I’ve been doing the whole link building services review thing for a while now, and it’s gotten to the point whereby there’s more services I recommend you do NOT use than I recommend that you DO use. I/we can’t ignore history, what has been happening repeatedly in the past, will almost assuredly repeat itself in the future.
This isn’t another diatribe, complaint about Google and what-not.. too much of that lately by a lot of self-serving types who want to protect their knowledge “authority”, pander to their fans and readers and put blame on things beyond their control, and protect their affiliate/product/service fees and commissions.
I interviewed some experts I trust lately, and there’s much common ground knowledge believed in and used, and link building still works well for those who did certain things, in a certain way, using a certain methodology or two. (but sharing this openly devalues the method).
Gray hat black hat white hat, mixed hats..all working when done right
Sites in and out of Google Webmaster Tools… some working fine and some aren’t them’s tha breaks kids
In the future here on this site/space,let’s talk more about traffic generation, lead generation, content marketing and so on…
I know this might sound so “SEO MOZ-ish” when you think you might be reading something like, “Top 10 content marketing strategies for 2012″ or ” top 10 ways to make lists of lists of lists for link bait to link bait” on this site but that won’t happen.
But there are things we need to focus on…
Content marketing- traffic generation, trust gaining and self-promotional as everything is one way or another. But what exactly is content marketing and how is it done? Is it the same as article marketing or guest blogging? Is it link-begging or article swapping and shopping?
Branding – not just promoting the naked url for the main domain but a lot deeper than that, more like being synonymous for your niche, meaning that when you think of link building reviews as a keyword or phrase, you think of one website or person primarily or predominantly…
Traffic generation- we all know what that is, and there’s plenty of people who don’t know squat about seo getting mad traffic to other sites without building backlinks.
Niche and industry influencers- trade traffic like adult websites used to do, or still do (no idea there honestly but these adult webmasters usually are 6 months to a year ahead of the rest of the world as to what’s working best now, today) Anyhow, Influence-garnering and peddling, something to focus on for sure.
If we combine all of these things into our marketing efforts, we won’t be reliant upon any one thing for the success of the websites we work on, rely on, for income, traffic, lead generation etc…
{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
YEs man! This is the way to go, it just takes a bit more work!
Well, thanks, but if this is MORE work then me no likee!
I get your point though, it is a long term thing here, more work up front less work long term because rankings are stabler, experiencing less fluctuations, etc..
Nice post Daniel and Happy birthday!!!
Thanks Gerrid
What? You’re going all white-hat on us?
Only joking, I for one like the idea. Your repeated willingness to “take one for the team” and throw money and sites at these services has been nothing short of amazing, and I am grateful for that, but I think you’re right, it’s time to move on. Not because Google has suddenly become all-powerful and can destroy all our backlinking schemes with a wave of its wand. It’s just that the whole “what works and what doesn’t” discussion gets old. It all “works” if you mix it up and don’t rely on one service. Personally I don’t care if one service turns out to be really amazing and get me to no. 1 in five minutes flat. So what – that just means everyone and his dog will be on it and then it’s just a matter of time… *cough* BMR *cough*
I am also very much exploring some of the strategies you mention above, especially relating to branding – I am really trying to brainstorm right now WHAT are the “branding signals” Google could be trying to look at, and I feel there is gold in them thar hills!
Honestly, I think these are exciting times – I don’t know about anyone else, but I am fed up to the back teeth of BACKLINKING and am looking forward to some new challenges
.
P.S. No chance of changing the domain name, is there
Hello Word Bay
The idea is to do a few things
give clarity and sanity in today’s seo link building landscape, and keep up to dates via experts contributing
try to show people how to develop stabler forms of traffic
myself, personally, I will be doing exactly what I’m teaching and espousing and showing proof, which means analytics stuff will be added to show traffic generation sources, effective link sources, how to get long term value backlinks and where long term value links come from …
There was some marketer who wrote that pro-bloggers and master-link builders don’t make as much as money as those who learn to master traffic generation and conversions, and in a lot of ways he is correct.
