest. Only state that other people are talking about the topic.
85. Don't even link to any of the sites you are pinging. Send them pings from posts that do not even reference them.
Garbage Link Exchanges
86. Send out link exchange requests mentioning PageRank.
87. Send link exchange emails which look like an automated bot sent them (little or no customization, no personal names, etc.).
88. Send link exchange requests to Matt Cutts, Tim Mayer, Tim Converse, Google, and Yahoo!.
89. Get links from nearly-hidden sections of websites listing hundreds or thousands of off topic sites.
Spam People in Person
90. Go to webmaster conferences and rave about how rich you are, and how your affiliates make millions doing nothing.
91. Instead of asking people what their name is, ask what their URL is. As soon as you get their URL ask if they have linked to your site yet and if not, why not.
Be Persistant
92. Send a webmaster an alert to every post you make on your website.
93. Send a webmaster an email every single day asking for them to link to your website.
94. Send references to your site to the same webmaster from dozens of different email accounts (you sly dog).
95. If the above do not work to get you a free link, offer them $1 for their time. Increase your offer by a dollar each day until they give in.
Getting Links by Being a Jerk
96. Emulate the RIAA. When in doubt, file a lawsuit against a 12-year-old girl. (Failing that, obtain bad press by any means necessary.)
97. Steal content published by well known names. Strip out any attribution. Aggregate many popular channels and just wait for them to start talking about you.
98. Send thousands of fake referrals at every top ranking Web site, guaranteeing larger boobs, a 14-inch penis (is that length or girth?), or millions of dollars in free, unclaimed money.
99. Wear your URL on your t-shirt. Walk or drive your car while talking on a cell phone or reading a book. When you run into other people say "excuse you, jerk".
100. Spill coffee on people or find creative ways to insult people to coax them into linking at your site.
101. Sue other webmasters for deep linking to your site. Well, this is more "hilariously dumb" than it is a "bad linking practice".
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