Find Infographics in Competitor’s Top Linked Pages

If you know your competitors are using infographics for link bait, then your best bet is to start by doing a little digging into their backlink profile to see which infographics make a dent. You can start with the inBound Link Analysis tool’s list of top linked pages to see if infographics make the cut of the top 20 linked pages on the domain.

You can also use the Visual Link Explorer to see top linked pages and hover over them to see which ones are infographics.

The Visual Link Explorer will let you know which infographics have the strongest backlinks based on the dot size.

It can also help you quickly find the types of sites that would be likely to link to your infographics. Make sure to note these as you might want to pitch them your infographic once it’s published. The site owners may even appreciate it if you let them know that you’re sharing your infographic with them because you saw that they published something similar in the past.

See Infographics Published on Mashable

Another way to find out what infographics are likely to get the most amount of attention (and thus, the most amount of backlinks) is to look at the infographics published over at Mashable.

Since they changed the layout, you can keep scrolling down to continue loading older posts. Then use your browser’s find option (usually CTRL+F or command+F) to find infographics on keywords related to your industry. You can even hover over each of the posts to see the social sharing summary.

Another top site to find infographics that are popular? Holy Kaw! They don’t have an infographics category, so you might just want to use Google search (site:holykaw.alltop.com infographic) to see if they’ve published infographics on a specific topic.

Want to get your infographic published on a site like Mashable or Holy Kaw? Start building relationships with the people who write the infographic posts through blog comments, social shares, etc. Then you may be in a good position to just “let them know” about your infographic in hopes that they will publish it.

Identify Trending Topics Related to Your Niche

If you have access to a designer, then one way to make sure you get lots of social shares and links is to create an infographic based on a trending topic. You can see what Google considered a trending topic at Google Trends. You can also watch the top news blogs in your industry too see if they all start talking about a specific topic.

The key to trending topics is timing. The sooner you can get your infographic published, the sooner you can start getting links to it. Once you publish it, you should use keep an eye out on all the blogs that are writing about the topic. Then contact them to see if they want to add an informative infographic to their post. If your infographic is good and has lots of relevant information, you’ll likely get your link.

SeoQuake in Google Search

Speaking of Google Search, you can use SeoQuake to find out how many backlinks each page in search results has. You can then sort the pages by number of backlinks.

In some cases, you’ll probably find posts with a collection of infographics. These are good pages to research as you’ll see what kind of infographics bloggers love. Getting your infographic published in one of these posts can lead to a strong backlink since collections get linked to often.

What other ways do you research infographic topics that will be great link bait?

The post Identifying the Best Topics for Infographic Link Bait appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

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.

In this week I prepared something special in our link building technique column: Building links by being ridiculous.

Some people believe that trust, authority and credibility are crucial when it comes to organic link building. Why else would be people want to link back to you? Well, they would because you are ridiculous.

Just last week I advised you not be ridiculous so did I change my mind? No, I mean another kind of ridiculous. You are not meant to be ridiculous by accident. Instead you have to be ridiculous on purpose. Just consider these two famous projects:

• I can has Cheezburger
• The Oatmeal

You probably know at least one of them and they are truly ridiculous you have to admit. What you may not know is that the man behind The Oatmeal was a quite well known SEO specialist before he started it as a side project which quickly turned out so much money that he ended his career in the SEO industry to focus on being ridiculous full time. Yes, it’s Matthew Inman formely of SEOmoz.

Just take a look at the impressive backlink numbers both sites have in case you don’t know them or don’t believe me yet. According to Blekko icanhascheezburger.com has 730,212 inbound links while The Oatmeal still sports 164,236 incoming links. Not bad is it? As Blekko numbers are quite conservative we better compare them to something we might imagine the link popularity of, SEOmoz.

The probably most popular site in the SEO industry has 259,690 backlinks. So given the fact that Matthew Inman left SEOmoz after four years of existence in 2007 he gained so many links with his new venture in half the time that SEOmoz had for their link building. As far as I can see The Oatmeal is still a one man show so that makes it even more impressive. I can has Cheezburger is a 30 million dollar venture capital business now. That’s as much as Tumblr received this year as well. Tumblr is one of the biggest blogging sites on the Web today, even bigger than WordPress. Back when I can has Cheezburger started it was also just run by two people.

