Back in November here on the Vertical Measures blog we published a content piece we’d been working on for quite some time, “The Authority Building Machine Infographic”. Producing one great piece of content each quarter is something every business should strive to do, whether it’s a video, case study, webinar or even an infographic.

A good piece of content can help you build the authority of your site (as we showcase in our Infographic) and additionally can bring targeted niche traffic to your site and paying customers to your virtual door. Don’t believe me? Check out the results of our recent infographic and see for yourself. (We can’t give you this kind of detail for the work we do for clients, but happy to share our results.)

Social Metrics

Engaging with customers through the use of social media is one surefire way to build a community of engaged prospects and also a fab way to get some social links too. Our team tweeted, +1′d, Facebook’d, bookmarked and commented to help promote our content piece from both branded and personal accounts.

After all was said and done we received almost 200 RTs on the original post, 24 Google +1s, almost 4,000 Stumbles (1500 from paid campaign), 17 Facebook Likes, 52 Facebook shares and Topsy shows over 250 posts via social channels. Guest blog posts and others who embedded our infographic showed social media success too:

• SearchEngineJournal.com – Tweeted 294 times, 12 Google +1s and 17 Facebook Likes
• SearchEngineWatch.com – Tweeted 364 times, 21 Google +1s and 63 Facebook Likes
• SocialTimes.com – Tweeted 104 times and 18 Facebook Likes
• MediaBistro.com – Tweeted 70 times

Takeaway? It’s important to cater your social promotion to the content piece and to your industry. In addition it pays to do some pre-promotion and planning. We knew that our infographic was complex, most are. We took separate key concepts from the infographic and wrote very “evergreen” guest blog posts about those concepts: 4 Ways to Use Linked In to Promote Your Website, Using Social Media to Build Site Authority, 5 Content Pieces to Build Site Authority, How Infographics Can Help You Build Site Authority, and Six Ways You Can Use Google + to Build Authority.

Traffic Metrics

By no means was our latest infographic the most trafficked post we’ve ever had but wowsers did we see some traffic jumps. Since November our blog post has received over 5,000 unique views and time spent on page is over 5 minutes – and that’s just people who actually went to our original post.  By marketing our Infographic with guest blog posts and doing some social promotion we got the most out of our Infographic and expect to see continued traffic driven to our site for months and even years to come.

Link Metrics

As a company who started off primarily in the link building world, we know just how valuable a great link to your website can be – priceless. Our infographic drew in a whopping 1400+ links from over 50 linking root domains with an average domain authority of 52. Sure, our awesome team can take credit for building some of the links (our guest posts & social links). But the rest of the links were about as natural as it gets – embeds or blog posts linking back to our site and infographic. We expected to get quite a few links, heck we’re a link building company aren’t we? But over 1400 surpassed even our expectations.

Investment vs. Return

In reviewing the success of any content leveraging activities you have to think about how the investment stacks up to the return. Our team put in an estimated 50+ hours worth of work developing the graphics, writing blog posts, doing social promotion, brainstorming and strategizing over the course of a three month period.  It’s quite an investment, one with a price tag of several thousand dollars. But when looking at the return of over 50 unique liking root domains with average DA 50+ you’re looking to spend almost $15,000 to acquire these links at current industry rates. Not to mention the traffic that was driven to our site; 5,000 targeted visitors at our industry rates would be several thousand dollars as well.

In the end we’re very happy with the results. Have you seen similar results by leveraging engaging content in the past?

Kaila Strong

Kaila is a Sr. Account Manager at Vertical Measures. She works directly with clients to evaluate and analyze their overall Internet Marketing needs, creates sales proposals and recommendations. In addition she regularly reports on client rankings, gives SEO advice to brands in a variety of industries and manages client expectations.

Kaila has a background in social media marketing, link building, SEO and content marketing. She’s an active blogger on SearchEngineWatch.com, and an avid social media user (@cliquekaila on Twitter). She brings her experience to the table with new clients and enjoys writing about her experiences as well here on the VM blog and throughout the web.

