Google Webmaster Tools: An Overview

Google Webmaster Tools (GWT) is the primary mechanism for Google to communicate with webmasters. Google Webmaster Tools helps you to identify issues with your site and can even let you know if it's been infected with malware (not something you ever want to see, but if you haven't spotted it yourself, or had one of your users tweet at you to let you know, it's invaluable).
And the best part? It's absolutely free. If you don't have a GWT account, then you need to go get one now.
This guide to Google Webmaster Tools will walk you through the various features of this tool, and give you insight into what actionable data can be found within. (For more in depth help, go to Google's Webmaster Help.)

Verification

Before you can access any data on your site, you have to prove that you're an authorized representative of the site. This is done through a process of verification.
There are five main methods of verification currently in place for GWT. There's no real preference as to which method you use, although the first two tend to be the most commonly used as they've been around for longer.

• The HTML file upload. Google provides you with a blank, specially named file that you just have to drop in the root directory of your site. Once you've done that, you just click on the verify button and you'll have access to your GWT data for this site.
• HTML tag. Clicking on this option will provide you with a metatag that you can insert into the head of your home page. Once it's there click on the verify button to view your GWT data. One item to note about using this method of verification is that it's possible for the tag to be accidentally removed during an update to the home page, which would lead to a revocation of the verification, but reinserting the tag and clicking verify again will fix that.
• Domain Name Provider. Select your Domain Name provider from the drop down list and Google will give you a step by step guide for verification along with a unique security token for you to use.
• Google Analytics. If the Google account you're using for GWT is the same account as for GA (assuming you're using GA as your analytics solution), is an admin on the GA account, and you're using the asynchronous tracking code (with the code being in the head of your home page), then you can verify the site this way.
• Google Tag Manager. This option allows you to use the Google Tag Manager to verify your site.

The Dashboard

Now that you're verified, you can log in and start to examine the data for your site.

The first screen you'll see is the dashboard. This gives you a quick view into some of the more pertinent information for your site, along with any new messages from Google. We'll cover each of the widgets shown here in their own sections.

Site Messages

When Google wants to communicate with a webmaster, this is the place they'll do so. There may be messages that inform you that you have pages infected with malware, that they've detected a large number of pages on your site, which may be an indication of other problems, or even just an informational message that your WordPress installation really needs to be updated to remove the possibility of anyone exploiting already known security holes in that platform.
Not all messages are bad. There's also the possibility that you'll get one that congratulates you on an increase in traffic to one or more of your pages.

Settings

Clicking on the gear icon in the top right gives you access to the tools that formerly resided in the Configuration menu item.

Webmaster Tools Preferences

Here you can specify whether you'd like to receive a daily digest of your messages or not, and the email account you'd like them sent to.

Site Settings

Here you can tell Google some things about your site if you're not able to tell them in other ways.
For example, if you have a .com site, hosted in Duluth, but it's targeted to the UK, there aren't too many signals to the search engines that that's your intention. In this tab you can set your geographic target to the UK, which informs Google of your intentions for this site.
You can also set your preferred domain – whether you want the site to show up in the search results with the www or without the www. Most sites will redirect from one to the other, or contain canonical tags, which will preclude the need for setting this here, but if you don't have that capability, this is your way to tell Google.
The crawl rate option allows you to slow down the rate of Google's spider's crawl. You'd only really do this if you witnessed server issues due to Google's crawling, for the most part you're going to let Google figure out what the correct crawl rate is for your site based on how frequently you add and update content.

Change of Address

If, on the rare occasion that you would do so, you decide to migrate your entire site to a new domain, this is where you let Google know.
Once you've set up your new site, permanently redirected the content from your old site to your new using a 301 redirect, added and verified your new site on GWT, then you come to this option and inform Google of the move.
This should help the index to be updated slightly more quickly than if Google were to just self detect and follow the 301s.

Google Analytics Property

If you'd like to be able to see your GWT data in Google Analytics (GA), you can use this tool to associate a site with a GA account. Simply select any currently linked GA account to associate it with this site. Should you not have a GA account, you have the option to create one here.

Users & Site Owners

Here you can see a list of all authorized users on the account, and their level of authorization. A new user can be added here if needs be.
Owners have permission to access every item on the site.
Users with "Full" permission can do everything except add users, link a GA account and inform Google of a change of address.
Users with "Restricted" permission have the same restrictions as those with "Full" permission plus the following: they only have viewing capabilities on configuration data, cannot submit sitemaps or request URL removals, cannot submit URLs, cannot submit reconsideration requests, and only have the capability to view crawl errors and malware notifications (they can't mark any of them as fixed).

Verification Details

This lets you see any verification issues / successes.

Associates

This section allows you to associate different Google accounts with your GWT account, so that they can be designated as officially connected to the account/site. They can't see any data in GWT, but they can perform actions on behalf of your site (e.g., creating an official YouTube account for the site, or posting to Google+ on behalf of the site through an associated account).
To add an associate user, simply:

• Click on the "Add a new User" button.
• Enter the email address that's associated with the account you're associating.
• Select the type of association you want.
• Click "Add".

To associate a Google+ page, if it's the same account on GWT and Google+, you're done. If you're using different accounts:

• Navigate to the Google+ page.
• Click on the profile button on the left.
• Click "About", in the links section.
• Add a link to the site.

Search Appearance

Clicking on the ? icon to the right of this menu option delivers a nice breakdown of the various elements of a search engine results page (SERP).

Structured Data

Here you can see information about all structured data elements that Google's located on your site, whether they're from schema.org or older microformats.

Data Highlighter

The data highlighter allows you to help Google identify some types of structured data on the pages without the need for the code to actually be implemented.

HTML Improvements

Here is where GWT will inform you of issues with your title and description tags. As titles and descriptions should be unique for each page and should be within certain character length ranges, this section points out where you have issues that can and should be corrected.
For example, if all of your tag pages have the same description, then you aren't telling the search engines much about what is on those pages.
Clicking through on any of these errors will give you a more descriptive overview of the error and will also give you a list of pages where the error was detected.