Ridiculous = memorable

So now that you see it works the only logical question now is: I can has links? Yes, you can has! You don’t have to be ridiculous full time. Sometimes just a tiny bit of ridiculousness can help you quite a bit. For instance my avatar is so ridiculous that over the years I’ve become one of the most recognizable figures in the SEO industry, at least online. I have considered changing the avatar to look more trustworthy but by now the ridiculous Mexican with the huge white sombrero and fake sideburns is already too famous to abandon it.

Ridiculous = outstanding

Not everybody can afford to be ridiculous and still look good. One way to be ridiculous is by poking fun at somebody. The best person to poke fun at to be ridiculous is you. I’ve been successfully ridiculing myself in the past numerous times. I have written blog posts like 57 reasons not to read my blog. I could do it beacuse the blog was outstanding enough to stand such a posts ridiculing itself. Also being ridiculous on purpose is outstanding by itself. People are taken off guard. I remember a guy I knew from Chicago who went to anti-war demonstrations. As the police in the US does not like people protesting and many protestors have been arrested for next to nothing he had one advice for me: Wear a ridiculous hat! Everybody will notice you but nobody will know what you are up to.

Ridiculous = courageous

These days everything is ridiculous. Just watch TV for a few minutes, consider trillions for bank bailouts or browse the Web randomly for a while.  We’re so used to it that we don’t even notice it anymore. What? Another financial crisis? Another country bankrupt? Who cares. So it takes courage and lots of effort to even try to be ridiculous enough to get noticed. You can be ridiculous where nobody expects it. Just look at the group postings I’m sometimes part of. Everybody is pictured with their real life serious or friendly looking images. I’m the only guy who has a ridiculous avatar.

Ridiculous = trustworthy

So you see, people will notice you because you’re ridiculous and then wonder “How can this guy get away with it?”. Once they realize you can and why they will adore you and respect you, not because you’re trustworthy and boring but because you can be ridiculous without having to be ashamed of it. As long as the core of your message is truthful you can dress it up in a ridiculous costume. In the past when monarchies ruled the world the jerk aka court jester was the only one who was allowed to say the truth. To this day people trust the jerks. Just consider some late night show hosts.

Ridiculous = hilarious

Most people love to laugh. Laughing at the computer screen is very difficult. Usually you laugh with other people when you’re laid back in the evening or during the weekend. So here you are staring at the screen and laughing. This is really hard to accomplish so you are so glad and thankful that you want to share the experience with others. You spread the word on social media and link back to the ridiculous aka hilarious page.

There is no blueprint on how to be successfully ridiculous on purpose.

You have to find out in your won niche, industry or country. First try by adding conventional humor to your average post or article. You can use colloquial language. Exaggerate. Use funny names for yourself and your products. Just think of Google and their data liberation front.

One day you’ll become ridiculous in the most positive sense of it. Then the overall success will be astonishing. Return on that day and comment here please. Tell the others how you did it. I can has links? Yes, you can has!

* CC image by Sharyn Morrow.

The post I Can Has Links? Building Links by Being Ridiculous appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

In this week’s link building technique column I’d like to write about bragging. Yes, bragging, as in telling people you’re the best. I don’t just mean success stories and case studies. I’m talking about bragging like hip hop stars do. Also I want to explain how to make people link to you by bragging.

Just watch the typical mainstream video with the “hot chicks”, big cars and gold chains. These may be cliches but they are still working even after thirty years of hip hop.

While you most probably think that these videos are stupid, sexist and even fake (after all everybody can rent an expensive car for a video shoot) think about it for a minute: Why do these bragging videos work so well?

People want to get inspired. Modesty does not inspire. Bragging does.

People want to see people similar to them who made it. They want to see why and how as well but at first the braggart has to catch their attention.

I don’t even own a car, I’m a cyclist but even I notice a sportscar when I see one. Also I know the difference when driving with someone else who owns one. People, especially women, really look at you. I think this is a remainder of our ancient past as animals but nonetheless it works.

On the Web nobody can see you and nobody knows that you rock. Unless of course you tell them and behave like a rock star. The early John Chow is an example of this art. Many people followed this path and some mastered the self fulfilling prophecy method as well. My favorite rockstar of this sort is Glen of Viperchill.

Glen made it by showing off what he already accomplished. He was bragging and inspiring at the same time. On the Web you don’t just brag to impress people. You brag to inspire others to follow your path. I have tried it myself and was quite successful for a while. I didn’t take it as far as Glen and thus my success was limited but I don’t say I was right to do so. I was just too busy to keep going like that.

