5 Reasons Why Copying Links is Bad for You

When you start out in link building, almost everyone recommends to check out your competitors. And I agree: it is very important to know who you're dealing with in the SERPs.
Many people additionally recommend to "get" all those links your competitors have built so far. However, this can be a potentially dangerous and rather inefficient approach to link building. Let me tell you why.
1. You will never truly lead the rankings
It sure does sound promising and logical. Just copy all the links that can be copied of, say, the top 20 ranking websites for your target keywords. Depending on your niche, this may or may not be a ridiculous amount of work, but it can be done if necessary.
However, this has one implication: even if this works out great and you reach the top (e.g. rank #1), you will never become an actual leader. Your ranking will probably stick for a while, but if just one of those 20 competitors is actively building links on a daily basis, he passes you in no time.
Now if you approach the issue more thoroughly, you can try to copy all new links as soon as they appear in your favorite link research tool as well. This still has a serious problem to it, though: it's not natural.
2. It's unnatural and may get you penalized
Google watches link growth and link building velocities very closely. If all of a sudden, you start "obtaining" a healthy chunk of your competitors' links (which they probably acquired over a couple of years), your site is likely to be checked by one of Google's quality raters.
This can trigger severe penalties, rendering all of your work useless. If you're really unlucky, Google may even trust all of your links less, effectively devaluing even the links you've had before.
3. You risk being reported
SEOs really don't like to see their hard work copied. But it happens all the time nonetheless.
However, some competitors might take this very seriously and report you to Google - and you may be in for a penalty and link devaluation once again.
4. You depend on link research tools
I bet if there was no Yahoo! Site Explorer (and similar services), 90% of all link-building SEOs would be out of work. Way too many SEOs actually depend on other peoples' link building strategies.
5. You're not seeing all the links there are
All available tools can only return a limited set of link data. Some do a better job than others, but no tool can show you all the links that Google has actually taken into consideration to build their rankings.
Savvy competitors hide their own link networks anyway.
But I need those links!
I know you do. But if you're really dependent on copying other peoples' links (which you shouldn't be!), at least do it the smart way.
This means absolutely not getting a link on the very same page on a target domain unless it's highly relevant.
Also, slow and steady wins the race. Don't pull one allnighter after another acquiring all those precious links at once. Set limits! Depending on your niche this may be one link a week or ten links a day. This also greatly depends on your existing link profile.
If you're just starting out, get your first links elsewhere anyway!
But most importantly, and this is my advice to you, instead of being a copycat, try to learn, understand, adapt and apply. Find new link sources, discover new link opportunities, broaden your horizon. If you do, the sky is the limit.

Why Your Linkbait Fails and How to Fix It

 

This post was originally in YOUmoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author’s views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of MaxSEO

Howdy Mozzers,

I've been spending a couple of weeks this summer in the Distilled office looking at the way they do linkbait in order to write up a guide on it.

Whilst researching and reading around what people had posted before, it became clear there were a handful of problems which kept cropping up why people were failing at linkbait. In this post, I hope to address some of the biggest headaches SEOs had.

We've Had Very Limited Success

1. No Outreach Plan

Don't wait until you've hit publish to start thinking about outreach. Like a marketing campaign in itself, you wouldn't build prototypes, injection-moulding systems and have a container load of widgets shipped across from China before you've spoken to and got reassurance from your customers well in advance that they'd love to buy it; ideally with pre-orders.

The same applies to linkbait.

You want to reach out to at least some of the linkerati beforehand and get your "guaranteed five links" before you even start your piece of linkbait. The good news is if lots of people are interested from the beginning and think it's a good concept, other people will probably like it and link to it later on too.

I interviewed some of the London Distilled SEO and PR team on their tips for effective outreach. Here's a sneak peak:

If you've already launched, Wiep Knol has some excellent tips for breathing life back into your linkbait here.

2. Your Concept Sucks

Tough love, but if your concept doesn't keep your linkerati wide awake at night buzzing about what you've just created (or have told them you're going to create) then your concept needs some improvement. Even in the most boring industries this is possible - harder perhaps, but possible.

Find out the motives for the linkerati being online; is it their job? Their hobby? Something they're expert in? Perhaps offer to interview them to build up a relationship to post on your website in advance to figure out what they're really passionate about - this will help with refining a pitch to them, even better when it's a warm lead.

3. You're Not Working Hard Enough

It's simple enough. You haven't worked hard enough. Now there may be some genuinely good reasons for that - family bereavement, hospitalization or some other horror - but most of the time it's down the lack of effective work.

You probably need a to hire a link building trainer...

… or get on a diet of productivity tips from the99percent pronto!

It's probably rooted in the fact that you're not excited enough. You haven't got a team around you grinning as you show them the latest update or the graphics back from the designer. You haven't got a clear purpose why you're creating a piece of linkbait. It'll help to identify why your creating this linkbait and what it means to people involved - that can be motivating.

