Table of Contents

    1. Introduction

      • Why this ebook exists

      • The current state of link building

      • Who this ebook is for

      • How to use this ebook

    2. The Basics of Link Building

      • What do we mean by link building?

      • Why are links so important to SEO?

    3. The history of link building

      • SEOs and links: a match made in heaven? Or hell?

      • Historical Google Updates related to links

      • Penguin 3 – 5th October 2012

      • Penguin 2 – 25th May 2012

      • Penguin 1 – 24th April 2012

      • Search quality update 3rd April 2012

      • Jagger – 18th October 2005

    4. What you need to know about Google PageRank

      • What is PageRank?

      • How does PageRank affect the work of SEOs?

      • How much should I care about PageRank?

      • PageRank sculpting

      • Some background - Bringing order to the web: PageRank

      • The role of anchor text

    5. The anatomy of a link – what makes a good (and bad) link

      • Links that are trusted

      • Links that are diverse

      • Links that are relevant

      • Elements of a page that may affect the quality of a link

      • Number of other outgoing links on a page

      • The page having a penalty or filter applied

      • The quality of other websites being linked to from that page

      • Number of incoming links to the page

      • Number of incoming links to the domain

      • Age of the domain

      • Link from within a PDF

      • The page being crawlable by the search engines

      • Elements of a link that affect its quality

      • URL

      • Position of the link of a page

      • Anchor text

      • Nofollow vs Followed

      • Link title

      • Text link vs Image link

      • Link contained within Javascript / AJAX / Flash

      • Text surrounding the link

    6. Planning and executing a link building campaign

      • The sales process: selling a link building campaign
        • Identify the business goals and how link building will help reach these
        • The problem with selling one-off link building work
      • Kicking things off: questions to ask yourself or your client
      • Clarify the business goals and how link building will help reach these

        • Identify your assets, resources and USPs that help with link building

        • What we mean by a link building asset

        • Examples of link building assets

      • Run analysis on your existing link profile and competitors

        • How to analyse a link profile

          • What do you want to find out?

          • Find problems

          • Find patterns

          • Find opportunities

        • The key link metrics to focus on

          • Anchor text

          • Linking root domains

          • Sitewide links

          • Low PageRank / Domain Authority linking root domains

          • Most linked to content

          • Nofollow attribute

        • What a good link profile should look like

      • Identify the techniques you plan to use

        • Prioritise your techniques based on time and resources

        • Plan your activity over the next few months

      • Prepare or create your link building asset

        • Content as a link building asset

        • Think about your outreach - now

        • Who gives a shit about my content?

        • Why do they give a shit about your content?

        • Do they have the ability to link?

      • Find link targets and prioritise

        • Advanced search queries

        • Followerwonk

        • SEOmoz competitive link finder

        • Gathering links targets in bulk

        • BuzzStream link prospector

        • Easy scraping

        • Filtering link targets

      • Conduct outreach

        • Links vs relationships

        • Crafting your outreach message

        • Personalisation

        • What you’re offering

        • A call to action

        • Examples of outreach emails

      • Following up

        • Dealing with negative responses

        • Dealing with requests for payment

      • Reporting on link building campaign and learn how to improve

        • Pre-deliver the report

        • Written communication sucks

        • Don’t report on too much or focus on the wrong metrics

        • Know what the client cares about

        • Know who is going to see the report and talk their language

        • Why reporting on number of links built per month is bad

        • Example structure of an SEO report

    7. Scaling link building



      • Scaling link building post-Penguin

      • What we can scale

      • Processes

      • Assets

      • People – oDesk (proceed with caution)

    8. Link based penalties



      • How to detect and lift a link penalty in 9 steps

      • Step 1 – Verify the data

      • Step 2 – Look for patterns in the traffic / rankings drop

      • Step 3 – Get all of your links

      • Step 4 - Find the low quality links

      • Step 5 - Find low quality sitewide links

      • Step 6 - Find over-optimised anchor text

      • Step 7 – Link removal

      • Step 8 – Link disavow tool

      • Step 9 – Reconsideration request

    9. Building a link building team



      • Do you even need a link building team?