Sitelinks

Whenever Google determines that your site is an authority for a particular keyword they'll show a collection of links below the main link, pointing to what they believe to be the most important links on that page. From time to time they'll show a link that you don't particularly want to be surfaced, and this is where you'll correct that issue.

While you can't specify the actual pages that you want to display in the sitelinks (that would be far too open to abuse), you can specify which pages you want removed. Simply enter the URL of the page with the sitelinks (not always just the homepage), and then type in the URL of the sitelink that you want to be removed.
Note that the erroneous URL may then precluded from displaying in the sitelinks for a certain period of time, but may return at some point in the future (any time after 90 days from your last visit to the sitelinks page) if it still appears to be an important link on that page, so you may want to periodically review your sitelinks. Also note that Google has now placed a limit of 100 on the number of demotions you can have active for a particular site.

Search Traffic

Search Queries

Here you can get an overview of the top keywords that returned a page from your site in the search results. Note the data shown here is collected in a slightly different way from your analytics platform, including GA, so don't expect the number to exactly tally.

What this does is give you an idea of the top traffic driving keywords for your site, the number of impressions and clicks, and therefore the click through rate (CTR), and the average position that your page was ranking for that particular query.

You can also view the same data by page rather than by keyword. This shows you the top traffic generating pages on your site, and perhaps helps you identify those that you should concentrate on optimizing, as a high traffic generator in 11th position would be a much higher traffic generator in 8th.

Links to Your Site

This section identifies the domains that link to you the most, along with your most linked to content. While you most likely won't see every link that Google's found for your site, you will see more than if you went to google.com and performed a search for "link:yoursite.com".

Internal Links

Here you can see the top 1,000 pages on your site sorted by the number of internal links to those pages. If you have a small number of pages on your site, you can reverse the sort order by clicking on the Links header.
Any pages that show 0 internal links have been orphaned and should either be linked to from somewhere on your site, or redirected to an appropriate page if they're old legacy pages.

Google Index

Index Status

The Index Status allows you to track the status of your site within the Google index. How many pages are they showing as being indexed? Are there any worrying trends? Have you accidentally blocked large sections of your site from Googlebot? This is a great place to get the answers to those questions and more.

Content Keywords

This section displays the most common keywords found by the Google crawler as it navigated your site. One thing to keep an eye on here is if you see unexpected, unrelated keywords showing up, that's usually an indication that your site may have been hacked and hidden keywords have been injected into your pages.

Remove URLs

If you receive a cease and desist letter from an attorney demanding that you remove a page from your site, if you accidentally break a news embargo, or release an obituary while the person is still breathing, you'll most likely want to get that page out of Google as soon as possible.
The first step is to either remove the page itself or 301 it elsewhere so that it can't be crawled and indexed. This prevents users and crawlers from getting to it, but the URL will still be in the index, and the page can still be found in the cache. That's where this tool comes in.
Enter the URL that you want to remove, click continue, then select whether you want it removed from the search results and the cache, just from the cache or if you want an entire directory removed. Clicking Submit Request adds it to the removal queue. Typically this request will be processed in 2-12 hours.

Crawl

Crawl Errors

Here's where you find out about the errors that Google has detected when crawling your site over the past 90 days. This is an invaluable tool as it can absolutely help you identify a variety of issues on your site, from server errors to missing pages, and errors in between.
GWT shows you the number of errors, lists the pages and shows a graph of your count over time for that particular error so you can see whether it's been a gradual change or a more sudden occurrence (perhaps a code push caused unforeseen errors with a section of the site that no one noticed).
This section should be a frequent port of call, as you keep an eye out for any new issues that could be impacting the crawling of your site. If your site has either a mobile presence or is in Google News, you will see tabs dedicated to any crawl errors specific to those products.

Crawl Stats

The crawl stats section gives you an idea of how fast the crawlers are able to read pages on your site. Spikes are to be expected here, but is you see a sustained drop in pages crawled, or a sustained spike in time spent downloading a page, or in the size of a page, then that's an indication that you should take a look and see what's changed on your site – perhaps you added a new partner module that's created a bigger than expected addition to the footprint on your site.

Fetch as Google

Here is where you can basically view your pages as Google sees them. They'll return the HTTP response, the date and time, and the HTML code, including the first 100kb of visible text on the page.
This is a great way of verifying that the Google crawler sees the page as you expect it to (remember the crawler is supposed to see the same page as the user would see), and that there are no externally injected hidden links on the page. If the page looks how you expect it to, then you can submit it to the index. You are allowed 500 fetches / submissions a week, and 10 linked page submissions per week (submitting a page and all pages linked from it at the same time).

Blocked URLs

This section is the place to test out your current robots.txt against any pages on your site to verify whether they can be crawled or not. You can also test out modifications to your robots.txt to see whether they'd work as you anticipate against various pages on your site.

Sitemaps

Here's where you can access all of the information about the sitemaps that GWT has been informed of. To test a sitemap, click the add/test sitemap button, and GWT will inform you if the sitemap appears to be valid. If it is then simply add the sitemap using the same procedure, except clicking the add sitemap button.
Note that the default view here is to only show the sitemaps that you have added. To view those that have been added by other authorized users on the account click the "all" tab.
The page shows you the sitemaps that you've submitted, the number of pages they found in each, and the number of those pages that they've indexed. You can also see quite clearly if there are any issues that they've detected within your sitemaps. Simply click on the warnings hyperlink to view them all.

URL Parameters

With the introduction and use of canonical tags, this feature isn't used as much as it used to be. What it does is that it allows you to specify URL query string parameters that shouldn't be considered when examining URLs on the site to determine unique URLs.
For example, if you had a tracking parameter that you use for a particular campaign, then the page is obviously the exact same page as when it's reached without the tracking parameter. Entering the tracking parameter in here tells Google that they should ignore the tracking parameter when looking at the URL.

