link building for the future - what to do and what to avoid
TRANSCRIPT
The Future of
Link Building
Paddy Moogan
Co-founder, Aira
www.aira.net
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
The Future
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
Links as a ranking signal are
NOT going away
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
Fundamentally, they still
work well
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
Links are the basis of the web
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
However…
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
Related signals will change
and become more refined
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
We don’t think as a “link” as
the signal Google use
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There is so much more to it
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
Anchor text
VolumeDiversity
Type of link
Home vs. deep
link
Position on pageOther links on
page
Surrounding text
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These will change over time
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
And new signals will be
added
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
Social signals may play a bigger
part
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
Some rankings just won’t make
sense to us
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Penguin will become more
refined and quicker
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
It’s constantly learning (it’s
nearly two years old now)
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
They have lots of fresh data
to learn about bad links
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
Penguin targeted scalable
link building techniques
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
Anything scalable will be
targeted at some point
What this means
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For businesses…
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Let’s use Panda as an example
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There was collateral damage
with Panda
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But Google didn’t mind
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Don’t take risks with your
business
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
For churn and burn sites…
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Spam will always work
short-term at least
What to avoid
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Anything that scales
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
Scaling = potential loss in
quality
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
Too much commercial
anchor text
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
Putting all your links in one
basket
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
Links that you may be taking
down in a year or two!
What to focus on
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
Easy wins are still out there
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
1) Broken incoming links
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
2) Competitor analysis
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
3) Unlinked mentions of
company or people
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
4) Learn what PR people do
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They craft stories around
people, companies and data
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
5) Invest in content
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Invest in content
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
Invest in understanding what
makes a good idea
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
Follow these people:
@jcolman @halvorson@epicgraphic
In summary…
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
Links will always be
important
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
Don’t scale link building if
you’re building a business
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
Spend some time on the
quick wins
(they still work)
@paddymoogan www.aira.net
Invest in understanding
good ideas and
how PR works
Thank you!
Paddy Moogan
Co-founder, Aira
www.aira.net