He sported his fair share of terrible haircuts (ahem..The Facts of Life mullet) and starred in some films he’d rather forget (heard of Return of the Killer Tomatoes! No? Me neither).

But with hard work and some savvy career moves, Clooney is now the man with whom you want to work and connect.

Now it’s time for your site to go from Mullet Man to Leading Man. Make your website the George Clooney of its targeted keywords when you use the best link building strategies.

Want to learn more?

• Make Your Page Link-worthy and Attractive
• Get Great Links For Free
• Use Social Media for Link Building

“Now it’s time for your site to go from Mullet Man to Leading Man.”

Make Your Page Link-worthy and Attractive

Just like Clooney, you have to know when the mullet’s got to go. In other words, you have to know what will attract the most links.

Knowing the best link building secrets will put you on that path.

Hopefully, you’re not reading this going “Uh..what’s link building?” But in case you’re not sure, link building is getting external pages to link to your site or a specific page on that site.

But you don’t want just any links. You want quality links to connect to your site. These quality links are key if you want to appear relevant in the eyes of Google.

Google is more likely to rank your content higher for your targeted keywords if you can get external websites to link to you.

So how do you get Clooney’s Sexiest Man Alive status on the Web?

How to get your link building started:

• Create great, compelling content and TELL PEOPLE ABOUT IT.
• Submit what you have to say to press releases or site directories.
• Put your content in front of influential bloggers.
• Get people you know and work with to link to you.

Not so difficult. But often when people start thinking promotion, they start adding up costs.

But not to worry, some of the best link building strategies can be yours for $Free.99.

“Create great, compelling content and TELL PEOPLE ABOUT IT.”

Get Great Links For Free

There’s never anything wrong with a little free stuff. Some of the best link building boosts are completely free. You just need to know how to use them.

When you’re building links, the goal is to jump up in search engine rankings.

Below are some (free) smart ways to improve PageRank with link building.

Pay attention to anchor text.

The anchor text (meaning actual text of the link) should be the same as the keywords you’re targeting.

For example, if you write an article targeting the words “George Clooney Oscar nominations” and a linking site uses those keywords for their anchor text, Google will rank you higher.

Again, quality links are key.

The higher PageRank your external sites have, the more Google will think of your site. Search engines look at trusted links more favorably than questionable ones, and you will be rewarded with a ranking boost.

Think of actors who become infinitely cooler or more respected just because they did a movie with Clooney. The same principle applies.

Encourage links to more than your homepage.

When others talk about your site, they’re often tempted to link directly to your homepage. Make individual pages informational and relevant, they need link love, too.

So what smart link building tips have we learned?

• Pay attention to anchor text
• Get quality links
• Encourage links to all pages on your site

Sounds simple, but they really do work. And now that you know, it still did not cost you a dime, think of them as a present.

My gift to you is these best linking building techniques. They’re almost as nice as an Oscar swag bag, right?

“The more traffic you get, (hopefully) the more people will link to you.”

How to Use Social Media for Link Building

Of course, no discussion of the best link building tips would be complete without a reference to social media. One of the best ways to attract links to your page and content is through social media channels.

You can do this by seeding your content. This means submitting and posting content to different social media sites, forums and directories. If you do it right, you will build buzz around the content and encourage sharing. The more people share, the more links you can acquire.

But social media sharing does not stop with Twitter and Facebook. Sites like Digg.com and Reddit.com allow users to submit content for others to vote on. If the community likes what you’ve posted, a link to your content is put on the front page of the social media site.

The more people click the link, the more traffic you get and (hopefully) the more people will link to your site.

The key is being relevant and staying in the front of peoples’ minds. Again, look at Clooney’s long running career. If he did not continuously work on movies, promotions and charity causes, he could have easily become a story on Where Are They Now?

You have to work for your popularity.

Try out these best link building tips and reap the rewards. Just remember to thank me in your Oscar speech.

By Megan Ahern Megan Ahern would like to thank the Academy for all of their link building support. I love you all. Want content written for your Brand that shows up #1 on Search Engines and brings you new customers? Contact us.

Justilien Gaspard from Search Engine Watch created a 3-step system to get your target audience talking about your company, which this article explains.

For more details:

1. Make News
2. Will Anyone Care?
3. Spread the Word

Make News

First, create something newsworthy. This is media relations at its finest.

But you may ask what is newsworthy? Your answer is research, research, research.

Find out what interests people (especially your target audience). One of your employees adopting a new kitten isn’t exactly newsworthy. But something like a local politician attending your ribbon cutting ceremony or a new innovative product is newsworthy.

