Posted by willcritchlow
You’ve got all the links you need, right?
No matter how advanced an SEO you are, there are few people who can make that claim (in-house at Wikipedia, maybe?). For the rest of us, there’s more to learn.
Over the last couple of weeks, I have been working with our speakers to plan the sessions for the advanced link building conferences we are running in New Orleans and London. Keep reading for the full line up of speakers and sessions.
I have learnt a load of things just in speaking to all these experts during prep. I can’t wait to hear the gems they are going to share in person. We’re focussing on the advanced end of things – I’ve asked all our speakers to focus on teaching you things I don’t already know. Our speakers are ready to deliver only the most up-to-date advice and implementable suggestions for taking your link building project to the next level. Further down on this page, we’ve got details of what each and every one of these experts will be teaching you.
In the meantime, here are the particulars:
- London – 18th March 2011: (tickets cost £399 +VAT – or £299 +VAT with SEOmoz PRO)
- New Orleans – 25th March 2011: (tickets cost $600 – or $450 with SEOmoz PRO)
Incidentally, remember that SEOmoz currently has a free trial promotion running for PRO membership. We’re offering a PRO discount on the training. Yes, that means you just need to sign up for the SEOmoz free trial to get the discount.
This post is all about making the pitch that you should make the trip. The cities are worth it just for themselves – in the words of the everywhereist:
"I suggest you put down whatever you are doing and go, immediately."
"I am finding myself with the overwhelming desire to pack up my bag and hop on the next flight to Heathrow"
As well as all the serious learning, there’ll be an opportunity to hang out with the speakers and attendees at after-parties in both cities. I can’t wait.
Who is speaking?
The line-up is pretty damn cool – we only ask people to come and speak when we have seen them deliver the goods before and then we brief them to give the presentation of their lives. The goal is advanced tips and tricks. You know how the value is normally shared privately in the bar at conferences? We’re trying to push that stuff on stage. Here’s the line-up:
- Rand Fishkin (you might have heard of him) – always pushing the boundaries of the next thing you need to know, Rand’s presentations are always unmissable and we push him hard to bring his best material to these sessions
- Wil Reynolds of Seer Interactive – Wil is not only one of the smartest SEOs I’ve ever met, but you can’t help but smile as you watch him speak. The man’s a dynamo. I can’t wait to hear some more of his stories.
- Jane Copland of Ayima – many of you got to know Jane during her days at SEOmoz before she moved across the pond to Ayima. Few people have worked hands-on with the kinds of brands that Jane sees daily. She’s bringing some great tips and I’m thrilled to have her speaking at another of our events.
- Russ Jones of Virante – I have learnt huge amounts from Russ over the years. Back when I got started in SEO, we used to exchange views right here in the SEOmoz comments. He’s one of those rare people who combines technical and marketing chops. The stuff he talked about when we spoke to plan his session was brilliant. A must-see speaker.
- Chris Bennett of 97th Floor (US only) – Chris is not only a nice guy, he runs one of the most effective link building companies around and he’s promised to share his secrets. I last saw him speak in London last year and I’m still trying to incorporate some of the lessons into the way we do things.
- Martin MacDonald of Seatwave (UK) and Kris Roadruck of click2rank (US) – two guys who have taught me more than I sometimes want to know about the shadier arts. Both can play the whitehat game, but both know exactly what works and where the limits are. I’m pushing them hard to share the real secrets of their research so that those of us who work with clients and brands can learn appropriate tactics and amuse ourselves with tales of derring-do.
- Not forgetting myself, Distilled’s own Tom Critchlow and Paddy Moogan (UK only) – you probably know Tom and me. Some of you might not know that Tom is now in Seattle running SEO and content for SEOmoz for a few months and working with our US office. It’s been great learning and growing alongside my bro over the last few years – I don’t think it’s biased to say that he has a lot to teach. Many of you will also know Paddy who is one of our more recent UK hires and team leads (if you don’t know Paddy, I recommend reading one of his recent personal blog posts to get a feeling for the passion he brings to his work – he’s one of the most effective SEOs I know).
What are they going to be talking about?
Link building mistakes – Wil Reynolds
I was as shocked as anyone to hear that Wil has made mistakes. Luckily he’s man enough to tell us about them and help us avoid making the same ones. He’ll also be calling out some of us (in a friendly way) with "link building mistakes made by advanced SEOs":
- Common misconceptions
- Mistakes made by advanced SEOs
- Mistakes we’ve made and lessons we’ve learnt
- Too much strategy = no actual links. Too little strategy = poor results. How do you find the right balance?
Getting actions from competitor research – Jane Copland
There has been plenty written about clever ways to see what your competitors are doing to build links. Jane is going to be showing us how you should build an actual plan based on what you see from your competitor research:
- Why should you bother researching what your competitors are doing?
- What should you do when you find different kinds of links and tactics?