I know a guy who makes 1-2k/month off 300 uniques a month to a site he outsourced the design to, and filled with tweaked PLR. Conversions mastery will do more for any of us than mastering link building and it’s high time I mention this, and try to extricate us from being zoned in on just seo stuff, which is really my passion since it’s so darn interesting
I like it Daniel. Focusing on one method to bring in traffic is like leaving all your eggs in one basket.
I look forward to seeing where all this goes.
Yea, the idea is to focus on one method long enough to get good at it, then broaden your horizons to become a better marketer
Awesome stuff Dan. This is exactly what I need. It’s hard to find level-headed, informed discussion. A lot of panicking everywhere. Anyway, can’t wait for the new direction and also for Marketer’s Relief.
Got a release date on that yet?
I’m waiting on the graphics before I release this and it’s pretty close, also added 2 more interviews, and finally got GoToMeeeting ordered, so it’s gonna be something like 7 text interviews waiting for people on the inside when they join, then probably a somewhat constant roll out of interviews and Q & S moving forward. However MR progresses, it just had to make sense
Happy Birthday Daniel.
I signed up ages ago! When you opening the doors then??!
I will be releasing the Krakken by the end of this week
Doing webinar interview tonight to let people know what it’s all about.
I think there’s enough info in the interviews already done to give people some clarity in dealing with today’s SEO landscape and how to adapt, move on, recover, move forward etc…
Hey Dan – Happy Birthday young man! As one of 7 readers of your blog, I give thumbs up to where you’re headed. I think we as SEOs all look forward to the day where our own content and our clients client become the heavier focus of the work.
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend an official Google Adwords training class hosted by Google here in Taiwan. I asked the instructor about SEO in Taiwan and Asia in general and was surprised to find out that you can actually BUY the top 3 spots on page one of “organic search results” on Yahoo’s SERPs (in Taiwan at least)! That kinda gave me a whole new perspective as to what SEO on Google really means to Internet users. With Google the “little guys” at least have a shot at getting their brands/products/services out there to people who are already looking for them… And WE as SEOs can help them accomplish that.
Wow, great point there about buying top 3s on Yahoo, did not know that
2 more interviews wrapped up today, making best use of my time laid up after knee surgery
Looking forward to having you on board,
Dan
I for one would miss it if you stopped reviewing link building services.
I do understand where you’re coming from. I’ve understood that for me personally, long term security doesn’t depend on traffic generation but rather on lead generation and conversion.
High visitor value basically.
When I’ve got those down the source of traffic won’t matter much. Paid traffic or Web 2.0 traffic will be preferrable in some situations. So that’s my longer term focus.
I still do SEO for clients and myself. I’ve found that intelligence about linking services is the ONE most efficient way to navigate the turbulent waters of webmaster panic, Google-created propaganda, and SEO in general.
All the best to you. And thanks for all the superb information you’ve provided.
I don’t think Dan is going to stop reviewing linking services full stop – but we all need to see something different come along, a new way of linking.
The idea of concentrating on traffic (targeted traffic) is the way to go though.
What’s the point of good SERPS for a word or phrase if you get no visitors or make no money from it?
Good traffic is the key. I think SEO will still play a sizable part, but traffic and profit need to be acknowledged as the main reason we are all in this game in the first place.
I’m waiting for the next massive shift in paradigm. A “new way” to link a “new way” to create traffic OR learn some established methods that I don’t currently use from the experts out there. Probably more of the latter actually.
Hey Dan,
Like the new G+ widget thingy up there … you’ve been noticeable by your absence lately – hope the knee is ok (and your sites, too).
Thanks I’ve written and rewritten about 5 posts to explain what’s going on but what’s happening now will pass, making predictions based on present past behavior, doesn’t really do anyone any good except to reinforce the fact that hey, we’re all in the same boat, for most part.
