In the last year, there's been a plethora of entrants to the field of link building services outside the traditional software basis of reversing competitors' backlinks (like our Link Intersect, LAA or Open Site Explorer tools) and consulting/direct purchase. In this post, I'll try to cover some of the interesting major new services, as well as present some long-standing options that some SEOs may not have discovered.
I've segmented the services below into unique sections to help differentiate the types of link building they offer. Some are more service-based, others are pure-software and the first section is more visibility-based than direct link acquisition.
One of the unique offerings in the last few years, Zemanta lets publishers submit a feed of content or images to them, which then appear in front of bloggers in the "composition" window (while they write their posts). These are labeled as "related posts" and have multiple benefits:
They can improve branding amongst a blogging audience (as bloggers will see your site/brand name while they write)They can draw in direct links (if the blogger chooses to link to your work in the post or as a "related post" at the bottom - or through links from image references)They can attract direct traffic from the bloggers themselves, who are likely to click on links/content that appears to be interesting
You can try Zemanta's service via a demo on their site
Zemanta has (according to their team) been approved by Google's search quality folks as a white-hat service (which makes sense since all they're doing is showing advertising content to writers, who then determine if they want to link or not) and is now included in Wordpress and Blogger.
SEOmoz has been using them for over a year now (we started with a trial and continued on) and we've seen good results - we tend to get a half dozen or so links to our content (the blog and YOUmoz) each month which can be seen through their reporting system (which has some upgrades in the works).
*Other than our paid use of the service, SEOmoz does not have any affiliations with Zemanta or its founders.
Founded by Ann Smarty, MyBlogGuest provides a platform for those seeking to write and receive guest posts. The service is relatively simple, but potentially quite powerful. If a reasonable number of quality blogs and sites participate in the marketplace, the opportunities for providing great posts and receiving traffic and links back are tremendous (as are the opportunities for those seeking more content and relationships).
Blogging is an inherently social field and while the links may be a primary driver for many interested in the site, Ann has made it clear that she hopes deeper relationships will emerge from the connections. The site's layout and signup process are impressive and compelling, though driving action once inside the platform could still use a bit more polish.
The marketplace is currently based on a forum connections system
You can read more about the project in SearchEngineLand's interview with Ann from February.
I'll be surprised if some Silicon Valley style startups don't pop up to copy this model. Hopefully Ann can stay far enough ahead of the game through a network effect to remain competitive. It's a terrific idea that needs only enough branding and awareness in the space to take off.
*SEOmoz does not have an affiliation with this site, though we have contracted Ann, personally, to do projects for us in the past.
Originally known as Enquisite, EightFoldLogic, a software company with offices in Victoria BC and San Francisco has recently launched a marketplace of their own for website owners of all stripes called "Linker." The premise is similar to MyBlogGuest, but the audience is wider and the interface more customized for creating one-to-one, private connections.
Linker enables the creation of "criteria" much like personal ads for linking connections
Within a day of signing up in a single category, I had four potential "matches"
Linker's goal is to connect sites and marketers interested in partnerships or link relationships with one another. Since their service ends at the time of connection, the method of obtaining the link is up to the parties involved. This means plenty of white hat options, but also potential gray hat ones - however, EightFoldLogic's Richard Zwicky and the audience they've traditionally attracted lean white hat, so I expect this won't be an issue unless the audience changes substantially.
The concept of marketplaces for link acquisition and connecting to site owners interested in links is a compelling one, but the key, as with MyBlogGuest above, will be achieving the critical mass of users necessary to make the service valuable. To that end, Linker's made their product completely free for the next couple months - you can sign up here.
*SEOmoz provides link data via our API to EightFoldLogic but does not have a financial stake in the company or this product.
A few months ago, I wrote a blog post about a tactic to grow your Google local/maps rankings that involved a similar principle to the automated tool built by Whitespark and Ontolo.
The concept is to find sites that are included in Google Local's "sources" for maps and local review data that link to or reference multiple sites that rank in the local results. It's a simple idea, but well executed and incredibly useful for those seeking to optimize their local listings. You can try the Local Citation Finder here - results take just a few minutes to be returned.
Enter some data about your site/goals and the citation finder will email you potential sources for listings
As the local results grow in importance and competition, and as the value of having these consistent, multiple listings rises, I suspect this tool will be incredibly popular. I'd love to see further productization around showing more data about the importance/value of particular local listing sites, and some opportunities to help control and manage those listings, but this first version is pretty exciting on its own.
*SEOmoz does not have a financial or product relationship with either WhiteSpark or Ontolo, though we have been talking to the latter about use of our API in other products.
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Although there are dozens of other services I'd love to cover, these are some of the most interesting to me, personally. As always, looking forward to your thoughts and recommendations, too!
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