Disclaimer: this is the author’s personal opinion and is not the opinion or policy of cognitiveSEO or of the little green men that have been following us all day.

Our weekly link building technique column has been dormant for a while as I was link building by guest posts on other SEO blogs myself. You might have noticed or read these postings already. Maybe I will collect them at the bottom in the comment section for those that haven’t yet. This week I’d like to write about a technique that you don’t use for a site that represents a legit business.

The loss of a positive image and reputation can sometimes by itself be more devastating than the actual gain in new links.

I don’t want to preach the obvious things that comment spamming or using linkfarms may seriously harm your business or that you have to use paid links at your own peril.  I hope you know the basics.

After reading a recent post on SEO Book, I decided to explain why link baiting by pissing in your own pool is a bad idea. In this post a guest author whose most outstanding contribution to the SEO industry in the recent years are a few posts on Search Engine Watch in 2007 and being an editor for the niche social news community Sphinn until 2009 lashes out against “celebrity” SEO bloggers.

Don’t get me wrong, I love outspoken individuals that have something to say, especially something that improves the overall quality of the SEO discipline. I have made a name for me initially be being critical of SEO myself. There is a fine line between getting attention by saying outrageous things and link baiting by attacking people that are a thousand times better than you though.

When you represent a legit business you don’t want to offend people that made the industry what it is.

By legit I mean the business model, the niche you’re in and the products or services you offer. Some businesses like gambling, weapons or porn remain questionable even in case you have a sound business plan and only use legit tactics in SEO and beyond.

For SEO, which is by itself a legit business, unless you mistake SEO for spam, this tactic is a nono. You might think you are a “SEO star” or work in a self proclaimed “world’s leading SEO agency” and even write a blog post here or there as long as you keep you mouth shut and don’t offend people other professionals may ignore you so that you can keep bragging.

When you decide to attack the true industry leaders to get links you’ve better have good reason to do so.

In this case there is no such reason. In my example the guest poster on SEO Book uses a whole paragraph to tell us how exceptional his SEO company is. Then he goes on to complain how he can’t get enough true SEO experts to work for him. That would be just a boring guest post. Then he goes on to blame SEO bloggers at large and implicitly the most important publication out there, SEOmoz. He explains that as SEOmoz gave up consulting services they can’t write about SEO anymore because they have no real practice. He goes on to explain that the lack of proper SEO professionals today is to blame on SEO bloggers like SEOmoz who have no clue what they write about.

I’ve written a post on how you get links by nurturing relationships. This is perhaps the most important long term link building strategy. You depend on your peers for getting links. They link and share the content you write and make it thus available to a broader audience. In case you don’t have an audience yourself, nobody knows you or consider you an expert you can’t just exclaim that you are one and that you’re better than longstanding industry “celebrities”.

Apparently some people assume that talking often enough at expensive conferences is akin to gaining authority.

Speaking in front of a paying but limited audience might get you some recognition but it’s the resources you share with the public that make you what you are. Just saying you are the “world’s leading” or “best” SEO company doesn’t suffice. You have to prove it publicly by giving away your knowledge. This way peer review and actual demand decides whether you get the recognition as true leader in the industry.

I’ve been to just a few conferences as a speaker and wasn’t particularly impressed. It’s great for networking but is not enough to become an authority in your trade. When I can’t remember anything of lasting value you have contributed you can’t convince me that you are better than somebody who contributes meaningful resources all the time.

I don’t want to dwell too long on this example but this author blames the lack of educated SEO professionals on SEO bloggers not the lack of actual SEO education. He wants ready made experts to apply at his company but not invest in “years” of education himself. Instead he warns that reading SEO blogs by “celebrities” may even harm these SEO professionals in the making. Instead of reading blogs they have to read books.

I can’t imagine any industry or discipline where reading blogs is meant to be a substitute for formal education, education on the job or reading books.

Are cycling bloggers guilty of not teaching professional cyclist how to win the Tour the France? Are bloggers who write about space exploration to blame for the lack of properly trained astronauts?

I’ve written in the past that you can gain links by being ridiculous. You can’t do it by accident though. Sounding ridiculous without noticing is the worst you can do. Especially when you attack somebody who is way above you and more trustworthy. This is not about self proclaimed SEO stars only. This is about any industry or niche: You don’t want to shout that you are the greatest while spitting on the people who are really great. This is how not to build links as a legit business. After you do it your business looks a lot less legit and you lost much of the support by influencers from within your industry.

Don’t piss in your own pool for link building.

Btw.: When you write in your title tag that you are the” world’s leading SEO agency” at least try to rank for [seo agency] otherwise you also ridicule yourself. Bragging properly must be learned as well. Also advocating paid links in public is no proof of your expertise.

