link building in difficult niches

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Sam Miranda Content Strategist, Right Casino Media Having studied History at Sheffield University whilst freelance poker writing, I moved into journalism and online editorial. I worked for affiliates such as PokerStrategy.com before joining the Right Casino Media team in June 2013 as a content strategist. 1

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This presentation explains how to build links and execute content marketing in difficult niches, using the gambling industry as an example. Marketer Sam Miranda explains his process behind obtaining white hat links from world-class domains, including The Bleacher Report, Gamasutra and Wikipedia. Download the full presentation with notes at www.rightcasino.com/lac

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Page 1: Link Building In Difficult Niches

Sam MirandaContent Strategist, Right Casino Media

Having studied History at Sheffield University whilst freelance poker writing, I moved into journalism and online editorial.

I worked for affiliates such as PokerStrategy.com before joining the Right Casino Media team in June 2013 as a content strategist.

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Out Of The Box Link Building

How To Get Your Content On Awesome Domains

1. IntroductionIs guest posting a gamble?

2. Lead GenerationFinding websites that will host your content

3. Content CreationThinking outside the box

4. OutreachSecuring links

5. Measuring SuccessMeasuring success & limitations

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IntroductionIs guest posting a gamble?

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GUEST POSTING MATT CUTTS

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http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/guest-blogging/

“I’m not trying to throw the baby out with the bath water. There are still many good reasons to do some guest blogging (exposure, branding, increased reach, community, etc.)…

… I just want to highlight that a bunch of low-quality or spam sites have latched on to “guest blogging” as their link-building strategy, and we see a lot more spammy attempts to do guest blogging. Because of that, I’d recommend skepticism (or at least caution) when someone reaches out and offers you a guest blog article.”

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GUEST POSTING BEST PRACTICES

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Do… Don’t…

Target quality websites Use over-optimized anchor text.

Make sure your content is authentic and irresistible

‘Spin’ the same content into similar guest posts

Become an expert in your field (Google Authorship)

Target low-quality guest blogging websites

Make sure your contributions are relevant to the target website Use guest-posting as your ONLY form of

link building

Make sure your contributions to a site are regular Spam out 1,000s of guest post emails

Make sure links are contextual (in the article body)

Directly pay for links

Use brand name anchor text (yourwebsite.com) – no manipulation

Make sure links are to relevant content

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GUEST POSTING PROCESS

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2. Content Creation

3. Outreach

1. Lead Generation

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Lead GenerationFinding Websites That Will Host Your Content

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LEAD GENERATION

SEARCH ENGINE QUERIES

entertainment + intitle:“write for us”

travel + intitle:“contribute to”

list + intitle:“write for us”…

…etc.

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http://www.seotakeaways.com/10000-search-engine-queries-for-your-link-building-campaign/

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LEAD GENERATION

AUTHOR QUERIES

- Target authors to create editorial relationships

- Use the Buzz Sumo tool to

a) Find best performing content in your niche

b) Identify key influencers in your niche

- Export this data into Excel

- Use Niels Bosma’s SEO Excel plugin and Xpath to scrape

more author details

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http://moz.com/blog/the-power-of-authors-and-content-for-link-building

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http://app.buzzsumo.com/

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LEAD GENERATION

TAKEAWAYS

- Search queries are a good starting point.

- Lists present easy wins to embed gambling content.

- Don’t neglect well known publications. Content creation may

be harder, but link placement will be easier and more

rewarding.

- Use author queries to build editorial relationships.

- Use Buzz Sumo – it’s free and easy!

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Content CreationThinking Outside The Box

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Gambling Related Content

Entertainment

Travel

Sport

Business

Marketing

Psychology

Celebrity gamblers

Gambling films

Las Vegas

Manila

Macau Addiction

BehaviourCasino design

Operators

FOBTs

Strategy

Taxation & economic benefits

Betting

Match-fixing

Shane Warne

Advertising

Big data

PR Stunts

Video games

My company history

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CONTENT CREATION

QUESTION FORMULA – ‘SCIENCE OF VIRALITY’

- Who chooses to play roulette?

- What types of roulette are there?

- What can we learn about the type of person who plays X version of

roulette?

Now to mix it up a bit…

- Where do those people come from?

- What is the majority gender?

Now make it controversial…

- Are people from region X more prone to gambling? Are men playing

the "live" version more? Is this because they are physically attracted to

the croupier?

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http://blog.kissmetrics.com/science-of-virality/

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CONTENT CREATION

QUESTION FORMULA II

“Subject + random category or buzzword”

- Roulette + films (which brings me to the iconic Russian

roulette scene from The Deer Hunter).

- Roulette + social (which brings me to the webcam-based

phenomenon Chat Roulette).

