Last week I was using Google to find blogs that accept guest posts in the small business space — using advanced queries like, “guest post” OR “guest author” AND inurl:blog OR inurl:business. At first glance, the results looked fantastic. However, most of them were low quality and not worth pursuing.
The gears started turning and, on an off chance, I turned to Twitter. It seems every SEO blog and every conference has someone talking about using Twitter to get links. In my experience, most Twitter linking strategies are long-term, such as:
create a top influencer list on your blog and Tweet it out to see if they’ll mention you
find people that want something and reach out to make a connection
create content to answer questions on Twitter
Rand Fishkin, from SEOMoz, has a great video on 8 ways to build links using Twitter, which you can find here. All great strategies, but I want to take another spin on using Twitter to get links — using Twitter Search.
For years I’ve been using advanced search queries in Google to find linking opportunities and guess what? Twitter also supports advanced search queries. Find the complete list here. Some of you out there might already be wise to advanced search queries on Twitter but for those of you that are not, here is how you can leverage Twitter for guest posts, contests and other linking strategies:
Guest Posts
Finding Guest Posts
Twitter Search query: “guest post” OR “guest author” “[industry]” filter:links
This search query will bring back Tweets that contain “guest post” or “guest author,” the industry keyword (e.g. travel, education, auto, etc) and links.
If you’re not finding a lot of opportunities, open the search to something like, “guest” “[industry]” or if there are irrelevant results, use the “-” sign to eliminate tweets with irrelevant keywords.
Here is an example you can use for the travel industry:
“guest post” OR “guest author” “travel” filter:links
After performing the query, in about 10 seconds, I stumble onto Alexis Grant, who’s written a fantastic guest post about travel. The site she’s done a guest post on could be a great place for me to reach out to for a guest blog.
If you’re thinking, “the travel industry has a ton of guest post opportunities but my industry is so niche no one does guest blog posts…” think bigger. Let’s say you sell homemade throw pillows (pretty specific, right?), search for “crafts,” “home goods,” “furniture.” Looking at the big picture can help you find more bloggers that accept guest posts.
Finding Additional Opportunities
Some guest authors publish on multiple blogs which gives you an opportunity to find sites that accept guest posts that might not have popped up in your initial query.
Example: @alexisgrant “guest post” OR “guest author” filter:links
As you can see, @alexisgrant has been a guest author on more than one travel blog. If you want to dig even deeper, you can throw her website into Open Site Explorer, download the backlinks and put “guest” in the title and / or URL filter.
Finding Industry Topics
If you’re struggling to think of great content for your potential guest blogging prospect, use Tag Crowd to find longer tail / related terms. Copy all of the content on the Twitter results page and put it into the text box on tagcrowd.com.
These word clouds are going to change as frequently as the Tweets you use, so you can have fresh content when reaching out to bloggers.
Make Publishing Your Content Even More Appealing
If you want to make bloggers a more appealing offer (other than “here’s content, publish it!”), create a contest around the content. So you can say:
“I have 5 pieces of content and I’m reaching out to 10 sites to publish it. The first 5 bloggers to publish the content before [INSERT DATE] will receive [INSERT PRIZE].”
(Full disclosure: Big thanks to Wil for coming up with this idea!)
Stuck on what might be appealing? Use some of the themes from your Twitter search in Google Products to find prizes that might be appealing to them. So if we’re going with the travel industry, simply type travel into Google Product search and see what rises to the surface.
Google Product search can help you find cheap items that might be appealing under a certain price. I’m seeing products for different travel bloggers. Take a look:
We can give the traveling baby stroller to mommy travel bloggers and the Apple and router to other travel sites. Try doing a site:[domain name] [product] Google search to see if they’ve talked about the products in previous posts. This will help you build an even more compelling argument to publish your content.
Contests
Let’s say you’re running an iPad giveaway contest to get links. You can use Twitter advanced search queries to find other contests and see how they’re getting links:
“contest” OR “contestant” “[industry]” filter:links
Once you find a contest in your industry, use Open Site Explorer to find sites that are linking to the contest. Then you can reach out to those sites to see if they’d be willing to link to your contest.
