How to Avoid Link Builder's Block with Chunking (and 6 Other Tools)

Posted on January 18th, 2011

Written by Garrett French

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I have a friend who is a film writer. When discussing work, he never understands what I do. I could give a 30 minute presentation detailing each client I have worked on and everything I did for them, but it makes no difference. One day he was filling me in on a horrible case of writers block. He was out of ideas for a film he was writing. I told him I often get “Link Building Block”, I go through competitors links, produce content, guest blog and run out of ideas for that market. I explain when this happens, I use anNLP technique called “chunking.” He didn't understand, but at least we share a common problem to discuss over coffee.

What is Chunking

In NLP 'chunking up' refers to moving to a more general or abstract piece of information, 'chunking down' means moving to a more specific (niche) or detailed information. They help you think laterally fast.

Ideas for your Chunk

When about to brainstorm (chunk) a market, there are a couple of tools, which can help the process. Google trends, Alexa.com and Quantcast will all show relevant information about your market including audience demographics and other sites they may like (other than yours). The examples below is for the online fashion store Karmaloop.com and shows key information on their target market:

Take some key notes as they will be helpful during the next stage.

Thinking Laterally

I want to run a campaign for a site that sells “hightop sneakers”. My results from quantcast are near identical to Karmaloop (to make things easier :)). Here are two example chunks (questions required to chunk are described in this post):

1. First using the question, what's this an example of, I chunk up:

• Sneakers (Hightops are an example of sneakers)
• Clothes (Sneakers are an example of clothes)
• Fashion (Clothes are an example of fashion)

>> I now chunk back down as Fashion is too abstract using “What is an example of this?:

• Hairstyles (Hairstyles)

Ok, I now brainstorm for an idea that would appeal to both audiences. For example, a nifty widget that will allow someone to upload a photo of them and it will match their hairstyle to a pair of hightops: “Get Your Ideal Hightops With This Hair Raising Widget” (need to work on the name).

2. Next example I use the question, “for what purpose”, and chunk up:

• Skateboarding (Hightops are the sneaker of choice for the skater crowd)
• Tribalism (Skaters hang around in groups, share fashion trends, music tastes and spend a lot of time falling on the floor together).

>> Now I chunk back down again using the question “What is an example of this?”

• Music (is an example of Tribalism)
• Hip Hop (is an example of music)

Ok, I brainstorm again and come up with an infographic. Using celebrity hip hop sneakers it will chart the evolution of hip hop from Run DMC, to Jay-Z to whoever the kids listen to these days !!!

Tip: Bubbl.us is a great tool for mind mapping this stuff.

Popular Content & Start Building Outreach List

You now have two possible link bait ideas that should appeal to a multitude of market segments. The next step may or may not be of help, depending on how far you have chunked down. For my examples above, I will do this for the post related to mens hairstyles, but not for the infographic on the evolution of hip hop (too general).

1. Get 10 – 15 of the biggest keywords around mens hairstyles
2. Run the SERP Dominator report for the core keywords. This used be a manual process (check out the full Link Builder's Guide to Analyzing SERP Dominators for Link Opportunities) but can now be automated with Ontolo's SERP Dominator tool

3. From those, I would concentrate on the top 3 and top 10 dominators and follow a similar process to this described by Ken Lyons in “How to Build Amazing Backlinks”. It will establish the most popular content on those sites with the biggest SERP share of voice (for keywords listed by you) and who links to that content. Take Notes.

Establish if you can incorporate any of this information into your link bait idea or content used to promote your link bait idea i.e. guest blog posts etc.

Now Build your Campaign

The great thing about these campaigns are you are going after a bunch of sites that competitors may not have touched. Building the qualified outreach list is simple with Ontolo's tools. For this campaign I have decided upon:

• Guest Posts (on relevant hip hop / hairstyle blogs)
• Blog Comments (on relevant hip hop / hairstyles posts applicable to my link bait)
• Roundups

These are all built into Ontolo (with a lot more):

For a more detailed post on this step, make sure you read “Automated Prospecting for Guest Posting Opportunities with Ontolo”

The Results

The above should help you with those “Link Builders Block” moments. It will get you thinking laterally pretty fast and may open your eyes to other markets, which you can attract links from. This process is more suited to link builders who are working for big clients, as it can be time consuming (lots of research), but can also be of help in niche marketing when you have run out of ideas on how to generate links from your own sector.

