In all honesty, when we first made the decision to get this off the ground, I did have concerns that we were shooting too high, but so pleased we could make it accessible to so many, both at the day event and the evening event that we opened up to all.

Not forgetting that SAScon was produced by managers of search, social and SEO consultants from around the North West and UK, with a not-for-profit agenda.  But we’ve heard all of this before, so to follow is a mini debrief of SAScon 2010!  :)

SAScon highlights

Being one of the organisers, I could play the diplomatic card and say that everything and everyone were equally brilliant, but not being one to provide a bland answer, I’d say a major highlight for me was hearing the feedback from people.

Professionals in their respective fields want different things from each event that they attend, but I can say that the format, speakers and social events saw some truly awesome feedback – better yet considering it was SAScon’s first year in production, with plenty more ambitious decisions to make in the coming years for 2011 and beyond…

A huge speaking highlight for me though was Ralph Tegtmeier / Fantomaster – an utter spectacular panellist – sharing very frank, possibly libellous and fun answers.  Really entertaining and very informative indeed.  I heard many people share this opinion too so very happy that we were able to tempt him away from Belgium for a couple of days.  J

SAScon Thank You’s

I really am quite proud of those that have been involved, whether helping to organise the event (Nicky Wake, Richard Gregory, Pete Young, Simon Wharton, Peter Cobley and Richard Hudson), or those that attended from around Manchester and the UK.

And, without a doubt a huge thank you to our sponsors.  We had such fantastic support, and couldn’t have asked for a more positive bunch of folk to help raise the profile of all these wonderful things people and companies are doing in the UK industry and beyond.

SAScon Videos

If you couldn’t make the event, then once you have emailed me to reserve your ticket, make sure you catch-up on the going’s on with a number of videos from one of sponsors video production company, Little Orchard.

SAScon Live Blogging

If, on the other hand, you are more of the avid reader then make sure you pop-by and see PushOn’s SAScon live blogging coverage, along with that of David Towers at Good Web Practices.

Anyway, I’m going to carry on enjoying the wind-down from the last few months, until Simon drags us back in to planning meetings for SAScon 2011! 

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With the support of SEMPO and Manchester Digital, SAScon has been organised by a team of digital marketing specialists from around Manchester and the UK. It’s a conference for the online marketing industry by the industry – a tweaked cliché, but oh so true! It’s combined the energy, attention and talents of the following online marketers:

• Myself, Ben McKay, Mediaedge:cia
• Richard Gregory, Latitude
• Pete Young, MediaVest
• Simon Wharton, Pushon
• Richard Hudson, Vanilla Storm
• Peter Cobley, iSpy
• NickyWake, Don’t Panic
• Gary Bramwell, Brazen PR

It’s kind of funny really, individually I had previously spoken to many of these people about how great it would be to put Manchester on the international map for all the talent that currently exists and create an event that people want to travel to…And this one is certainly going to be one of those events!

Confirmed SAScon Speakers

Working as part of a project that has drawn such a high calibre is quite an honour, and I think it’s going to be an event to really draw the industry’s attention. Excitingly, I can announce that speakers attending include:

• Fantomaster / Ralph Tegtmeier – a prolific SEO tool developer, often associated with what some might describe as the darker arts of SEO. Will be an exciting session!
• Richard Gregory – Chief Operating Officer for Latitude Group, a leading European, digital agency.
• Joost de Valk / Yoast – a hugely well regarded developer of SEO tools and widgets, and recently established Orange Valley online marketing.
• Jon Myers – Head of Search at MVi, the online marketing arm of the Mediavest Group.
• Massimo Burgio – a founding member of SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organisation), and Chief Strategist for Global Search Interactive.

More speakers to be announced, but I can assure they are truly superb, super high-calibre speakers. Getting a ticket now wouldn’t be a bad idea at all whilst they’re on the early bird discount.

Who should attend SAScon?