Website – Twitter – More Posts

Related posts:

1. Leveraging A Site for Manual Link Building
2. Compelling Content the Key to Every Link Building Campaign
3. Infographic: The Authority Building Machine

Here at Vertical Measures we’re always being asked about our link building methods and what secrets we are holding back. Even though we have developed some proprietary tools and methods, the truth is this: there just are not a lot of secrets.

The way we see it, link building comes down to two approaches: manual link building and link attraction. A mix of both tactics is needed for the most well-rounded link profile that can help your site rise up the SERPs.

Manual link building

Manual link building involves the process of securing targeted links by manually recommending the site to its webmaster. In so doing you know exactly what kind of link you will be acquiring (and can thus target core pages with said request) as the first step in manual link building is to seek out such links, either by utilizing a nifty search operator or sifting through your competitors’ backlinks.

Many different tactics comprise the manual link building approach:

• Contacting webmasters directly is the most effective form of manual link building. This will often lead you to relevant backlinks, and as an added bonus you can usually control the anchor text. This method tests a link builder’s creativity as here they must craft an email compelling enough to convince the webmaster to grant you the link (after first opening the email). It can be a frustrating method at times since the response rate is often low but it’s ultimately rewarding because of the choice quality of these links.
• We also often use link reclamation when contacting webmasters. This tactic involves using Open Site Explorer to locate web sites linking to you that are 404-ing. By then alerting the webmaster to this error, you will regain the link juice from the fixed link. You can also search a page for broken links and then suggest your content instead of the broken pages.
• Then there’s blogger outreach. In this method link builders contact a site for the purpose of posting a guest post (with a link back to the client) on that site. This can often get you linked to a site with a superb Domain Authority that’s relevant in your niche. You can also submit your content to article sites if you cannot find a home for your post on a niche blog. When embarking on blogger outreach, consider using a site like MyBlogGuest to find guest posting opportunities.
• Directories are great if you want to get your link on an authoritative site as the top directories have fantastic Domain Authority. Most directories will let you pick your own anchor text as an added benefit. We often choose directories with a homepage PR of at least 4 and look for directories that flow PageRank throughout their subfolders. Aviva Directory (DA 77), JoeAnt (DA 71) and Best of the Web (DA 56) are some of my favorites.
• Finally, forum and blog commenting can help you join conversations already going on in your niche. Perhaps your site has a piece of content that can be useful in one of these discussions, and if not perhaps you can build such content once you see people are seeking such information.

The Pros and Cons of Manual Link Building

Link Attraction

Link attraction, meanwhile, involves creating a piece of content that is good enough to attract a bucket full of links. This tactic provides the best ROI overall because these links are editorially chosen from a variety of diverse domains that you might not ordinarily be able to get a link from. Taking a swing with link attraction provides you the opportunity to hit a home run (or if you’re really lucky, a grand slam) because if the right piece of content goes viral you can receive a voluminous boost.  Plus, since these are completely natural links there is no risk.

Many different tactics make up the link attraction tactic:

• Infographics are perhaps the most widely used link attraction tactic. They involve lots of planning and require a skilled designer to execute, but the payoff can be enormous. Infographics take a topic or concept and represent it visually. When done right on a compelling topic, the links often flow in, as was the case with this Vertical Measures infographic on link data visualization (106 links from 41 root domains).
• Videos work to the same effect. They also require some technical skill and can present a topic in an interesting manner. If such videos go viral they can bring lots of traffic and links, but you must be careful where you upload it. Uploading to a site like YouTube provides easy hosting, but then the traffic and links could go there instead of to your site.
• A contest can do the same thing, and you can guarantee yourself some quality links if you make linking to your site a requirement to enter the contest. Links can be accrued by other sites linking to the landing page for your contest as well for publicity sake. If the prizes are enticing enough (including  prizes for promoting the contest), this can be another source of major links.
• The key to link attraction really comes down to creating exemplary content. This can come in the form of an interview with a fascinating subject, a white paper that goes into depth on an interesting new topic, a comprehensive eBook or even a rock solid blog post. The medium really doesn’t matter, what matters is creating content so superb that people feel compelled to share it and ultimately link to it. It doesn’t have to go viral to be a smashing success, but the best examples of link attraction will.

