Ayodeji Onibalusi: This post is written by Ayodeji Onibalusi founder of Effective Inbound Marketing. Effective Inbound Marketing is a content-driven marketing agency. You can read about the services we offer.
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View Comments (15)
I'd also add one common mistake that I see is that people don't get to know the person they are pitching before sending their emails. You need to become familiar with the person you are pitching - find their first name, read a few posts on their blog, see what they're sharing on social media, read their About page, do a search on their site for your brand, look for other blogs they own/write for, etc.
This will help you craft a personalized email that shows that you're genuinely interested in building a relationship and it also prevents you from saying something that might make you look like an idiot in your outreach.
Very true, Alex. Thanks for sharing you one link building mistake to avoid with the house!
Cheers
Ayodeji
Thanks for the inclusion in your report. Some great people and resources listed here!
It's an honor to have you in the list, Zac! Thanks so much!
When people working in the SEO industry say things like "value relationships/content and not links" I get a bit bummed out. Not because I disagree; relationships are very valuable of course. I get bummed out because of the way in which they word it.
People got greedy with linking for SEO reasons and we've moved away from that. However we, as SEOS, work in this industry day in and day out. We know full what the intention of that statement is. It's the people who don't do SEO for a living who take this advice the wrong way and that's where my issue sits.
We often talk about bad advice in the industry, and still see businesses fall victim to old school practices due to poor education. Telling businesses to stop valuing links fits in this category too.
I've seen far too many good PR opportunities and campaigns fail at making huge search visibility gains because they took that advice on board and ignored the idea of suggestive link encouragement (if that's what you want to call it) completely as a part of that particular strategy/approach.
If you're going to give people a reason to talk about you and people take that bait, you're giving them a reason to link back to you as well. You don't need to be pushy about it, as Mike King says above it's about psychology. Links can come naturally off the back of great content but there's no harm in a bit of encouragement.
The points are so true! Thanks for sharing your link building advice with the house Dan!
-Ayodeji
My biggest linkbuilding mistake was to hire a linkbuilding "expert". Melanie Nathan from http://www.canadianseo.com was cited all over the web as a veteran, respected expert. And she took my money in advance, tried to insist that links she was offering from pages like this: http://www.mastbusiness.com/top/Health_And_Health_Care/ were "high quality" and would definitely help my google rankings, then promised me a refund on three separate occasions but never sent it. In other words, she took all my money and gave me exactly nothing in return and has ignored all emails/phone calls for the last three months. If this is how "respected" linkbuilders treat their clients then I would advise all webmasters to run very fast in the opposite direction.
I'm sorry to hear about your experience in the SEO world, Sophie. I understand that occasions like this will always arise in the industry and most times, it's a result of how overwhelming link building can be (especially when the service provider is making rigorous efforts to get nothing but the best.) It may not sound true that some experts only want to offer you nothing but the best, but it's always the case for many SEOs. Unfortunately in the process, with penalties hitting from left and right, a lot of things may go wrong!
I'm sure if Melanie is reading your comment, she'll feel terribly bad about what has happened. I hope she'll have some way to make it up to you!
Again, I feel your pain!
Best of luck
Ayodeji
I appreciate your kind words but I seriously doubt Melanie is feeling bad - if she were she would not have ignored me for three months. I paid a lot of money to get absolutely nothing, it's daylight robbery. I'm thinking of going into the linkbuilding business myself, sure seems like a nice easy way to make money.
This isn't a comment on the person you mention, I don't know enough to comment on that but as a general observation you get good and bad in every industry.
It just so happens that our industry, like many technical industries, is a service many know they require but are not sure what signals show trust and authority and what signals should have alarm bells ringing, and sadly some people will exploit that.
It's also true that as industries grow and become more mainstream, these traps stop working, through knowledge or because they've been churned and burned.
I hope you can keep some positive faith in our industry and wish you the best of luck finding someone more suitable in the future.
Thanks Dan - I appreciate there's good and bad in every industry. But it's opened my eyes to how easy it is to get ripped off - we're not talking about a linkbuilder putting up some links that I think are poor, we're talking about a linkbuilder who didn't build any links! I run a tiny site that supports chronically sick people and I was trying to recover from damage done by panda, but I'll never hire an seo again - I can't afford to take the risk. The whole experience has been miserable.
One of the most common link building mistake is that frequency of building links. SEO's get perplexed if they dont see improvements in SERP's for the link building they have done last night and buid more links next day. This is the biggest mistake one should avoid. One should Keep calm and be patient to see the impact.
Very true, and this is the most unnatural way to acquire links! Thanks so much for sharing your expert advice with the house, Kamalesh.
-Ayodeji
My comment is this: don't rely too much on so-called SEO experts. Experiment with various link building and posting strategies and see what works for you. There are no shortcuts and these things take time. Case in point: the guy in #17 (Samuel) says NOT to build links, Then the guy in #18 (Schachter) says YES to build links. Who is correct? If you will put too much faith in these experts you will end up running in circles.
Hi,
I read your article, you’re describing of expression is excellent and the most valuable thing is, your attracting topic declaration. I really enjoyed and great effort. The points covers in the blog are awesome. Great to read your blog and thanks for this valuable information.