If Open Site Explorer doesn’t have backlink data on the competitor’s contest URL, try:
the Google query: “[competitor brand name]” AND “contest.” OR, if the contest requires you to paste a snippet of code or phrase on your site to qualify, simply copy it and throw it in a Google search with quotes.
the Twitter query: “contest” OR “contestant” @[Twitter handle] filter:links until:[insert date (e.g. 2010-03-30)]
Answer Industry Questions
Find people that are asking questions in your industry by using the search operator “?” and your industry:
“?” “[industry]”
Then you can use RowFeeder to find those users that have websites. When you find a user that has a website, reach out to them and ask if you can do a guest post on their blog.
Find Local Linking Opportunities
If you’re trying to find local links, use the “near:” operator. So if I want to find local guest post opportunities for tourism in Philadelphia, I would use the query:
near:philadelphia “guest post” “travel” OR “tourism”
Don’t Drop This Idea After You Get a Handful of Links!
I used to be the biggest offender of this. I’d read a great blog post about a new way to get links, do it for a couple of weeks, then move onto the next shiny linkbuilding strategy. I did this until I made a habit of checking on almost all of my easy link strategies EVERY DAY. First thing in the morning, I wake up, grab some coffee and breakfast, sit down at my computer, check my client’s stats and then spend 30 mins finding quick linking opps in Google Reader, EVERY DAY.
I’ve used Google Reader’s Twitter Search functionality (browse for stuff > search > track keywords and searches > enter keyword > select Twitter > now subscribe) to track guest post, contest, directories and other basic linking strategies.
So that’s how I use Twitter to find linking opportunities. If anyone else has other ideas on using Twitter search to get links, please add them in the comments below.
Two months into the SEO sphere, and I’ve come to learn a lot about the value of links, best practices for outreach and search queries that make any previous Google search by me look like chopped liver. My latest SEO exploration is of Pinterest.com (Pin + Interest, get it?) and the potential value the site might have for SEO geeks like myself. I’ve been a fan of this “virtual social pinboard” since the summer, as it allowed me and millions of users to “pin” images off the web into different, organized “boards” that I can easily share with everyone. From there, users can re-pin images that they feel inspired by onto their own boards, causing a domino effect for millions of random graphics off of the internet.
As an average consumer, I’ve been using Pinterest for my own personal blog by finding fashion/pop culture images, interesting infographics and random phrases of inspiration to post on a weekly basis. Recently though, I’m (with the much appreciated help from Wil Reynolds) starting to see a new side and use for this popular social media platform from both a client and an SEO side. No drumroll necessary, but read on to find out more!
One issue SEER has battled with as a third-party for managing account in LinkedIn is how to set up the account. Do we use a general dummy account (I advised against this in my previous blog post that included LinkedIn advertising tips)? Do we create an account under the name of a non-existent employee at the client company? Do we ask the client for their personal LinkedIn log in?
For the majority of SEER’s LinkedIn accounts we place the ads using the account of someone (a real person) that works at the client company. We had not experienced any issues doing this until recently when I tried to contact the Customer Support about an ad delivery issue and was denied. Apparently as a third-party we are not allowed to discuss the account with the support team (although I somehow have gotten around that multiple times previously).
After feeling sad and a little angry about my rejection, I heard some wonderful news. Sometime in July 2011 LinkedIn will be launching Business Accounts designed specifically for agencies and third parties. This feature is perfect as we continue to propose LinkedIn Ads as an option for clients. The Business Accounts will eliminate the need to share personal logins and give agency account managers the ability to contact support directly.
Here are the few details that have been shared on this new feature:
Create a business account for a client and invite multiple users to access and manage the account
You will be able to duplicate the campaigns you are currently running into the new Business Account, but you will not be able to carry over any performance data.
One of the questions we ask our clients is who is your target audience? For most B2B clients they have a very specific audience that their product/service is geared towards. Unfortunately when you are deciding what terms to target in Search you cannot distinguish a searcher to be in your target audience just based on the term they are searching on (though of course if they are searching on a relevant term, we presume they are in our audience). While advertising on search engines is very important and valuable for clients, we are always looking for third tier engines or other ways we can get in front of our target audience.
Social media is becoming increasingly popular amongst search marketers, and my particular favorite (for B2B clients) is LinkedIn.