About the Author:

Kieran Flanagan is currently SEO Manager for EMEA at Salesforce.com. He also provides SEO consulting services on a limited basis at Searchbrat.com and runs a number of his own sites.

How to Do SEO for Sites and Products with No Search Demand

January 18th, 2011 - Posted by randfish to Alternative Search Sources

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There's SEO challenges, and then there's SEO mountains. In the world of search marketing, perhaps nothing seems more initially daunting than a site/brand/product/entity with little to no search volume. It's not commonplace, but in several sectors, particularly some sites in niche hobbies, the arts, nonprofits and startups, there can be times when what you're producing isn't something people are asking the search engines about (yet).

My idea to build and market metal whiteboards using SEO could be challenging...

If and when that's the case, there are other ways to get organic traffic - content marketing, blogging, social media, email, public relations, etc. - but there's also several SEO techniques that can be cleverly applied.

The Substitute, i.e. It's the New "Fill-in-the-Blank"

Many products, brands or websites may not have direct search volume, but they can be thought of and marketed as similar to an existing solution/brand. When that's the case, targeting keywords that fit the bill for that substitute can present an effective proxy stream of (potentially) relevant search traffic.

For our example above, we might create content like:

• Whiteboards are SO 20th Century: Evolve to Metal
• Glass Whiteboards: Transparent? Or Too Transparent?
• Whiteboard Paint is NOT the Answer; Metal Is.

These blog posts, articles or sales pages could then rank alongside the product that ours is seeking to replace, and though they may not be a 1:1 match, the substitution could attract awareness and attention of the new player in the marketplace.

The Comparison

Many products and brands won't have properties to truly substitute for an existing search query. But, in most cases, they will be comparable to something familiar and queried.

Imagine, for example, a new form of artistic body-modification that renders portions of one's skin transparent for 5-6 days. It's not really a tattoo or body painting, but more an artistic way to illustrate one's sub-dermal anatomy. Let's call it "transparantizing"

In this peculiar case, we might not be able to honestly call it a substitute for a tattoo (or exploratory surgery for that matter), but we could create content to compare them, such as:

• Tattoos, Henna, Body Paint & Transparantizing
• Comparing Exploratory Surgery, MRIs, X-Rays and Transparantizing

This technique can be applied to real-world situations, too. A local Seattle startup, Gist.com, provides a plug-in for Gmail and Outlook to show social information about an email contact (highly useful for salespeople, in particular). Although they're not a substitute for something like Salesforce or contact management software, they can certainly compare their offerings to these popular (and high demand) queries.

Attract the Audience, Not the Query

For some brands, organizations and sites, comparables may be challenging or simply not enough. When it seems as though all direct paths to relevant traffic are stymied, remember the goal of demographic advertising. Rather than directly marketing to an audience that's expressed a clear interest, demographic ads seek to reach an audience target defined by their age, gender, income and other personal traits. SEO can accomplish a similar task, but it requires some careful planning and preparation.

First, you'll need to know as much about your target audience as possible. In our transparantizing example, let's imagine one target group is doctors and surgeons. What types of sites do they visit? What demographic and psychographic attributes apply to them? And, most importantly, what kinds of queries do they perform on a regular basis?

If we knew that our targets were regularly querying for information about medical devices, techniques, journal articles, etc. we could create a blog with content focused on those topics, discussing precisely those types of content matters. Alongside the blog's primary content on these relevant topics, we could show off the brand/product to a group of highly relevant, potentially interested clients.