Also keep in mind what the media will want. A good place to start is Yahoo! News. In the upper right hand corner are tabs with “Most Popular,” “Most Recommended,” etc.

Will Anyone Care?

Now that you finally have something people want to hear about, it’s time to test your story idea. You want to test your idea before you’re in too deep. This step can be as simple as asking friends or co-workers about the idea.

Focus groups are also a good idea for this step. Have your focus group rate the content of your story and make improvements if necessary. Feedback from your focus group is key.

Make sure to also measure people’s initial response. People have very short attention spans; so, if someone has to think too much about something, the less likely it will succeed.

“Put together a focus group for honest feedback.”

Spread the Word

After you’ve tested your newsworthy content, it’s time to promote. There is a lot of competition and clutter in the online marketing world and you want to shine through. Here are some strategies you can use that play off of each other.

1. The Press

   Use your media relations skills and build relationships with your local media. A media list can come in handy for this step. Have a list of local media outlets and journalists that are most likely to pay attention to your story.

   Build a good relationship with them by sending them hot news leads for your industry. This will help them do their job and give you a positive image.

   If you have trouble contacting media outlets, don’t hesitate to hire a good PR agency in your industry. They will know who to contact for your specific story.


“Use your skills to build relationships with local media.”


2. Bloggers

   Find bloggers that discuss topics and stories like yours. Research a myriad of bloggers online to find the right ones.

   Once you find your key bloggers, build a relationship with them. Start commenting on their blogs or even have them work for your company.

   If your content is truly newsworthy, they will want to help. By using bloggers, you will begin building your online credibility.

3. Social Media Outlets

   Take full advantage of social media outlets. Sites such as Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter are taking over the online world.

   Some bloggers and journalists may have already started the process, so make sure to follow their work.

4. Interviews

   Make someone easily accessible for interviews. Choose someone who is knowledgeable of your company – but someone like a CEO isn’t always the best choice, because of their availability.

   A good example of a good spokesperson for interviews is someone in the PR or communications department.


“Make someone easily accessible to the media for interviews.”



5. Word of Mouth

   Word of mouth is the best PR tool you can ever ask for. Nothing is better. Your audience may not trust the media or online sites, but they trust their friends and family’s opinion – use communication tools such as instant messaging, texting, blog comments, or forums.

Now that you have the tools to get people to talk about your company, try it out!

Don’t be disappointed if this doesn’t work the first time, just try again and again and remember that visibility is vital for your online success.

Sarah Geist Want content written for your Brand that shows up #1 on Search Engines and brings you new customers? Contact us.

• Visual PR
• Follow-up

“You’ll be surprised by these simple, yet effective approaches.”

Visual PR

Over 2000 press releases go out on the web every day on PR Newswire and BusinessWire alone. For anyone attempting to gain some new recognition online, this number seems incredibly daunting. Because of the sheer numbers, PR representatives are struggling to find solid new ways of making their clients more visible. One emerging tactic is to become (you guessed it!) more visual in the PR realm. This decreases the word count and increases the effectiveness of campaigns. A business can attract a customer in a fraction of a second if an image sticks in his/her mind. This is not to say that there should not be written content as well, but becoming more visual will allow PR firms to cater to the type of people that otherwise would never have taken the time to read up on a company.

Follow-Up

Any Intro to Marketing class preaches to its students about the power of retaining customers as opposed to finding new ones. Unfortunately, many small businesses concentrate so intensely on finding new customers that they neglect existing ones. Studies have shown that is about 7 times cheaper to build a long-term relationship with a customer as opposed to searching out new, one-time buyers. This results from the saved time and effort that you would have spent on finding new customers and convincing them to hire you. If you maintain a good relationship with your customers then if all goes as planned, you’ll be the first person they call when they are ready to do business again.

Stacy Karacostas of SuccessStream provides a simple checklist for building long-term relationships with customers:

1) Say Thanks

Handwritten cards are always appreciated. And you don’t have to write them personally. Dictate to an employee with better penmanship. Or use a handy service like SendOutCards that prints cards in your own handwriting and mails them on demand.

2) Give ‘Em a Jingle

When was the last time you called your clients? If it’s been more than 6 months, pick up the phone, say hi, and see how they’re doing. They’ll appreciate and remember your thoughtfulness, and may even hire you again on the spot because they’ve been meaning to call you.

“It’s always nice to keep in touch with old friends, right?”