The Pros and Cons of Link Attraction

For some excellent examples of link attraction, check out this video from Vertical Measures’ president Arnie Kuenn:

Ultimately, any comprehensive link building campaign should focus on both manual link building and link attraction. Through manual link building you can target relevant, authoritative sites in your niche, the type of links that provide a fat boost in the SERPs. Link attraction should be utilized as well because when a piece of content really hits it can provide an unmatched combination of authority, variety and naturalness. Neither tactic is necessarily better than the other, but in conjunction they can provide the kind of quantity and quality necessary for any well-rounded link campaign.

Which methods do you use to build links? Please share in the comments!

Michael Schwartz

Michael Schwartz is an Internet marketing strategist at Vertical Measures as well as an accomplished reporter, blogger and editor. He covers the link building beat.

+Michael Schwartz

Twitter – Facebook – More Posts

Related posts:

1. How to Build Traffic and Backlinks with Content Marketing
2. Link Attraction: How Does Your Site Score?
3. Funniest Ways to Get Links

Behind every successful client campaign is a great link-building strategy. With that said, let me introduce myself.

My name is Amanda and I am new to Vertical Measures. In fact, this is my first blog post for VM! On my link building journey I have compiled a list of tips and strategies, mostly for myself that I wanted to share with Vertical Measures’ readers. Let 2012 bring us builder’s great link building, high rankings for competitive keywords, and a new year full of link love!

Read:

Keep up to date with “industry” content. For beginners and even seasoned link builders, it never hurts to read industry relevant material to keep up with what’s happened, what’s new, and what’s coming. Subscribe to newsletters, share articles and keep informed!

Articles:

Use high authority article sites to link to you. Having well written articles on selected topics that is of focus should be in every link builder’s strategy book. Most of the top authoritative article submission sites rank well in niche categories and can drive traffic.

Google alerts:

Create an alert in Google for a keyword of interest. You can do this by tracking the keyword (in quotes), within Google Alerts. Set these as “Feed” and pull them into a folder named for the keyword you are targeting. By doing so, Google will pull content featuring the keyword and you may then reach out to the author or webmaster. Often times, the author and or webmaster will be willing to link if your keyword is relevant.

Directories:

Don’t ignore directory submissions. Sift through the best, MOST relevant directory sites and hand select the sites that have traffic and good reputation, and submit your link in the relevant category.

Build Relationships:

Keep in contact with your blogger friends and other network members you have linked with in the past. If you feel comfortable, ask them if they have other sites of interest. Often times they do and more willing to place a link on their site for someone they trust. Maintaining a friendly relationship with webmasters has many benefits.

Forums:

If you find an appropriate forum in your niche, join them. Generally, forums allow signature links. This can be a quick technique to build up inbound links to a website; it can also create targeted traffic if the website is relevant to the forum topic.

Guest blogging:

Offer free relevant content to blogs. Contact the website administrator of every site you’re interested in placing content on. Introduce yourself, and explain to them that you’d love to write a guest blog post for their site in return for an inbound link. Be direct with them, most blog authors are interested in receiving more content for free, and in exchange, they are happy to link back to you.

Free Social Communities:

I have a new found respect for Twitter. Twitter is one of the best places to network and connect with other users, especially key players, in your niche. However, I find Twitter to be most helpful when searching for relevant content. Twitter is great site for promotion, but I use Twitter as a link building strategy. You can to by entering a keyword into the search command. Twitter will bring up all tweets that mention the keyword. Now you have a bunch of promotional links sending you to articles with that particular keyword!