Articulate's E-Learning Blog

A great real-world example comes from Articulate, which creates e-learning software. Their blog features posts like 100 Powerpoint Tutorials & Free Templates, A Boatload of Free Hand-Drawn Graphics, and How to Create Color Schemes in Powerpoint to Match Your Brand. Many of us naturally do this with our content marketing - creating related "content" that appeals to our potential audience of buyers. It's a great way to combine the power of SEO with the awareness of audience-targeted marketing.

Build the Brand

Last, but not least, the tactic of brand building has been around for decades as a method to increase awareness of a new product. When Pepsi or Coke launch a new beverage, they rarely turn to search, but they do bombard the airwaves and the web with advertising, promotions, contests and sponsorship to help create demand in the minds of consumers. Brand building is typically less-targeted than audience-marketing, but again, search can help.

Wow... Ricky Gervais did a video for Transparentizing! That's going to get a lot of views.

Those same contests, celebrities, adverts and viral videos can be made with SEO-savvy to help visitors searching for related content get exposure to your brand/product.

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SEO is certainly not the answer to all marketing quandries, but neither is it completely useless in cases like these, where keyword search volumes may not be exciting, but secondary applications of search rankings can still attract great customers.

One of the things I've always loved about SEO and organic marketing, more broadly, is the power of creativity and imagination to have an impact. Don't let road bumps like "0 search volume" stand in your way; think outside "broad match" and opportunities will present themselves.

p.s. If anyone invents metal whiteboards or a technique to temporarily turn skin invisible, all I ask is proper link attribution :-)

In-House SEO: Integrating SEO into the Project Process

In-House SEO: Integrating SEO into the Project Process: "

Posted by Geoff Kenyon

If you make frequent updates to your site, it is easy for mistakes to have a big impact on your SEO. Sometimes page titles will contain only the company name, the noindex tag gets carried over from the test environment, or you might find that all internal links within a specific category are nofollowed. Mistakes happen but integrating SEO into the project process can eliminate many of these problems and help you discover mistakes sooner rather than later.

There are four basic checkpoints where SEO should be integrated into the project process: the idea and planning phase, wire framing, dev review, and when a project goes live. While having those checkpoints is a good starting place, the optimal solution is to have an SEO on the project team, or meet regularly with the project team. Giving SEO advice throughout the entire project process is more efficient than having check points where you tell people to fix problems as continual input helps get the project done correctly the first time around.

Idea & Planning Phase

It is really important for you, the SEO, to get involved at this stage; it will help set the expectations for the rest of the project. Whether you are rolling out a new feature, redesigning your site, or simply adding some new content, there is a lot you can contribute to this phase of the project as you have an SEO mindset. Is there a clearly defined target audience that well benefit from this project? Will the project appeal to the Linkerati? If there is a "business development" project or "partnership" with other companies or sites, and how can you leverage this for SEO benefit?

The planning phase is a good point to go over some SEO best practices, if you haven’t already done so with the project team. Providing everyone involved on the project with a quick SEO checklist to use during the project can be a good way to remind people of all they need to take into consideration.

Wireframes

In the wireframes stage, you want to review the wireframes before they are handed off to designers or developers and make sure that SEO best practices are noted in the wireframes. It is a lot easier to change a note on a wireframe than to change an H3 to an H1 after the developers have created everything. Hopefully you have been able to work with the team and give input on the project so everyone is aware of the SEO elements that need to be noted on the wireframe. It can be a good idea to create a list of SEO elements that should be included in wireframes.



Before you sign off on the wireframes, you want to make sure that all the notations needed for the developers to correctly set up the page are included. This means specifying the page title, URL, H1 (and only one H1), the meta description, JavaScript shouldn’t be used for pagination, analytics tracking code is present, etc. This helps eliminate the need for developers to go back and fix problems. It will save them time and prevent you from getting stared down in the hallways.