3) Write Regularly

Every small business should be publishing print and/or email newsletters. The key is making sure you send information that’s helpful or interesting at least once a month. Otherwise, too much time will pass and they’ll forget who you are. Send e-newsletters sporadically at your own risk. People unsubscribe if they don’t remember you or why they wanted your e-newsletter in the first place.

4) Surprise ‘Em

Everyone loves getting more than they expect. So send clients an unexpected and useful gift or bonus whenever possible. Avoid the generic branded pen or calendar and choose something they’ll really appreciate—a favorite book, audio, helpful guides, articles, or tools relevant to what you do for your clients. Chocolates, gift cards for movies or restaurants and other thoughtful items can also work.

5) Do Something Special

Hold an event or give away a product or service as part of a client appreciation day, week, or month. Then let your clients know you have something special going on that’s just for them. Who doesn’t appreciate that?

While some of these suggestions may not be feasible, based on the size of your company and your customer base, it is important to attempt to integrate them as well as you can. These tips will improve the PR campaign of any company, whether it is small and strapped for cash or large and spending millions per year on a highly-developed PR campaign.

Mark Sheffield Want content written for your Brand that shows up #1 on Search Engines and brings you new customers? Contact us.

• Choosing the right firm for your individual needs: Start-up vs. Established business approach
• Specific strategy for B2B markets

Choosing the Right PR Firm

Deciding which PR firm will work best for your company may be tricky, but making the correct choice can be invaluable. The first aspect of any potential PR firm that needs to be addressed is the size of the firm relative to yours. Melanie Rembrandt, owner of Rembrandt Communications, emphasizes that a small start-up should conduct extensive research into several firms and interview as many of them as possible to get a few ideas concerning how these different firms operate.

“A small business owner should look into hiring an individual expert or small firm to get the best results as cost-effectively as possible,” says Rembrandt. Since most start-ups don’t have a mountain of cash to throw at PR, this approach could likely provide your business the individual attention necessary to obtaining the early exposure that every small business owner needs and wants.

“Soon that mountain of money could be yours!”

If the same owner decides to approach a major PR firm with the same needs, it is likely that the relatively small account would not be given the priority that the owner desires. As you’re doing your research, there are specific questions Rembrandt suggests asking the firm in your process.

Rembrandt’s 7 Point Checklist: Hiring a PR Specialist

1. Whom will I be working with, and how much experience do they have? Will more than one person be helping me, or will I have one central point of contact?
2. How can you increase awareness of my small business and reach my specific goals? How long do you think it will be before I see results?
3. What services are included in your fees?
4. Do you have references I can contact?
5. Do you provide any guarantees or discounts?
6. Why should I use you instead of another organization?
7. How do your contracts usually work? Is there a trial period before making an actual commitment? Will I be able to end our contract if I’m not happy with your services?

A larger, well-established firm typically has more funding for a PR campaign and may also operate it in-house. If management decides to outsource to an external PR firm, the decision-making process involved in choosing the correct firm is extremely important. The larger firm should conduct extensive research into PR tactics and decide which aspects of these strategies could fit into their own, which to leave out, and what tactics competitors might be overlooking.

Interviews should still be conducted to determine fit between the the PR firms in question and the business that is outsourcing; naturally, these interviews should be directed towards larger firms that can handle the magnitude of business demands coming from the larger firm. Guidelines for strategic PR in the Big Business realm are more vague than for start-up companies because the local publicity on which a start-up thrives has little effect on a multi-billion dollar corporation.

Another barrier between Big Business and a formulaic PR approach is the vast differentiation across markets; some strategies that work well for selling Sony LCD TVs would likely fail if applied by American Standard to the toilet market. Larger companies therefore must conduct their own research, and possibly hire consultants, before signing a contract with a PR firm. Above all, the goal is to pick the PR firm that seems to have the most potential, or a solid historical record, of discovering novel ideas for drumming up attention in their target markets.

PR Strategy: B2B Markets

PR tactics are also different depending on the target market. A start-up attempting to gain recognition from millions of consumers needs to figure out how to obtain that publicity without dropping too much on costly advertisements. By contrast, a company catering to other businesses’ needs to discover means to avoid spending an exorbitant amount on tools to reach distributors, resellers, telemarketers, etc. According to Laurie Storey-Manseau, president of StoreyManseau PR firm, no matter what target market you are shooting for, good PR can save money and often be far more credible than advertisements.

“Who doesn’t want to cut costs?”

