First off, I want to say thanks to SEOmoz (a very authoritative SEO blog) for holding this amazing SEO webinar. Though it was SEOmoz’s first ever webinar, but apparently it was really successful (SEOmoz had to add a second session due to overwhelming responses).  I missed first webinar session due to arrived home very late on 10th Dec. For the second session, which was few hours ago, I finally managed to get home early (6:45pm London), though was still late for first two chapters. This wrap-up is just for those who hasn’t got a chance to join this webinar and my note taking speed was not fast enough, I am sorry for any missed part.

seo tips from seomoz pro webinar

This link building strategies webinar covered following topics

*Link Building Strategies for 2010 [I missed :S]

*What Goals Can Link Building Help Us Achieve? [missed too :S]

*The 8 Basic Link Building Strategies

*What are the Right Kinds of Links to Accomplish my Goals

*How to Use Tools & Process to Make Link Building Easier

*Link Building Shortcuts to Take

*Q+A [I left because I was hungry to death]

I will start from 3rd chapter as I missed first two.

- The 8 Basic Link Building Strategies

#1 Manual link submission

Scalability is very low, link quality can be very high if choose carefully. It’s kind of traditional link building strategy and yet probably the most straight forward one. This method requires very low skill and typically takes long time to achieve those links.

#2 Competitive link research / acquisition

Scalability is low, link quality is moderate. It’s frustrating that Google doesn’t let us know which link is counted as a quality link, thereby you won’t be able to determine which link works for your competitors.

#3 Links via embedded content

Scalability is very high, link quality is high. This strategy includes offering widgets, badges and embeddable forms, which is really an attractive way for visitors to link you back. Take few examples, SEOmoz badges, Vimeo embeddable videos..etc, all of these have driven an enormous amount of inbound links. *Note: don’t over-do it, otherwise Google is highly likely to knock you out.

#4 Linkbait & viral campaigns.

Scalability is low, link quality is high. It’s time for creating viral contents, it could be really hard to be creative, and even if you think your contents are creative doesn’t necessarily mean your visitors have the same thoughts. Rand mentioned some company can help create viral contents for you and guarantee some percentages of them will work.

#5 Content, technology & API licensing

Scalability is very high, link quality is high. Take SEOmoz as example, it licenses its Linkscape API for free across the web. When sites like grader.com uses mozRank and other metrics in their tools, they link back to SEOmoz’s reports for those URLs and Linkscape tool.

#6 Partnerships, exchanges & trade.

Scalability is moderate, link quality is moderate. It’s really controversial, shall we forget good old time in Web 1.0? In my opinion probably not, reciprocal links may not be as powerful as before, but they do still have values (even very little).  I think having partners’ links is enough, otherwise it’s such a mess on your website.

#7 Paid links.

Scalability is high, link quality is very low. When Rand started talking about this, his tone of voice changed lol. Although Rand clarified he is against link buying, but seems that he had been kept asking about this topic. Yes, loads of companies purchase links and dominate on Google organic list for their desired keywords. But please do keep this into consideration, it’s very risky that you could get called out in few years, if not in few months. Therefore is it worthwhile? Your business model could probably answer this question.

#8 Link reclamation

Scalability is low, link quality is high. This strategy is to find links to broken or out-of-date resources and re-point them to archive. You can always test other websites, if they have broken links, just email them to point these links out and give your relevant links.

- What are the Right Kinds of Links to Accomplish my Goals

Rand talked about several circumstances, they can be:

#1 Links for indivual rankings

#2 Links for domain “authority”

#3 Links for indexation

#4 Links for traffic branding

#5 Links for conversion

Then he explained some factors that we need to take into consideration, “target anchor text”, “link to intended URL”, “link quality + diversity” and “qualityof link source”. For example, #1 links for individual rankings, links with targeted anchor text and links to intended URL are extremely important. Link quality, diversity and quality of link source are moderately important. For #5 Links for conversion, quality of link source is on the top of list, high quality + right audiences are more likely to convert.

- How to Use Tools & Process to Make Link Building Easier

#1 Competitor link research

• Yahoo Site Explorer – note: links are in random order and they are not necessarily followed links
• Linkscape – Number of root domains has highest correlation with ranking success. It also offers many other useful metrics such as top pages.
• Link intersect – Same principle as link finder of SEOmoz tool
• Google blog search – Note: results fluctuate 50-1000% daily.

#2 Numeric metrics for link valuation

• Number of linking root domains of URL
• Number of linking root domains of domain
• Homepage PageRank vs. Domain mozRank
• URL PageRank vs. URL mozRank
• Number of links to the page
• Twitter mentions (backtweets.com is an interesting site to measure this)

#3 Subjective metric for link valuation

• Brand name reach / recognition
• Quality of other links on page / site
• Attainability and effort

#4 Scalable link acquisition processes

• Written Process + Checklist
• Tools + Metrics for quick analysis
• Training & Incenting Link Builders
• Building & Refining a Link Acquisition Funnel

#5 Written process / checklist

• Run through the link building process
• Document every step thoroughly
• Pass it on to others

#6 Bookmarklets for quick analysis

• Rand said he will come up a post of this topic

#7 Training & incenting link builders

• Do link building together
• Create consistent metrics
• Reward like a sales team
• Record reasons why links didn’t happen and work on them

#8 Building a link acquisition funnel

• Total visitors – Targeted content – Grab link code – Link to the Site

- Shortcuts for Link Building

Get your community to build links for you
Direct anchor text & target url
Recognise helpful link, domain metrics
Learn from the “best-linked” sites and pages

I’ve noticed that entire webinar session was recorded and hopefully SEOmoz will release it. I wish you enjoy my post, but it was really a misery to miss first two chapters. What do you think of these SEO tips?

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2. Open Site Explorer – FREE Backlink Analysis Tool by SEOmoz
3. SEO rethink: Should we really not to link out to other websites?
4. Full SEO checklist from scratch
5. A collection of Christmas SEO Posts