My Linkbait Gets Copied by Competitors

1. You've Got Nothing or Little Unique

You don't have or you're not using something that's unique and can't be copied. Use proprietry data, your own contacts or something else which competitors don't have and can't acquire easily. It's only a really big problem if it's cannibalizing your links and preventing you from reaching future link targets. If it isn't though, don't fret too much - use it as a link prospecting tool though for future.

2. You're Not Thinking Creatively

Don't forget, you can still play the "first mover advantage" game if your kind of linkbait can be replicated fairly easily. That includes mashing up different linkbait tactics and hooks; perhaps an infographic linking back to an interactive tool. Try to maintain at least two different assets which are unique to you - that way you've got enough of a one-up over your competitors.

We Haven't Got the Resources

This one sounds plausible, but I still don't buy it for a second. Bootstrapped linkbait is harder yes, but still possible. You've just got to be more choosy in picking tactics and hooks to get links; there are some easy wins on a budget:

1. Design

If you've got a designer, or a designer friend or someone who's good but not ridiculously expensive.

Designers expect money in exchange for work. That's the way it works, even if you are on a wafer-thin budget. Look at crowdsourcing designs perhaps via 99designs or looking at the people using Fiverr for cheaper designers, at least to get in touch with them.

2. How-to Tutorials

You can't always outspend your competition, but you can out-teach them. Think of all the countless books on learning to program, and then Y Combinator startup Codecademy comes along - I can't wait to see what else they've got in store, but it's a fantastic, interactive how-to tutorial.

3. Interviews

Provided you can put together some riveting questions and pitch an interview in a way that doesn't tie up all their time. Wil Reynold's Pro Tip: Call them up with Google Voice [US only. Grrr...] during their commute or other "dead time", record your call and get it transcribed.

A good time to grab top end interviewees is when they're just about to launch a book. Hat tip to Andrew Warner of Mixergy.com for that one - when you're in a self-promotional mood, an interview opportunity is hard to turn down.

4. User-generated linkbait

Perhaps you've got a small email list, blog or twitter following you could work with to brainstorm and create effective linkbait?

One of my favourite tactics is to sound out a forum, put together a skeleton outline of what the article or guide might look like in Writeboard, then let the community edit it. If you establish yourself in the community first - be human and sincere like you would be face-to-face, not a self-promotional a-hole! - then it can be a incredibly effective way to crowdsource expert content. I've even had my spelling mistakes corrected for me :) Make sure to cite your contributors however; always be sincere.

It's All Overwhelming and Chaotic. I can't cope with it.

You've got no effective process. Try and map out the big picture of what needs to happen where before you start. With that all mapped out (maybe even as a printed chart on the wall), you can work on the very next step. By forcing yourself to jump over little hoops and checkpoints regularly your far more likely to produce effective linkbait.

There's plenty more tips and ideas like this in the linkbait guide, as well as a chance to get your questions answered in our Q&A Linkbait Webinar where two Distilled SEO Consultants will be answering your questions.

What's been your experience creating linkbait? An exhausting path of misery or a thrilling success story?

4 Tips for Creating Link Bait

While link bait is frequently seen as more "fun", and it's definitely more creative, than doing things like guest blogging or emailing people asking for links, it has its challenges. I wanted to share a few things I've learned about creating link bait from my experiences. If you have other insights, I'd love to hear them in the comments.

 

Keep a Tight Scope

In most cases you will want to keep your content extremely focused around your target, or the person that you are going to get to link to you (Justin wrote more about this process here). While it’s tempting to try and cast as wide of a net possible, typically you will be more successful focusing on targeting one or two targets (and shaping the content around these demographics) rather than trying to create content that targets everyone.

 

While this is really important for a lot of link bait content, there will obviously be exceptions to this rule. A couple examples come to mind (if you can think of others, feel free to leave a note in the comments):

 

• If your content or subject really is universally applicable – While this is very rare, there is some content topics that apply to almost everyone on the web. A good example of this would be Facebook; just about everyone on the internet has a Facebook account and has an interest in changes (especially when it involves privacy settings).
• Creating exhaustive guides – Super in-depth and extensive guides and documents can receive a lot of links if they are done really well. Think about how many links SEOmoz’s Beginners Guidehas received.

Keep the scope tight especially with revisions and additions. When you want to add in more content to make it better, or the client wants additions, you need to ask: “Will adding X improve the linkability of the link bait”?

Offer Something New

There are two aspects of this: perspective and information.

 

Perspective

The internet is huge; sometimes it feels like everything has already been written about. Fortunately people tend to write the same thing. If you want to write about a topic that has already been written about a lot, come at it from a different angle. If everyone is writing about why something sucks, write about why it’s awesome. And don’t just say it’s awesome, back it up and make a case for why it’s awesome.

