You have a limited budget of $2,000 (US). Do you buy links or create / seed content?
-
We have a client who is being told by their incumbent supplier that they should renew their annual contract to buy links on 4 domains by their incumbent SEO agency. It will cost approximately $2,000.
We are recommending they produce decent content, like a video, an infographic based on data that is exclusively theirs and seed this with bloggers / real world publications / trade press / etc.
The client is struggling to make a decision because he's caught between two SEO's with different approaches. He doesn't have the budget for both. He's scared of losing his position in the SERPs.
So, I said I'd get some votes from other SEO's. Which would you recommend?
Option 1
- 1,000's of links
- on 4 domains
Option 2
- Create link bait
- Seed using social media
GO!
-
If you're not providing at least some of both of those services for your potential client you will be doing ineffective SEO and somewhat of a disservice to them. The link building efforts should support quality content. It will help with the dissemination. To me spending all your money on content would be like buying a car but not spending any money on gas.
-
No. 2
Produce Great content - I would suggest... take a topic - a crucial one - on which ur target audience really needs help.
Make a full strategy around producing 4 pieces of content to comprehensively cover the topic so that everyone really understands it.
Hire a pro - a professor, doctor etc who really knows the topic and is actually well known for it.
The 4 content items are
1. An article (SEO optimization is best on articles)
2. White-paper
3. Video - this could be Q&A interview with the same expert who has produced the content OR it could be a teaching video for the topic
4. Infographic
Finally.. once you got it all... ensure you market the whole package and seed it every where as a whole package.
And now... just spend $200 (out of the initial $2000 budget) to ask and get 3-4 top bloggers with the biggest and most relevant following to write a post on the content package OR give 2 anchor text links to the page where u will host the content.
Hope this has been helpful.
Regards,
Talha
-
Absolutely - Content - that's what the whole idea of having the site should be in the first place - you have something that attracts others.
If it's the E-commerce site - articles about specific products, if it's a Blog - you know already what you want it to contain. Links generated this way will last longer and will be constantly expanding - meaning every so often someone will place a link to your article somewhere else. Have a look at how many links you can find in the threads posted in this forum - most of them to the Google resources, but still - if it was a forum about something else you'd find a different ones.
I've never spent a penny on links and I do have really good results by just posting new articles of interest and tutorials.
What you could also do is to create the RSS feed for all these articles and submit them to the RSS directories - that is if you want to generate some links. Every time the RSS feed is updated (either dynamically from the database or manually) the RSS directory displays the new link automatically.
I hope this helps.
-
Good idea to keep some budget back for Stumble Upon ads... Not really got a great deal of experience here, but they should be useful to get the social sharing started.
-
Need a button for 'two thumbs up' EGOL!
That's a more comprehensive answer than we'd have hoped for.
To answer the questions, the client is keen to generate the content. We've had some ideas that we think will get knocked for six (if you don't mind me changing your baseball to a cricket ball) and we're looking to help them identify the audience that will share it.
But, seeing it set out so simply, it's a great reminder that we really need to do ALL THREE wonderfully, to get it right.
Brilliant EGOL, thanks so much.
-
I would do the same as EGOL.
If I did go the infographic route I would keep some money back for stumble upon ads and adwords to try and get the social signals going.
-
Just like Egol said, it is all about engaging your audience:
1. You can create the content that is good for SEO, but will it drive traffic?
2. Is you audience more opened to video or articles? Or maybe webinars, infographics, etc. etc.
First of all, I would check for what my audience is looking for, what is that really makes them take action and then try to work out with the budget part and plan the creations strategy.
Gr.,
Istvan
-
If I had the $2000 I would spend all of it on content... and if I had a steady stream of $2000 / month I would spend ALL of it that way.
Would I do it if I were your client? I don't know. It depends on three things....
-
Who will be making this content? Most people can't make successful content. At least, that's my opinion.
-
Do you have content ideas that will hit a homerun?
-
Do you have an audience who will engage with that content? (share it widely)
Do you have ALL THREE of these? If you fail in any one of them then you wasted $2000.
To be fair, you need certain things in place for paid links to succeed. Those things vary by niche but are mainly based upon what is on your site and how effective it is at converting visitors into money. Much more complex, in my opinion, but easier to pull off.
-
-
Number 2 if done correctly.
And if your client still doesn't see sense - email them this: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66736
-
Well,once again I come up with the same issue: please forget about SEO companies who tell buying thousands of incompetent link in order to rank higher.