The post SEO Stars: How Not to Build Links as a Legit Business appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

One of the most common blogging mistakes when it comes to corporate and business blogs is being opportunistic.

Just earlier today I have been interviewed by one of the largest German radio stations. I haven’t been interviewed as an SEO specialist or SEO blogger though.  I work from Germany and I also blog in German but not about SEO. One of my blogs I have created in the past for clients and still write for is called zeitgeist. As the name already suggests to some extent the blog deals with trends, design, gadgets and the likes.

So I have been interviewed as a blogger of a client blog.

The topic of the interview was Apple, or rather its changing image from the cool outsider to the scary huge moloch. I’ve been critical of Apple for years, like I sometimes also am of Google on my SEO blog. Almost everybody else has been hyping Apple products parroting their ads.

I didn’t like the Apple hype so I started looking behind the curtain of corporate PR and I’ve found things I didn’t like, lots of them. Back then most people didn’t want to read that. Nonetheless I took a stand and over time I’ve become one of the few if not the only blogger really critical of Apple in Germany.

Most other bloggers have been opportunistic, they were just writing what everybody else already did

and what Apple announced itself. The iPhone, iPad or whatever are “magic”, “revolutionary” etc. Their business model was sometimes simply to sell Apple products but mine wasn’t.

The blog I’m talking about is a blog for a price or shopping comparison engine. Or rather it’s less engine it’s more a place where the people are meant to review products. So It’s also a review site. The blog wasn’t really about the ad revenue so I didn’t care. My client knew that I was a real blogger and they let me write what I wanted. 

Do you think I’m really controversial or something? Well, I’m not. I just take a stand and I don’t follow every hype. When I started blogging in 2003 most bloggers were like that. They were very critical and didn’t have to abide by corporate rules or business logic. These days most blogs have to earn money in some way and thus the posts they publish are often shallow, “salesy” or feigning objectivity.

Business bloggers are afraid to get sued, to scare off advertisers or readers.

Or they just hype stuff they sell themselves so they can’t criticize it. Corporate and business blogs do not have to be dull, boring and opportunistic though. Businesses often have whole teams of lawyers. So while bloggers who had no money were not afraid to say what has to be said business bloggers backed by professionals are? Isn’t it a paradox?

There are hundreds of bloggers who write about Apple but they interviewed me because I expressed my honest opinion and didn’t just regurgitate PR. So of all the hundreds of bloggers they chose me for the interview. Also Apple is by far not the only topic I write about. Other blogs deal with Apple only.

Journalists have to at least appear objective while they are not.

Most publications are obviously biased, just think Fox News or CNN and compare them to the BBC and Al Jazeera. Everybody has an agenda. Also most journalism today is about republishing from the major news agencies like

• Reuters
• AFP
• DPA.

In contrast bloggers are by definition subjective and may err. You don’t blog public relations messages or press releases in corporate newspeak. A real person has to blog. A real person has real feelings, preferences and even prejudices. All of these make the blogger trustworthy.

The reader knows the blogger’s limitations and how to read the particular blog.

Readers don’t want more of the same they read everywhere. They want a recognizable voice, they want honest opinions, they want a personal view on things. This is what blogging is about. Business and especially corporate bloggers tend to forget that. Such blogs often fail. The real authentic blogs on the other hand get called up when a national radio station needs an expert to talk to.

How to take a stand when blogging for business?

1. Express yourself and your opinion saying “I don’t like x”, “I prefer y”.
2. Cite other, sometimes less known sources “x reports about issues with y”
3. Be honest about your bias “I’ve never been a fan of x”
4. Point out that you represent your own opinion not the company you work for’, say “I” not “we”.
5. Stay true to yourself and when you change your mind say it
6. Don’t follow every hype just to get a few more ad dollars or followers
7. Accept that not every reader has to agree with you
8. Be respectful nonetheless, don’t attack people for no reason
9. When there is a reason, you have the right to be angry (the iPhone suicides are one)
10. Don’t dwell on the positive aspects only, you’re describing not advertising

In the long run intelligent people choose the honest blogs over the shallow ones. When I look at the most popular blogs these days even though they are part of huge media companies by now I still recognize outspoken or controversial individuals behind them. I don’t even like many of them but I even know their names:

• Ariana Huffington
• Pete Cashmore
• Michael Arrington
• Om Malik
• Cory Doctorow

So as a blogger you have to find your voice and make the people out there on the Internet recognize it. I’m still learning how to do it. Now that I write for three SEO blogs I have to manage to stay myself while having a both recognizable and unique voice on each one of them.