It can be really helpful to have a quick meeting with the lead developer before the project gets passed off to them. As time can be a big issue facing projects, developers can have great ideas on how to slightly change a project and significantly cut down on the time estimate or ways to improve the project in general. While they might be pulled into a more inclusive meeting to go over the entire project, it can be beneficial to have a quick five minute meeting and run through the SEO elements. Keep it short though, both of your time is valuable. If the developer working on your project doesn't know much about SEO, you might want to refer them to the Beginner's Guide to SEO or the Web Developer's Cheat Sheet.

Dev Review

This step is pretty straight forward; you are going to want to review the project while it is on a dev server before it is released into the wild. You are checking that everything on your SEO checklist is implemented (where appropriate) and the SEO elements from the wireframes are present. It’s important to note that depending on how the dev environment is set up, it might not be possible to verify some elements such as a noindex,nofollow on all pages related to the project. When this happens, make sure to confirm with the developer that this is due to the dev environment and cannot be tested - you just have to take their word here. That said, when things can’t be tested it’s usually a good idea to get this confirmation via email (and get documentation).

If there are some issues that need to be fixed, go back to the developer with good documentation. Sometimes a well labeled picture is worth a thousand words, but it is still good to have a really clear description. If the developer stays in late or comes in early, it might be a good idea to say thank you with a six pack or a breakfast burrito.

Live

When the project goes live, it should be checked once more against your SEO checklist and site wide best practices, making sure that there aren’t any issues with the project that could negatively affect your SEO. This step is really important because even if everything is correct in the dev environment, things can get changed when deploying live. If you are able to catch problems right when the site is updated, the build can be rolled back and, in most cases, prevent a lot of SEO problems.

It is important to go through the entire checklist, and check all projects when a build goes live. While the projects that you were involved with may be good to go, a smaller project, which you weren't involved in, may be included in the build and cause problems. This step becomes really important when there are multiple dev environments.

Training

Integrating SEO into the project process is really important for big sites and sites with frequent updates as they can help improve the overall optimization of a site as well as catch errors, but shouldn’t replace education and training. Everyone who is touching code or running projects on your site should have at least a basic understanding of how SEO works. This means that as the in-house SEO, you need to provide training for your team members. Training developers and marketers will help reduce your SEO workload as people understand SEO concepts instead of simply following the “SEO rules” you have set out for them.

Another helpful tactic is to create SEO policies or an internal SEO guide based on your company’s SEO best practices and making it available on a wiki or intranet. This is really valuable as people can simply go to a wiki or document on the server and make sure that the project complies with the internal SEO best practices. When everyone is educated and can verify their projects against standards, there will be less work that needs to be redone for SEO reasons and there shouldn’t be surprises when a project goes through the SEO checkpoints.

Have a question? Drop me a line in the comments or follow me on twitter and ask away.

Do you like this post? Yes No

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Renegade SEO Consultant

Renegade SEO Consultant: "

People like things easy. The easier the better. At least it’s a common trait here in America, where the common perception is that life is hard, and we “deserve a break”. Work is hard. Relationships are hard. Saving money is hard. Having to get up, clean your body, get ready for work, drive to work, work all day, drive home, remember to eat, remember to pay the bills…

Rebelling against all that hard stuff is expressed in many ways. Procrastination, self sabotage, picking fights, not caring… I could go on and on about how hard life seems to be, and how people react to that perception.

But that would be too hard. There’s too many concepts, too many considerations to deal with! Instead, I’ll focus in on just one concept. Because it’s an easy one for me to talk about. Or rant about. – That’s SEO Audits. :-)

_____________________________________

Being a renegade means expecting push-back

My SEO audits usually reveal that entire sites might need to be scrapped. Or re-engineered. Or countless other tasks that can add up to hundreds of hours of time and footwork. Clients are busy – they’ve got a full plate already. So sometimes there’s push-back.

Because I’m a renegade, I understand client limitations, yet I don’t waiver in my communicating the importance of my recommendations. And sometimes I need to be brutally honest when it comes to explaining the ramifications of failing to implement my recommendations. Us renegades believe it’s important to be honest about such things.