Instead I would go on your idea, create something that is really helpful for their possible clients, their visitors. Go try to create some video series, start blogging, be there on social networks and respond to their inquiries.
In long term the results will pay out.
I hope you can convince your clients.
Good luck!
Istvan
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
External linking
Hi guys. So I know external linking is good, as I've seem to have read every article written on the subject from 2007 to 2016, but can't seem to find anything more recent, but does that mean you are better to at least one external link on every page? And if so, would it suffice to link just to our social media profiles even if you are in an industry where social media brings in very little in the way of customer enquiries? I've actually linked to all our social profiles but made them nofollow. However, that said, would it be better to leave them nofollow and link to Government white papers in my sector for example?
Social Media | | ThorUK0 -
Wordpress Plugin That Creates Separate OG Tags vs Title Tags?
Does anyone know of a Wordpress plugin that allows you to create different tags for Open Graph (and potentially even Twitter) than standard Title and Meta Description Tags? As far as I can tell, most plugins just force OG and Twitter to use whatever the standard Title Tag and Description Tag are. But we'd like separate fields for each. Standard Page Titles need a bit of extra keyword love, whereas social media titles we'd like a bit more freedom to focus on branding and creativity / CTR. Tips/feedback appreciated, thank you!
Social Media | | mirabile0 -
Should I be worried about a duplicate content issues between LinkedIn and my blog posts?
I sometimes take my original LinkedIn post and repost it to my blog. Since Google indexes LinkedIn posts, is there any need to worry about duplicate content issues? Or will Google recognize the common author/ownership?
Social Media | | CQMarketing1 -
G+ places/local - Company Categories and Pages question
I have two questions about google places/local and Personal/Company Pages Regarding Local and the categories section. Should you be using strictly the predefined categories they have? or should you be creating your own? Also say you're a car repair shop for instance. If you should be creating your own such as 'truck repair' should the city be in there as well 'Truck Repair New York/New York Truck Repair(keyword or location first?)' When it comes to company and personal g+ places, i understand doing the rel author and its bennefits but what is the correct way about tagging this? For instance in Wordpress, Studiopress has a section in the profile for the user g+ profile that will rel author it, and Yaost SEO says 'if you have a business page, insert it here and link your personal page as a contributor to the business page' Should we be filling in both sections? or does this cause a conflict? Adding these items is very easy to do, but would rather do it right the first time then circle back and have to correct everything. Any feedback/input is appreciated. Thanks,
Social Media | | choiceenergy0 -
Recommended/Convenient Social Share Plug-In for Agencies w/Multiple Accounts!
Hi! What is a recommended social media share plug-in (SEO-friendly) to implement across multiple websites (desktop & mobile) for an agency? Also, does the suggested social share plug-in provide a dashboard to review multiple accounts via one location?
Social Media | | RezStream80 -
Does promoting a new page on twitter/facebook help it get indexed faster?
I know this probably won't matter much to people who get crawled on a regular basis, but for those of us who don't, does promoting a new page on social media help it get indexed faster with google? My site rarely gets crawled, but I've recently been adding new content. When I add new content I started to promote it on facebook/twitter and I do get minimal traffic from it. I noticed that a couple of the pages seem to be indexing quicker than pages normally do for me, although I'm not sure if it's because I recently migrated to WP or what..? I know T/FB are no follow sites, but is there a chance that promoting a page may contribute to the pages getting indexed? Thanks for any insight you can shed on the matter. It's more for curiosities sake than anything else. Pete S.
Social Media | | psokoloski0 -
Cant post/share to Facebook page anymore...please help
Hi Guys I manage a few facebook pages and a day ago something weird happened to one and i cannot figure it out. It started with me trying to auto share a youtube video to the facebook page and offcourse added the "comment" and shared. The video is then visible when i log in to the page but not when i am not...and it also does not share to the followers....and then the same happened with a normal link and image post....I see it when logged in but it does not get sent to my followers or to the page if not logged in....am i missing something here. Should i just log in and then click on share and see if that send it out?? please help...facebook drives me crazy half the time..thanks in advance
Social Media | | nomad-2023230 -
How effective is RSS feeds submission, links from Blog Directories?
I am wondering how effective rss feed submission (to RSS aggregators) is in terms of getting traffic and backlinks? Also, how about getting listed in blog directories? Do these tactics work anymore post Panda update ? Thanks, Supriya.
Social Media | | Amjath0