      • Hiring link builders

      • Characteristics of good link builders

      • Interview questions

      • Keeping the team motivated

    10. Outsourcing your link building



      • For in-house SEOs – choosing an agency

        • Experience in a similar industry

        • Approach to link building

        • Approach to content creation

        • References and results

        • Approach to reporting and account management

      • Outsourcing to oDesk

        • What can you outsource?

        • Define the process – step by step

        • Post a job description

        • Filter applicants and hire

        • Send over the brief

        • Review the work

    11. Making link building happen – effecting change



      • Getting close to clients

      • Take clients for lunch or beers

      • Call them at least once a week

      • Work in a client’s office

    12. Social signals and their affect on link building



      • Social signals as a ranking factor

      • Social signals and link building

    13. The Concept of AuthorRank



      • How AuthorRank and link building fit together

      • How to benefit from AuthorRank

      • Setup Google+ profiles and add mark-up to your blog

      • Use Google+ mark-up in your guest blogging

      • Find people on Google+ to engage with

    14. Link building techniques



      • Article submissions

      • Being interviewed

      • Blog commenting

      • Broken link building

      • Building a tool / app

      • Buying links

      • Buying established blogs / websites

      • Directory submissions

      • Getting links that your competitors have

      • Getting links from customers

      • Getting links from your copied images

      • Giving discounts / free products away

      • Guest blogging

      • Infographics

      • Industry roundups

      • Interactive infographics

      • Link bait

      • Link exchanges / reciprocal links

      • Link reclamation

      • Live blogging an event

      • Monitoring for brand mentions but no link

      • Pay a leading industry blogger to write for you

      • Press releases

      • Reviving old, successful content

      • Running a competition

      • Run a conference / meetup

      • Translating content into other languages

      • Wordpress Plugin development

      • Wordpress Theme development

      • Writing testimonials

    15. Link building tools



      • Link analysis

        • Open Site Explorer

        • AHREFs

        • Majestic

        • Microsoft Excel

        • Google Webmaster Tools

        • Tom Anthony’s link profiler

        • Link Research Tools by Cemper

      • Outreach

        • BuzzStream

        • Tout

        • Highrise

        • Boomerang

        • Rapportive

        • Xobni

        • Linksy Email guesser

        • URL opener

        • Followupcc

      • Competitor analysis

        • Search Metrics

      • Browser add-ons

        • SEOmoz Toolbar

        • Majestic

        • Scrape similar

        • Check my links

        • Google Cache bookmarklet

      • Finding link opportunities

        • BuzzStream blogroll checker

        • Broken link finder by Citation Labs

        • Group High

        • SEOmoz link intersect

        • Wordtracker link builder

        • Blogger Link Up

        • Guestr

        • My Blog Guest

        • Blogdash

        • Local Citation Finder by Whitespark

        • Raven

        • Link building query generator by Stoked SEO

        • HARO – Help a Reporter Out

        • Followerwonk

        • Zemanta

    16. Link building case studies from my own experience



      • Case study 1 - Ego bait for links in the garden sector

      • Case study 2 – photos to get links in a very technical, BB industry

      • Case study 3 – sports related interactive infographic

      • Case study 4 – building links to a microsite

      • Other public link building case studies

    17. Amazing, curated link building resources



    18. Blogs to follow for link building tips



    19. People to follow on Twitter for link building



    20. Google Webmaster Tools Videos on link building



    21. SEO conferences that include link building sessions



      • SearchLove

      • LinkLove

      • MozCon

      • SMX

      • SES

      • Think Visibility

      • SAScon

      • PubCon

      • Affiliates4U

    22. A-Z glossary of link building terms

    23. Conclusion

    24. Acknowledgements

You'll also get FREE updates with new tools, techniques and changes at Google
so that you always have the most up to date information. Only available in eBook.

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