Backlink Analysis:

The reasoning of this analysis is if someone links to a competitor they ‘might’ link to you. This approach works in most cases. It is the first step of every link building campaign I have ever worked on. Before Twitter, before Google search engine, I analyze backlinks for quick resources.

Unlinked Keywords:

There are a number of people who have mentioned a product, or brand on the internet without actually linking to it. You can find them easily using Google, Yahoo, Bing, Twitter, Facebook (you catch my drift) and it’s not a tough sell to ask for a link. The fact is, the author is promoting it for a reason, contact the author and suggest a landing page.

If you have any helpful suggestions for quality link building that I have missed, feel free to leave your tips below. Happy New Year!

Amanda Fornator

Amanda Fornator is an Internet Marketing Specialist for Vertical Measures. She specializes in link building in which she researches the internet for pertinent sites to acquire a link from. Amanda contacts webmasters, and submits to online directories.

Website – Twitter – More Posts

Related posts:

1. Quality Link Building Page Hijacked!
2. Link Building and Internal Linking: A Tutorial for Beginners
3. Link Building Short Cuts

A popular debate in the world of SEO is over the quality and significance of forum link building.  Many believe the practice involves a spammy, black hat approach that will eventually end in a penalization in Google rankings. However, when done correctly, using Forums as a method to drive authority to your site can be a very effective and cost friendly approach for any website.

There is a line that many have crossed on forums; some have used low quality forums to place hundreds of links in short, thin answers, thinking it will raise their Google rankings.  The quality in a forum comes from the people who participate in the topics. Forums are generally packed full of internet savvy visitors who are interested in the same forum niche.  Using forums to reach out to a specific community; placing valid, useful contributions can be extremely helpful to drive legitimate authority back to your site.

A range of the forum users are most likely respected experts and bloggers in the specific subject matter covered by the forum.  One of the most important reasons Forum marketing can be such a useful strategy is because creating a following from this knowledgeable and influential audience can help your marketing message spread throughout the Internet World.

Finding the Happy Medium between Spammy and Genuine Forums

Thankfully, there are clear “red flags” on forums that help distinguish them from a spam filled Forum vs. a useful and authentic forum.   It will be quickly apparent that there are many forums absolutely loaded with spam.  These are usually unchecked forums that are used mainly by spammers for obtaining quick link placement by posting short useless content with links, or dropping a link in the signature of the post.  It’s also important to note that some unscrupulous types might use bots to spam forums. This is not the type of marketing any website should want. Although forum spam may bring in some very momentary leads to your website, in the long run these promotions can severely spoil a sites reputation and authority.

The superior forums can be a little more difficult to find, but don’t be discouraged, there are many out there!  When beginning to look for popular forums, start by asking your employees, contractors, and customers which online communities they most often visit.  There are also useful search engines to help find specific communities such as Board Reader, Big Boards, and Board Tracker. Use niche-specific keywords to search through many different forums and communities.  It’s helpful to create a list of possible forums that might be useful for your site.

Take a look for any of those “Red Flags” and cut out any forums that are overrun by spam or inadequate posts.

• Look for specific forums that have 1,000 members at the minimum.
•  Make sure it has at least 10,000 total posts.
•  A quality forum should get at least 10 to 15 new posts every day.

Make sure the forum allows signatures, or links in the forum posts; although it can be beneficial to create a relationship on any quality niche specific forum, the ability to place a link to your site through a highly popular topic is what will essentially build your site’s authority.  The final step is to check the User Agreements and Forum Post Guidelines thoroughly.  Most forums will have a registration process asking to agree to the forum’s user agreement and posting guidelines. Read these rules and guidelines carefully! It’s tempting to just pass over them without a glance just to get signed up with the forum.

How to Participate in the Community

Once the new forums have been discovered and reviewed, it’s time get set up and create a professional, complete profile.  Try to create an account as soon as possible; seniority is a vital part in the forum society. The forum users with an older registration date are given more regard than the newer users. Some forums even prevent new users from posting for the first few days after their initial registration. This is to give time for new users to learn the topics, the post styles, and begin placing valuable contributions.