If you are a B2B firm, then it is very important to position yourself as an expert in your field of business. “Contributing articles to relevant trade or consumer publications and at trade shows and conferences is a terrific way to get known,” Manseau advises. Many B2B firms also need marketing services, and many PR firms are taking this to heart, providing a blend of services to satisfy a client’s needs. They not only help a client get publicity in the media, but often help the business find out where it fits in the industry.

Manseau suggests “a blend of simple, effective old-school PR and marketing techniques, leveraged by today’s technology.” She emphasizes the need to never miss an opportunity to get email addresses at trade shows and conferences, as they provide an inexpensive and effective way to use the internet for marketing purposes. Many editors and reporters are also becoming inclined to prefer email as a way to receive pitches because of the non-invasive style of electronic communication. This blend of marketing and public relations techniques provide ample opportunity for a B2B firm to find that great PR firm that asks the invaluable question: “What’s different about you? And whom are you trying to reach?”

Whether you’re a small start-up, a well-established corporation, or you operate in a business-to-business market, you need to tailor your PR campaign to the specific needs of your campaign. While there are no hard and fast rules for every situation, these tips should help orient you as you decide on the best course to pursue in public relations.

Mark Sheffield Want content written for your Brand that shows up #1 on Search Engines and brings you new customers? Contact us.

Tight Budget

If a start-up doesn’t have the cash to hire a PR specialist, there are some tactics that can obtain the valuable local media attention that every start-up needs. After identifying your target audience, conduct research into the media that provide a link to this audience. A cheap and sociable way to obtain this information is to ask your existing customers outright how they like to get information. Compile any resulting data and attempt to discern a pattern that could lay the media base for a personalized PR campaign.

The next step is to find reporters that cover your particular industry, review past articles, and obtain contact information. After finding a number of possible media outlets, develop a story that you want to convey to these outlets. Create simple yet informative story angles that incorporate what your business is accomplishing in the overall market environment.

Once you are ready to contact a reporter or some other outlet, take a step back, rehearse what you want to say, and be enthusiastic without being robotic. An article written about your business has far more credibility at far less cost than an advertisement in the same periodical, so present your business as well as possible. After preparation, make contact with your target outlets, such as through a press-release. Keep in mind that you are not the only person attempting to get favorable press for their ideas, so keep your “pitch” as informative yet succinct as possible.

“Reporters are a less expensive form of publicity than advertisements.”

Aside from approaching media outlets, clout for your business can be created by getting involved in the community. Local business leaders almost completely fill the ranks of community organizations like Rotary Clubs, Chambers of Commerce, Lion’s Clubs, etc. By attending meetings and gaining membership you also gain attention from these local leaders. Avoid constantly regurgitating information about your business, because you don’t want people to feel they are being pitched. Ask questions about their businesses, and eventually they will ask the questions that you want to answer. Reporters also cover some events hosted by community organizations, so if you are in attendance, your chances of being interviewed are significantly higher.

Finally, don’t get discouraged if results don’t happen immediately. Be persistent, but not invasive. Make sure any media contacts have up-to-date contact information and always inform them about any new products or services. It might not happen overnight, but if you conduct yourself properly, you can maintain a successful personalized PR campaign on an almost non-existent budget.

Loose Budget

On a larger budget, PR techniques have the opportunity to become incredibly inventive and seemingly unrelated to the product itself. These tactics often involve fomenting name brand repetition or just doing something original that provides good press. Just a few examples serve to highlight this outside-the-box thinking in action.

Pepsi recently created a social medium called Pepsi Zeitgeist, something of a Twitter Mash-Up, that tracked many aspects of this year’s annual Austin-based South-by-Southwest music festival. This engine allowed tweets about the festival to be categorized into six “buckets” (arriving, drinking, registering, eating, connecting or partying). These are then aggregated into easy-to-use visuals that avoid wading through the information that you don’t want to see. It provided a smart and inventive way to manage the thousands of tweets that streamed from laptops and cell phones all over the city. This provided non-attendees an entertaining way to become somewhat involved with the festival (and with Pepsi). Pepsi also set up their own blogs and podcasts pertaining to the festival. Overall, this tactic allowed for great brand exposure by giving their target audience what they wanted without requiring anything in return.

Tide conducted a social media experiment for one night last March that provided valuable insight into the publicity that can stem from exposure involving the new social media outlets. Like Pepsi, they invoked the power of Twitter along with other media like Digg, Facebook, Youtube, MySpace, etc., to sell “vintage” Tide t-shirts. All proceeds went to disaster relief through Tide’s Loads of Hope Project. Specific employees were split into groups which then competed against one another, using their own strategies, to generate the most proceeds. In 4 hours, Tide raised $50,000, $20 at a time, which the corporation matched to donate a total of $100,000 to charity. This is another example of innovative PR designed around the new social networking mediums. When viewed from a monetary standpoint, the sheer volume of positive attention that resulted from the experiment seems to be well worth the $50,000 that Tide matched.