Malware

If Google has detected any malware on your site, this is where they'll list it out (it will also appear in the messages section). If you see a page here you'll want to get it fixed as soon as possible and click on the "Request a Review" button that will be displayed here.

Additional Tools

This section contains links to tools that are outside of GWT, but are of interest to webmasters, such as the Structured Data Testing tool, which enables webmasters to test their schema implementations, the Structured Data Markup Helper, and others.

Labs

The labs section contains functionality that's in testing mode. When it's deemed to be "ready for prime time" it will be promoted to the regular sections of GWT, or it may just vanish if it's determined to not be useful.

Author Stats

With the big push to tie up bylines to Google+ accounts, this tool allows you to see data for pages which you are the author for, so you'd need to be logged into an account in GWT that you've previously set up as an author.

Custom Search

This allows you to set up Google customized search for your own site.

Instant Previews

This tool allows you to see how your site looks using Google's Instant Preview feature (the view of your site that can be seen in the search results when you mouse over the double arrows that show up next to a result). However, Google removed Instant Previews in April, so this feature isn't of any value to webmasters.

Site Performance

This section of Labs has been shut down and links off to alternative resources.

Bing Webmaster Tools

Now that you're up to speed on Google Webmaster Tools, don't forget about another search engine offering a free toolset to webmasters that you should also be using: Bing. See "Bing Webmaster Tools: An Overview" for a complete guide.

Source : http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2191991/Google-Webmaster-Tools-An-Overview

Egobait: How to Get Links & Exposure in a Variety of Verticals

Egobait exists for one main purpose: to increase visibility (which will hopefully generate links). Designed to appeal to the ego of an influencer, it's a concept that has some negative connotations, due to the whole "ego" bit.
While it's true that some people need to have their ego stroked or threatened in order to acknowledge you, there are still people out there who do things for altruistic purposes. Sure, we want the links and the tweets, but sometimes we also just like to contribute to something.
(And naturally I appealed to the egos of my fellow link builders for help with this post.)
I'll share my outreach email with you below. I have a standing list of industry people who I admire, and whenever I want to do something like this, I put together a list of ones who I think are good choices and, if the list is too big, I'll just randomly choose a few. As you can tell, I'm already trying to appeal to the ego of anyone who wasn't contacted.

I'm writing a post about egobait for link building for Search Engine Watch and am trying to get some ideas for how to do this for specific verticals. I have a very, very bad habit of using SEO examples when I write so I'm going to avoid those as they aren't usually relevant to a lot of other industries of course, so if you are interested in contributing I would be insanely appreciative, but if you're too busy/are just uninterested/think I suck then that's fine too although I'll frown heavily and probably eat one too many muffins.
Here's my list of questions…if you are interested and have the time, you're welcome to answer one question or answer them all. I'll compile all of this for a post that should be live on SEW on June 11th, so if you could get this back to me by June 1st I'd greatly appreciate it.

Notice a few things here:

• I tell them where the piece will be published.
• I include a very honest statement about why I'm asking for their help: it's because I do tend to use SEO-heavy examples and I needed something different.
• I give them an easy out for not responding or participating.
• I give them options to make it easier if they can even answer one question.
• I give them dates for when I need their responses and when the post will go live.

After looking over the tips and answers that people sent to me, I realize that I could have improved my response rate by doing a few things differently. I also thought back to a few recent crowdsourced pieces that I participated in, ones where the outreach email listed other contributors. I think that can be a very good tactic as it can lend legitimacy to your piece.
Anyway, enough from me. I'll get started on what everyone else said now. I'd like to thank the following people for contributing (and inspiring the heck out of me!) Note: some answers have been condensed.

• Debra Mastaler
• Nick LeRoy
• Pete Attia
• Chris Dyson
• Jon Cooper
• Gaz Copeland
• Paddy Moogan
• Jo Turnbull

1. Are there any verticals where you feel like egobait is impossible? If so what are they and why is it so hard?

Nick LeRoy: Impossible, no, but is it more effective in some verticals than others? Absolutely. I think someone starting a business or a campaign in general that is in a vertical that isn't established yet would have a hard time. This has a lot to do with lack of individuals associated with the industry or lack of overall exposure.
Jon Cooper: It's hard to say "impossible", but in niches were the tech saviness levels are really low, then it can be quite difficult, just because even though you might have appealed to their ego, it would still be difficult for them to actually implement the link on their website because, as stated, they're not very tech savvy.
Chris Dyson: I've personally found egobait to be a great way for small clients or for my own projects to get on the radar of thought leaders in a new vertical. I don't think egobait is impossible in any vertical, however it may require in depth research/planning, more outreach and paid social media promotion depending on the niche you are working in. Egobait can be a hard sell to clients because I find that some businesses are apprehensive of being positively or negatively associated with other people or brands.
Pete Attia: I think it really depends more on the person than the vertical. Even in marketing where egobaiting is well recognized, it's still effective. I will say, however, egobaiting is much more effective on people with a smaller or new following. I imagine it's because people with large followings are just used to it and become numb.
Gaz Copeland: I think any vertical which isn’t particularly tech savvy and doesn’t have much in the way of online communities or influencers (they still exist believe it or not!) is going to be difficult to crack with any technique so egobait is no different. On the other hand any vertical which has been hit hard by SEO’s in the past, I’m thinking mummy bloggers or similar, just see straight through egobait if it’s done purely for links and shares. I wrote a post over on Triple SEO pointing out that I actually dislike the term. As a tactic it’s effective, but the term it a little crass for me.
Debra Mastaler: Death and taxes. Who wants to read much less link to anything related to death and taxes? Morbid and boring, no thanks.
Paddy Moogan: No verticals spring to mind immediately that I'd classify as impossible. Some are clearly harder than others and I've sometimes struggled with B2B verticals where targets for egobait with the ability to link are quite limited. I've often found that targets are easy to find in most industries, but ones that have the ability to link to you and / or have a large social following are harder to come by.
Jo Turnbull: I think it is hard to do egobait for the insurance and finance market, not due to a lack of data but due to the fact that everything needs to go through compliance and can take a very long time. This means that any new ideas you many have had for egobait are not so new when it comes to being published as it may have taken up to a month to publish the content.

