Tags: link baiting, viral marketing, SEO, SES NYC, link strategies

here’s a breakdown of this session…

Rand Fishkin – SEOMoz.org

• Linkbait evolution
• • “new” SEO – social media optimization – these sites attract natural visitors
  • leverage the web’s most powerful linkers into sending traffic, links, & higher rankings to your site
• What is Linkbait
• • Getting content on the web that is worthy of being seen
  • Viral worthy content + link savvy audience = lots of links to your sites
• Linkerati
• • You have bloggers, researchers, journalist
  • They provide you with links – they dominate the linking on the web
  • You have to target them, ahead of people that convert (customers, visitors)
• Links to any page on site, helps whole site because of this or these links
• Trusted domain, all pages rank high even without links to direct page
• Articles about popular search terms can get incoming links fast
• Content Strategies
• • Lists (best, worst)
  • Tips, problems, benefits
  • Teaching
  • Humor
  • Controversy
  • Interviews
  • Breaking news
  • Product review
  • Poll results/data results
  • Tools
• Launching Portals – need to send a large amount of traffic
• • Need high visibility
  • Right demographics
  • Potential to go viral
• Digg – 2mil visitors a day.  Tech and web centric
• • With featured on Digg home page, seeing 1000+links posted
• Reddit – 500K visits daily, 20 -40 votes to hit home page. 600+ links after 2 – 3 weeks
• Netscape – news centric.  250K visits daily.  Get 300+ links after 2 – 3 weeks
• Del.icio.us/Popular – 1mil daily visits – 20 – 30 votes to hit home page
• StumbleUpon Toolbar – 3mil visitors
• Popular Blogs and Sites
• • Techcrunch
  • Boingboing
  • Slashdot
  • Techmeme
  • These create viral buzz, many copycat post off of the popular ones
• Linkbaiting rules
• • Votes from same IP bad, don’t get your company to all vote at once, will get caught

Cameron Othius

• Improving your own rankings
• Content (games, video, text), widgets, mashups
• Widget – portable code that people can install on any html page
• • This tracks back to your own page by creating a viral widget
• Mashup – combines content from more than one source
• Reputation Management – contain the negative buzz before it goes viral
• Monitor – social media sites, blog search engines, comment trackers (follow conversations in case you need to participate)
• • URLs, company name, product name
• Participate – so you can keep the good buzz going, respond positively
• • This can lead to more links
• Ranks social media pages – myspace, youtube, wikipedia

Jennifer Laycock – Search Engine Guide – talk about viral marketing

• Linkbaiting is great for launching a new site, quick rank boost
• Viral Marketing great for building a brand
• Why Viral?
• • Increases credibility
  • High response rate
  • no placement cost, cost is in the idea
• How do you create this idea
• • What sparks passion in customers
  • Something that hasn’t been done before
  • Don’t let audience risk reputation on it
• Works through relationships, existing and new
• How to spread
• • Launch through thought/opinion leaders for that subject
  • Trickle effect, will spread
• Make it easy to spread
• • Cafepress, social bookmarking
  • integrated Ad in hotmail
  • Place icons for bookmarking
• Exploit motivators
• • Ex: Gmail – has limited access, need invite
• Use existing networks (mybloglog)
• Take advantage of others’ resources
• Even nasty conversations – big company battles small company, can be very helpful – utilize this to write a perfect story
• • Humor will help
  • Limited time when buzz hits
  • Use buzz worthy hook
  • Call to action at end of post – “contact everyone you know”, remind users they have a job to do to go out and spread the word
  • Add section “here’s who is covering it” – scratch other peoples backs, drive more links

Q&A

• Metrics: segment traffic out – actions, shoppers/buyers, social media, searchers
• Metrics: track brand perception, referring domains
• ETSU.com