“Getting a nice shirt and helping a charity? Win, win.”



It is important to note here that although a business might be an industrial giant, it may not have mounds of cash to spend on projects like the two mentioned above. GM has lost approximately 82 billion dollars over the last 4 years, and with the recent filing for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, holds the record for the largest industrial filing in US history. However, they are taking steps to create a link to the public through the new social media. They’ve recently put together a new website, GM Reinvention, in an attempt to reassure the public, gain relatively cheap publicity, and to make their “reinvention” as transparent as possible. Although these tactics will not save the giant single-handedly, they have created a valuable communication channel open to the public as they attempt to rebuild.

These examples illustrate just a few of the different ways you can adjust your PR strategy to your budget and to the demands of your individual company. The most important thing is to seize every opportunity for positive PR, whether through a large-scale campaign or an interview with a local newspaper.

Mark Sheffield Want content written for your Brand that shows up #1 on Search Engines and brings you new customers? Contact us.

“But it’s not as dangerous as it sounds!”




Let’s look at some examples of great viral marketing campaigns to get the full effect on how useful viral marketing really is.

Get Down with the Sickness

What was the biggest movie of 2008? If you guessed Hotel For Dogs, leave now. Get out. If you guessed The Dark Knight, then you, sir, have guessed correctly (show him what he’s won!!).

One of the reasons The Dark Knight was so immensely popular long before the movie even came out is because of the viral marketing campaign employed by Warner Bros. This viral marketing campaign was ENORMOUS. Absolutely gargantuan. Phenomenal. Ridiculously good. I’m running out of adjectives.

“Give me a minute.”




The viral marketing campaign for The Dark Knight began a full year (May 2007) before the movie was released with a website called www.ibelieveinharveydent.com (now vandalized by the villainous Joker). In its entirety, The Dark Knight’s viral campaign spanned 35 websites. Let me say that again. THIRTY-FIVE websites (all of them are now vandalized by The Joker as well).

The sites range from campaign ads, like the one seen above, to fictional cab companies, news stations and the like. Warner Bros. created the fictional city of Gotham in the real world and asked fans to participate in it. And it all started by people sharing the websites and information, and trying to unlock clues and secrets and participating in tasks to reveal pictures of the film and teasers and trailers and things like that one time where they asked people in specific cities to dress up like The Joker and….oh, sorry, I was getting away from myself there for a second. You get the picture.

The key to how a viral marketing campaign can become so successful is that half of the websites had nothing at all to do with the movie, or barely even mentioned it.

To successfully make a viral campaign work, it may not have to contain your product or company at all. A successful viral marketing campaign is the complete opposite of a traditional marketing campaign. The basic idea is to take everything that you know will work in a traditional marketing campaign and do the exact opposite. It doesn’t have to contain your product, maybe a brief shot of the product or a web address at the end, but other than that, let your imagination soar into the skies like an eagle.

Sharing is Caring

On the other end of the spectrum, and sticking with the movie motif I have going here, is the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie. The folks over there decided that they would launch a viral campaign as well, and if you can recall, didn’t turn out too well. What was the problem with their viral campaign? The small signs posted in 10 big cities were basically the entire campaign.

In a sense, it was a great way to get people to go, “Hey, what the heck is that?” But the major problem was its ability to be shared with others over a massive scale. People in those specific cities would MAYBE see them (they placed them in pretty hard-to-spot places), but it’s not like they could share them with their friends over the Internet or through other ways. And sharing is caring when it comes to viral marketing.

Your viral marketing campaign can be enormously effective through its ability to be shared with others. The content produced has to have the ability to catch people’s attention so much that they want to tell their friends about it, tell their Internet friends about and tell everyone they know about it.

Have you ever had a friend come up to you and say, “Hey, have you seen that [insert website, commercial, video, picture, etc.]? It’s awesome.” THAT’S viral marketing at its best. This is how The Dark Knight became so successful in its campaign. People were sharing the sites with each other, participating in tasks to reveal pictures and trailers, and the word-of-mouth spread….like a virus.

If you don’t think that viral marketing can work, then you’re being foolish. Look at how successful The Dark Knight became, and how much money it made, with some of that popularity being credited directly to the viral campaign it employed. If you’re still thinking, “I don’t want any part of this funny business! It’s not for me! Blah blah blah!” Then I have one question for you…

“Why so serious?”

