It’s time for Part 2 in my series on Link Building Tactics. As I mentioned before, links are an important part of Google’s algorithm – if you don’t have links to your site, you won’t rank well for your keywords. Last month I wrote about how you can check the real number of links coming into your website and how you can use that information to build relationships and generate even more links (Link Building Tactics Series – SEO University).

Today I want to continue the series and talk about the most basic component of generating links which is:

Write Quality Content

If you want people to link to you then you need to write content that is worth linking to (also known as “linkbait”)! Create interesting, relevant content that your target audience would find valuable. Identify what pains or problems your customers / readers are facing and give them solution that is easy to digest and makes them curious to learn more.

So What?

Your content should answer the question So What? Why should readers care what you are writing about? Your customers are bombarded with more websites and articles than they know what to do with! Unless your content can answer the So What? question, readers will move on to find an expert who will.

300-500 Words

How long should an article be? A guideline that I always recommend is at least 300 and aim for 500. If the article is below 300 words then it’s harder to get picked up in the search engines. 500 seems to be an ideal number because it’s enough to get your thoughts out on a specific topic. Keep your articles short and focused. If you’re writing over 1,000 words it’s better to split the content up into two 500+ word articles. This way your articles will be more readable, will stay focused on one topic, and you can get more search engine traffic to two shorter articles than one long one.

Look To Niche Social Networking Sites

To get ideas for what topics to cover and how to position your content check out a niche social media sites that caters specifically to your audience. For example, if you target small business owners, you would want to look at BizSugar.com.

A quick glance at their Hot Topics show what small business owners are currently interested in. It will also show you the types of titles that attract attention. The titles of the top 5 articles are:

• Franchise Mathematics; How Many More Franchise Broker Networks Do We Need?
• Six Ways to Improve Employee Morale Without Breaking the Bank
• Why Your Twitter Followers Aren’t Leads…Or Are They?
• Act Like a Child and Increase Your Small Business Marketing Skills
• The 7 Ages Of Your Business – From Enthusiasm To Exhaustion

Notice that two of the titles ask a provocative question and two others include a top 6 or top 7 list. Asking questions and creating lists are proven methods to drive interest in your articles. Even if all you change is your title and keep the content of your articles the same you could see significant changes in how many people find them and link to you.

Get Your Content Into Google

You can write the greatest content in the world but if Google doesn’t know about it, you won’t get traffic or links. If your website is not very popular then Google might only come every six months to see if you have anything new. You don’t want to wait six months for them to pick up your articles! The easiest way to get your content into Google is to use their AddURL tool.

It’s a free tool that Google created to help you add pages into their index. Simply go to http://www.google.com/addurl/ then put in your URL, type in the letters that appear in the box and press “Add URL” – you’re done!

If you’re adding many pages at a time then you might want to consider creating a sitemap of your content. This requires slightly more technical skill but it’s worth it if you are writing a lot of content and want Google to pick up all of your pages.

I’ll continue the Link Building Tactics series in the coming weeks and hope that in the meantime you focus you efforts on developing quality content that makes people want to read on, keep it to around 500 words, and tell Google as soon as you create the content so you can get indexed right away.

I’d be curious to know what piece of content got the most links for you?

Today was the first day of the Search Engine Strategies (SES) conference here in Toronto. I was invited to come as a guest blogger as part of the media. I did the same thing last year and it was a great experience. They have three streams of sessions going on at the same time so registrants have to pick which ones they most want to attend. The three streams are: Nuts & Bolts (practical how-to type of information), Geek (technical more advanced workshops), and Corporateville (for the attendees who are from large companies).

Today was an information filled day with a host of excellent speakers and lively discussion. I stayed mostly in the Geek track and thought I would share some of the valuable information from two of my favorite presentations of the day.

The first workshop I attended was Signals: What Relevancy Indicators Are Search Engineers Watching For Today? One of the panelists was Marios Alexandrou who is a SEO Manager for Acronym Media. The bulk of Marios’ talk was on universal search. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, universal search refers to search engines like Google showing more than 10 blue links when you do a query. Instead you get video results, news results, maps, images etc thrown in as well.

Here is an example using the key word “Paris”

As you can see from the Google search results, three out of the top six results are not the blue text links that we’re used to.

The top result is a Google Map of Paris, France. The #5 result shows videos about Paris from YouTube and the #6 result shows recent news about Paris from Google News.

If website owners were to try and rank for this keyword with a regular webpage, they would only have a one in three chance of doing so because half of the ranked pages are from universal search.

Marios provided the following suggestions for entrepreneurs who are trying to get on page 1 for their important keywords and what universal search can mean for them.

#1 – Can’t get the top spot with a website? Try video!

YouTube videos are frequently popping up into the search engine results and if you optimize the video titles they can often be far easier to rank for than a regular website. If you’re having a hard time getting to that coveted #1 ranking, consider using a video to try and knock off your competition.

#2 – Dominate the rankings – Push out competitors!

So you rank #1 and #2 for your important key words – why not take over another spot in the top 10 with a video and another spot with a Google Maps result and yet another with Google image results? The more your site is featured on that first page the less your competition is going to get. Don’t settle for just the top two spots.

“Page load time will likely be a future factor in search engine rankings – the faster your pages load, the more you will be rewarded with high rankings.”

#3 – Engage more with your users!

Some people love the text content while others prefer the videos, search, maps, and news. By optimizing for all the different universal search categories you can cater to all the different tastes of your potential customers.

Two other interesting thoughts that came out of Marios’ presentation and discussion:

• SearchWiki – Google wants your vote and they are paying attention to how people are using the SearchWiki rating mechanism
• Page load time will likely be a future factor in search engine rankings – the faster your pages load, the more you will be rewarded with high rankings

The other speaker who I really enjoyed hearing today was Mike McDerment. Mike is the CEO & Co-founder of FreshBooks, an online invoicing company that caters to professionals and entrepreneurs.

Mike’s talk was part of the workshop Beyond Linkbait: Getting Authoritative Online Mentions and was special because it was different – he focused on the importance of making your website a business. It’s great to rank well in the search engines but if it doesn’t lead to a lot of business, who cares? Mike shared his story about how his website was originally designed for search engines and he got traffic and did get some customers but he wasn’t where he wanted to be.

“Nobody expects the personal touch from a website and by reaching out FreshBooks generated media attention as well as earned customers for life.”

By switching the design to focus on the customer and not the search engines he was able to see a massive increase in business. Mike is heavily customer-service oriented and has managed to create a 30-person company which truly cares about their clients. He tries to go out of his way to make sure that his customers are happy, which is rare for an online business. His talk reminded me a lot of what Tony Hsieh from Zappos preaches about excellent customer service.

It was refreshing (no pun intended) to hear someone talk about buildling a business and not just how to rank in Google. Some of Mike’s advice included:

• We are all in service businesses, not technology businesses
• Giving outstanding customer experiences should be the main focus of your business
• Relationships with customers is the currency of your success
• Take care of your staff and they will take care of your customers who will take care of your business
• Follow the 4E Mantra of: Execute on Extraordinary Experiences Everyday

Mike also shared a story about a customer of theirs who was on Twitter and mentioned that she was stood up by a date that night. The FreshBooks team, which makes a regular habit of following their customers, responded by Tweeting that they would never stand her up and then sent her flowers. Nobody expects the personal touch from a website and by reaching out FreshBooks generated media attention as well as earned customers for life.

Mike’s session was a reminder that we all need to think about the business of our business, provide outstanding customer service and not just worry about ranking #1 in the search engines.

I’m looking forward to another great day tomorrow and I’ll keep you posted with another update!