I Just Hired A Billion Linkbuilders
I just hired a billion linkbuilders and I am not paying them a single cent! What am I talking about?
Over the last few months, I have immersed myself in social media and how to leverage its users into building tons of my links for free via linkbaiting. I am sold on it and completely convinced that SEO is going to be terribly difficult going forward if you choose to ignore the social networking lever.
No more wasting a week to come up with…what?…20 good static links if you’re lucky. No more risking the hell out of your sites by firing up the spam tools. Nope, not these days. I’ll still look for great links static links that pass trust and reputation but the lionshare of my efforts in the near future will be focused on the SMO (social media optimization) route. I’d rather use that week coming up with good link- and traffic-bait.
A well-engineered Digg, del.icio.us, Reddit, Netscape, etc. campaign is going to yield immediate gobs of traffic and potentially thousands of links for that same week’s investment. Better yet, those links are going are going to look a lot more natural in profile (probably because, well, they ARE natural) to any modern day search engine algorithm (and MSN, which may or may not be considered “a modern day search engine algorithm”…).
Have I mentioned this is the most fun I have had in years? SEO was getting awfully boring and now I’m going on 36 hour Digg benders. I feel like somebody just handed me a howitzer to break open a pinata.
So, let’s review. My cost per link is down substantially. My link profiles are looking more natural. My link production is up a hundred fold. My brand awareness goes through the roof. Site traffic gains are monumental (great for the CPM sites). And, that traffic is further supported a few weeks later when the search engines fold in the reputation gained from the SMO event and boost your site’s overall authority.
The downside? The only downside might be the that the traffic SMO yields is akin to 10,000 tirekickers ascending onto your used car lot in the same 2 hour block. They aren’t buyers. Nobody is passing through there to click, buy, register…nothing. I swear Digg is a combined convention for A.D.D. afflicted people and speed readers.
If you have any media reach whatsoever and you aren’t actively formulating an SMO competency, please let me know what your ticker symbol is so I can short you. Until you figure it out, there are some SEO’s and bloggers out there hording all your traffic and links.
Addendums:
1) I’d like to thank Andy Hagans and Todd Malicoat for working with me lately on my SMO Baptism by Fire.
2) You should check out two of the best reads on leveraging social media I’ve read recently:
- Black Hat or Link Bait by SEO Blackhat
- SEO & the Static vs Active Web by Aaron Wall