Chris Levkulich Want content written for your Brand that shows up #1 on Search Engines and brings you new customers? Contact us.

• What is link building?
• How can link building help you and your website?
• What types of links exist?/How are they acquired?

What is link building?

Link building is the process of establishing internal and external links to a website. It’s an integral part of search engine optimization because links can attract users to different websites.
Link building is all about increasing the number of high quality, relevant links to a website in order to raise its visibility in search engine results.

How can link building help you and your website?

“Building confidence, one link at a time!”




A link to your website shows that someone has confidence in your content. Passing on a visitor/ recommending your content suggests that you are following the same topic, which indicates a community. Link building is crucial for obtaining high ranking pages on keywords. A search engine recognizes a websites popularity by its links. This recognition will boost your rank, increase your exposure, and ultimately improve your sales.

Now the most critical portion:

What types of links exist?/How are they acquired?

These questions are paired because they aren’t mutually exclusive.

“Sorry gamers, we’re not including this link…”

There’s 2 major groups of links:

1. Editorial Links

These are links obtained without paying, asking or trading to be linked to. These are links which a website draws organically, because that site produces good content and markets that content with social media sites.

If people link to you, intending to cite your original content, then those links are more trusted:

“Website gets on Social Media Site > Blogger sees story > Blogger likes story > Blogger writes about site > Blogger links to site.”

2. Acquired Links

These are acquired by the site owner via payment or distribution.

They can include:

• Paid linking
• Reciprocal linking
• Article distribution
• Directory links and comments on forums, blogs and other interactive forms of social media

Search engines are less inclined to value these rankings as highly because they are self-promotional.

Just as the types of links vary, the views on each type vary. Some types are more valued than others. Google tends to look down on paying for links. Some people feel it’s an equally fruitful method. But everyone agrees that acquired links (such as paid and reciprocal links) need to be augmented.

Link building strategies need to be diverse, utilizing different options for optimizing your results and guaranteeing safe linking strategies.

“Practicing safe linking strategies is essential.”

There are many differing opinions about what works, what doesn’t and which methods are more valuable than others.

Like any good project, you must do research before you even begin to work. Design and develop your link building plan before you implement it; this generates better results for your campaign.

“You do want a successful campaign, right?”




One recommended strategy is to craft your campaign based on your competitors:

• Get the pagerank info of your website and your competitors; this way, you can set appropriate targets for yourself.
• Know your competitors’ actual link building strategies, rather than just their pagerank. It won’t hurt to emulate some of your competitors’ methods.
• Do they utilize blogs? News sites? Social Media?
• Implement your own ideas, too. Diversifying strategies is a good strategy in and of itself.

People need a reason to link to you. The best way to achieve that is by writing great content. This can be anything from an article, to an online tool, to a funny video. People need to have confidence in your content before they pass it on to others. They will have confidence if your site is informative and entertaining – having the user enjoy his time on your site is crucial. This helps to develop a good relationship with new and long-time customers, which can spur customer referrals and eventually help to build a larger community.

A community’s important because it’s a signpost of quality. Quality revolves around the relevance of the linking site. A topically relevant link indicates it’s from a community.

“The importance of quality over quantity…”

There are other ways to engage customers and supplement a community, like getting them to write reviews on their site. This can come in handy with smaller, local businesses trying to build links with local search terms. This can help your website and theirs gain exposure through newspapers, blogs, popular sites and events.

Link building usually takes center stage during SEO and SEM discussions, and rightly so. Link building is a complex and vital pillar of SEO and SEM and can make or break your business.

• Provide a useful, one-time service
• Provide an ongoing service
• Provide valuable information

Provide a useful, one-time service

Huh?! A useful, one-time service? Get your mind out of the gutter and back to SEO.

Surprisingly enough, providing a useful, one-time service doesn’t take much effort. Embrace this concept, because almost everything in SEO takes effort. Here are some examples:

• Check out stclaire.com. You have to sign up for a free account, but the service is cool; it provides an online spot to create ANSI-compliant warning signs. Then, you get PDF files ready to print. It’s a fun (and free) place for making gag signs whether they’re for the office or your friend’s windshield. I made this in a few minutes:
  
  “Create ANSI-compliant warning signs in minutes…”
  
  
• Is that too much work? The next example is even simpler. People loathe spam mail, right? When we leave our email addresses out there, it opens up the flood gates for more spam. Here’s a site that lets you make a graphical badge instead. That url is for Gmail, but there are urls for Hotmail, Yahoo! and AOL.
• Is that too much trouble? Alright…you can also encode email addresses using JavaScript or character entities. For example, this de-spammer site can turn a normal email address like thatswhat@shesaid.com into something like this:
  
  “Trick email harvesters with JavaScript encoding.”
  