View Comments (15)
I'd also add one common mistake that I see is that people don't get to know the person they are pitching before sending their emails. You need to become familiar with the person you are pitching - find their first name, read a few posts on their blog, see what they're sharing on social media, read their About page, do a search on their site for your brand, look for other blogs they own/write for, etc.
This will help you craft a personalized email that shows that you're genuinely interested in building a relationship and it also prevents you from saying something that might make you look like an idiot in your outreach.
Very true, Alex. Thanks for sharing you one link building mistake to avoid with the house!
Cheers
Ayodeji
Thanks for the inclusion in your report. Some great people and resources listed here!
It's an honor to have you in the list, Zac! Thanks so much!
When people working in the SEO industry say things like "value relationships/content and not links" I get a bit bummed out. Not because I disagree; relationships are very valuable of course. I get bummed out because of the way in which they word it.
People got greedy with linking for SEO reasons and we've moved away from that. However we, as SEOS, work in this industry day in and day out. We know full what the intention of that statement is. It's the people who don't do SEO for a living who take this advice the wrong way and that's where my issue sits.
We often talk about bad advice in the industry, and still see businesses fall victim to old school practices due to poor education. Telling businesses to stop valuing links fits in this category too.
I've seen far too many good PR opportunities and campaigns fail at making huge search visibility gains because they took that advice on board and ignored the idea of suggestive link encouragement (if that's what you want to call it) completely as a part of that particular strategy/approach.
If you're going to give people a reason to talk about you and people take that bait, you're giving them a reason to link back to you as well. You don't need to be pushy about it, as Mike King says above it's about psychology. Links can come naturally off the back of great content but there's no harm in a bit of encouragement.
The points are so true! Thanks for sharing your link building advice with the house Dan!
-Ayodeji
My biggest linkbuilding mistake was to hire a linkbuilding "expert". Melanie Nathan from http://www.canadianseo.com was cited all over the web as a veteran, respected expert. And she took my money in advance, tried to insist that links she was offering from pages like this: http://www.mastbusiness.com/top/Health_And_Health_Care/ were "high quality" and would definitely help my google rankings, then promised me a refund on three separate occasions but never sent it. In other words, she took all my money and gave me exactly nothing in return and has ignored all emails/phone calls for the last three months. If this is how "respected" linkbuilders treat their clients then I would advise all webmasters to run very fast in the opposite direction.
I'm sorry to hear about your experience in the SEO world, Sophie. I understand that occasions like this will always arise in the industry and most times, it's a result of how overwhelming link building can be (especially when the service provider is making rigorous efforts to get nothing but the best.) It may not sound true that some experts only want to offer you nothing but the best, but it's always the case for many SEOs. Unfortunately in the process, with penalties hitting from left and right, a lot of things may go wrong!
I'm sure if Melanie is reading your comment, she'll feel terribly bad about what has happened. I hope she'll have some way to make it up to you!
Again, I feel your pain!
Best of luck
Ayodeji
I appreciate your kind words but I seriously doubt Melanie is feeling bad - if she were she would not have ignored me for three months. I paid a lot of money to get absolutely nothing, it's daylight robbery. I'm thinking of going into the linkbuilding business myself, sure seems like a nice easy way to make money.
This isn't a comment on the person you mention, I don't know enough to comment on that but as a general observation you get good and bad in every industry.
It just so happens that our industry, like many technical industries, is a service many know they require but are not sure what signals show trust and authority and what signals should have alarm bells ringing, and sadly some people will exploit that.
It's also true that as industries grow and become more mainstream, these traps stop working, through knowledge or because they've been churned and burned.
I hope you can keep some positive faith in our industry and wish you the best of luck finding someone more suitable in the future.
Thanks Dan - I appreciate there's good and bad in every industry. But it's opened my eyes to how easy it is to get ripped off - we're not talking about a linkbuilder putting up some links that I think are poor, we're talking about a linkbuilder who didn't build any links! I run a tiny site that supports chronically sick people and I was trying to recover from damage done by panda, but I'll never hire an seo again - I can't afford to take the risk. The whole experience has been miserable.
One of the most common link building mistake is that frequency of building links. SEO's get perplexed if they dont see improvements in SERP's for the link building they have done last night and buid more links next day. This is the biggest mistake one should avoid. One should Keep calm and be patient to see the impact.
Very true, and this is the most unnatural way to acquire links! Thanks so much for sharing your expert advice with the house, Kamalesh.
-Ayodeji
My comment is this: don't rely too much on so-called SEO experts. Experiment with various link building and posting strategies and see what works for you. There are no shortcuts and these things take time. Case in point: the guy in #17 (Samuel) says NOT to build links, Then the guy in #18 (Schachter) says YES to build links. Who is correct? If you will put too much faith in these experts you will end up running in circles.
Hi,
I read your article, you’re describing of expression is excellent and the most valuable thing is, your attracting topic declaration. I really enjoyed and great effort. The points covers in the blog are awesome. Great to read your blog and thanks for this valuable information.