My presentation from SES London - what does a link building strategy look like in 2013?

4. Links were naturally earned &
humanly curated

5. Then this came along…

6. Also known as…

7. Quickly followed by this....

8. And eventually this!

9. Which caused a few headaches…

10. Started a few long-overdue clean-ups!

11. And launched lots of different theories...

13. The Google Gap is closing
Image source: http://www.searchcowboys.com/

14. Essentially Penguin is the ‘cousin’ of Panda…
Panda identifies thin/weak content
and penalises you for publishing it
Penguin penalises you for thin/weak
content which links to you

15. Phase 1: Demote sites with more content ranking
than their reputation has earned
http://uk.blueglass.com/blog/content-auditing/

16. Pages that have no activity/links/comments/shares
are there to manipulate Google’s algorithm

17. Phase 2: Anchor Text Over-Optimisation Penalities
www.micrositemasters.com/blog/penguin-analysis-seo-isnt-dead-but-you-need-to-act-smarter-and-5-easy-ways-to-do-so/

19. Google in 2013 has more data/signals than ever
(and they’re using them...)

20. Google Chrome is #1 Browser in the World
http://mashable.com/2012/05/21/chrome-is-tops/

21. Google Analytics Has Dominant Market Share
http://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/traffic_analysis/all

22. Google Reader + FeedBurner = blog data

23. Google+ is verification network for authors

24. This means Google essentially knows
where, why, who & when content is searched
for

26. WHO links to you could be more important
than WHERE it’s from
http://www.recommendedusers.com/authors-writers/

27. But don’t give up on links just yet!

29. 1) Re-think your metrics of site quality
1. Traffic
2. RSS Subscribers
3. Bounce Rate
4. Average no of links per post
5. Average no of social shares/comments
6. What Would Matt Cutts Do?

30. 2) Analyse if/when you’ve been hit
http://www.panguintool.com/

31. 3) Download all of your links

32. 4) Analyse your anchor text distribution %

33. 5) Analyse link volume vs. referring traffic

34. 6) Analyse topical relevancy of links

35. 7) Compare it against your competitors!

36. 8) Find out what a #1 site profile
looks like in your industry & replicate it
Source: www.linkdetective.com

37. 9) Consider removing/disavowing links which
don’t match your target profile

38. 10) Create a scalable content strategy to focus
on quality production & outreach
Content types include:
– Infographics
– Infograms
– In-Depth Articles/Blog Posts
– Videos
– Kinetic Typography
– Interactive Infographics
– HTML5 content
– Quizzes
– Microsites/Communities
– Events

39. 11) Focus on audience & topical relevancy to
build a natural & defensible profile