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I would be skeptical too. It doesn't seem like a good long term tactic because the websites are not linking to you editorially. Article syndication is typically considered to be a placed link, which Google doesn't seem to value as much as an editorial recommendation.

Here's a video from Matt Cutts from Google about article marketing which sounds similar to what is being proposed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5xP-pTmlpY

"Honesty I'm not a huge fan of article marketing..These are not as much editorial links where someone is really making a choice this is a great site...I would probably lean away from that."

The exception is if the article is syndicated on a highly trusted publication like a Forbes.com or Huffington Post in which case the links are trusted and seen as valuable endorsements.

Hi!

Does anyone have any data or examples that show a negative (or positive) impact from "too many" sitewide links?

Ahref's tool shows the ratio of sitewide links to non-sitewide links. I have seen a website with 97% sitewide links rank very well in a vertical while a website with 0% sitewide links also ranks very well.

I don't think Google would want the negative PR from penalizing people for creating legitimate scholarships.

An alternative to creating a scholarship is to curate a list of relevant scholarships in your niche. There are scholarships for almost anything you can think of. Then go to sites that link to scholarships and let them know that you curated a comprehensive list of X scholarships.

I think affiliates are basically advertising that is paid based on performance and we know that Google wants advertising links to be no-followed. No-following the links would be the safe route to take.

There is zero chance of penalty of doing this. It is just not a good way to optimize the page if you wanted them to be ranked since it will be difficult for Google's spiders to crawl to the page if there are no internal links pointing to it. But since you are planning to send traffic to the landing pages from paid sources, it is a perfectly legitimate way to go. Tons of websites follow the same approach including many large brands. If you ever click on an Adwords ad and go to the landing page, chances are good that the page does not have internal links pointing to it.

I think bolding key sentences to help readability is a great way to go. People tend to scan webpages instead of reading every word. I don't think only bolding keywords is wise since it looks really tacky and probably has zero effect on your ranking for the targeted keyword. It might even be considered spammy.

5-10 linking domains per month sounds reasonable if they are relevant editorial links. Building links can involve spending a lot of time to research opportunities to find websites that would want to link to you or should be linking to you. For example, a relevant link opportunity would be a local real estate association that lists local brokerages. Another example might be a local website that already lists your competitors. Other times, links are result of building a relationship over time like a connection you have with a friend or complimentary business. If the SEO firm is manufacturing links that you don't really deserve, then that can hurt you in the long run. Ultimately, a link building campaign is like any investment in marketing and carries some risk of failure.

The best way to find the best opportunities is to read a ton of blogs in your industry and develop relationships with the most popular blogs in your niche by doing things like leaving thoughtful comments or engaging in conversations. The best guest post opportunities are on high authority sites that will send you significant traffic. If anyone can get an easy link from a site with minimal effort it probably has minimal SEO value. A good sign is if the articles on the site have a lot of social shares like Tweets, +1's, and Facebook Likes.

Podcasts are really taking off with the growth of smartphones that can stream podcasts with Apps like Stitcher Radio.

I recently purchased a podcasting course (Podcasters' Paradise) and they recommend Libsyn for hosting your audio files. It is inexpensive (starts at $5/month) and it provides information about the number of downloads.

You could go to a Wordpress Theme marketplace like Themeforest and contact the creators of themes you like to see if they will do a custom design or customize a template that you like.

I've heard good things about Dribbble.com as a design community to find top-notch designers.

I would be skeptical too. It doesn't seem like a good long term tactic because the websites are not linking to you editorially. Article syndication is typically considered to be a placed link, which Google doesn't seem to value as much as an editorial recommendation.

Here's a video from Matt Cutts from Google about article marketing which sounds similar to what is being proposed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5xP-pTmlpY

"Honesty I'm not a huge fan of article marketing..These are not as much editorial links where someone is really making a choice this is a great site...I would probably lean away from that."

The exception is if the article is syndicated on a highly trusted publication like a Forbes.com or Huffington Post in which case the links are trusted and seen as valuable endorsements.

In my experience, if there is enough unique content surrounding the duplicate content, the page is not treated as duplicate content. For example, I have seen a blog post that was republished from another site (with permission) with a short unique introduction paragraph that received thousands of visitors.

If you were paranoid about it, you could always put the duplicate content in an iFrame. Search engine spiders are not supposed to crawl content in an iFrame as it is not considered part of the page.

You may also want to post your job at the Inbound.org job board: http://www.inbound.org/jobs

The site gets about 50,000 monthly visitors and is a partnership between Moz and Hubspot.

Podcasts are really taking off with the growth of smartphones that can stream podcasts with Apps like Stitcher Radio.

I recently purchased a podcasting course (Podcasters' Paradise) and they recommend Libsyn for hosting your audio files. It is inexpensive (starts at $5/month) and it provides information about the number of downloads.

Yeah Dan Pink is awesome. He also has a great TED talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html

Any marketing program is an investment with inherent risk. By requesting pay for performance, you are basically shifting the risk from the business owner to the service provider but not providing a strong enough return for that risk. If you are looking for a way to reduce your risk, you could ask friends and colleagues for a referral to a provider that has done great work in the past. I don't think any quality SEO companies would take the unnecessary risk because they will have more business then they can handle due to referrals from happy clients.

Thanks everyone for the tips. I believe there is a Facebook page and the video access will be complimentary for attendees again this year.

I recently finished To Sell is Human by Dan Pink which is one of my favorite business books of the past year. Everyone is constantly selling whether it be selling your idea to your boss or client or convincing your spouse to do something so it is an essential business and life skill. This book provides tactics for effective selling based on scientific studies and it is an entertaining read.

I just started Contagious by Jonah Berger which is about how certain things go viral and I've heard good things about it.

Asking for links is usually a inefficient tactic because the incentives do not outweigh the costs. In Dale Carnegie's classic book, How to Win Friends and Influence People he suggests thinking in terms of what other people want, not what you want. If you provide a strong enough incentive, asking for links can work. For example, the ego hook can be highly effective. If you put bloggers on a list as one of the top bloggers in their industry or interview them, they have a strong incentive to link to you.

I've heard that having rel=author enabled on your pages can be great for increasing click through rate but you should not use it on every page on your site.

What are the pros and cons of using rel=author on product pages? Do you use rel=author on your product pages or just on your blog articles?