3. Ok I lied! But…
• Are we getting the right
kinds of links?
• Should we always be
focusing on links?
• How and where should we
be focusing our efforts?
(And I did get that song in your head, right?)
4. Interval… who am I anyway?
• I work at OMD
• I now work almost exclusively on large brands
and multinational sites but come from a small
agency background
• Budget often gets split between all types of
marketing from above the line to PPC
• And brands are often too restricted to have the
freedom to experiment
• This can make for interesting link building
challenges
5. Build links but will they come?
Ranking
position Type of SERP
Keyword
research Conversion intention
Link
build Long-term link impact
8. Rankings are not everything…
Links are
great.
Number 1
position is
awesome.
High quality
traffic is
best.
9.
10. Here’s a thought…
• Send out free samples, don’t immediately
request links – it’s PR not link building
• Set up free ‘bloggers evening’ for top food
blogs - it’s exposure not link building
• Offer discounts/offers to those who contribute
to updates of your product on review sites – it’s
crowd sourcing not link building
• Submit & optimise Google Places listing (works
in conjunction with review sites) – it’s citations
not link building
11. Build links but will they come?
Ranking
position Type of SERP
Keyword
research Conversion intention
Link
build Long-term link impact
12. High traffic doesn’t mean high conversion
1m searches/month
in UK
BUY? MAKE?
SELL? READY MIX?
14. But you can make the most of your conversion points
15. Here’s another thought…
• Less can be more for both traffic and links.
Setting niche achievable keyword targets
could provide greater ROI than high traffic,
high competition
• Don’t abandon erroneous high ranking
pages. They could bring in more than you
expect.
• Brand is usually more important than rank!
16. Build links but will they come?
Ranking
position Type of SERP
Keyword
research Conversion intention
Link
build Long-term link impact
21. Here’s a final thought…
• It’s not hard to buy cheap, crappy links.
• Paid for links may work in the short-term but
will they damage your brand?
• Lazy link building techniques will get found
out.
• Lazy link building/buying links won’t help
build a brand. How about killing two birds
with one stone?
32. Play nice, link out
“I wouldn’t recommend closing comments
in an attempt to “hoard” your PageRank.
In the same way that Google trusts sites
less when they link to spammy sites or
bad neighborhoods, parts of our system
encourage links to good sites.”
Matt Cutts
SEO campaign for existing Channel 4 Education sites – targeting teachers Want to improve rankings for teacher resource related keywords Successful and search engine visible in teenage market Don’t want to scare those teenagers away but do want to make it clear these sites are also a teaching resource
Looking to add in more use of SEO and keywords – sometimes difficult due to templates of the sites
These are also starting to create valid links back to the main sites – which however cannot open show themselves as a teacher resource. So..Build a resources page with is not too heavily advertised but which can be link built directly to.
Link to the resources pages is generally quite hidden – not great for SEOLink building through content distributionAlso focus on pushing teachers directly into this pageEducate them what they can use the sites for.
A slow process due to the constraints of other sites but education resource sites starting to show up in SERPs.