Content Marketer & SEO

What do SEO marketers who offer backlink-building actually do? Is it just a bunch of comment-spamming? I see that your company offers it, so how do you go about getting quality backlinks for clients?

Asked by Deeeeez about 11 years ago

Link building is a big world. Blog comments are by no means decent quality link building. They're mostly pointless and spammy, and not much use since there's not a ton of SEO value from those links. There can be value from the traffic they create via clicks, but only for high quality comments on high quality sites. Link building at its best is identifying great content that exists or should be created on a client's site, and then finding all of the hidden corners of the internet where that content should be shared and linked. We also do quite a bit of competitive analysis, assuming that the competitor's backlinks aren't mostly spammy. This allows us to identify where they're outperforming our clients in terms of links, and we can often secure many of those same links for the client (but never 100% of them). I'm going to defer to this great list of link building methods to give you an idea of some specific tactics: http://pointblankseo.com/link-building-strategies. Without reviewing the list again to double check, I know for certain that 98% are ethical and non-spammy ways to build links.

Given that SEO is a bit of a crapshoot how do you set expectations with new clients?

Asked by 5678 about 11 years ago

Expectations depend on the following aspects:

1. On-site SEO (How much time will it take to clean up and fix the current site? Is it Wordpress, Drupal, static HTML, PHP, etc?)
2. Existing Content (Do we have 8 pages on the site, or 80? is the content any good?)
3. Link Metrics (Compared to primary competitors, how is the client doing on backlink metrics as reported by Open Site Explorer and Majestic?)
4. Keyword Difficulty (How hard is the keyword to compete for? This is gauged using SEOMoz's keyword difficulty tool to get an objective idea of competition levels, and manual check of the search results for the keyword for a more subjective and in depth look)
5. What is the client's monthly budget?

Using those pieces of information we can give the client a decent idea of what's possible based upon past experience. Usually we give rough guidelines like 1 month (easy project), 3 months, 6 months, or 12 months. We don't estimate anything past 12 months because there should be shorter checkpoints than that.

We also make it clear that we have to look at a veriety of metrics: analytics goal conversions, overall non-paid site traffic, non-branded organic search traffic, keyword rankings, link metrics, and perhaps a few other items depending on the client.

 

considering outsourcing some blogposts for my landscaping site ... smart or dumb move? have my doubts about the quality of posts coming from overseas, but can this be effective?

Asked by G. Westheimer about 11 years ago

Here's a rough guide of what you can expect if you hire the writers directly:

• Under $25 for a blog article around 500-1000 words is a waste of your money. The time spent editing all of the mistakes and dealing with writers who can't direct their own efforts typically doesn't make sense for most business owners.
• $25-50 for a blog article around 500-1000 words can get you OK results depending on the writer, but you may need to edit the content more heavily and the content won't be groundbreaking.
• $50-100 - this is more along the lines that I'd recommend the average small business look into.
• $100-$200 - this is going to get you higher quality content with some research behind it - especially important for niches that are more complicated (attorneys for example). For landscaping this should get you some pretty good content from a writer with plant/gardening knowledge.

If you work directly with a writer, expect the rates above. If you work with a content company (like us at Content Harmony) you can expect to pay 20-100% more depending on the company's business model, but you'll usually get perks like a "hands off" approach, where the company takes care of everything you'd have to do otherwise:

• keyword research
• the company comes up with the post titles and ideas
• the company can post the content directly to the site
• other misc perks depending on the company

If a blog has content of absolutely superb quality, how much worse will it rank in search results than the identical blog that's been heavily SEO'd? I guess what I'm asking is, if the content is THAT good, how much does SEO matter?

Asked by brokenarrow about 11 years ago

Great content is a huge part of the equation, but without proper technical checks across the entire website, good site structure, and link building and content promotion, great content may never be found. SEO complements good content, and good content makes link building and promotion easier, but content can't live with out the other areas being monitored and improved.

Bad or ignored SEO implementation can mean that the success of a viral or popular piece of content is severely dampened, so I'd say it matters quite a bit.

For an e-commerce biz selling several distinct products, would it be better in terms of search clout to have several URLs that link to one another or one URL with several subdomains?

Asked by Erika Leaf about 11 years ago

Purely from an SEO perspective, subfolders are better than subdomains, and subdomains are better than separate domains. Therefore the answer to your question is that subdomains are better than separate domains from the standpoint of consolidating link equity.

Now, if these products are really different enough to warrant separation, then you need to consider from a marketing perspective if it makes sense to have them associated or not. While link equity and search traffic are important, nobody is going to buy your ipod accessory if you're trying to sell printer ink on the same site - it doesn't make any sense. BUT, if the products are similar and being sold to different audiences, then that's a different situation. So, the true answer to this question is going to depend on the exact products and your business model.

Is it even possible for another search engine to usurp Google, ever?

Asked by broken_arrow about 11 years ago

Yes, but in my opinion it won't happen through traditional search. For better or worse, Google's got that locked down reasonably well. I think it will happen through a disruption like Siri or another service that offers something crazy - predictive search or something like that (figuring out what you need to find based upon your day to day activities, calendar, typical searches, etc. On a sidenote, I've used Siri about 20 times in the year I've had it, mostly while driving to look up directions, and it has never once worked correctly, so that's still not the answer at this point.

what do you think about Certified Internet Marketing Practitioner (CIMP) course from EC-Council is it useful?

Asked by Hamoosh over 8 years ago

I've never heard of it but that doesn't mean it's a bad program. Internet marketing certifications were once too basic, but over the past few years some reputable programs have evolved.

The one you're talking about looks... rough around the edges. It's a website full of IT certifications, which is a red flag to me, because internet marketing is a marketing discipline, not IT.

I would recommend looking at programs like DistilledU and various courses on Marketing Profs, and maybe programs like Market Motive (can't personally vouch for it but reputable people are connected to it). For the cost, Hubspot's free inbound marketing training is worthwhile as well.

As a final note - employers don't care about these training programs. They'll set you apart from someone with zero experience, but if I had to choose between someone with zero experience and a certificate, versus someone with two years experience, I'd take the second candidate in a heartbeat. Do the certificates - but get some experience however you can.