Have you ever been in a situation where you have a conversation with someone, walked away and then 20 minutes later thought  ”damn, I should have said”… <insert witty, super-snarky, something Tina Fey would say> comment?

I do, something like that happened to me this weekend.  I was irked at myself (again) for not having a better come back and while I was stewing thinking about the situation, my link building light bulb went off.

Can you use “follow-ups” or “come-backs” to generate links?  Most definitely, here’s a couple ideas:

1.  Have you seen a press conference where the reporter asks a question and then asks for a “follow-up” after hearing the answer?  Most of the time answers generate more questions and this second question is known as a follow-up.

You can use follow-up questions to develop more content which will attract more links.  For example, if you interview someone, do a second, follow-up interview with questions generated from his/her answers.  The interviewee is invested at this point and will help promote the second piece to continue the attention he/she has gotten from the first.

2.  Having a second interview means you probably have a lot of content; once both pieces are live, break them down topically and use the interviews as reference material.  Create a new article around each topic, link back into the original interviews to support what you’re saying and promote for links.  Your new articles will gain links and attention and so will the old – double win!

3.  Two-part interviews can be seen as news worthy, be sure to tie in the subject matter with a current event (if necessary) and issue a press release announcing the addition of the interview to your website/blog.

4.  If you have a blog, go through your comments and look for hot topics and negative Nelly’s.   A “negative Nelly” (for me) is someone who disagrees with your position and says so by leaving controversial or inflammatory comments.

Publish rebuttal pieces and upload, make sure you contact the people inspiring the post and let them know its been published.  Hopefully it will prompt the Nelly to blog about your content or comment again which should draw more attention and traffic back to your blog.  (Note:If you’re thin skinned, this might not be a tactic for you).

5.  Having opposing views on a subject makes good news in some cases, ping the journalists/bloggers in your niche and show them your content.  Let them know it’s OK to republish your part if they want to, let them follow up with the other guy.

You may lose the snark fest short-term but keep in mind a good follow-up or come-back can generate publicity, traffic and links making you the ultimate winner!

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from: Link Spiel

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

I’ve been attending SEO and marketing conferences since 2002 and have amassed a huge pile of totes and backpacks as a result.

I use them all the time, mostly for groceries but I also haul around library books, gym clothes and gardening tools in them.  Not too long ago a woman stopped me in the grocery store and asked about the SEO totes I had piled in the front of my cart, she recognized one since she had attended the same show earlier in the year. Small world!

I know I’m not the only one using my conference totes and backpacks at home, my friends do the same:

Christine Churchill and daughter Kaitlin. Tote in Kaitlin's lap is from the first SES conference Christine attended in 1999.

I’ve seen Christine use her backpacks around her horses, she has them in the barn, in the horse trailer, in the shed, in her pickup and hanging from her saddle horn.  She makes good use of all the conference bags she hauls home!

Mat uses his conference backpacks to leave home:

Mat Siltala bought luggage to match his SMX backpack. OK, not really but they do match!

Simon needs multiple backpacks  to carry around his stuff:

Simon Heseltine, AOL Bagman

If you’re saying “Yo Debra, where’s the link building spiel here”, have no fear.  Besides having a little fun, I wanted to use my conference images to show how you can take a simple item or idea and use it to attract links.

Link To An Authority

While I used the images above as a giggle and intro this post, I picked the bags because of the companies they represent.  Each comes from a well known and authoritative SEO/SEM conference,  I linked to them for a couple of reasons:

• They help reinforce my credibility as a professional.  I have been speaking at SMX and SES for a long time and appreciate the fact they keep asking me back so I do whatever I can to help promote and support both shows. My totes post may be corny but the sentiment behind it is heartfelt both personally and algorithmically.  Sentiment analysis and the way it is being used to influence rank deserves another post but I’ll  leave you with a link for later reading.

• Boosts my relevance factor.  Linking to the authoritative conference sites will not directly influence my current ranking but it will help establish where I belong topically and tie my site into the link graph.

Use Images As Link Magnets   I am frequently asked to share “advanced” linking techniques and tacitcs, I always reply “there is no such thing as advanced link building.  I really feel that way but will say there are creative link marketing tactics that go beyond the basics and are discussed less frequently which makes them seem more advanced. Here’s a couple of tips to try:

• Optimize your images.  Get permission from the people behind the photos to use them, this is a big deal for both legal and marketing reasons.  Hover over the pictures on this post and you’ll see they are tagged with the names and hyperlinked.  This is just good SEO as well as being polite, Google Image is still the second largest search platform in their stable so I want to be sure my images have a solid chance of being found when searched on.

• Use Flickr.  I do this quite a bit with images taken from client’s ecommerce sites.  Build a channel, publish your reprint requirements and promote the Flickr channel to your users, through your niche forums and via press release.  You have a new channel, pimp it!  A free image source is always well received, point your releases to the trade journals in your industry for added punch.  There are several image sharing sites online,  be sure to spread the wealth.

• Make an image video.  If you don’t have the time or resources to create a video, use your images to make one.  Search on the term “image to video” and you will find lots of companies with software or services to do it for you.  Develop channels at all the video sites and promote as you would images.  Include a written transcript of each video and add them to your site so you benefit from the new content.

Look at everything with link building eyes, it will pay off in spades!

Hey before you leave… If you are headed to SMX West in February and SES New York in March, please come by the Linking Bootcamps and say hello. My sessions are not for the faint of heart, I roll hard and fast jamming a ton of tips, techniques, and tools in the hour I have.  You will walk away with a great outline of tactics to use.

Christine and I are moderating each other’s sessions at SMX again,  she does a wicked smart keyword research and copywriting for search session so be sure to come by!

Thanks and see you soon!

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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 .