So, so, so many people should attend…here are a few:

- Agency-side Search & Social Marketers

- Client-side Search and Social Marketers

- IT Professionals

- Web Designers and Developers

- Heads of Marketing

- Heads of SME

SAScon Event Details

Date: April 28^th 2010

Venue: The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, UK

Early Bird Tickets: £225 + VAT
Early Bird SEMPO / Manchester Digital Member Tickets: £195 + VAT

SAScon is going to be one of the UK’s finest search and social events for those agency and client side looking to excel in their field. If you haven’t already, ensure you pop-by SAScon.co.uk to register for your ticket – at £250, they’re an absolute bargain!

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Don’t forget this, like all ‘Manchester’ SEO events are not just for SEO folk from Manchester but from all over the North West, and I even hear we might be having some attendees from as far away as Leeds coming!  It could also be a good chance to learn more about freelance SEO services from any of the guys attending too.  So do make sure you pop by.

Regarding details…

Manchester SEO Meet-up Venue

Same venue as last month, House 9 Bar, but this time it’s upstairs in the loft of House 9 Bar – just follow the stairs up.  Feedback was good last month regarding the venue but people just wanted a little bit more elbow space so this time we’re heading upstairs to the same place where the Manchester Twestival held, here (just across the road from Deansgate Locks):
View Larger Map

If you do get lost, or have any queries, feel free to give me a ring (07828 760 343) or drop me an email: ben [at] justmeandmy.com

Time & Date

Wednesday 4th November, 6pm onwards

Drinks Promotions

If you like a mid-week drink then you’ll be pleased to hear about the following offers until 9pm:

• Bottle of house wine – £6
• Beer – £2 per bottle
• Many half price cocktails
• Shots – £1

In case anyone is especially keen to buy me a drink, I’ll have any of the above.  Ta!  ;)

Future Manchester SEO Events…

Oh, and make sure you feedback regarding the venue – fancy a change let us know, like the location for convenience, then let us know!  Feedback is always welcome!

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So firstly, you’ve heard about the Manchester SEO group by now right?  Well if not, sign-up here. Technically speaking, it’s not just for Manchester SEO’s and we see people visiting from all over the North West, so do make sure you do too.

[Update: more info on the latest Manchester SEO event here]

SEO Manchester Meet-up

Secondly, you’ve heard about the Manchester SEO meet-ups that are being organised, haven’t you?  Well, if not, make sure you attend the next.

If you’re not part of LinkedIn the idea of signing up to the Manchester SEO group seems like a huge pain for the sake of meeting for a few beers, so here are the details anyway:

Date: Thursday 8th October

Time: 6pm

Venue: House Bar 9 (same place the Manchester Twestival was held at – the bar on the far left of Deansgate Locks)

Agenda: Anything you like.  It’s a casual affair and a very sociable bunch of people in a bar; so could be anything from discussing latest SERP aesthetics, to search engine patents, link-building approaches, blackhat techniques (to avoid?!), sharing contact details or something quite removed from SEO all together.  You decide!  It could also be a good chance to learn more about freelance SEO services from any of the guys attending too. 

Thirdly, did you know that Mediaedge:cia Manchester (part of WPP Group) are on the look-out for North West’s best SEO talent?  If you’re looking for a new SEO job, this would be a great opportunity to pop-by and say hello to myself or David Towers, as we’re always keen to meet ambitious SEO’s in the Manchester area.  Or of course connect with me on LinkedIn.

So, who’s in?

[Update: more info on the latest Manchester SEO event here]

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What is the 2nd tier link advantage?

2nd tier links are links from authoritative sites or pages that filter through to your site via a middle-man/page.  However there is a second version, whereby companies develop internal landing pages that are linked to rather than linking directly to the website in question.

2nd Tier Links

Reporting in your link-profile might therefore only find one link from a site when in actual fact that link has (on a basic level) amalgamated the value of many links from internal link structures.

The original thread on WebMasterWorld talks about the value of 2nd tier links, but instead of just explaining the situation, I thought I would apply it to a popular link-building method – online PR.

2nd tier links in context

2nd tier links can be effective.  But many items feed in to their effectiveness.  Consider whether these links come from the sidebar/blogroll, contextual links, or quick-links/breadcrumb navigation, how frequently they link (both on grounds of volume and velocity), authority, the strength of those pages providing the link and the page’s strength itself.

Online PR benefits beyond direct links to your site.

