Content is King

Most of you have probably heard the saying "content is king" and it really is becoming even more important than it has ever been.

Without content SEO becomes very difficult. You need great content on your site and you need to distribute your content in order to generate back links, drive traffic and increase your brand recognition.

Many businesses find it difficult to produce content as they don't see the value in it.

There are many types of content which you can create which are useful in different situations.

Articles are typically 500+ words around a subject. Articles can be factual or amusing. I have found that the types of articles people share and republish the most are Top 10 Lists and How To articles.

Press releases are also good content pieces, PR can cover news about your business, sector white papers and your thoughts on industry news.

A very popular type of content are blog posts, these are typically more informal and often have more of a personal point of view. Writing on your own blog or a practice known as guest blogging is very a popular way to increase brand recognition, reach or target audience and generate valuable back links. Other types of content which are similar to blog posts are micro blogs which are typically posted on social media sites like Twitter, where you only have 140 characters.

Slideshows are another great way to share your content, this is because you can create visually appealing content and share this on document sharing sites, for others to embed the slideshow on their site.

Slideshows can also be converted into videos which is another type of content. With YouTube one of the most visited sites in the UK, video production and distribution is a no brainier for promoting your business.

Podcasts are another very under utilised type of content this can be a great way to promote your company.

Infographics are also a popular type of content. People like visuals, and this type of content is easy to get people to share on sites, particularly with Pinterest becoming so popular.

Really useful and interesting content can drive traffic to your site, rank well in the search engines and generate back links.

Spending time to invest in quality content is worthwhile and with the recent Google algorithm updates aimed at combatting web spam the only thing to do is put on your thinking cap and get started on creating something that will excite, enrage or entertain.

Link Types

Link building is an important part of SEO, and is becoming increasingly difficult as Google looks to minimise spam and maximise quality. One way to ensure your website thrives over others is to build a diverse and varied back link profile.

Here are a selection of different types of links, can you think of any others?

Miscellaneous Links:
There many types of links ones I couldn't classify include links are found on private blogs, links from resource pages, university links, link exchange pages, links found in the footer and/or sidebar of private websites and referral links.  These often make up the majority of the links pointing to a website. These ‘other’ types of links build up over time, giving the site more authority and value in the eyes of the search engines.

Internal Links:
Links created internally to connect pages within a site. These links are important as they facilitate the user navigation of a site. A limit should be placed on how many internal links each single page of a website has, typically less than 100.

Affiliate Links:
Links created from partner sites are called affiliate links, these links are from another website owned or partnering with the same company.

Article Links:
Articles are a good medium for advertisement and are used to drive traffic. Articles deliver a long term benefit with permanent backlinks which can grow naturally when content is re-published.

News Article Links:
These link are built naturally when a company is mentioned in the news. These links can be of great value, especially when they come from authority sites such as the bbc.co.uk which has a domain authority of 100.

Wiki Article:
Wiki sites such as  Wikepedia, which is the 4th most visited website in the world (Source: Alexa.com), are considered high authority sites and are used to create quality backlinks and drive traffic.

Directory Links:
Directories are the places where people go to look for websites in specific sectors, they are popular in the online world. Directories must be carefully selected to offer SEO benefit as many have been abused in the past.

Press Release Links:
A well written Press Release can be a good source of authority backlinks and traffic.

Foreign Site Links:
Foreign links are links which come from websites which are not written in English. The benefit of having a foreign site link is it makes your backlink profile more diverse. The problem with this type of link is a foreign site could be poor quality or spam and this can have a negative effect on the sites linked to.

Forum Posts:
Forums are a good source of backlinks, especially when the forum is related because it helps Google create an association between the forum subject and the site. Forums are also a good source of relevant traffic and the visitor is more likely to convert.


Social Bookmark Links:
This is a link from a site like Digg, or StumbleUpon where you bookmark the page for others to find.

Social Media Links:
Social links are links from sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+, they are good for traffic and also get pages ranking well if the links are re-published a high number of times.

Image Links:
Image links are backlinks from an image as opposed to text. These are sometimes sponsored or paid for links, but not always. Google will often pick up images and show them in the Google Images part of the search engine so they can be a good source for backlinks and traffic.

How to Use Social Monitoring Tools for Link Building

Link building is a very important part of SEO, links are how you let the world know about your site. Not all links are equal. Some links are very valuable others are mediocre and others are really bad news. Obviously you want as many of the good links as possible.

Now you probably want to know “How do I find good link building opportunities?”

Many link builders use a technique known as competitor back link analysis. This is where you use tools to identify links pointing to your competitors and aim to get links from places where they have achieved links.
Another way to find places you might be able to attain links from is by monitoring the web for your brand, or for people talking about your products and services offered and looking for opportunities to link.

One way you can do this is by using social media monitoring tools. Tools which monitor social media will present real time conversations which could provide an opening for you to join the conversation and add something to it.

A good place to begin is to see what people are talking about by using Twitter search. You can use the search to look for people who are talking about things related to your business. Often people tweet links to websites that have a particular subject matter, these websites could be the ideal places for you to release content or join the conversation.

There are also plenty of free social monitoring tools that will help you identify where people are discussing related topics. One good tool to find websites which are discussing the topics which relate to your business is Google Alerts.

Google Alerts lets you track web mentions of any word or phrase and is one of the fastest ways to discover new content that gets published on the web. You can get alerts to your inbox of via RSS and you can tailor this to filter results by media type (News, Blogs, Video, Discussion and Books).

There are quite a lot of free and paid tools to help you see what people are talking about online and these will help to identify places where links can be built. The beauty of this method is you are going to be discovering themed links. Building links from sites which are related to your subject matter have always been better than links from non-related websites. These links are very valuable and can offer greater SEO benefit over a link from a site which is based around a non-related subject.

Using Forums for Link Building

What is a Forum?
A forum is an Internet message board where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged. They are great places to connect with others who have similar interests to you. Forums are typically centred on a specific topic and therefore are ideal for getting expert advice and finding people with a certain interest.

What is a Forum Signature?
A forum signature is a piece of text (sometimes an image too) which can be placed underneath any comments you make in forum posts. This is normally created in the control panel of your profile and can be set to automatically insert underneath all of your comments. Typically people include a link back to their website and give some details about their name and job title.

The Problem with Forum Links
The problem with forum links is spammers. For years underhand link builders have used forum signatures to create keyword rich anchor text links to websites without providing participating in the discussion.

How to Use Forums Correctly
Forums are ideal places to display your knowledge and expertise on a particular topic. You must however, be sure you are joining a community in order to share or give knowledge; a spammer can be spotted a mile off. If you are there solely to advertise this will be apparent and your efforts will not be appreciated by the community. You can also get banned by the forum moderators.

Use forums as a place to support your company by sharing your knowledge and creating a favourable impression to members of your community. Forums now often have a bad reputation among the SEO community as in the past they have been used by spammers only to get a link from the forum signature.

The best way to approach using forums is to look at it as a branding/PR exercise. If you get a link back it’s a bonus. If you are providing useful advice and information to the members of the forum there is a high chance people will visit your website.

There is also evidence that brand mentions do have some SEO benefit, so even if the forum does not provide a live link it is still worth participating in very relevant forums as these can still drive relevant traffic to your site. Also the better you can answer a question the more likely it is your answer will appear in SERPs

Top Tips for Forum Participation

• Stick to forums that are related to your area of expertise
• Ensure your profile is up to date with all your correct contact information
• Help members by answering questions to the best of your knowledge
• Do not spam
• Engage with forum moderators and those with a high post count