Whether it is industry, company size or a job title, LinkedIn lets you decide who you want to see your ads. They even let you get as specific as targeting by company name! (Some other targeting options include geography, group, gender and age).
First, lets talk about the results:
I have a client that runs on Google and LinkedIn. Lets compare some numbers.
The conversion rate for LinkedIn is 122% HIGHER than the conversion rate for Google. While, LinkedIn conversions in total are less than the total conversions from Google due to lower volume, the actual conversion to click ratio is much better for LinkedIn.
The CPA on LinkedIn is also 49% LOWER than the CPA on Google. That is a huge difference (we arent talking small CPA #s either).
The moral of this story is, LinkedIn offers awesome targeting options for B2B clients and its cheaper than Google. Often time this means a better ROI!
Now, lets talk about some tips for setting up LinkedIn campaigns:
When you begin to create your LinkedIn Campaigns they will guide you through the process and even suggest tips and best practices along the way. I am going to give you the quick and dirty on advertising on LinkedIn and some tips that I have learned along the way.
Writing Ads
As with most PPC best practices, LinkedIn recommends creating more than one ad per campaign for testing purposes. Here are some quick facts about LinkedIn Ads (all guidelines here, all best practices here)
You can add an image to show with your ad
Your ad can direct to a website or a LinkedIn profile page
Proper sentence case is required -Your Ads Will Not Show If You Write Them Like This. (With the exception of valid acronyms)
Correct spelling and grammar is required
Although you can target multiple counties, the ads must be in English
Here is an example ad:
Please note you CANNOT use LinkedIn in your ads. This ad was made for only for this blog as an image.
Targeting
The next step is to choose your target audience. As mentioned above, LinkedIn targeting can get very specific. Be sure to choose your audience carefully. One of my favorite features when selecting your audience is Estimated Target Audience that appears next to the filtering area. While you are selecting who you want to target you can watch your target audience fluctuate so you know approximately how many LinkedIn members will see your ad.
I have not tested targeting the Audience Network, mainly because of limited budgets for my campaigns but it is something I hope to test in the future.
Campaign Bids and Budgets
You can either chose to run your ads by CPC or by CPM. We typically go with the CPC model. LinkedIn will then supply you with a Bid Range which is the range as to how much it will cost you per click to target the audience you specified in the previous step. While the bid range does change, the minimum bid is $2 for both options.
We have tested running CPC vs. CPM to determine which was more cost efficient. We found that running on CPC model was 78% cheaper than running on CPM per click, and 56% cheaper per thousand impressions.
Budgeting gets a little tricky as you dont know how many impressions your ad will receive in a day. You will need to pick a budget that is comfortable for your client. Your ad will continue to show throughout the day until you have reached the budget that was set. There is no minimum spend but there is a $10 minimum daily budget.
VERY IMORTANT FOR US ADVERTISERS
This was a little surprising to see and I was a little surprised in a bad way when I saw this. Taken from LinkedIns best practices:
We display your ads atdifferent rates during the daydepending on when LinkedIn users are active on the website — for example, 50% of your budget might be spent in the morning, 30% in the afternoon, and 20% overnight. Once your Daily Budget is reached, your ads will stop showing for that day. Also, note that sincemost people visit LinkedIn on weekdays, you’re more likely to spend your Daily Budget during the week than over the weekend.
Note that an advertising “day” is based on Greenwhich Mean Time (GMT), which starts at 4pm Pacific (7pm Eastern) in the U.S.
There is no option to set up any sort of day parting to ensure that your ads are showing up at the best time for your time zone Hopefully something that will change as the platform evolves!
Once you are done setting up billing, your campaigns are set to go! (There is a $5 activation fee but this is used to cover your initial clicks/impressions.)
Tips for Managing/optimizing LinkedIn
Dont make a dummy account! Use the account of the company or someone (someone that is recognizable from your company or has a respectable title) from the company. At the bottom of your ad it will say who the ad is from and it allows you to click on the name of the person/company and will direct you to their profile. We have tested both previously and seen much better performance when using a company vs. dummy account.
The best indicator of how your ads are performing is by CTR. For LinkedIn a good CTR is greater than .025%. You can optimize your CTR best testing different versions of ad copy. You can test the headline, descriptions and images. Having a better CTR will help lower your CPC.