2. Are there any verticals where you feel like egobait is done too often? If so, what are they and why is it so overdone?

Jon Cooper: Overall, a badge strategy is a type of egobait, and in any blog-happy industry, 99 percent of the time that tactic has been beaten into the ground. So no, I can't think of the overall strategy of egobait being done too often in a specific vertical, but in some verticals the way the egobait is displayed (i.e. badges, but there are others) is used too often.
Chris Dyson: In Online Marketing Circles (SEO, Social Media etc) it seems almost impossible to go more than a week without seeing an egobait post in the echo chamber. 20 Bloggers to Watch in 2013 etc. etc. I'm not saying that these articles are in anyway poorly executed, or don't help both the blog hosting the content or the bloggers featured to gain more exposure, but the sheer volumes of these posts do mean that I will more than likely scroll past them when they end up in my Twitter feed or inbox.
Pete Attia: Although it's slightly off topic, old school sales. I have a hard time dealing with sales people whether it's through work or personal endeavors. They're not trying to get a link out of me, obviously, but the concept is still the same. They'll tell you how amazing you or your company is in order to get whatever it is they want from you. This directly affects their pay scale, so they're over the top about it. It drives me slightly crazy.
Debra Mastaler: The arts (music, movies and TV) and education industry have more infographic and egobait pieces done than necessary: how many times can you write an article on how hot Channing Tatum is or how to secure a loan for college? Enough already.

3. Do you have any examples of successful egobait that you can share, ones you've conducted yourself or simply witnessed/read about? Alternatively if you know of any amazing failures, I'd love to know about those too.

Jon Cooper: I can't share any specific examples, but one type of egobait that seems to be a home run just because of the time & effort involved to produce it is via infographic. It can be hard to justify the cost, but making an egobait infographic is usually a sure thing, and the great thing about it is that it can be scaled.
Pete Attia: Well, one time I did an article about videos, where I mostly discussed the band OK Go's YouTube success. I wasn't necessarily trying to get anything out of OK Go, but I figured I'd email them and mention the article, just to see what would happened. They ended up tweeting the article to their 970k followers. I didn't get a ton of retweets out of it or anything like that, but it was neat just because I've been a fan of the band for years. For the record, my favorite failure is Topeka, Kansas changing it's name to Google, Kansas in an attempt to get Fiber in their city. What's funnier is they ended up installing fiber in Kansas, just a different city.
Gaz Copeland: I do a lot of work with a local photography business and one of the regular pieces of content we produce on their blog is a “wedding venue of the week” post. We include some of the amazing pictures my client has taken with information about the venue itself, the history, location and direction and the best areas to get great photographs there. These posts will more often than not be shared on Facebook and Twitter by the venue, associated staff and any brand advocates they may have. It works really well. I think the key to this series though is that the posts stand alone, they are useful posts first and foremost, they’re egobait second. If you go out of your way to write something with the intention of it being egobait then it’s gonna fail. If you write a good post and sprinkle it with egobait, you’re all set.
Debra Mastaler: The group link building interview Rae Hoffman does is a terrific example of successful egobait. She lines up a bunch of link builders and has each answer a number of link related questions. All the participants promote the piece, and many of us refer to it in later articles to reinforce a point in a blog post. It's a good example of using written interviews to attract links and attention.
Let me show you a couple additional examples outside the SEO industry.
This is a great egobait idea IMO. This man has created an interview series with business experts in Wisconsin. His series is a good example how to incorporate local and topical terms/ideas to attract attention and links using a group of people.
Here's another example I think rocks because it reuses video content to support and promote a new story. The feature article talks about mortgages and foreclosures in the San Francisco area and offers previously recorded video interviews of experts talking about the same issue. Instead of peppering links to the videos throughout the story, they place the videos right after the new feature article but within the top fold of the page so your eye is drawn down to the rest of the content. If this were my blog, I'd send a short email to the people featured in the videos and let them know the videos have been re-released and ask them to retweet, +1, etc.
Paddy Moogan: I can actually remember my own first piece of egobait pretty well and it was pretty successful given the amount of time I put into it. I can't go into loads of detail but it was in the UK and for a company that sold garden sheds and garden buildings online. I put together a list of the top 10 gardening and shed blogs in the UK and let people vote for their favourite site. It was pretty simple and only took me about 3-4 hours and I got seven pretty good links as a result. The process was pretty straight forward and certainly one that can be replicated across different verticals:

• Find 10 websites that are good quality and look active
• Write a short paragraph about each one and why it is a good website
• Publish this page onto the client's website
• Add a simple voting system - I used polldaddy.com
• Contact each of the 10 websites and tell them about the page whilst asking them to encourage their readers to vote for them - this gets them to link without asking for the link!
• Follow up with any who didn't respond

That was about it! The great thing was that it also led to good new relationships with good websites which helped for future link building.

4. What do you think about using negative egobaiting tactics? Like publicly calling someone out in a blog post, or fussing about someone on social media? Is this a good way to build links?