- Roulette + travel (which in the case of Heineken, brought

them to ‘Departure Roulette’).

- Roulette + magic (which brings me to popular British

mentalist Derren Brown's 'Russian Roulette' trick).

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Link

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CONTENT CREATION

LINKABLE ASSET EXAMPLES

- Infographics (http://www.infographicdesigner.co.uk)

- Videos (http://www.sparkol.com/)

- Apps (http://www.appypie.com/)

- Surveys (https://today.yougov.com/opi/)

- Slideshares (http://www.slideshare.net/)

- Podcasts (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/)

- Data visuals (http://app.piktochart.com)

- Betting calculators

- 404 Pages, team description pages

- Roulette + social (which brings me to the webcam-based

phenomenon Chat Roulette).

- Roulette + travel (which in the case of Heineken, brought

them to ‘Departure Roulette’).

- Roulette + magic (which brings me to popular British

mentalist Derren Brown's 'Russian Roulette' trick).

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http://www.reverbnation.com/slotozilla

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CONTENT CREATION

FINDING WRITERS

- Look beyond copywriters, consider journalists and feature

writers

- Copywriters are adept at re-writing existing content

- Journalists can conditioned to source their own stories

- Journalists can arrange interviews with authority figures

- Journalists understand how to create compelling human

interest stories

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http://www.gorkanajobs.co.uk/jobshttp://www.journalism.co.uk/journalistshttp://www.studentgems.com

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CONTENT CREATION

TAKEAWAYS

- Think of all the industries and disciplines that link to gambling

- Use the question formulas to generate content ideas

- Create linkable assets, not linkbait

- Hire journalists to develop the more authentic, shareable content

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OutreachSecuring Links

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NO!

Cool, I can tellInteresting…

Well, I have a garage…

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Credibility

Timely and relevant

Examples

Reason for outreach

Attachment

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OUTREACH OUTREACH EMAILS

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Do… Don’t…Use a descriptive subject line, including the article name

Ever mention the words ‘guest post’, ‘link’ or ‘agency’

Explain who you are, and why you want to contribute Be sloppy with spelling and grammar

Link to examples of your previous work Be ambiguous about your intentions, or the nature of your contribution

Engage the editor or mention their previous workAttach an article to show urgency and commitmentExplain why your contribution is relevant NOW

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OUTREACH CONTENT MARKETING

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http://www.muckrack.comhttp://moz.com/blog/8-step-plan-to-get-pr-driven-links

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OUTREACH SATELLITE ARTICLES

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Social Gambling: A Safe Bet For Operators?

Facebook Casinos: The Gateway Drug of

Gambling?

LiveCasino.co.uk Social Gambling

Investigation

The Economics of Social Gambling:

Players and Pounds

Zynga’s Bitcoin Gamble

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OUTREACH TAKEAWAYS

- Adopt two strategies: one for pitching guest posts, one for content marketing.

- Marry the two strategies where necessary with satellite articles, which you can fire out to editors.

- Guest post pitches should be personalised, timely, relevant and credible.

- Guest post pitches should ideally include an article attachment.

- Research websites (do they link out? Are they run by SEOs?) before pitching.

- Use MuckRack.com to pitch stories around existing linkable assets, Journalisted.com as a free alternative.

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ConclusionsMeasuring Success & Limitations

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CONCLUSIONS ROI FORMULA

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Cost of Creation (i.e. writing) Cost of Distribution (i.e. MuckRack) Cost of Link Builder (salary)

Number of Links Obtained

= AVERAGE COST PER LINKhttp://www.seotakeaways.com/7-powerful-kpis-measure-link-building-outreach/

+ +

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CONCLUSIONS LIMITATIONS

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LIMITATIONS OF MY LINK BUILDING…

… risk of link removal, especially with new editorial leads

… hard to create a time-frame for a successful campaign

… email exchanges can be time-consuming

… traffic from links is unlikely (but not impossible!) to convert

… the sacrifice of potentially good internal content for external websites

… needs to be supplemented by a sound social strategy

… widespread publication can harm your reputation as an industry specialist

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CONCLUSIONS HOLISTIC STRATEGY

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Content Marketing

Link building

Internal Content Social Media

Content Marketing

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Further Reading GREAT BLOGS & RESOURCES

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Moz.comKaisersage.comPointblankseo.comInbound.orgSeotakeaways.comFindmyblogway.comBlog.kissmetrics.comViperchill.comWordstream.com/blog

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The End

Get in contact with me

E-mail: [email protected]

Skype: sam.miranda1

Mobile: +44 7968 360124

Enjoy The Rest Of The Conference!

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Find the presentation with notes here:www.rightcasino.com/lac