My presentation from the #brightonSEO conference at the Corn Exchange Brighton on 9th September 2011. In the presentation I discuss the steps involved in setting up a scalable private blog network to use as part of your link building campaign.

1. Building a private blog network John McElborough Brighton SEO, September 2011

2. Do blog networks work? Yes & No Small private networks work best Useful for targeting lots of keywords Very effective on long to mid-tail keywords. Not effective on short tail

3. What role do blog networks play?

5. Sold on PageRank metrics

6. Expensive

7. Spam signals

9. Value add for clients

10. Intellectual property

11. Focus effort on higher value link building

13. Install & host Wordpress

14. Add unique content

15. Build links

17. Why I avoid dropped domains Expensive High PageRank but usually few links Links lost over time

18. Hosting SEO Hosting – mostly expensive & unreliable http://www.skynethosting.net http://www.seohosting.com/ http://www.seohosting.co.uk/ Spread over multiple IP addresses, but don’t obsess about C-class Ip’s Look for separate A Class IP’s as well Mix up nameservers as well Don’t understand this stuff? Hire a sys admin to do it for you

19. Setting up the network Install Wordpress on each domain (http://www.wpdesktop.com/) Make the sites look ‘real’ Use pro themes Show adsense Install GA code Create about us + contact pages Block Majestic, Yahoo*, Linkscape bots

20. Centralized publishing

21. Q Network Install wordpress on a private ‘hub’ domain Connect network sites with Q Network plugin Use hub site as CMS Push articles onto your network sites http://jmc.im/qnetwork

23. Content Only use original content No spinning/ scraping “Quality content” Launch with 5-10 posts Link out Include images

24. Where to get the content Textbroker oDesk Interns Students Writer samples

25. Building links to your network Need 50-100 linking domains per site 50 blogs x 100 links = 5000 links Outsource or automate Or outsource the automation!

26. Link building tactics Get your hands dirty… Blog comments Blog directories Other blog networks – www.buildmyrank.com, www.linxboss.com Forums Article marketing fiverr.com Interlink your blogs (carefully)

27. Costs Costs estimated based on a 50 site network

28. www.jmc.im/brightonseo john@ioptimal.co.uk