But “person on a pedestal” or “my friend” says…

Sometimes clients challenge me based on some such nonsense they heard from an SEO “expert” who provided consulting to them or offered them “free advice” before I came along. Or maybe it’s a company or person who they heard “knows what they’re talking about”. Or they read an article online…

When that happens, I usually do my best to explain REAL SEO according to current REAL industry best practices. In a way that helps educate clients.

Renegades are easily entertained

As a renegade, I sometimes laugh. Out loud. In business settings. Because some of the things people hear about SEO is just downright hilarious.

Like recently when I was asked by a client “What about using nofollow, and how it helps your Google Juice?”

Most “experts” just want to make a buck

Because I’m a renegade with “Captain-Save-A-Client” leanings, I don’t like hearing that – it probably means that “expert” just read a few or a bunch of articles online – the vast majority of which go so far beyond over-simplification that there’s no “real” answer to be found in them, and decided “I can sell this stuff to site owners as ‘consulting’ and make a buck, easy peasy!”.

The worst kind of nonsense people in business hear comes from people who just want to sound like they know the “secret” to SEO. Or they became enamored with an industry player and put them on a pedestal of idolatry. And if that person happens to have a lexicon of buzz words, they spread like an infectious disease…

Renegades deplore secret buzz words

I’ll be honest. I’m not a pirate. I don’t think it’s cool to have special “industry-speak”, and I don’t need to prop myself up with “PageRank Sculpting”, “Link Juice”, “Google Juice” or any of the industry generated buzz phrases that some people seem to believe makes them smart, or “in the know”.

Because clients, the people who we’re here to help, don’t need to be impressed by such things. They need real solutions to real problems. And if you need to impress them by referring to the process of passing along authority weight as “passing Google juice”, it means you’re not a renegade, you’re a pirate.

And if that’s the case, consciously or otherwise, it means you just want to make money. You don’t actually want to help clients. Or maybe you’re otherwise uneducated about the importance of choosing words that clients can understand rather than “be impressed by”.

Renegades have to be unique

Being a renegade means I don’t want to pass off your stock canned “best practices” as my own either. Because truthfully, that’s not an audit. It’s a 25 cent consolidated copy of countless free for the reading articles already available.

No – being a renegade means that I actually only detail in my audits issues that really are a concern on each unique site. And when I give examples of those, I don’t even use generic examples – I’ve got to be unique, as a renegade, so I actually take real examples right from the site I’m auditing. Examples that clients can understand. And because they come from that clients site, they’re examples the client can immediately recognize.

From what I’ve seen put out by others, apparently that makes me unique – a rebellious sort when compared to the majority of “audits” most site owners get.

Renegades don’t need to be popular

As a renegade, I don’t need to be popular. Sure, I’m human, so my ego enjoys the attention. Yet what I care about more is stepping outside the box, because I know when I do it my way, I get results. Results that others couldn’t or wouldn’t bother trying to get.

Are you a renegade?

What about you? Would you rather take the easy way out, or do things that sets you above the competition? Would you rather think you’re cool for all the Google juice you’re spewing out onto clients, and your “skill at sculpting”, or would you rather communicate in plain English, based on real world best practices that your clients will get more value from?

Would you prefer to bang out cookie-cutter audits, or provide unique information your clients can benefit from while everyone else is only providing limited value?

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

Renegade SEO Consultant

"

Possibilidades com o Facebook Questions

Possibilidades com o Facebook Questions: "

Saudações, amigos da MestreSEO!

Logo que o ano novo começou, navegando por aí, “descobri” por acaso o novo serviço do Facebook que promete fazer um pouco mais de barulho na Internet. Seguindo os moldes do já conhecido Yahoo! Answers e agora a nova febre Quora, o Facebook está preparando o Questions, novo aplicativo de perguntas e respostas da rede social.

Quem entra no endereço do Facebook Questions nota uma bela descrição do “produto” e um adiantamento do que ele poderá oferecer assim que lançado oficialmente. Também descobre que nós, do Brasil, ainda não temos acesso sequer a um beta test – algo fechado no momento para os norte-americanos.

