The Content Marketing Institute in conjunction with Marketing Profs recently released a study showcasing what “worked” in 2011 in regards to B2B content marketing and what they project will work in 2012.

Two things in the report caught my eye:  the fact blogs showed a 45% increase and case studies showed a 32% increase in perceived effectiveness compared to last year’s report.

The change in percentages made me go back and read the report a second time and that’s when my linkey senses started tingling.  The fact blogs almost doubled in perceived value  and case studies increased by a third is telling IMO and great information to have as a link builder.

Why?  I have been known to say it’s not what you do that matters in linking, it’s where and I stand by that statement.  You can have the best information filled with keyword anchors but if you put that content in a crappy article directory or on a two-bit blog, you will get no algorithmic benefit, no traffic and no brand boost.  Heck, even if you have crap content sitting on those kind of sites you get no juice these days, Panda has taken care of that.   The report points out blogs are being used with increased frequency and that’s great information to have.

You also know what’s turning bloggers on in terms of accepting content.  An article titled

” The shopping habits of women over the age of 39“

sounds good and can be informative but market it as a case study and suddenly the information takes on a different light.

Think about it.  If you were a well-known (translation:  well or decently ranked) shopping blog or a news outlet looking for information on shopping habits, would you be more inclined to look at content labeled “article” or content labeled “case study” when researching for the story?  Take the actual article out of the equation for a moment, if you had to go by titles, which would you choose?

Goes without saying the content has to be kick-ass and a real case study or the Editor of the national news outlet and/or blog will never give you a second glance (might even burn you publicly) but that’s a subject for another post.  I know blasting the article directories and network blogs with content is still a viable linking tactic but I also know it’s getting much harder for those kinds of tactics to affect rank.  Add to it the ties Google is (supposedly) creating between G+ and rank and now it really is about what you say.  But don’t take my word for it, take a look at the report and note the uptick in white papers, print magazines, ebooks, it’s telling.  No where does it say short articles from the article directories showed an increase in use.

Everyone is running around yakking about “quality content” to the point its become a joke.  Well, fine, but keep in mind quality to you may not be quality to me so qualify it with a label and help make the content stick out.

So here’s something to consider when building links in 2012:  how you label your link-filled, quality content can affect where it’s hosted and who recommends it.  Having a case study sit in an article directory or a crap blog will do little for your rankings, having it on a national news site or well known blog however, will.   Try to incorporate a label in your anchors or the text around your link(s) so it’s associated with the content, like this:

Case Study:  The Shopping Habits of 39 Year Old (cough) Link Builder

Here are a handful of tips working for me:

• Tie your author bio to your Google profile as well as your website
• Link to internal pages of your site to support information in your case study/content.
• Don’t shy away from using keyword anchors,  just use them conversationally rather than making it obvious they were hyperlinked to produce juice
• Don’t rely on content generation to produce all your links.  Mix up your tactics, mix up your anchors.
• Point your anchors to pages within your site that have been optimized for those terms.  You’d be surprised how something so simple has a profound effect on your rankings.

Link building will be super competitive in 2012 and you’re going to need an edge to succeed.  Give it to yourself by developing and labeling the type of content marketers are looking for.

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Before I sign off, a personal note:

This is my last post for 2011, I can’t believe the holidays are around the corner and the New Year close behind.  I won’t be blogging until we come back in January but I will be posting all the cool marketing and link building tidbits I find (and I find a bunch of cool stuff!) to my Facebook and G+ account so come over and join the fun.

 I sincerely wish you and yours all the best in 2012.  Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

images courtesy Content Marketing Institute

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from: Link Spiel

For more link building information, ideas and the occasional rant, visit LinkSpiel .

 Recently,  in the members only SEOBook forum, a thread was started with this special offer:

<snip> is having a birthday bash and has a package of web design templates, scripts, icons, videos, textures, etc… for $20. It expires on Tuesday.  Here’s the link  <snip>

The thread and promotion were dropped in August and it’s September now so of course the link no longer works, but I clicked it anyway and found this:

The green markings are mine, I wanted to highlight a handful of points I thought were well done and also point out what I think are lost link building opportunities.

OK, working backwards, let’s start with what they did right.  

#3. Upcoming offers.

At the bottom of the page they added an email capture box and the line:   

 ”Before you go, make sure you jump on our mailing lists so you don’t miss other special deals and offers“.