* CC image by Trey Ratcliff

The post When Business Blogging Take a Stand appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

This is the second post of our weekly column – link building technique 2: go where the attention is

Bloggers in most cases do not break news. Unless your plane has crashed and you have survived to make the first photo of the aftermath you won’t have the opportunity to be the first person to report something very often. The few big press agencies in most cases decide what’s “news”: Reuters, AP or DPA.

Some stuff that gets reported is actually not really news at all, the latest Apple product launch for example or  Lady Gaga’s new hair cut. Nonetheless large numbers of people follow these news. In many cases these non-news are actually much more popular than the news that really matter.

Bloggers can’t report the big news first hand in most cases but they can ride the wave of current news like surfers.

People direct their attention towards what they perceive to be important based on it being widely reported. So in case everybody reports the new “revolutionary” Apple product is out it must be truly outstanding.

News outlets like newspapers, TV stations and other old media are quite limited on the Web. They can’t do what you can do as a small time blogger. There are many ways to ride the wave of current news. This technique is not one dimensional.

1. You can collect the news for an overview or digest
2. You can analyze the news to find out how much truth is in it
3. You can find out the pros and cons of something that has been reported
4. You can point out the aspects that have been underreported in a story
5. You can denounce the new development and explain why
6. You can connect the new event to similar past events and contextualize it

There are even more ways to use this technique. In order to get links from other people who already are looking for the news you need to add something. Just repeating the news as if you are the original source does not make sense. People won’t link to you but to CNN, NYT or the BBC. You may be lucky to get a “via” link but these days most links are likes or tweets where the via is dropped altogether.

You can’t simply add the obvious either. A famine in Africa is evidently horrible so telling the world your opinion how desolate it is won’t be of any use to anybody. Also exclaiming why the latest Apple product is “revolutionary and magic” is nothing more than repeating the latest ad. You have to add something that not everybody else is already assuming and it has to be of value for the people who already focus on the news item.

Sometimes it makes sense to disagree with everybody else.

When everybody is hailing something new as the next big thing I get annoyed anyways. Everything has pros and cons and thus when everyone is trying to tell me that the latest Apple product is revolutionary I will point out that it isn’t. Most Apple products just “reinvent” what we already have and present it as something completely new. That’s simply not true. It was that way with the iPhone and the iPad.

In case you are someone who is opportunistic and prefers to agree with everybody you can compile a list of people agreeing on an issue so that others don’t have to browse the Internet for hours. When a new social media hype starts and Robert Scoble tells everybody to join in and follow him I’m not one of the sheep anymore and join in the chorus. I will instead search for similar opinions and make a list of people who support a new site like I did with Google+.

Even better is a list with resources for using the new popular site.

People on the Web love tools for everything and in case a new service is out they search for services that automate some functions. They need shortcuts for the use cases they know from elsewhere and some tricks to get things done faster. Compiling such a list is a surefire way to get links from these people. Unless of course the hype is completely made up. I remember my resources lists on Google Buzz and Quora, both got barely any mentions and links because people are not as stupid to swallow each and every hype.

Lists still work quite well and when an established service or software gets relaunched the chance of getting some attention and inbound links can be the highest.

Everybody is using Google Analytics but only a few people have the time to use all its features. Also some of them are quite complex and not easy to find in the first place. When Google launched the new version of Google Analytics recently, V5, many people were overwhelmed by the interface changes. Thus lists that showed what’s changed and the whereabouts of old features in the new UI were very useful and I bookmarked and shared them.

You must add something that matters for the audience who is already interested in the subject to ride the wave.

Otherwise you will drown in it. Everybody else and their aunt will publish the same “news” at the same time so unless you can differentiate yourself from the others there is no real chance of getting a considerable amount of links. Nobody will notice you.

The best way to give the audience what it wants is to do something the old media can’t do. They can’t link out to their competition for instance. So the CNN site will not link out to the BBC and Al Jazeera because they cover the same story. Drudge Report and you can do it though. Drudge is a one man one page website that has until recently even outranked Google News in their regular results for [news]. Drudge has been the best news overview for a decade.

Moreover you can rant on your blog, be subjective and even outrageous.

News organizations who at least attempt to appear as objective (while they aren’t) can not. Also you can be wrong and admit it later without losing your job. That’s blogging.

In case you have more than one writer on your blog and you have unique numbers in your URLs you can apply to be included in Google News results. Then it’s even easier to ride the current news wave as you get displayed among the premiere news sources.

Otherwise just monitor the news for events that are related to your blog and when the wave starts to form make sure to be one of the first to jump on it. I’m not the only person to try it so you have to be quick. Reacting to yesterday’s news won’t result in new links either. Even Google Alerts may suffice for a start.

* CC image by Hani Amir

The post How to Ride the Wave of Current News appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.