Nick LeRoy: Yup. I would argue it's better than traditional egobait. Just make sure you have thick skin and a strong brand. It's also a pretty good idea to make sure you don't have any skeletons in your closet that you can't afford to be 'outed'.
Jon Cooper: It depends on the level of social distance between you and the person you're calling out. Say, for example, if I called out Richard Branson, then no one would care (distance far too great). The same goes for a no-name blogger calling out someone prominent in the industry. But if you've already built up traction, then calling someone out can generate buzz, and links are one of those byproducts. I've never done this solely for links though, just because it could backfire and cause more harm than good to your brand.
Chris Dyson: If it's done in the correct manner and not just a malicious or personal attack then I've seen these articles do very well. I've rarely seen a brand or business use this tactic as it is often a tactic used by personal blogs. A recent post I saw from Daylan Pearce got a lot of attention and there was a very interesting debate between Darren Rowse and Daylan in the comments too, regarding the use of Twitter for business/personal purposes. I think this article really got Darren's attention as it used Darren's Twitter handle in the title, which meant every time it was tweeted Darren got a mention. A few years ago the blogosphere seemed to have a lot more debate and it was quite common to see these debates carried out in blog posts/comments - where as now they seem to be carried out across social media channels.
Pete Attia: It works. It causes controversy and debate, which humans are naturally attracted to. That's why celebrity gossip sites do so well. However, I don't think it's worth doing. It puts an aura of negativity around whatever the subject matter is. There are plenty of other ways to get good results and stay in a positive light.
Gaz Copeland: You can definitely overdo it. Nobody likes a brown-noser. James Agate wrote a good post over on Jon Cooper’s blog a while ago, one of the sections covered “Avoid being a sycophant”. I think that’s a great tip.
Debra Mastaler: I have two outlooks on this issue: first, what people do on their blogs or their Facebook/Twitter streams is their business. Suggesting to someone their blog post isn't appropriate or what they write about is wrong is like going to their home and telling them their sofa is ugly. I mean, who am I to criticize their bad taste in furniture? You see things one way, I another and on your blog you can do and say what you please. On the other hand...I am 100% against running false/made-up information for the sake of building links. Notice I said FALSE information... gossip and opinion are one thing (see ugly furniture reference) but flat out making stuff up to attract links? Fraud.
Paddy Moogan: I've never been a fan of the negative approach. Whilst it can certainly generate links, the value of these links is potentially outweighed by negative PR / sentiment towards the client. The last thing I want is to damage the client's standing in an industry so I'd tend to steer away from this approach.
Jo Turnbull: I don't think it is a good practice to publicly call someone out online as a way of egobaiting. If I have a difference of opinion, I will express mine about a certain post. However, I think it is more important to draw on the positives of what people say and turn that into linkbaiting rather than publicly call them out.

5. Do you think using social media alone is enough for a successful egobaiting campaign that will generate links, or do you think it needs to be done in content somewhere and not just on Twitter, for example?

Nick LeRoy: I don't think social media is good for egobait unless you can get interaction between multiple people. For instance, the debacle that occurred a while back for Chef Ramsey "quitting" on two restaurant owners unable to take criticism. TV viewers attacked the owners on Facebook and they made the mistake of freaking out and writing ridiculous comments in response. In all reality, had they just ignored the attacks it would never had been so viral... but EGO wouldn't allow them to let it be.
Jon Cooper: Usually something even better than social media is within the context of their community. One example that I can share that comes to mind is Kane Jamison's Inbound.org 2012 Stats post (sorry for it being an SEO related example!). This communitybait (same strategy as egobait IMO, just a different target) obviously did well on Inbound, probably better than it could ever do on social media alone. So, for example, if the target had a forum, then posting it in the forum would most likely make it blow up.
Chris Dyson: I would always recommend carrying out egobait (or any piece of linkbait) on your own digital assets where ever possible if you are purely looking for links. If the purpose of the egobait is to generate traffic and increase the awareness of your brand then it might be a better option to create the content where there is an already established audience by offering the idea as a guest post for example.
Pete Attia: It depends on what exactly you're trying to achieve. For example, in a certain light, relationship building is egobaiting. I can find a blogger that I want to get a review from, tweet and praise something they wrote, and when they respond, start a discussion. Continue this over a week or two and then ask them for a review. This could be entirely done through Twitter. However, if I was targeting someone more high profile and built an infographic about their achievements or something, it would have a higher success rate if using multiple avenues.
Gaz Copeland: Definitely the best way to do egobait for me is with a good blog post or other piece of content. You can use social media to build relationships at the same time, but I don’t think that’s going to get you links without some asset in the form of a piece of content.
Debra Mastaler: Needs to be done in content somewhere other than Twitter. Most of the people who come to me for a consult do so because they feel their current link building has hit a brick wall. Most of the time the type of campaign or the type of content they're using isn't the issue, lack of research is. It is really hard to create and execute a successful campaign without knowing who your demographic is or who the right niche and media influencers are to help promote the campaign.
Paddy Moogan: I've always done egobait with content rather than pure social media. I've created content around the people I'm trying to get links from which means I can really play on their ego and makes my approach stand out from the many others that they must receive.
Jo Turnbull: I think it is important to incorporate social media into a content marketing plan and within that you use egobait, instead of just doing social because you think you should not because you understand it or really want to.

How would you use egobait for the following verticals:

1. New restaurant in a small town
Nick LeRoy: I would challenge the starting QB / Basketball / Baseball star from the local college to an eating challenge of some sort. If they are able to complete the task everyone gets a free dessert. If they can't... well it doesn't matter, you've already had them visit the restaurant and you can take pictures / interview etc. and post a press release and on social media. Etc. This would / could also work really well with professional athletes if you have a good enough challenge.
Chris Dyson: If you are launching a new restaurant/bar then I would personally look at tapping into an existing online community such as Yelp Elite. All these people are all Yelp power users and many are bloggers or heavy social media users. Reach out to the local Yelp Community Manager for your area and offer them an exclusive event with some free cocktails and samples from your menu to get them through your doors.
Pete Attia: Find restaurant reviewers and notify them that they would get their first meal free for being a critic. It's important to refer to them as a critic instead of a blogger in an attempt to build up their ego.
Gaz Copeland: I’m a big fan of Man V Food so maybe running some kind of contest or challenge for local food bloggers, writing about each of their accomplishments.
Debra Mastaler: I'd have the Mayor and Town Council photographed eating there and use the image (with their permission) in a press release and article to the local paper. If the politicians say no, I'd find a group of moms from a variety of preschools and high schools (note the two types of schools) and offer a free meal in exchange for a review. I'd do the article/release/photo-op with them and label it "Mom Chefs Give Their Approval to New ABC Restaurant".
Paddy Moogan: Top x food bloggers who write about the speciality of the restaurant like seafood / steak etc. Perhaps also top x bloggers who have published their own recipes and even choose one to be featured on the restaurant menu for a week.
Jo Turnbull: With the restaurant in the small town, I would write a post on the local town's website. I would also use off line to help promote the restaurant. The message both online and offline would be the same. I would highlight the USPs of the restaurant, for example if it is selling good old fashioned home cooked food, you could play around with the "Home Cooked Meals at (restaurant name) With No Fuss."
2. Ecommerce site selling used sports equipment
Nick LeRoy: This one probably needs to be thought out a bit more... but I would watch out for injuries that occur in very recent pro-games. Did a hockey player get some teeth knocked out? How about a post 'attacking' this individual for not wearing a $9.99 mouth guard? A more 'safe' move could be making a public announcement that your eCommerce site will be sending this pro athlete 100 mouth guards for free.
Chris Dyson: For general link bait I'd create a fake product such as the "Turin Jockstrap" and paint a stain of Christ's face on an old jock strap (hilarity and heresy ensues with the Westboro Baptist church calling me a fag!) (actually do you mind if I use this as an idea for "outrageous linkbait ideas" post... this could be funny) sadly this isn't egobait :( How about....Create a list of local sports clubs/schools (pick those in cash strapped areas) and create a contest for local people to vote on who they want to win some free sports equipment... promote it in the press/social media
Pete Attia: This is an old school idea, but building several lists of local trainers in different cities and write blog posts along the lines of "Top 20 Personal Trainers in San Diego". Then when the posts are up, notify them and offer a badge.
Gaz Copeland: It should be easy to produce content based around sports teams or individual stars, if not targeting them personally with the egobait, targeting any fans or fan communities.
Debra Mastaler: Ever wonder why the payday loan industry is always seen in a negative light while pawn shops are not? Both industries have similar business goals and operating procedures and yet, we create reality shows around pawn brokers and vilify the payday loan industry. Why? The reason is simple: pawn shops learned how to humanize the story behind the need. If you want to promote anything used, humanize the story behind the items you're selling. This should be easy in the used sport equipment area, as every bat, ball and catchers mitt has a dream and a game behind it. Develop your content to appeal to the emotional side while pointing out the economical savings and you'll have a winner.
Paddy Moogan: Local sports team of the month - cover a range of sports and each month or week, feature a new sports team along with pictures, interviews or even videos if you can get them. To sweeten the deal a little, you could even offer some free equipment to youth teams such as footballs or jerseys.
Jo Turnbull: Here you need to highlight the benefits of the sports equipment even if it has been used. Maybe it has only had one owner who never actually used the equipment or if they did you can use the fact that it has been tried and tested so in good working order. The ecommerce site should have content on a school website or a not for profit website talking about the latest equipment they have for sale Maybe they could also have content and include some stats on the % of people who buy sports equipment don't use it and therefore the ecommerce site that is selling the sports equipment is helping the environment - recycling...
3. Educational site devoted to producing documentaries and papers about health issues related to poverty
Nick LeRoy: The problem here is doing something that would / could get a reaction without killing your brand. My gut reaction would be to something controversial that would get people worked up and vocal about illegal immigration and healthcare...
Chris Dyson: Find people who have a similar objective to your own such as local politicians, celebrities or business people who have established social media and press profiles. Reach out and ask them for the opportunity to receive exclusive access to your new piece of content before it's full launch and ask for quotes or interviews for your documentaries, website & research papers. You could also draft a politician/celebrity who is currently promoting their own health/poverty agenda and point out to them how your own work compliments their own ideologies.
Pete Attia: Find industry experts that have written about the issues and ask to interview them for your documentary or paper.
Debra Mastaler: I have two words here: Sally Struthers. Focus on her involvement with the Child Fund: she was one of the very first celebrities to fully support the organization through extensive print, radio and TV spots. Her involvement and how they used her were the subject of many studies and papers, so they'd be a great model to emulate. I like to look at what's been done and what's successful for ideas and inspiration.
Jo Turnbull: For the egobait post I would clarify any myths around poverty for example: Did you know that x % of people who live in poverty suffer x% more health problems or did you know x% of that those living on the poverty line have all gone to good colleges. Top 10 poverty related health issues busted
4. Author who wants to only sell books online
Chris Dyson: Create an ebook interviewing other writers about their passion or offer advice such as their working practices - how to fight writer's block for example. Once the ebook is complete create a method for people to sign up for more information by using something like a launchrock page and contact the interviewees asking for their help promoting the launch. When the book is launched give the book away for free but setup something like pay with a tweet to help gain more traction on social media.
Pete Attia: This is actually Alessio Madeyski's tactic where I believe he got a link from Seth Godin out of it. Find other well respected authors and get their books translated in other languages for them and then post them on your own site.
Gaz Copeland: Book review posts, tweeting quotes from the author maybe.
5. Pest control! (this is my favorite one to think about since I'm terrified of spiders)
Chris Dyson: Negative Egobait.... 50 Celebrities that look like rats? ;)
Pete Attia: Man, that's a tough one. The only thing I can really think of is doing infographics on the negative effects of having specific bugs live in your home and use data from different insectologists' studies. Then when it's created you can show them have you've used their data. Since it's their own information, they're more inclined to link to it or promote it in some fashion. Plus you'd still have an infographic, so if it didn't work out, you could still promote it on its own.
Debra Mastaler: Bugs, snakes and birds don't bother me but I am scared.to.death.of alligators. Another reason not to move to Florida :) This one is easy IMO, I would do a little utility searching using ".edu + your bug keyword" and find ideas, sources and backlinks.
Jo Turnbull: Maybe here, play on people's fear by writing some great posts on home help sites: "Face your fear and banish those spiders from your home for good in 5 simple ways" "3 Ways To Prevent a Cockroach Infestation" "How you are encouraging more pests to live in your house""5 reasons why spiders are good for a home "

6. Outdoor fabrics and furniture

Gaz Copeland: Maybe creating features on specific properties. If you’re a local business featuring local bars and restraints with great outdoor areas would be a good place to start. If you’re bigger than that maybe looking through images of iconic houses (PlayBoy Mansion, The White House, etc) and creating features on that.