People love successful individuals. They want to be like them.

That’s a natural reaction. Who wants to be a loser? In most cases we fail often enough to need inspiration by somebody who succeeds. You don’t have to be a superstar from day one. Glen was a teenager when he started on his path to online success.

Of course people subscribed and linked to his blogs (as he already had two of them, one he was able to sell). They shared his success stories and inspirational pieces of advice on social media. I did myself and I still do from time to time even though I’m less active on social media these days than once.

You don’t have to be a rapper though and wear gold chains thick enough to get used for ship anchors. On the Web sometimes a few stats are enough. You have to show them off and explain what you did.

You have to use strong language and impressive numbers to stress their importance. Something like “How I Got a Conversion Rate of 4%” won’t help but “How My Conversion Rate Skyrocketed 300% in Three Days” can. In fact your conversion rate could have grown from 1% to 4% so that time period so that both post headlines would be true.

In recent years I’ve tried to be more modest when I wrote blog posts. I tried to be more business like and less emotional. I wanted to be more objective and less inspirational. I only became boring. People do not want to read mediocre stuff. Life is short so why waste time and effort on small steps when you can make big ones?

In reality you need the small steps as well. You need lots of small steps. There are a few huge leaps but there are the small steps along the way, all the time. People want to read about the huge leaps not the small steps though. Just watch the popular videos on YouTube, When it comes to sports like skateboarding, BMX or parkour the bigger and more spectacular the jumps the higher the number of views.

Also in reality not always the awesome looking stunts are the hardest. Sometimes the less obvious things are harder to accomplish. Nonetheless on the Web we’re dealing not only with hypertext but also hyperreality.

Some of the most awe-inspiring images having the most people spread them are simply Photoshop manipulations.

You don’t have to fake to make it like some suggest. Just focus on the success you have and don’t be afraid to show it off to inspire other people. In such a way many of the sports videos I have mentioned above are filmed from the bottom so that it looks as if the skater is jumping sky high while instead he’s just a few meters above ground.

So provide the best possible perspective to make people want to spread your message on Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr. Don’t be modest on the Web where attention is crucial. You can succeed without bragging but if you want to truly inspire people you have to show off. One of the most successful bloggers, Darren Rowse has been doing it for years and it still works.

What you don’t want is to look ridiculous though. The bragging can’t be over the top.

You can’t show off much more than you have so you need to focus on your true strengths. One of the most successful rappers today is Jay Z. I remember his early work. He was rapping about how he was rich and famous even before he really was but it wasn’t vulgar or obnoxious. His biggest successes followed later with sound business strategy. Nonetheless he was already inspiring even to me in my youth.

When even a black guy from the poor inner city can make it and become a millionaire why can’t I?

This is the question that is most inspiring in such a case. You don’t have to make millions, sometimes a successful blog is enough to inspire other bloggers to link to you. Be as open as possible as possible to be living proof. Once you’re the superstar you professed to be you don’t have to brag as much any more. That’s one of the reasons I stopped bragging.

So let me summarize. What do you need to make people link to you by bragging?

1. Succeed at something and unearth this success
2. Collect statistics showing this success or make images depicting it
3. Be enthusiastic about your successful actions
4. Cover the few huge leaps, don’t focus on the many small steps in-between too much
5. Do not appear ludicrous by showing off more than you have
6. Limit your bragging once everybody knows about your success

* CC image by Kim Erlandsen.

The post How to Make People Link to You by Bragging appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

In our weekly link building technique column I’d like to elaborate on last week’s post on ego feeding and introduce the concept of trust transfer. By definition links provide trust transfer to some extent. You link out to a site you trust in most cases, even if you disagree. There is even a so called Trustrank by Yahoo. Many people argue that Google uses a very similar concept to assign trust to websites. I don’t want to cover this aspect of trust on the Web. Instead I’d like to

focus on the more direct measure of trust we encounter on the Web.

When visiting a website for the first time visitors usually look out for common signs of a site being trustworthy. It’s not only clean usable and readable design it’s also about real signs like logos or badges.  In a way it’s about trust transfer by association. You might not know the site you visit yet and be undecided whether you can trust it or not but visible signs of trust like logos of well known brands can make you trust the new site as well.

You have certainly witnessed this kind of trust transfer on the Web.