- What should you definitely not copy? – How to work out what is not actually helping other sites
Where to get the old "linkbait on digg" effect – Russ Jones
You remember when Digg could take your server down? Definitely happened to me a few times. Before Digg it was Slashdot (OK, I’m showing my age now). What works now? How should you go about getting links to your linkbait these days? Russ and his company are at the forefront of understanding this stuff and he has some amazing data and great insights to share. He’s going to talk about:
- Infographics and widget-bait on social media
- How to use real-time analytics
- Real-world statistics – insight into actual traffic from different sites
- Where are the up-and-coming traffic sources?
- Who’s on the decline?
- How do you actually get links from your linkbait [with real case studies and examples]
How to structure a major link building project – Tom Critchlow
You may have heard by now that Tom is in Seattle for a few months running SEO and content strategy for SEOmoz. He’s already feeling the pressure of doing SEO under the microscope, so we thought we’d just turn that up a couple notches. He is going to present his strategy for getting SEOmoz the links they need (once he’s worked out what those are!). Thanks to Rand and the team for their typical transparency in allowing Tom to talk about all of this publicly. The details of this session are TBC because Tom hasn’t done the work yet (he landed in Seattle on Saturday), but I imagine it will cover:
- Working out what links SEOmoz needs
- Thinking about how to move the needle on a site with millions of inbound links
- Building a link building ethos into the company (he’s only there for a few months so it has to continue after he’s gone)
- What developers, product people, community managers and executives can do to build links
We’re all pretty excited to see the results of this one, as you can imagine. It’s a rare chance to see into the inner workings of a link building campaign.
Myths and case studies of outreach success – Paddy Moogan (UK) and Chris Bennett (US)
When I’m talking to people at conferences and answering Q&A, outreach is one of the topics that people find hardest to get their head around and make work consistently. Paddy and Chris bring different perspectives to this one, but both of them will be talking about:
- Content that works
- Great content != links
- Outreach for traffic
- Outreach for branding
- Outreach for links
- Tips and tricks of what actually works in the real world
And that takes us up to lunch time! I feel tired already just thinking about it.
After lunch:
The future of link building – Rand Fishkin
We are increasingly seeing that off-site signals other than traditional followed links are critically important parts of any link building campaign. Rand called this before it was officially announced and I’m excited to hear him talk about the impact some of these new signals have on ranking as well as analysing some other recent trends to look into the future of link building:
- Social media shares that aren’t links
- Why you should care
- How to get them
- The benefits of nofollow / private / emailed links
- The impact of usage data
- The future of search engines’ link analysis
- Context / LDA
- Page analysis, chunking and position on the page
Lessons from the dark side – Martin MacDonald (UK) and Kris Roadruck (US)
Following the strategic, forward-looking session from Rand, we’re going to head straight into some down-and-dirty ‘effective’ tactics. Martin and Kris consistently blow my mind with the information they share in private. I’m pulling them, blinking, into the light. I believe that every SEO should have an appropriate interest in darker tactics to really understand how everything works. You’d be amazed at the filthy tactics some of the whitest SEOs have experimented with on their own time.
Martin and Kris have promised to share some of the tactics they know work that they’d normally only talk about over a beer. You’d never use these on a client or brand site, but in my opinion, you need to understand why they work and learn to apply some of the principles and automation to your day job:
- Disclaimer [important!]
- LinkSoup – the vital ingredients of a great link and how to mix them together
- How to make links and influence the SERPs
- Watch your back… links
- Go big or go home – how to scale, automate and compete
Scaling white hat link building – Me
White hat link building tactics tend to be labour-intensive. If you really want to compete with white hat tactics, you need to think hard about how you can scale without access to all the automation and time-saving tricks of your greyer competitors. Some of this is sensibly learning from them where you can, some is accepting that you need to scale with elbow grease and thinking about how you can manage that. I will be covering:
- Ways to scale
- Manpower
- Budget
- Automation
- Outsourcing
- The role of scalable content
- Why and how
- Cost vs. quality
- Incorporating brand and strategy
Expert Q&A and final tips
What’s the point of getting all these experts in a room if you can’t hear their biggest secrets? There will be Q&A at the end of each session for specific questions, but we’ll also be wrapping up each day with a group session where each speaker gives up their top tip and all the speakers answer the audience’s toughest questions.
In the UK, we will be dedicating this session to the memory of Jaamit Durrani who passed away at the end of last year and whose passion for sharing knowledge was unsurpassed. Some of his family and OMD colleagues will be there and the evening drinks will include a fundraising element in his memory.
If all of this sounds like your kind of thing, go book your tickets. Don’t forget the PRO discount (go get yourself a free month’s PRO trial if you need it to get the discount).
In addition to the unparalleled expertise we have gathered together, we have some social fun planned as well. The VIP dinners the night before the shows are now sold out in both venues, but there will be a chance to pick the speakers’ brains and mingle with other attendees over drinks at after-parties in both cities.
I look forward to seeing you there.