  
  
  You think that email harvesters are going to mess with that bad boy? No way.

Provide an ongoing service

If you can’t provide a one-time useful service, provide a service that people will access on a continual basis. Make it useful and make it last.

Check out Google Reader, for example. This service rocks, because it combines the sites that you read on a daily basis into one place. No need to bounce from site to site (unless you enjoy that sort of thing) because you can consolidate all of your blog updates onto one site.

The next step is to create an account in Google Reader, and add the Branding Blog to your list (obviously).

“Become a pool of knowledge and education others…”

Provide valuable information

Becoming a pool of knowledge is a big deal because you are responsible for educating others. My grandpa, for example, is a pool of knowledge. Whenever I need advice, I go to him because I trust his credibility and wealth of knowledge.

Do this for your company or client: become the wise, go-to person. What’s the perk to this status? If you are a source of info, you build trust. By building trust first and trying to sell your service/product provider second, people will come to you when it’s time to make a purchase.

• You can do this by creating a personal or company blog. Blogs are a great way to get link love or just to get your word out.
• If blogs sound scary, start out with newsletters. Or studies. Or surveys. Just start with something.

Overall, your goal should be to provide valuable information that keeps them coming back for more. Be the first. Not an easy task, but well worth it. You have to come up with creative ideas that catch Google’s attention. If you have a creative opportunity, run with it. Worst-case scenario is that it doesn’t work.

Best case scenario? Take a look at SEO Book.com, a genius creation by Aaron Wall.


Inbound link building involves being interactive on many different levels. The more levels you participate in, the better your chances for more inbound links, leading to a higher PR. Be active, be patient, and engage, engage, engage.

Alyssa DiLoreto Want content written for your Brand that shows up #1 on Search Engines and brings you new customers? Contact us.

• Choose the right keywords for targeted readers
• Put keywords in your headlines/title
• Analyze competitors
• Write in the inverted pyramid style
• Stay specific
• Remember good content is key

Keywords Filter Down the Blogoverse

Like a sifter filters out the clumps of flour, keywords filter down the search results. Whether you’re blogging for pleasure or profit, you want your audience to find you; without them, you’re just shouting into space with little chance to be heard. And, especially for bloggers blogging for profit:

Whether you have a specific topic in mind, or just a general concept, choosing the right keywords is just as important as filling your blog with interesting content. You spend a lot of time writing, you want your readers to spend a lot of time on your site, not just glance at it for a few seconds because they went to the wrong place.

By targeting your keywords effectively, you’ll attract interested readers instead of those who chanced upon your site by mistake. While a “happy accident” may get you some readers, good keywords get you targeted readers.

“Keywords filter down the search results like flour through a sifter.”

Key Titles

Search engines value keywords in titles highly. The more specific your keyword title, the greater the chance that your site falls into the lap of your audience. Whatever you’re writing about, say it!

Don’t put a cutesy name on it, because cutesy names generally don’t get searched for. Searchers generally have something specific in mind when they pull up Google. Whether it is a generic or very specific topic, having a matching keyword in your title lets the reader find you.

While it might be tempting to name your article on dog obedience “Teaching Bennie His Manners,” chances are your targeted audience won’t find your article – they don’t know who Bennie is, and what manners you’re trying to teach him!

Instead, perhaps call your article “Training Your Puppy: Sit! Stay! Shake!” – much more specific, and it lets the reader in on what your article is about before they click. Keep your title specific, yet simple. Don’t create new words. Use the boring old ones.

Competitive Analysis

It’s also a good idea to find out what you’re competition is like for your keywords. If everyone is using the same keywords, chances are your audience will have a hard time finding you! Tools like Google Adwords let you see how many people you’re up against for your keywords, and let you see what other words or phrases people may be using.

Choosing a keyword or phrase that has a low competition rate helps ensure your audience finds you. By mixing snazzy words with your keywords, you diversify your article from all the other similar articles and entice the searcher to click on your link.

“Put your most important keywords in the beginning of your article.”

Put Your Best Word Forward

Since we scan in an F-shaped pattern, the first word on the left-hand side of the page is more likely to be read than words on the right side of the page.