1. Usually in a list of clients a company attempts to place at least some logos you might recognize.
2. The payment methods are also a way to display signs showing that other confirm your trustworthiness.
3. Another way to make you appear trustworthy is the “as seen in” press appearances portfolio symbolized by logos of the publications that have written about you or your business.

On the Web there is also a newer version of this: badges. All kinds of sometimes wacky badges have been common for years on the Web. It has been an old school SEO trick to build links by letting websites win awards so that they will display them on their sites. Of course the number of meaningless awards grew exponentially over time so that soon enough webmasters got disenchanted with them.

The idea behind awards and badges is still alive

but today you have to offer real value to establish yourself as a website able to transfer trust. Of course you have to be trusted yourself to be able to transfer trust elsewhere but you don’t have to be the number one authority in your industry. You can transfer what trust you have to others and by doing it even multiply your own trust.

First let’s take a look at a badge that is commonly used in our industry and the site which is behind it: the AdAge Power 150. AdAge is one of the most prominent marketing publications and it has enough trust to spread you might argue. On the other hand it gets lots of the trust from the blogs that display the badges actually. In the same way that worthless website awards have earned links for the shallow award sites here the bloggers who take part, as you have to opt in, do it on their account because they seek the trust transfer.

The Power 150 goes beyond feeding egos, it provides not only trust transfer it also has a value on its own.

By clicking on your badge a reader can look some stats about the listed blog. The number on the badge changes depending on these stats. My two other blogs, SEO 2.0 and SEOptimise are already listed. As I shifted my time and focus over the years from the first to the second one SEO 2.0 lost my position in the top 150. At the same time SEOptimise entered the top 150. So the badge is a dynamic one that gets updated frequently. It’s not just frills.

Originally the Power 150 was an independent website. It was later on acquired by AdvertisingAge. So you don’t have to start from a well known and respected site. You can build it up yourself. Also some people, social media marketer Mack Collier for example, weren’t that happy with the “partnership” back then. They considered it a negative example of “just linkbait”. I don’t like the term linkbait myself. I have argued in the past that you have to rethink the term to be able to deal with the people you bait as people not fish.

You need link incentives. Personally I haven’t added the AdAge badge to my SEO 2.0 blog. I applied to be listed on the Power 150 but even at the time when I was in the top 150 actually not 300+ like now the temptation wasn’t enough. There are many others though who do insert the badge on their blog. SEOptimise does for instance.

In the best case your link incentive is so strong that you do not only get viewed as a linkbait attempt

but that people can identify with you and are proud to display you badge. AdAge apparently hasn’t done much beyond creating the badge but their success is already considerable. So the trust transfer and the value the stats offer is enough for many bloggers to link back.

Another fresher example of trust transfer is Alltop.

It’s a fairly new venture and wasn’t popular from day one. The founder had some influence to provide a good start for it but it wasn’t the most important factor in making it a success. Alltop is basically a hand picked blog RSS feed directory displaying the latest posts from a few dozen chosen blogs for each topic. There is a selection of SEO blogs, there are far more popular ones for web design or gadgets.

Alltop not only offers trust transfer and value for webmasters, it also has more than one use cases for the average web user. It offers a reliable curation of the best blogs in almost every niche and can be used as an RSS reader. In cases where you don’t know the authorities in each niche you can go to Alltop and find an overview of them. So the site has an actual function. I think you can also apply to get listed on Alltop but both of the SEO blogs I have written for until now, SEOptimise and SEO 2.0 have been added by the Alltop team.

I see some dark horses on that Alltop SEO page as well, where I’m not really sure whether they deserve to be there but as I trust the team on the whole I think they had their reasons to include them. Many bloggers also use Alltop badges on their pages. I consider doing so as well.  I may even add it instead of the AdAge badge which is huge and also shows that there hundreds of other blogs more important than mine. Also I don’t consider SEO to be about “ads”. The Alltop badge is a static one but as the site has a very strong use case is enough.

You don’t have to be a successful startup entrepreneur either to transfer trust though. Even a blogger can do it.

Tamar Weinberg has started to transfer trust with her by now legendary top 100 blog posts of the year lists. I’d be proud to show off such a badge just for the sheer expertise and name of Tamar.

In the search industry we also have the SEMMY’s. It’s also a way to highlight excellent blog postings but takes a bit more of work than one person can do. Still even the SEMMy’s are no multimillion dollars endeavor and I guess many advertising budgets are bigger than the costs of staging the SEMMY awards. Even many blogs just nominated for the SEMMY awards display the “SEMMY nominee” badge.