NOBODY has solutions, and while I know what to do, most people won’t want to hear it, so I’m keeping mum, and thinking best on how to pursue the new direction
Thanks for adding me to Google Circles, oh, wait you didn’t and now my feelings are hurt, that’s what I get for opening myself up for rejection socially
MY sites are fine, for most part, doing nothing seems to work wonders, as does not changing anything I do, go figure
I’m your biggest fan … I just haven’t got my G+ circles thing working yet.
Got my authorship thingy going and my mugshot is showing up, but my G paranoia (not to mention disdain) has been delaying me … but I promise you’ll be the very first person I add (even though you aren’t wearing a shirt).
By the way, I’d love to join your insider’s circle, but to cut a long story short I hate, loathe and despise PayPal … any other options?
I have a major issue with one of my sites – it is ranking fine for all big keywords – not much difference there but none of my blog posts seem to be showing up in search results anymore
Its a real estate site and has one blog post for each listing. All content is original (I write it all!) But it gets syndicated to other realtors, onto real estate portals etc and republished all over the place.
I just googled an exact title in quotes and it still didn’t show up. So I clicked on “repeat the search with the omitted results included” and it then appears – seems I have been pinged as having all duplicate content on my site when it is the original source – very annoying! I do hope it isn’t permanent!
This is where content attribution can help
If you practice Google approved syndication, then jut utilize rel=author, rel=publisher tags and you will be fine.
Seems like syndication is cause of the dupe issue, was your content fully syndicated, or just blurbs, and did the syndication places cite their source, ie..your site?
I added a plugin for the author tag recently and it has started showing my name in search results but as of this update – all gone.
I usually also get indexed immediately upon publishing content (I have G alerts set up for stuff and get them within minutes) so surely google should know where content has shown up first?
Content off my site is copied in its entirety by other realtors (including the exact titles) who I collaborate with. XML feeds also republish it but no links back to me on any of it. All those smaller sites are showing up for the search terms though. Same content – loads of them – all in the SERPS. Even a Wordpress.com blog I own which has my content syndicated to it is still showing up. That has a link back to my site on every post it syndicates.
I have checked the latest post I have published and it appears near the top – but nothing else does. If there were lots of sites with my content that had also gone missing I would understand this a little more but there arent – just seems to be mine – all the dupe pages are ranking. Before the update I could rank nr 1 for pretty much any long tail in my niche.
I will check the latest post and see if that eventually disappears as google picks up the copies.
I´m using the plugin Google authorship for multiple authors. Just checked last post with rich snippets and authorship is recognised by google. same with posts I am no longer ranking for. It also says “Warning: Missing required field “updated”.
Warning: Missing required hCard “author”.
But it has done that since I set it up about 3 weeks ago and has been working fine
Hi, I have people telling me this also
I emailed you this already http://www.warriorforum.com/main-internet-marketing-discussion-forum/545267-spinning-dup-content-penalties-dead-boy-i-hope-so.html
but good food for thought.
I also recently saw this, so you’re not alone trust me http://www.backlinksforum.org/index.php?/topic/158-dont-use-relauthor/
I know people who kissed Google’s behind and privided link lists and did pure whitehat site promotion and they still got dropped entirely form the serps, maybe temporarily, hopefully so
G told them their syndicated Press Release on PRWEB’s site was unnatural due to the dofollow text, then after dofollow was changed to nofollow they said the anchor text was un natural too. Imagine that… whithatters are getting kicke din the rear, too, and historically whitehat has been rewarding only in the long term, now it’s a mess, and you basically have to build an untouchabe, authority brand in order to remain unaffected by their mess.
Then again, senuke.cm currently page 2 for dog training?
seomoz page 2 for dog snuggie?
Google will fix this,they have to…
It’s funny how google will temporarily sacrifice search quality just to scare the few into switching over to adsense and keep investors happy by increasing profits…
You have to be blind not to see this
SEO for life!