Anticipating tomorrow's onslaught of fowl and starch, most of you are probably in a preemptive food coma. Instead of trying to "digest" something new from the blogosphere (or get any actual work done), why not revisit our top content from the past month?
November was link building month at WordStream, and every Monday we posted a new interview with a link building expert (there's one more to come on Monday the 30th!), gathering insight on when it's OK to buy a link (and how to get away with it), how to handle link requests, strategies for creating linkbait and viral content, the best link building tools and more. These interviews were very popular and we expect they'll continue to serve as a resource for link building newbies and aspiring experts alike.
Debra Mastaler: "All links are quality links as long as they work. I'm not hot for links using nofollow if I'm focused on anchors and SEO but even then, a handful of pink from highly relevant sites won't hurt and may help diversify your backlink mix. With the algorithms using multiple signals to determine authority and link quality it's always a good idea to secure a variety of links from relevant sites. Actually, I think the issue of relevancy is equally important these days, so place as much emphasis on where you get links as the type…"
Bill Wills & Garrett French: "If your target market frequents a given forum then you should be there, with links in sig! Same with blog comments, again if that's where your target market is. Please note that I'm suggesting that you participate to add value to the community, not simply to link drop. As far as general-topic article directories, there are a few decent ones out there, but if you're submitting content look for guest publishing opportunities on relevant blogs or other industry media sites first…"
Dixon Jones: "We had to build our own tool to be able to carry out a bulk http header check on all these URLs, to see whether they resolve properly to real content in a way that users and search engines can follow. So far, we have found errors on every established site we have analyzed (including our own, so we fixed that promptly!). Fixing these errors is an easy way to improve the site. It’s clean and honest – as long as you redirect bad URLs to relevant alternative content…"
Wiep Knol: "Use the phone. This not only raises your conversion rates AND the quality of the deal drastically, but also forces you to focus on the best sites only, as it's not possible to send out dozens of requests in a few minutes by phone. When it's a little bit difficult to use the phone, for example because of language and/or time differences, try NOT to request a link in the first email you send out…"
Other highlights from the month include:
- 5 SEO Myths Busted: Ken Lyons debunks some common SEO myths, including the myth that meta tags have no impact on rankings and that Google favors old domains.
- 5 Myths about SEO Copywriting: Even more myths! In this post I dispel some silly notions about SEO keywords, headline writing and the value of brevity.
- Best Keyword Ranking Tools for SEO: The title speaks for itself. Ken picks the best keyword ranking tools, both free and paid.
- Twitter's New Retweet Feature: Yay or Fail? (Please RT): Twitter has added native support for the user-created retweet function, but did they bypass users in the design?
- The Future of Keyword Research: Larry Kim explains why neither keyword suggestion tools nor web analytics apps alone are enough for advanced keyword research.
Happy reading and happy eating!