Deciding on a username is extremely important, much because this is the first thing most visitors will see with your post and content.  The name needs to be professional, yet easy to remember.  The username will most likely be forum specific; one forum might call for the use of your real name for a personal appeal; another might be a short catchy Name related to the individual niche.  Avoid using company branding and/or company names, as this will most likely be considered spam by higher end forums and too commercial for fellow users.  Pick a username that is simple to remember and pronounce, avoid peculiar number combinations and misspellings.

Creating an Avatar is another great way for visitors to recognize and seek out forum posts from specific users. Avatars are small pictures or characters attached to the forum posts.  A flattering head shot or a friendly picture will keep people engaged to the Forum posts, and keep them coming back to a recognizable fellow user.  As always, steer clear of any photos that might be considered offensive or controversial; the goal is to be memorable for future relationships, not remembered for being distasteful.

A solid profile can help establish authority on the forum; provide a complete description of expertise and related experience. Feel free to add in a couple of personal tidbits to humanize your profile. Avoiding anything that resembles spam is crucial. There are many ways to break the ice in a Forum Society:

• Information about a hometown school.
•  A pet’s name.
•  A favorite sports team.
• Popular Hobbies

Stay away from sharing information such as political or religious affiliation, this information is not important, and runs the risk of offending fellow Forum users. The most important part in a profile is to provide contact information so other users can get in touch if they are interested in learning more about a business.

Many forums encourage new users to establish themselves to the community by making an introductory post.  An introductory post should include a brief description of the expertise and an explanation of why the forum was joined. Let the other users know that the main goal is to contribute to forum and learn from the community of fellow users interested in that niche. The introductory post is highly watched by the forum administrators, if the post sounds too spammy or commercial, the account is subject to being banned. Resist the appeal to start posting on every topic right away. Forums are tight-knit communities that are inclined to reject and haze newcomers. Spend some time researching the forum to get a feel of the community’s idiosyncrasies and cultural style. Try and note who the prominent users are, and find which topics are persistent favorites. Researching for this information will be of assistance to fit in quickly, and gain notoriety throughout the forum.

Strive to Post Helpful Information to the Forum Community

This is the absolute most important key to success in forum link building. While keeping up with popular topics, if a user asks a question related to the niche, astonish them with extremely useful answers. It’s important for users to feel that they can come back to a trusted profile for more useful input and gain common interest throughout the forum neighborhood. These scenarios are openings to display expertise in a specific niche, and to generate benevolence. Validate the given advice/answers with links to trusted sources, and respond to follow up questions quickly.

A huge key to a successful forum marketing campaign is in the forum signature. A good forum signature will help members know who you are and what you do. If written correctly, it will also motivate other users to contact your site outside of the forum.   It’s important to add the forum specific user name, and company information with a URL to the site.  The signature needs to be professional, yet personable at the same time.  A common mistake is making a signature too casual, other users view the profile in a more professional type of way, and therefore a signature calls for a more specialized approach. It does need to have some personal appeal, which is where an avatar can be so effective.  For every solid post that is placed, a link directly to your site will go along with it. If the post is relevant and informative, many users will investigate the Signature Profile for more information.

Feeling Love from the Neighborhood

If done correctly, the forum link building campaign can be a huge success.  Adding valuable resources and relationships to your site can only beneficial for your business.  It’s a free strategy that when given some time, can have some truly influential results on the authority of a website.  The forum community is a closely tied family, with similar interested and expertise.  When creating leads and new relationships, there is no better place to start that through a forum community.

What forums are you active in? Tell us in the comments below.

Brad Kuenn

Brad provides support to Vertical Measures senior staff and project managers in the areas of online research, blog posts, content editing, link building and research for content development. He has a passion for writing as well as art, which shines through in his work for clients. His creativity and attention to detail makes him a valuable asset to our online marketing staff as we are constantly seeking out new and innovative ideas.

