Creating a link building campaign is a long on-going time consuming process but there are a few simple rules that you should always follow. I have been creating link building campaigns for various clients for years and the basics I used back then to qualify a link still remain good practice to this day.


1. Use www.whois.sc to find out some basic information on a link location, this site is great when looking for dns information.

2. Check the domain age, a lot of people believe that this carry’s no additional “weight” for a link this may or may not be true but I can assure you that have a good “trusted” domain is a good start for finding a quality link location.

3. Check page rank – and before you start crucifying me I still believe the little green bar has some value when deciding where to put a link. People have to start understanding that google has ranked these pages by its very own scoring system, however don’t think for 1 minute that just because a website is PR 7 you will see a positive effect of linking on it.

4. I always create links on relevant websites, look for content that is relevant to your brand or product, it makes sense.

5. Make good use of anchor texts on your links, have around 7-10 good relevant keywords or phrases and stick to them.

6. I always use directories when creating a backlink campaign, just treat the actual page your link will appear on as a separate website and follow all previous steps up to this point.

7. Look at the current backlinks on the proposed website, make sure they have good “trusted” links too.

8. Spread your links over the month, don’t develop 100 one day and 3 the next, a gradual increase is key.

I know this sounds like a silly question but over the last 6 months I’ve seen more and more people in forums and social media sites give people advice which is just plain wrong!

I personally believe that webmasters who know very little or nothing of what seo is are picking up bits of advice from various blog sources and suddenly believing that they know seo. I’ve worked with seo for just over 2 years now so I know I’m no “Guru” but I understand the basics well and my day job is seo for a digital marketing agency in London. I understand that there are hundreds of factors to take into account when developing seo for a website, its not a case of creating 100 strong PR 7 links and waiting for the cash to come in, it takes time and effort.

I feel very strongly when I see “seo” companies selling strategies for £5000 + and in the list of “services” you see “1000 search engine submissions” – alarm bells should be ringing when they have set prices people! A small list below just to look out for when considering creating an seo campaign.

1. The company guarantees a top Google position – this is impossible to guarantee before you even know what the keyword is.
2. A full site analysis – This comes standard, someone that advertises this is obviously trying to fill up a list.
3. No mention of site architecture – site architecture is very important in seo, you don’t want to stop those spiders moving around your site do you?
4. The company says it will only take 30 – 60 days – listen folks seo demands a continuous strategy to be effective, you should have an on going plan and budget set aside.
5. They promise you 5000 links instantly – this is a sure way to get banned from Google, don’t do it, it won’t help you SERPS anyway.
6. They don’t ask for access to your server – they should be looking at the code and source files and be installing some kind of analytics program to monitor traffic.
7. They don’t know what web 2.0 is – if they don’t know what web 2.0 is then move on quickly!
8. They think Google is the only search engine to use – I hear this so many times these days and although I do believe it’s one of the best ways to find out queries its by no means the only search engine that will provide you with good quality traffic – broaden the mind!
9. When “experts” on forums just dismiss your ideas – if you post something you believe to be true, a good seo worker will investigate, test and comment. If you see a so called “expert” putting down everyone’s ideas without consideration they obviously don’t understand that seo is constantly changing and that they will die in this industry.
10. They believe page rank is important in rankings – this is inaccurate, page rank is useful when selling links but in terms of SERP positions it really doesn’t matter.

Well I feel like I’ve had a good rant about this, I could go on forever but I’ll keep it short, well ish anyway!

Ask.com and you shall receive..

Last night I was sat at home, relaxing not on my computer but watching TV with some friends and I happened to see a new Ask.com advert. Now I’m not sure if I’ve seen it before and just not paid attention to it, but last night I actually took it in. The advert was simply to promote the new design and usability at Ask.com. The advert showed an example of a simple search for London and what features you can utilize using ask.com

So I logged in to Ask.com this morning and did exactly as the advert indicated, I typed “London” in the search bar and immediately a Search Suggestions box drops down with relevant queries, top three being London, London underground map and London Map, all pretty relevant but I continued with just selecting London.

Once the three column results page was displayed my first impressions were nothing but admiration for what they had achieved. For so long have we been stuck in the world of 2 column search engines, the big G being the main cause for this as people get “familiar” with such layouts. Before you get scared it’s a very good design and it’s very web 2.0, with large fonts, clear headings, Maps, Current weather, images, Blogs and videos all being displayed on one page!

My goal was to find out some information on the London eye as I have never personally been on it. I used one of the related suggestions displayed on the left side column and was directed to a page full of useful information, photos and Blogs about the London Eye.

One really nice feature was that under the most relevant website (yes the first website really was the best) was a “More Tourist Attractions” drop down menu, which had all the other well known tourist hotspots for the city, again very easy to use.

So I thought to myself that ask have obviously used the best example on their TV advert so obviously the information about London would be of good quality. So I decided to search for “SEO”.

The results were quite different for a non geological search term. For a start only two columns were displayed so there were no images or videos or even Blogs listed on the page, my initial thoughts weren’t positive. However, I was about to discover something quite special, instead of expecting to have all the information in front of me without pressing the mouse more than twice I changed my ways. I clicked the “Blogs” tab on the left column and searched “SEO”.

I was immediately drawn over to the now “third” column which had appeared and listed were the “Top Feeds” which listed Seomoz, Seo Book, Matt Cutts, Seo BlackHat and Seo by the sea. To be honest the top three Blogs listed are in my opinion the three most useful bogs on the web in regards to seo, so top marks for this Ask.com. Something else caught my eye, under the main search results were two buttons, one named “Subscribe” and the other named “Post To”. If you click on the subscribe button a list a various feed readers are displayed which you can subscribe to very quickly, a nice feature if you’re in a hurry. Also the Post to button has incorporated the social media aspect of the web and you can bookmark directly using this button to such sites as Digg and Reddit.

In conclusion Ask.com has really impressed me in terms of usability and content and after using it for only around ten minutes, reverting back to Google, it just doesn’t feel the same. I suggest everyone have a look around the new site and let me know what you think?