O artigo desta semana vai tratar um pouco desta novidade e já estava na pauta desde que li a primeira vez sobre isto. Acontece que, num primeiro momento, adiei os planos de escrever sobre o Questions por um detalhe: o aplicativo foi anunciado no meio do ano passado!

Pois é, não se trata exatamente de uma grande novidade. O mundo já sabia que o Facebook Questions estava aí, mas, por uma situação que não encontrei explicação, o app não foi desenvolvido na época de seu anúncio oficial.

Não se tem uma justificativa sobre a demora do lançamento. Mas parece que Mark Zuckerberg prepara o aplicativo para estreiar junto com o promissor ano que o seu Facebook deve ter daqui pra frente.

Mais Possibilidade de Conteúdo

O Facebook Questions funciona como os outros sites de Q&A. A diferença é a ligação entre seus amigos. Ao publicar uma pergunta, diretamente seus amigos irão ver seu novo post e podem interagir com você.

Outra opção, além de inserir perguntas, é montar enquetes rápidas, oferecendo possibilidades de respostas para os seus amigos e os demais usuários que eventualmente encontrarem sua publicação.

O aplicativo também permite filtrar as perguntas por categorias. Trata-se de uma boa maneira de localizar exatamente sua dúvida ou até mesmo focar no trabalho das respostas e ser um bom contribuinte para a rede social.

Ao inserir o Questions como novo app de seu perfil ou sua fan page, você gera uma nova fonte de conteúdo. Responder aos seus fãs, seus clientes e amigos de uma forma rápida, utilizando uma via ágil como essa, gera uma situação positiva.

Outra forma interessante que poderemos aproveitar o Questions é com as enquetes. Faça pesquisas de opinião com seus usuários. Se relacione com eles para descobrir novas possibilidades para sua empresa.

É importante antever tais condições. Ainda que não tenhamos previsões sobre o lançamento dos testes ou do produto oficial aqui para o Brasil, já podemos imaginar o que fazer com ela.

Ranking e Importância

Outra feature do Facebook Questions é a possibilidade de “positivar” ou “negativar” a resposta de cada usuário. Com um ranking positivo, uma pergunta pode parar no topo da lista de uma categoria, bem como a sua resposta, se encaixar melhor na dúvida do usuário, que pode ir para o topo da lista.

Algo semelhante ao que ocorre com o Yahoo! Answers e o Quora.

O Facebook Questions também permite que você se inscreva em uma determinada categoria para seguir as perguntas que virão. Algo bom para os especialistas, que podem se manter ativos no aplicativo, oferecendo ajuda e respondendo dúvidas.

Resta saber se existe a possibilidade de deixarmos o link maroto nas respostas =)

Correndo Atrás?

Como dissemos no topo do artigo, o Facebook anunciou e fez o comunicado ainda no meio do ano passado. Muita gente divulgou as features, as características e fez previsões sobre o que poderia ser feito com o Questions.

Mas o aplicativo e a rede social ficaram em silêncio quanto ao lançamento. Enquanto isso, a febre Yahoo! Answers disparava e oferecia boas possibilidades de trabalho para a nossa área do search.

Agora, outro concorrente está no hype e talvez tenha estimulado os testes com o Facebook Questions. O Quora é a bola da vez no quesito perguntas e respostas. E uma curiosidade: o sistema foi criado por dois ex-funcionários do Facebook.

Bastante elogiado pela crítica especializada norte-americana, o Quora hoje tem crédito e parece substituir pouco a pouco o Yahoo! Respostas. Estaria o Facebook de olho na movimentação do concorrente, decidindo agilizar o processo de lançamento do Questions?

De qualquer forma, é bom ficar atento ao lançamento dos testes do Facebook Questions. Trata-se de uma grande possibilidade de interação e conteúdo que a rede social está próxima de anunciar.

Artigo produzido por MestreSEO, empresa especializada em Otimização de Sites. Não perca a oportunidade de conferir as nossas ferramentas de SEO.


Artigo Original: Possibilidades com o Facebook Questions

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