Website – Twitter – More Posts

Related posts:

1. Leveraging A Site for Manual Link Building
2. New Year’s Link-a-Lutions: Quality Link Building in 2012
3. Building Authority Through Regular Guest Blogging

Periodically we take on a client who has a brand new website. We also are asked by others about the best way to build backlinks for their brand new website. So in today’s post I will attempt to answer that question. Below are several link building methods that can be utilized for every new website in the first 90 days.

Social Media

The first thing you should do is set up accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn.  Fill out the profiles with links to your site. In fact, if you have any staff, ask them all to do the same thing. Later we will use these social media platforms to help promote your content. If you have the time, you might use a service like Knowem to find and claim 100′s of social profiles that make sense for your particular business.  Most of these social profiles are not link building per se, but they can help create a social web around your site and strengthen the trust for your website.

Business Directories

Add your website to the top directories like JoeAnt, Yahoo!, Best of the Web, etc. In fact, you might check out this list of directories on SEOMoz. Submit to whatever high quality, relevant market directories that might be appropriate. It takes time and some money, but they still work. The search engines like to see links from directories that employ some level of editorial scrutiny. Which means many of the free directories that let anyone post to them are probably a waste of your time and energy.

Press Releases

Promoting your business on the web can be a great way to pull in backlinks and traffic. The purpose of the press or news release is to highlight interesting and newsworthy news about your company, products or services. Publishing SEO friendly press releases offers benefits to any business, and can be a powerful marketing tool.

A Blog

Create a blog on the same domain as your new website and set up social bookmarking buttons on it for platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and StumbleUpon.  You will also want to set up an RSS feed to your social media platforms (mentioned above) so that each blog post is automatically fed to and published on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.  Be sure to put together a content plan or editorial calendar. Try to produce 2-3 top-notch pieces of content every week. According to Hubspot, websites that have a blog and publish to it regularly will have two times as many backlinks when compared to websites that do not have a blog associated with them.

Article Distribution

This method has greatly changed over the last few years. Today, we recommend writing a unique, lengthy article and publishing it on one quality article site. By this we mean a site that lets you submit articles on specific topics and allows you to include a link in the author bio section. You might try distributing the same article to several of these article directory websites, but the best method is unique content on each site.  Below we will discuss guest blogging or guest articles, which is the higher quality approach.

Guest Blogging

The difference between “guest blogging/authoring” and article distribution boils down to the quality of the website you are targeting and the creating a relationship with that editor. Guest blogging is more work, but you generally will get much better links and traffic from this method compared to article distribution. Pick out a few high quality websites to submit your articles to for publishing in exchange for a link (in the content).  Remember to add links to other web properties too, to give the reader a better experience and to keep your link from being totally biased.

Blog and Forum Comments

You should get involved in your community. Every vertical market has bloggers and forums dedicated to that topic.  Find those places and participate. Leave insightful comments on those blogs and forums.  Often you will be able to link back to the appropriate page on your website. Most of the links may be no-followed, but don’t worry about that. We feel they still pass some link juice, and ideally they will drive some traffic to your website.

Keep in mind that the very best links are the one that actually bring traffic to your site. Almost all website owners are looking for more business, which starts with traffic to the site itself. While it is true backlinks will help your pages get ranked higher in the search engines, which should bring more traffic, why not go for the win-win and seek out links that will bring higher rankings and traffic too.

Do you have any other link building suggestions for a new website in its first 90 days?

Brad Kuenn

Brad provides support to Vertical Measures senior staff and project managers in the areas of online research, blog posts, content editing, link building and research for content development. He has a passion for writing as well as art, which shines through in his work for clients. His creativity and attention to detail makes him a valuable asset to our online marketing staff as we are constantly seeking out new and innovative ideas.

Website – Twitter – More Posts

Related posts:

1. Enhanced Link Building Services: Link Building Just Got a Whole Lot Better
2. Link Building for Website Traffic
3. What Is Link Building?