Although LinkedIn does not track leads/conversions there is a way to do so using Google Analytics. If you have analytics installed on every page you can append this parameter to the end of your destination URL.
(Tip: I usually name each ad something different, that way I know which ad converts the best. You can then track the conversion by setting up Goals in GA.)
Since you can get really granular with the audience you are targeting, it is also good to test segmenting the audience into different campaigns and sending them to specific landing pages per their business needs. For example, if your company has one model for small businesses and one for large businesses, you can target these two business sizes in separate campaigns and create landing pages that speaks specifically to that audience.
When using LinkedIn as a part of your PPC strategy you can anticipate that you will receive less volume than from search campaigns. Although volume is lower, LinkedIn is still a viable strategy to reach your target audience and may generate better quality leads and a better ROI!
Twitter recently announced that they now have their version of paid search which they are calling Promoted Tweets. I am sure most people have read about these by now so I wont bore you with details on how they work. (But, if youd like to read more check out this post onSocial Media B2B.
At first I was really excited about Promoted Tweets and tried to think of which clients we have that could benefit from this. And then it hit me – does anyone actually use the search feature?
I began reading more about how the Promoted Tweets would only show on a search results page and will ultimately disappear if users do not interact with the Tweet. Interesting concept- but will it work?
(Disclaimer: I dont research Twitter for a living and I dont know the stats of who does what when they are Tweeting away – so this is all just my opinion.)
I evaluated how real people actually use Twitter.com (Important to note this was a VERY small audience I evaluated in lieu of timing, mainly myself and a few close Tweeps). Im 99% positive that in the past year or so that I have had a Twitter account, that I have never used the search future to find information, other than today, which was solely for the purpose of this blog. I have used it however when I want to mention someone I am following in my tweet and I forget what their @ name is. Plus – dont most people update their Tweets from their phone and third party apps (I personally prefer the Twitter Gadget on my iGoogle-which doesnt allow you to search)?
So I decided to do a little test and think like a consumer on Twitter. One company that is testing the Promoted Tweets is Starbucks and I know that today they are giving away free coffee to anyone that brings in a reusable mug (go green) for Tax Day Freebies:. I know this because I love coffee, I am a fan of them on Facebook and I follow them on Twitter (no judgments necessary).
My Theory:
The common Tweep/Twit/Twitterer/Tweeter/Micro-blogger does not use the Twitter search feature to search for products, etc. So as this Promoted Tweets is a good idea – I ultimately think it will fail to bring any actual value to the advertiser.
My Test- Starbucks:
I thought about terms that a consumer of Starbucks and Coffee in general would search for and entered these keywords in the Search bar on my Twitter.com page. Since today is free coffee day my focus is on those types of keywords
Search #1:
I went for the obvious Starbucks and discovered my first Promoted Tweet! Wahoo! Success.
Search #2:
My next search was for Free Coffee. No Promoted Tweet here- but plenty of free WOM advertising going on! Success? Maybe not for Starbucks wouldnt this be opportune time to promote their Free Coffee day?
Search #3:
Keyword: Coffee. Promoted Tweet- Success, kinda. Most natural Tweets were about people spilling their coffee or needing more coffee to get through the day- so Starbucks paying to show up here is a little silly, right?
Search #4
Keyword: Coffee Deals, Promoted Tweet- Success. Again, Why not tailor the message to promote the Free Coffee Day?
My Conclusion: Out of the 4 terms I tested the only ones I believe people (if anyone would do a search like this on Twitter) would actually search for are free coffee and coffee deals- So, Starbucks gets a 50% for the day from me (Ill ignore the fact that the Promoted Tweets showing failed to mention the Free coffee).
The Promoted Tweet thing may work or it may not- only time can tell. In my opinion- its a waste of advertising dollars in a space where most of the chatter about your brand is free (and hopefully positive), and if the people really want to know about what you have to say they are:
1. Already following you on Twitter or
2. They will find you in the trending topics along with Justin Bieber and whats #nowplaying.
Again this is purely my opinion, so what do you think?
Has anyone tested this, got results and it has generated a positive ROI for the advertiser?