Adding an email capture box is a  great idea because you can use the addresses for future promotional and link building use.  Given the way the ‘Net/Web is growing, I think it’s extremely important webmasters start building their fan base. It’s important to cultivate your customers into brand evangelists so they help carry your message forward. With companies like Demand Media, AOL (Seed) and Associated Content dumping thousands of sites, articles, videos, contests etc every day,competition for eyeballs and click-able traffic will increase substantially. And unless you have an established or well known brand,  breaking through the clutter will be extremely difficult. So start building your base now by capturing email addresses at every opportunity. Once you have a sizable list, email a promotion in exchange for a link, you could say something like:

“Link to us and we’ll give you $100 coupon” –OR– “Add a link to our site and your visitors will enjoy a 10% discount on all their purchases“.

Keep in mind most webmasters face the same challenges so they’ll be more apt to link if you provide an incentive which helps them look good in their customers eyes.

#2. It’s not all doom and gloom though; you can still get some badass files for next to nothing in all of our Marketplaces.

Not bad:     “you can still get some badass files for next to nothing in all of our Marketplaces”  

Better:   “you can still get some badass files for next to nothing and never have to worry about missing special offers again by adding our link to your site. Here’s how…”

By hyperlinking “here’s how” you can send them to an offers page which explains how to link or suggest they email for more information in which case you not only get a new link, you get another email.

#1. The Party’s Over! Why are you still here? Maybe its birthday cake you seek? Well I’m afraid these is none left and to make matters worse, our Birthday Bundle is no longer available either.

If I landed on a page with that headline, I wouldn’t stick  around to read the rest. I don’t think it’s a good idea to rub salt, or in this case, birthday cake, in a wound, it’s bad enough the guy missed the discount promotion but now he’s getting his face rubbed in it? I don’t advocate this kind of “funny” unless you’re Mad Magazine or Gawker, they can pull this stuff off,  you probably can’t so don’t chance it.  Instead I would have written this as a headline:

Dude, you missed the party but we still have some badass gift bags available!

That would be an easy intro into point #2 where you suggest they link to your site in exchange for a permanent discount.

Almost everything visible online becomes an opportunity for link marketing.  If you’re serious about building links, ranking well and promoting brand, it’s best to look  at everything as a means to an end even your “late to the party pages”.   Always take link advantage of what you have control over and ask for the link.  

from: Link Spiel

For more link building information, ideas and the occasional rant, visit LinkSpiel .

I sat at my desk for the longest time today trying to write a link building post  that used  the storyline from the TV show  ”The New Adventures of Old Christine“.  I love the show and wanted to draw a correlation between it and link building but it wasn’t meant to be. So I decided to forget about the show, tweak the title a bit and blog about how using old fashion offline advertising tricks could help in your link building efforts.

The more I thought about it, I decided my tweaked title might also be good for a piece on how using popular titles and catch phrases can draw attention to content and in turn, lead to links.  I mean, weren’t you just a little curious what I might spiel on after reading that title?  Just a little?

Then I thought about it even more and decided why only tweak  and use titles?  Why not use TV, movie or news  content and capitalize on their entertainment buzz?  “The New Adventure of Old Christine” is about a neurotic single mom who owns a weight loss gym and fights with her ex-husband about his much younger girlfriend.  That story line touches on a lot of niches, such as

• weight loss
• exercise studio
• dating sites
• marriage counseling
• mommy blogs
• parenting sites/blog

If you owned a site/blog in one of those industries you could create fun on-topic content and reference a scene  from the show to make a point or add sizzle.  Like this or this guy  or what I’m doing here. 

Even the acerbic American poet  Dorothy Parker  tweaked a line from William Shakespeare to make a little noise for herself:

Brevity is the soul of lingerie.

Cute eh? 

Now, if you’re reading this and thinking “No thanks old Debra, don’t want to get into copyright trouble” -  relax,  try it, you’ll like it.   I’m not suggesting you steal pictures or quote the show verbatim, merely use something from the show to complement a point you’re making.  It’s not necessary to come up with original, serious, fact-busting content for everything you write, injecting a light note, current event or reference to a popular television show is fine.  

 Heck it’s so easy a caveman can do it.

from: Link Spiel

For more link building information, ideas and the occasional rant, visit LinkSpiel .