Ontolo's Link Building, SEO, and Content Marketing Blog

As of last Saturday, August 20th, I have been in the SEO space for 10 years.

Before writing this post, I asked some folks what they would like to read. The responses fell across the board, from how things have changed in the past 10 years, to wanting to hear parts of my own story. I've decided to write this post and start with the story of how I got started in Search. Simultaneously managing, at one point, over 1,400 SEO clients in 2004 might deserve an answer to "how do you get there?" That answer will then (if I'm doing this well) provide the context for my own observations of how things have changed and where they're going.

I'm long-winded, and this post is no exception. If you're a frequent tl;dr....er, skip this one.

Link Building with Guest Posts

The Complete Guide

Written by Ben Wills

Howdy, folks! We're releasing a guide today that's written and designed like many more to come. Next week, we'll also be releasing a heavily-expanded version of this and will be calling it The Complete Guide to Link Building with Guest Posts. We will publish it as a PDF, accompanied by a worksheet/spreadsheet or two to help you through the process. When all is said and done, expect about 5,000 − 10,000 words of pure strategy and tactics for link building with guest posts.

The best part?

It's free.

With the most recent version of the Link Building Toolset, we wanted to keep you up to date with more of the changes that go on behind the scenes.

We put a lot of work each day into the Toolset for you, and a lot of that work, while improving how well you're able to use the Toolset, often goes unnoticed. Sometimes, we may have even made updates to things that you were looking for, but wouldn't have known unless you had submitted a trouble ticket.

What we'll be trying out for the next few weeks is a weekly update of changes we've made. Sometimes, they'll be things that you have run into or would have run into, others, they'll be things you never would have thought to check.

One of the most common questions we get in the Ontolo Help Desk is how to find specific kinds of link opportunities. Of those, Guest Posts might be the most commonly requested link type. Below is a modified and expanded response to one of our customers on how to do this with the Ontolo Link Building Toolset.

I’ve met one true, undeniably talented Pickup Artist in my day. He was well-worn with a gently-firm smile and eyes that peered with an unwavering presence from three lifetimes of experience into the core of each moment. He saw things in a way that no one else I ever met could see them. And because of that smile, his experience, his loves, his wisdom and the amazing things he could do with his hands, he could paint a Model T truck like you’ve never seen.

Photo by dok1.

Wow.

I don't even know where to start. The release of Version 3 of the Link Building Toolset has been out there for just a couple of hours now. We've put the finishing touches on the work that we started several months ago. In every way imaginable, this has been a very major release for us. New service levels, new payment systems, new UI, new features. So. Much. Newness.

And we're way excited to show you what we've got for you. So excited that it's my sixth or seventh all nighter I've pulled in the last week and a half to get this all out for you guys. ;)

Before diving into this week's fantastic posts that will help you to become a better link builder, we wanted to let you in on a quick demo video of the New Ontolo Link Building Toolset (Verion 3) that's coming out on June 28th. Here's a link to the 60 second video. We'll have lot's more details next week. So stay tuned.

Last week's White Board Friday has a great conversation between Ross Hudgens and Tom Critchlow. As someone who's interviewed, hired and trained several dozen SEOs, writers and account managers in the past 10 years, it's great hearing these guys talk about some of their own management and growth strategies.

Link Building Must Reads Scaling Link Building - Whiteboard Friday

We're getting pretty excited here at Ontolo. We're putting the finishing touches on V3 and are looking forward to rolling it out on Tuesday, June 28th.

The past couple of days, we've written about how to find more valuable links with your link building campaigns. Hearing peoples' comments and feedback, it sounds like a lot of you are starting to shift how you think about your link prospecting strategies. You're beginning to see how it's possible to build more valuable and more relevant links, much more quickly with the new Toolset that's being released next week.

Today, we're taking it another step further.

Ontolo was developed, in part, from the frustration of culling through hundreds and thousands of competitor backlinks and constantly discovering link prospects - often, over 95% - that were simply irrelevant and off-topic.

Imagine that for a moment.

You're looking at your competitors' backlinks for link prospects and 19 out of 20 aren't useful for you simply because it's off-topic. 19 out of 20. That means that you'll review 100 websites and find 5 that may be on-topic. You'll review 250 and find 12-13 that are on-topic. And on-topic doesn't even necessarily mean that it's a good link prospect you'll approach.