 

Information

Though it seems like just about everything has been written about think about what you can contribute that other people don’t know.  Here are a few types of information you can use:

 

• Sales data – you can analyze your sales data and segment it by population, gender, or other information you collect in the sales process to contribute something new. Yes this data might not be completely accurate as it is your sales data and may not be representative of the market. That said, it is still new and typically unavailable to people.
• User data – When users register, ask them for information. If they have profiles on their site, ask them for information. Then anonymously aggregate this information and present it with pretty charts and graphics (More on this from Dr. Pete). OK Cupid does a great job of this with most of their blog posts. Check out this one on stuff white people like (original stuff white people like).

• Do your own research – Offering brand new data is great because no one else has it so you get to be the definite (linked) source for forthcoming references. This can be really helpful with infographics – if you are having a hard time finding research that someone has published, do the research yourself. Tools like Ask Your Target Market are great for this as they provide you with a large panel so you can get quick responses and you can focus your time on creating your link bait, not doing research.

 

Publish your data from the research you did and provide excel/csv downloads for people to be able to use the data to do their own research as a way of earning links. You can even go as far as requiring attribution to use the data.

Feedback is Key

 You need to make sure that your infographic is correct and there aren’t mistakes or typos. These will get your link bait torn apart on sites like Reddit. You should minimally have people looking at:

 

• Spelling/Proofreading – do you have typos or misspellings. It happens. A lot. Get someone who is really nitpicky and uptight to go over it.
• Technical details – Make sure that the content is technically correct and that you aren’t wrong. Find a subject matter expert and have them verify your work.
• Readability – While the linkbait might make complete sense to you and your cohorts, you this is your baby (and nobody thinks their baby is ugly) so some things that might seem obvious to you really aren’t obvious to everyone else. Have your mom look at this, kind of like when you were in grade school and your mom checked your homework. Get someone object who isn’t invested in the project verify that it makes sense (and that it’s cool).

 

Get subject matter experts (especially those who you would like a link from) involved in the project – reach out to them before the project launches, tell them they are awesome and ask them to review it because they know so much more than you. When it goes live tell them and thank them for their help. Then encourage them to share it. They have invested time in the project and are more likely to share.

Have a Killer Hook

You can have great data but if you don’t have a hook, then it is significantly less likely to succeed. Todd Malicoat has a great overview of link baiting hooks here that you should take a read through. I will list them here quickly for you though - to get the full explanation you'll have to read the post ;):

 

• News hook
• Contrary hook
• Attack hook
• Resource hook
• Humor hook
• Ego hook
• Incentive hook

 

While each of these hooks are effective, you should choose the hook based on who you are ultimately targeting and who you want to link to you. While a humor hook may work well for broad appeal, if you want to increase topically relevant links you might want to go with something like a resource hook or contrary hook.

 

If you have a strong community you can often use the ego hook to scale your link building and get your community to build links for you.

Likewise Copy Blogger has a crash course on magnetic headlines that you should read through. Having really strong headlines will not only help improve the number of people reading your content but can have a big impact on how well-shared your link bait is. As such make sure your title contains a hook.

5 Most Effective SEO Methods

Off-page optimization or Link Building is one of the most important SEO challenges every website owner has to face. You can do whatever changes you wish to make on your website: changing structure, playing with keyword density and so on and optimize your content in different ways, but when you wish to make other people do something on their site for you, it's a different story.

The important question is "how to get links to my website?' well there are 5 effective ways to build links to your website in order to boost your link popularity and get you better search engine optimization rankings.

1. Article Submission

Write unique articles on a topic relevant to your website and submit them to the biggest article directories like ezinearticles, articlebiz, etc. There are lots of them on the Internet and most of them allow you to put 1 to 4 links to your website either in the body of the article or in the resource box or both.

The link value you get from article submission is not very big, but the upside is that you shape the content yourself; therefore the link will come from a topically relevant page. As an extra bonus you get some traffic from the article and if it's good enough it will be republished on more websites and blogs.

2. Blog Commenting

Blog commenting is another link-building technique that has become quite popular these days. Search the web for authoritative blogs in your niche that allow do-follow commenting and share your mind there. Make sure you read the post before commenting and try to make a point with your comment; don't just go on spamming blogs with links to your website, or you'll just get your comments deleted and end up with no links and a spoiled reputation.

3. Social Media

Social media websites can provide tons of valuable links if you manage to bring your SEO to the top. But you'll need all your creative power to do that and maybe a bit more. Since social media sites are seeing more and more spammy content submitted to them by marketers of all sorts and fashions, running a successful social media campaign gets harder every day.

4. Submission of Press Release

Write a press release about your company or product and submit it to PRWeb and similar resources. Take the time to make your press-release newsworthy and the chances that it will get syndicated increase depending on how good you manage to make it.

 5. Directories Submission

There are a lot of directories on the internet where you can submit your website. Although links from them won't give you any drastic jump ups in the rankings, they are still worth submitting to, especially if you have a young website. Make sure you submit your URL into a relevant category. These link building techniques will get you quality and relevant links that will add good value to your website's search engine rankings. To get the best results in SEO with your link building always keep track of the links you get and evaluate your off-page optimization campaign. The most efficient way to do it is to use special tools for link building.