Summary

Well, I have to say that if you get through all of this and you still aren't inspired, you should take a deep breath and read the examples again. I'm happy to see that there's a lot of agreement about egobait.

Egobait can be done to death (but hey, it works well!) but there are many takeaways from successful campaigns. Thanks again to everyone for taking the time to contribute!


Source : http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2273959/Egobait-How-to-Get-Links-Exposure-in-a-Variety-of-Verticals

SEO & Keywords: Think Conversions, Not Rankings

Search engine optimization (SEO) has changed dramatically over the years and will continue to change. SEO firms of all sizes face challenges with selling, delivering, and ultimately demonstrating results of services to end clients.
The way we market, sell, deliver and report on SEO services has not kept pace and needs to catch up.
If you ask marketers today what SEO is about they will likely still say things like, "ranking number one in Google". And, unfortunately, this is what they are looking for in the SEO sales and service delivery process. (Learn more about this in "SEO Buying & Selling: 4 Tricks Creating Unachievable Expectations")
However, reporting on improvements in keyword position is pointless without applying keyword visits and conversion data.
We know SEO is an ongoing, long-term process. More specifically, it's the process of continually discovering highly converting, non-branded keywords that are driving organic search traffic and conversions. It’s about understanding search intent and how keywords used to describe your products and services evolve as a prospect progresses through the buying cycle. It is then about having insight into great data and taking action by including those optimized keywords in your content marketing plan.

This SEO process can't begin and end in a particular project phase or be completed after just one month of keyword research. It is now a four-step process that requires an SEO culture change, which includes:
•    Selling the concept of discovering and optimizing for highly converting keywords.
•    Discovering non-branded keywords driving traffic and conversions.
•    Delivering additional SEO services to capitalize on highly converting keywords.
•    Reporting on the evolution of highly converting keywords and content.

Step 1: Selling the Concept
The first place to introduce the concept of discovering and optimizing for highly converting keywords is in your marketing and sales conversations. Many SEO prospects and clients still want to buy the promise of a number 1 search position for their keywords. This goal is difficult to obtain and maintain and sets unachievable expectations for you and your client.
Instead, avoid the urge to agree upon a list of keywords with your client that your team is going to "optimize for" - that list of 10, 20, or 30 keywords that your team will go away and "do SEO for." You can call this list of keywords the keyword gap.
Every client will have a list of keywords they think they want to rank for when in reality there’s a more highly converting keyword list that will perform better. That’s what the second step, discovery, is all about.
You can do some initial keyword discovery in the sales process to demonstrate the keyword gap. Show the prospect some data for two keywords, for example:

Which one is the better performing keyword:
•    Keyword 1 (condominiums for sale in Richmond) in Position 4 for a particular page with 20 visits and 10 conversions?
•    Keyword 2 (condos in Richmond) in Position 3 for a different page with 3 visits and 1 conversion?
Based on the topic of this article, the quick answer is, Keyword 1 in Position 4 (condominiums for sale in Richmond) is a better performing keyword. An alternative answer is: more keyword discovery is required to understand if there are opportunities to optimize the web page that Keyword 2 is positioned for. Or maybe Keyword 1 is one of those highly converting keywords that should be included in all content marketing efforts.
Takeaway: Build time into your sales proposal and SEO program for ongoing discovery to uncover those highly converting keywords prospects are using at different stages of the buying cycle. Base decisions on great SEO data from a variety of sources, including SERPs, organic traffic, and conversion data. Always be on the lookout for new opportunities to optimize.

Step 2: The Discovery Process
The discovery process for new non-branded keywords should be practiced as frequently as possible. Uncover the new, non-branded keywords that are driving organic search traffic and conversions and determine whether there is an opportunity to further optimize the web presence for these keywords.
The success of this process depends on setting up goals and conversions in your analytics system. One of my favorite sayings about SEO is, "don’t bother even starting the SEO process unless you have website analytics goals and conversions configured."
Goals and conversions in your analytics system don't have to be complicated. Start with simple conversions and as you learn about your web presence increase the sophistication.
Think about what you want your website visitors to do. What would you consider a successful visit?

Here are a few examples of metrics to measure successful visits (conversions) from organic search:
•    Time spent on site: If a visitor has stayed on the site for a certain number of minutes (3+) and the bounce rate is low, then perhaps it can be concluded that the visitor read the content. The content was appealing to them.
•    Number of pages visited: If the visitor reviews two or more pages, then perhaps it can be concluded that they were intrigued with the content enough to read further.
•    Main product or services page to contact sales page: If the main purpose of the site is to promote the organization’s main product, did the visitor review the product page, then the pricing page then the contact sales page?

Takeaway: Below is the process for uncovering highly-converting keywords.
•    Set up goals and conversions in analytics.
•    As frequently as possible, look for the top non-branded keywords that are driving organic search traffic and conversions.
•    Understand the rank position for the keyword and which page or pages are ranking.
•    Understand the search volume for the keyword (both broad match and exact match).
•    Analyze the ranking pages and look for opportunities to optimize for the keyword in question.
•    Implement changes and watch for changes in position, traffic from organic search, and most importantly conversions. If there are positive changes, create some additional content that includes the keyword and again watch for changes.
•    Report newly identified, non-branded keywords and progress to the client.

