Linkbaiting & Viral Success

Chris Boggs, Avenue A/Razorfish
Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz
Jennifer Laycock, Search Engine Guide
Cameron Olthuis, ACS

Rand Fishkin

Matt Cutts’ quote, March 2nd: sites that attract discussion, visitors, back links (via linkbait), are the sites “that will benefit as the world goes forward”

Linkerati: bloggers, web researchers, journalists; target these people for link acquisition, branding, mind share, etc.

Linkbait provides:
- global authority
- topical popularity
- trust metrics
- temporal influence
- PageRank
- anchor text
- topical relevance

** helps ALL the pages on your site rise in rankings

(shares three linkbait examples)

Content strategies: lists, tips, how-to, teaching resource, humor, controversy, interviews, breaking news, product review, poll results, tools, etc.

Linkbait safely: don’t spam, you’ll get caught

Cameron Olthuis

How can viral search impact traditional search

1) Improve Rankings
– widgets, mashups, etc.
2) Reputation Management
– control top results; contain the negative buzz
3) Social media sites

What to monitor?
– URLs, product names, keywords
(Talking too fast!!!!!! Arrghhh!)

Jennifer Laycock

Linkbaiting is about links, not so much about branding, conversion.
Viral marketing is about marketing, branding, conversion.

Linkbaiting cost is in the idea development, not placement. It creates brand evangelists and has a rapid response rate.

Creating a Viral Idea - ask yourself
– what sparks passion in my customers?
– what hasn’t been done before?
– how will the idea help users?
– will audience stake their reputation on it?

**Ideas spread because they’re important to the spreader, not the originator. **

Viral idea builds and spreads through relationships. How does an idea spread?
– launched via opinion leaders — have to research who they are
– make it easy to spread — Send to a Friend; Social bookmark icons
– exploit motivators (example: how Gmail spread by invite only)
– use existing networks — blogs, forums, etc. - find where people are talking

(Jennifer just showed the MyBlogLog widget from SBS!!! I rock…. this is why you should always visit my blog. You never know when you’ll get free publicity!)

(Case study: National Pork Board vs. The Lactivist)

Chris Boggs

Leveraging the community — example of how SEO community links so generously.

(Chris just said we don’t need to take many notes because he’ll give the URL out for his web-based presentation. Nobody tells me when to take notes and not! I’ll press on….)

Measuring Linkbait Success
– link counts from Yahoo Site Explorer
– log files
– Technorati

Examples: savetoby.com, shaveeverywhere.com

Viral can blow traditional marketing away if done properly.

Technorati Tags: sesny2007, link building, linkbait