Some sites, rather than linking directly to your website, will link to a landing page that has a description of your website / company.  This is not ideal, but it’s not so bad either, especially when that page links to your page of course.

As the strength of this page increases from the sites internal linking, so does the weight that is passed to your site.

Case in point: I was analysing a client’s link-profile as part of a ‘digital landscape review’ recently and enjoyed seeing the benefits of this to great affect.  In this instance, I could really see the affect of online PR as this caused so many citations of the company in question.

Measuring the 2nd Tier Advantage: SEO Tools

One of my favourite aspects of SEOBook’s toolbar is the SEO X-ray, it tells you how many pages link in to the page from the site. This means, on a basic level, that you can see how strong the page is as a 2nd tier provider of the link.

SEOMoz’s Linkscape will define this strength, trust, authority of those pages and links, but as it relies on major updates (reported to be every 3-6 weeks) it cannot consistently be relied upon to track changes as frequently as you might like.

Whilst in the process of link-building too, you can begin to learn which sites use this approach in your niche via brand mentions.  Do you know who’s talking about your brand?

Citations with or without a link may matter

Citations from 3rd party websites without a link have previously been thought to be fruitless when looking at a website’s link-profile. But the development of non-linking citation ranking factors could well be beginning to play a role, and as such factors in some of this buzz into their algorithms.

If this was the case it is likely that there would be considerations of certain TrustRank (or similar) algorithms to consider high-authority news sources’ citations, over a spam network.

The problem with SEO’s blackhole

Sites that build-out pages can end up out-ranking you for brand-orientated queries.  If this landing page ends-up outranking your site you could well be in trouble with regard to shifting it too -  many news sites are very authoritative in niche and mass markets…SME websites are likely to be the most vulnerable here.

Other examples of the 2nd Tier Advantage

There are also other examples too, maybe not the same quality but there’s quite a few out there.  For a long time now, people have applied this principle when looking for ‘good quality’ sources of links.  These might have included checking DMOZ, using forums and social media sites (comments link back to profile pages that link-out), or even looking at what certain top-level domains link out to,  such as .gov or .edu, etc, for those much loved high-trust links.

Economics of the 2nd Tier Advantage

How far back up the link-profile do you want to go?!  2nd, 3rd, 4th tier advantage – the link-graph is a complex, multi-dimensional system so maybe just look at the 2nd tier for now…I’m sure there’s plenty there to keep you busy in your analysis 

The economics of such a link-building method is even more difficult to measure the return, than a specific link to a specific page – measuring one relationship is easier than the merger of several of course.  Putting an exact value against hundreds of links if the PR has been especially successfully can be difficult too.  So if your activity is closely managed on ROI metrics then this might be a tough approach, but needless to say it’s something to keep an eye out for in your clients link-profile.

**Formula to remember:

PR = Interested Audience = Citations = Links = Organic SERPs Visbility + Media Visibility

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With this, I thought it might be helpful  for myself and possibly others to go through an old-school marketing framework and see how it can be used to make us think about covering all the bases in developing and managing link-building strategies.

An understanding of REAL Marketing can help with link-building

I certainly don’t think SEO’s need to reinvent the marketing wheel.  With traditional forms of marketing having so many more moons to develop strategic and day-to-day tools and prinicles that can add value.  So, I think we should take advantage of this.

What is blatantly obvious is that, a successful link-builder must be more than a copier and paster, sendng cold email after email via website contact forms.  Instead though, does it mean that they need to have a greater knowledge of marketing?  Well, being self-critical, I would suggest that it is not strictly the case, but I do think that the person in charge of designing and planning the link-building campaign should…this can hone their efforts to build a link-profile to be proud of.

The 7 P’s of Service marketing and link-building

The 7 P’s are attributed to service marketing, and essentially link-building acts as a service in two respects.  You are providing a service for the website that you are working on, and, you are potentially providing a service to another website owner by raising their awareness to your products, services, cause, etc…

It’s also the important to remember the traits of a service.  Services are typically:

• Perishable – they cannot be stored and perish at the point of consumption
• Intangible – you cannot touch a service like you can goods
• Inseparable – services cannot be separated from their service providers
• Heterogeneous – difficult to make eash service provision identical

The reason I raise these points is because even in this list there are reminders that we, as service providers, should build these considerations into the delivery of reassurance/trust/accountability to our clients.  A link-building service carries each of these traits, so consider factors whereby you can provide an exemplary service to justify your activity in the next 7 items.