Step 3: Delivering Additional SEO Services to Capitalize on Highly Converting Keywords
Once a new non-branded keyword is discovered and reported to the client, discuss the keyword opportunity and the plan for capitalizing on it.
•    What was the entry page for that keyword?
•    Where in the buying cycle is that keyword likely to be used?
•    What kind of content can be created and distributed to further support that keyword and the prospect as they demonstrate their intent to find content?
•    Is it worth further investment in SEO?

At this point, there is an opportunity to upsell the client on additional service hours to optimize and create content for the newly discovered and agreed upon keywords. It is also the point where the keyword should be included in the full content marketing strategy and further planning done on the type of content prospects require at this particular stage in the buying cycle.
Perhaps it’s a focused case study, with supporting blog content, video, whitepaper or a combination. Think about the distribution points for the content and the possible backlinks and social signals that can be created for the keyword.
Takeaway: Set aside time each month to discuss newly discovered keywords with the client.

Step 4: Reporting on the Evolution of Highly Converting Keywords & Content
The approach of identifying and focusing on highly converting keywords then incorporating those keywords into the full content marketing strategy requires a different level of reporting compared to the basic monthly SEO reporting of number of backlinks, number of keywords on Page 1, etc.
Including keyword visits and conversions data alongside position data is a great first step to getting the client thinking about the difference between ranking first for any keyword versus ranking for the keywords prospects actually value and associate with your organization.
Once the keyword is incorporated into the full content marketing strategy the reporting requirements should shift to be focused on the performance of the particular piece of content or the content marketing campaign. This is where the disciplines of SEO, social media and content marketing begin to completely collide. (Learn more about this in "Why an Optimized Content Strategy is Crucial for Social & Search")

Takeaway: With the right tracking and metrics technologies the impact of content on a web presence for the purpose of organic search optimization can be reported, including:
•    How the position has been affected for a particular cluster of keywords.
•    How many backlinks and social signals have been created.
•    How many keyword visits and conversions are associated with the content campaign.
•    And most importantly, how many sales are attributed to the content.

Conclusion
Google’s algorithm updates have changed the practice of SEO. Search marketing firms have an opportunity to evolve their sales, delivery and reporting practices to differentiate themselves.
Focusing on the discovery of highly converting keywords beginning with the sales and marketing conversations through delivery and reporting will produce stronger SEO results over the long term and happier SEO clients.

Source : http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2258762/SEO-Keywords-Think-Conversions-Not-Rankings

SEO Outreach: Gain a Competitive Edge by Running Display Ads

Identifying and leveraging SEO opportunities is at the core of achieving organic search dominance. This process is particularly critical for large companies.

Big brands have an inherent SEO advantage that, if leveraged, can lead to unrivaled organic performance. The existence of such advantages sparks debate during every industry conference Q&A session. Usually these debates focus on paid search spend influence, immunity to algorithm updates, etc., most of which are pure noise.

So what proven advantages can large companies leverage to gain a competitive edge?

Prospecting Quality Lists

Most professionals agree targeted outreach is at the core of any successful link building campaign. The process of executing a results-oriented outreach strategy is time consuming (read: expensive).

Prospecting and prioritizing relevant, authoritative targets is a critical step in this process. Large brands possess this inherent advantage: Targeted prospecting is done by Google and other large media networks for free.

This unknown fact enables certain companies to generate high-quality, extremely relevant lists with the click of a button. How do they do it?

Executing display campaigns on various media networks, such as Google Display Network (GDN), Value Click, and Yahoo. The majority of display networks will provide transparency into ad placements which can be used as the backbone of outreach campaigns for your SEO program. So how does it work?

If you're currently running ads on Google Display Network (GDN), exporting your prospect list is easy. Within any campaign, navigate to the “display network” tab, as seen below:

Once there, simply click on “placements” within the sub navigation.

Finally, filter for “automatic placements” to pull up your list along with KPIs such as clicks, CTR, etc. (KPI information by placement is only available on GDN. Other vendors only provide basic site information where your ad was displayed.)

These exported prospects are guaranteed to be relevant to your site in the eyes of Google. The algorithm Google uses to match advertising sites within GDN is built off the same relevance algorithm used for organic search. This saves tons of time having to manually qualifying each site. As a result, more time can be spent on persuasively communicating your value proposition.

Have a Unique Value Proposition

Executing a successful outreach campaign isn’t just about prospecting quality lists. It’s critical to have a unique value proposition when communicating with bloggers.

The number of companies executing outreach campaigns is rising by the day. Most are using the same tools, social networks and advanced search parameters to build their prospect lists. Over time, only those with unique value propositions will receive responses.

Even following great outreach guides like this one from Neil Patel becomes less effective over time. Why? Everyone reads these guides and uses their templates. Running display advertising provides a unique value proposition which can dramatically increase success rates.

Bloggers and webmasters want to make money (surprise!). Part of their revenue stream is generated from users clicking on ads.

If the content on the page mentions the same brand being served in on-site advertising, the click-through rate on the ads will increase. This connection and increase in revenue for the blogger is the unique value proposition that will set you apart. As an added bonus, your display campaign will also benefit from these incremental clicks.

Summary

Executing successful outreach campaigns is a sure-fire way to drive continual organic performance long term. As outreach continues to increase in popularity, unique and creative tactics become critical.

If your company or client is running display ads, you have an inherent advantage in both prospecting targets and establishing a value proposition.

Looking for additional outreach ideas and don’t have any display campaigns? Check out this post outlining three unique ways to identify link prospects.

Source: - http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2258423/SEO-Outreach-Gain-a-Competitive-Edge-by-Running-Display-Ads