Link building by trust transfer is even better than simple ego feeding. You provide value and the trust transfer goes both ways. It’s another win to win link building technique both the linking to party and the linked one appreciate.

Btw. do you need a badge for trust transfer? I don’t think so but it simplifies the linking.

CC image by Nick Ford.

The post How to Build Links by Providing Trust Transfer appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

In our weekly link building technique column I introduce acquiring links by feeding egos. It might sound a bit weird as most people consider egoism or the ego itself a trait to be ashamed of. So do we actually forage on the negative or even try to take advantage of people into linking to us? No, we and you have just to

appeal to those who you like and make it worthwhile to link back to you.

So again this technique is not a “SEO trick” to fool people, it’s a way to ensure a true win to win situation takes place. In this case you give a lot and receive a lot as a result. What do you give first to be remunerated with a link? You link out. You not only link out you “flatter by association”.

You can make a list of “best of” x list for instance. X can be a blog, a website, even a brand or personal brand. In the best case you combine all of them. Example: “the best SEO blogs” is a typical ego feeding hook I fall prey to when other people are linkbaiting. As I write for two well known SEO blogs for years I tend to wind up on these lists. The CognitiveSEO blog does not show up on these yet but soon enough will as well.

I digress though. The purpose of setting up a the best x blogs list is manifold:

1. You show the others in the niche that you know and like them.
2. They notice you and remember you later.
3. They may even comment.
4. They may spread the news/share the link on social media.
5. In the best case they link back to you. They may today, or they might half y year from now.
6. Also you will rank the term x blogs or x blog in future.

Of course you also make some of the bloggers mentioned in your post part of your audience. Some of them may return of their own accord, others may even subscribe to your blog. Many will forget you until they see another post of yours in their Twitter, Facebook or Google+ stream so make sure to connect with them on these platforms.  Don’t steal time though. Most influencers, connectors and social media mavens have enough to do so time is a sparse resource. Rather reply to their messages and postings than pushing yours.They will become interested in you anyways. Do not focus solely on a-list blogs though.

Famous bloggers do not have the time to connect with new bloggers and they don’t need to anymore.

They are so well known that most of their posts spread by themselves by now. I can see it on the blogs I write for. On SEOptimise posts get shared by the hundreds. On SEO 2.0 only some posts get popular and in most cases they need an initial push to work. Here on CognitiveSEO even some outstanding posts remained unnoticed without active promotion efforts despite the fact that I have a pretty large readership due to my personal brand.

So it’s not the big guys who will help you most in many cases, it’s your peers,

bloggers who are as popular as yourself, or in case of beginners starting out like you do. A guest post on an a-list blog can bring you a larger traffic wave but it’s the other bloggers who are similar to you that will be your readership and send you more visitors repeatedly.

Thus a list of top blogs should be as big as possible and as inclusive as possible. As not all niches and all countries have hundreds of blogs you won’t be able to make it huge everywhere but in some niches beyond SEO a “100 great x blogs” is possible.  You can mix some similar niches or you simply do not focus on the best of but on a comprehensive list. Quality beats quantity though. In case you decide to add crappy or dead blogs just for the sake of getting more weblogs to link to the active bloggers you mention might not feel flattered or even be amused.

Here are some examples of successful feeding ego link baits for SEO bloggers and beyond:

1. Top 100 Social Media, Internet Marketing & SEO Blogs – 2011 | Cision Blog
2. The Ultimate List of SEO Blogs | Yello Robin Blog
3. 29 SEO Experts Share the Most Compelling Content that Influenced Their Works | Kaiserthesage

I also want to point out an older list that didn’t work out as well despite of containing lots of the best resources:

The Top 100 SEO & SEM Resources | Sam Tilston

Why didn’t this post get as much social media and link love? It  contained too many a-list blogs or sites whose owners did not even notice they were included in the list. Mentioning the obvious champions is not enough. Those who are on top don’t care anymore even when they notice. To put it bluntly,

a-list blogger egos are obese by now.

Feed the hungry egos to acquire links. Don’t forget the most important ones of course but the most important 10 may not notice you. My ego is still small enough to notice and appreciate incoming links. I may even use cognitiveSEO tools to search for my backlinks and find out. Also my ego is not too big to appreciate others like I did with the best linkbuilding blogs post.

* CC image by Xabier M.

The post How to Acquire Links by Feeding Egos 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.