By now most of you know my ongoing love / hate affair with twitter, in my posting saying I hated it, then my post tell you I planned a amazing Chicago vacation using it, and now I am back to hate, sorry be being a flip flopper!
I have a couple thousand followers on twitter, which is great! As much as I advocate against attaching your ego to your twitter followers, as my followers grow I take that as a vote that I am putting something of value out there, more followers hopefully means I am doing something to attract and retain followers (since I am not one of those people who follows everyone back).
With that said, I recently had an issue with my blog, & I posted it here:
(Image removed)
With 2,000+ followers I honestly expected that I would have 4-5 responses of people who I hopefully help out with my posts, jumping to help me out. NOPE. Crickets, except for 1, luckily that 1 was all I needed!
(Image removed)
Jaamit thank you so much, hope all is well with you and the SEO team at Freshegg!
For the record, I may have met Jaamit, but we had never corresponded before and really didn’t know each other.
Darn, I gotta get some more programmers following me!
Thank God one person jumped in to help me out!
The hard facts that I have found from this experience are:
1 How many people follow you means NOTHING if in your time of need some of them dont / can’t help you.
2 Sometimes, when you have a real issue you may have to post it 3-4 times (not more than once a day) to ensure that a larger percentage of your followers will see it, we all miss a TON of good tweets, even from our friends (this is what I think happened in my case).
3 Growing followers is important because you cant expect everyone you follow to know the answer to your questions, so growing your count is important and follower diversity is important.
4 Answering peoples questions (especially those with some reach and well ranking blogs) is a GREAT way to build high quality links, they often link out and share the love, heck it worked for Jaamit hes linked above, and he never asked for a thing, he just was willing to help a link back is my way of saying thanks!
The moral of this story is summed up in point 5.
5 If you have the time, using search.twitter.com for commonly searched phrases in your industry. Then see if people are having problems with something you can EASILY help them out with. Answer their questions, is a great way to build quality followers and potentially links. I mentioned that way back in my link building with twitter post.
Easy enough, next time you are stumped in your linkbuilding strategy, think about going to Twitter search and seeing who is asking questions you can answer (in a non-salesly way)
By now most of you know my ongoing love / hate affair with twitter, in my posting saying I hated it, then my post tell you I planned a amazing Chicago vacation using it, and now I am back to hate, sorry be being a flip flopper!
I have a couple thousand followers on twitter, which is great! As much as I advocate against attaching your ego to your twitter followers, as my followers grow I take that as a vote that I am putting something of value out there, more followers hopefully means I am doing something to attract and retain followers (since I am not one of those people who follows everyone back).
With that said, I recently had an issue with my blog, & I posted it here:
(Image removed)
With 2,000+ followers I honestly expected that I would have 4-5 responses of people who I hopefully help out with my posts, jumping to help me out. NOPE. Crickets, except for 1, luckily that 1 was all I needed!
(Image removed)
Jaamit thank you so much, hope all is well with you and the SEO team at Freshegg!
For the record, I may have met Jaamit, but we had never corresponded before and really didn’t know each other.
Darn, I gotta get some more programmers following me!
Thank God one person jumped in to help me out!
The hard facts that I have found from this experience are:
1 – How many people follow you means NOTHING if in your time of need some of them don’t / can’t help you.
2 – Sometimes, when you have a real issue you may have to post it 3-4 times (not more than once a day) to ensure that a larger percentage of your followers will see it, we all miss a TON of good tweets, even from our friends (this is what I think happened in my case).
3 – Growing followers is important because you can’t expect everyone you follow to know the answer to your questions, so growing your count is important and follower diversity is important.
4 – Answering people’s questions (especially those with some reach and well ranking blogs) is a GREAT way to build high quality links, they often link out and share the love, heck it worked for Jaamit he’s linked above, and he never asked for a thing, he just was willing to help a link back is my way of saying thanks!
The moral of this story is summed up in point 5.
5 – If you have the time, using search.twitter.com for commonly searched phrases in your industry. Then see if people are having problems with something you can EASILY help them out with. Answer their questions, is a great way to build quality followers and potentially links. I mentioned that way back in my link building with twitter post.
Easy enough, next time you are stumped in your linkbuilding strategy, think about going to Twitter search and seeing who is asking questions you can answer (in a non-salesly way)