Targeted vs. Generic

Web searchers are either looking for something specific or something generic. They can start with a generic topic, and then focus on their intended topic. Or, they can have a specific topic in mind the entire time, and fine-tune that search as needed.

Having a generic keyword may get you the results you want, or it might get you lost with everyone else that uses that keyword. By having a longer keyword, or several targeted keywords, the chances of your audience finding you are much higher.

For example, if you want to know the basics of what Yoga is, you’d search for “Yoga.” If you wanted to know about trainers in your area, you’re more likely to search for “Yoga in Pittsburgh.” So, if you’re writing a blog on Yoga instructors in your area, include the location in the keyword to target your readers.

While generic keywords work well for generic articles, the more specific your keyword, the more specific your audience, the higher percentage of people that want to be on your site actually find it – and keep browsing.

“Content = links. Keywords = links. Content + Keywords = link-happy!”

Content Comes First

However! If your article has too many keywords, it becomes about the keywords and not about the content.

Write for content first, searches second! It’s a fine tightrope to walk between getting to the top and maintaining content. Keywords without content will quickly lose the readers interest, but content with select effective keywords will hold on to interested readers. Content = links. Keywords = links. Content + Keywords = link-happy!

Tricia Kristufek Want content written for your Brand that shows up #1 on Search Engines and brings you new customers? Contact us.

Well, here’s something that will catch your attention:

That name alone conjures images of grown men and women fist-fighting in department stores nationwide. And that’s an awesome image to have in your head.

The buzz that was generated by the children’s toy Tickle Me Elmo (TME) in 1996’s Christmas season has yet to be rivaled (it nearly quadrupled the amount of projected sales), and subsequent Elmo toy releases have garnered the same amount of hype as the first, as seen by the 10th anniversary release of TME, nicknamed Tickle Me Extreme (!) Elmo. Scientists are still baffled as to how this may have happened.

“You’ve got to generate buzz for your product to succeed.”

So what?

What does this have to do with marketing? Well, Tickle Me Elmo was given to Rosie O’Donnell’s adopted baby, which was subsequently promoted on Rosie’s talk show. Bryant Gumbel held one in his lap on the Today show. People saw what the doll did, how simple it was and what effect it had on children; and then, went completely insane in an attempt to get their crazy hands on one of those Elmo’s. The media made the toy a sensation without much of a sweat broken or dollar spent by the marketers and manufacturers.

The use of the media, especially on shows like Rosie and Today (which targeted stay-at-home mothers, which was perfect for the Elmo dolls), in conjunction with an established marketing campaign, can be an excellent way to get your brand and product out to the public. You need to find your niche, something that will get your target audience’s attention and then capitalize on that. Selling sports equipment? Send some to Best Damn Sports Show Period and maybe they’ll use the product on their show.

“Use the media to get your brand out to the public.”

A continued sensation…

In 2006, Tickle Me Elmo Extreme (TMX) was released to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the first doll – this time using some slick, super-secret promotion which had even the manufacturers under wraps. The marketing plan was a force to be reckoned with, with Amazon.com not being able to fulfill pre-orders because of the demand for the doll. The TMX Elmo doll was finally revealed on Good Morning America…another way to use the media to generate buzz and reach a wide target audience.

Think about all the crap that Oprah gives away on one of her “Oprah’s Favorite Things” show. The people that watch those specific episodes are gonna think about buying those products just because Oprah said it was one of her favorite things. Oprah can make you rich, well, not Oprah specifically, but you get the point. Using the media, and not just the standard commercials and other ads, can help you successfully promote your brand.

“Media persons like Oprah have a huge influence on product purchases.”

Not a guaranteed success

But don’t be foolish. Tickle Me Elmo is a one-of-a-kind thing, and not all promotion-through-media is successful at generating cash money, dolla dolla bills, ya’ll. See, Tickle Me Elmo is the gold-standard of media marketing. On the opposite end of the spectrum is what only can be described as a marketing disaster….

Pontiac used media marketing in the promotion of their newest sedan, the G6. Oprah gave a boatload of them away on her show, one of many gifts given away. The buzz was out of control, but…the dollars didn’t roll in as expected, despite the hype. Pontiac reported that sales were 30% below what they expected. Sucks for them.

Tickle Me Elmo is a great example of how the media can be used to effectively and successfully promote your product and elevate your brand. Simple commercials and promotional ads may not be enough; sometimes, you may have to go that extra mile and send Rosie O’Donnell your product, as weird as that may be.

Chris Levkulich Want content written for your Brand that shows up #1 on Search Engines and brings you new customers? Contact us.