Link-building tactics from Moz — Cyrus Shepard // Moz

About the speaker

Cyrus Shepard

Moz

Cyrus Shepard is an SEO, online marketer, content publisher, speaker, and writer. He has several years experience building highly qualified traffic through SEO and content marketing. His experience leading SEO at Moz and teaching others has introduced him to 1000s of top online marketers across the globe.

Part 1 Link-building tactics from Moz — Cyrus Shepard // Moz
Part 2Identifying the best audience for links — Cyrus Shepard // Moz
Part 3Educating the SEO Market — Cyrus Shepard // Moz

Show Notes

·01:27 : The Begi ers Guide to Link-building ·Moz recently published The Begi ers Guide to Link-building written by Paddy Moogan. Paddy is the CEO of UK-based digital marketing agency, Aira. Cyrus talks about Paddys background and experience in digital marketing. ·02:08 : Are there any respectable link-building techniques? ·Cyrus clears up the common misconception that any kind of link-building will violate Googles guidelines. What you should be avoiding is manipulative link-building. Cyrus tip to staying on the link-building straight and narrow is to not try to control the anchor text of when people are linking to you. Ben and Cyrus discuss the do's and donts of link-building and the different categories that fall under it. Cyrus explains that whether youre doing white-hat or black-hat link-building has to do with how aggressively to follow your chosen strategy. ·04:56 : How much does link-building matter today? ·While Google does not talk very much about link-building, Cyrus explains that it is still harder to rank on Google first page when you dont have any links. To effectively use link-building, you must find the balance between focusing on building your domain authority and showing value for a piece of content. Cyrus explains how link-building can benefit both your content and your domain authority. ·07:02 : How to get high-quality links today ·Cyrus talks about different types of link-building strategies based on the type of business you operate. One main ingredient that all will need is a hook or emotional appeal for your audience. Ben and Cyrus talk about tactical ways that small business and start-ups can acquire quality links using start-up directories. ·09:54 : How does Google view link-building? ·Cyrus explains that every link-building tactic can be used in a black-hat way. What Google cares about is if your links are manipulating the search results. If your links are clean, then they can increase your visibility. Ben and Cyrus discuss how your link-building techniques relate to your Google rank.

Episode Summary

·“We recently published the begi er's guide to link building. It was by Paddy Moogan and one of the best link builders we know runs the Aira agency in the UK.” ·“So link building is kind of a controversial topic. It's one of those pillars of SEO. At times it can be a black hat. Sometimes it's a little bit of a gray area...” ·“There's people in the SEO industry, very respected SEOs, who mistakenly believe that any link building violates Google's guidelines. And that certainly isn't the case.” ·“I say, when you control the anchor text of when people are linking to you, that's a good standard to determine if you're violating Google's guidelines. Otherwise I think it's pretty fair game.” ·“... just going out and straight up buying links, paying people to put a link on a website and doing mass distribution. You should not do that.” ·“I think each of those techniques, though, has the potential for abuse or the potential to be white hat, depending on how aggressively you pursue them.” ·“It seems like Google reps straight out discourage conversations around link building... but it seems observationally links are needed at least to get on page one of the top 10 results... we find that it's really hard to rank at all. If you don't have any links.” ·“Every link is a vote. It's a validation, it's a vote of confidence to Google for your content, but it also counts towards your “domain authority”, how respected you appear in search results.” ·“I think that at the end of the day, Google's primary concern is how much ad revenue they're going to be able to create how many pages they can serve. And if the search results are impacted, if the user experience isn't great, they serve less ads.”