The 7 P’s of Link-building Success!

Product – market the features and benefits cleverly

Why would they ever want to link to your website?  What is the products relevance to the site you are approaching? What are the features and benefits to that particular site owner? Why would they ever envisage that linking to your site would add value (or highlight appreciation) to their visitors.

Bear-in-mind that the best sales-pitches are so often those that are not salesy.  An indirect approach to selling can be far more effective than hitting the prospect with a heavy sales pitch out of the blue and with no prior knowledge of you.

Price – buying and selling links

The grey-area of link-building. Buying links is, as we know, ‘frowned-up’ by search engines. Beyond this, it could be argued that ‘they would never know’ – unless of course you are buying into a network of sites that have been ear-marked as

Place – the link placement for optimised link-building

Think semantically. The links placement is ultra important regarding the how positively the link is perceived by the search engines and the weight that it passes. E.g. a text link, sat in a relevant paragraph, prominently in the content of a relevant page,

I think if you tackle the other 6 factors correctly then this iten should really be a by-product of naturality of link-placement.

Promotion – PR not link-building

What incentive are you providing for the user to link-back to your site? Is it newsworthy in a way that they will drive people to pick it up in a way that they want to share it with their users? How does it stand-out from other link requests? Does it include a discount coupon for a purchase that they might want to share, a fun, friendly, challenging piece, or even tool that provokes natural interest?

What is it about the item you’re building links for that makes people think: ‘oh that’s funny / quirky / interesting / helpful??

Often the answer is that it doesn’t look like a link request and is simply providing something of value. So often it’s the case that people will hit the easy links first (friends and family) and try to build a bit of a buzz about it. But that buzz needs to be maintained not simply be allowed to dissolve – the world-wide web is after all a ultra-fast marketing platform and marketplace.

People – link-building is about the people, the friends, the contacts….

Get sociable. Making friends and building contacts can be one of the most effective ways of building links online. It’s via these that not only can you directly gain links, but also spread the buzz about your link-worthy item.

Process – manage your link-building with attention and care

This could well be the most important aspect of managing the link-building campaign. The process defines both the intent, the market, and the approach. Essentially it should also include a continual feedback loop of what worked, who needs to be followed-up, and where do new opportunities lie. If something works, push it some more – think: snowball-effect.

On a day-to-day basis though, maybe you could think about:

• How is the link-building activity integrated into the optimisation of other areas of the website?  Keyword research and analysis, landing pages, conversions, site structure, information architecture, flow of link-equity?
• Keeping a contacts database.  This can take many forms:
  • It could be a customer management database
  • An opt-in email / newsletter database naturally built from the site
  • Friends and family contacts of course
• How you are alerted by new links (Google Alert, other?)
• How are you alerted by removed /dead links?
• How do you value the links?  Do you analyse and report on the semantic nature of the placement of the link?
• How do you manage the feedback loop that tracks what is working in your link-building, PR  and SEO efforts?
• How much flexibility is there in what you are doing to mould it to the things that are proving to work?  How you time have you factored in for this feedback analysis and revisions?

Physical evidence – incentivise, you’re more than an email

This is the toughest one. So often is the case that people get a random, unsolicited email via the ‘contact us’ form on a website asking for a link-exchange (often to a new and poorly optimised website, of little relevance or interest to your ideal visitors). Approaching webmasters can work, no doubt about that, but it’s 10 times easier when there has been a bit more of a personal connection made…a business transaction, a meeting, a training session, a direct mail shot…some physical presence other that simply a dot com website.  I wonder how many people have sent out corporate gifts with the hope that they will receive backlinks, even?

Do you find this kind of thinking helpful?

Previously, I have found my SEO thoughts returning to my marketing education and experience to tackle issues, develop proposals and carry-out activities. Maybe this could be a good way of making sure that you are considering a wider (and deeper) variety of factors that influence effective link-building and your online marketing efforts?  It helps me, how about you?

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