My webinar for SEMrush in February 2015 on The Future of Link Building. I talk about how link building signals may change over time, what that means for businesses and individuals and what to focus on in the future.

1. The Future of
Link Building
Paddy Moogan
Co-founder, Aira
www.aira.net

2. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
The Future

3. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
Links as a ranking signal are
NOT going away

4. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
Fundamentally, they still
work well

5. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
Links are the basis of the web

6. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
However…

7. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
Related signals will change
and become more refined

8. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
We don’t think as a “link” as
the signal Google use

9. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
There is so much more to it

10. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
Anchor text
VolumeDiversity
Type of link
Home vs. deep
link
Position on page
Other links on
page
Surrounding text

11. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
These will change over time

12. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
And new signals will be
added

13. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
Social signals may play a bigger
part

14. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
Some rankings just won’t make
sense to us

15. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
Penguin will become more
refined and quicker

16. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
It’s constantly learning (it’s
nearly two years old now)

17. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
They have lots of fresh data
to learn about bad links

18. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
Penguin targeted scalable
link building techniques

19. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
Anything scalable will be
targeted at some point

20. What this means

21. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
For businesses…

22. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
Let’s use Panda as an example

23. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
There was collateral damage
with Panda

24. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
But Google didn’t mind

25. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
Don’t take risks with your
business

26. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
For churn and burn sites…

27. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
Spam will always work
short-term at least

28. What to avoid

29. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
Anything that scales

30. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
Scaling = potential loss in
quality

31. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
Too much commercial
anchor text

32. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
Putting all your links in one
basket

33. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
Links that you may be taking
down in a year or two!

34. What to focus on

35. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
Easy wins are still out there

36. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
1) Broken incoming links

37. @paddymoogan www.aira.net

38. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
2) Competitor analysis

39. @paddymoogan www.aira.net

40. @paddymoogan www.aira.net

41. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
3) Unlinked mentions of
company or people

42. @paddymoogan www.aira.net

43. @paddymoogan www.aira.net

44. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
4) Learn what PR people do

45. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
They craft stories around
people, companies and data

46. @paddymoogan www.aira.net

47. @paddymoogan www.aira.net

48. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
5) Invest in content

49. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
Invest in content

50. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
Invest in understanding what
makes a good idea

51. @paddymoogan www.aira.net

52. @paddymoogan www.aira.net

53. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
Follow these people:
@jcolman @halvorson@epicgraphic

54. In summary…

55. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
Links will always be
important

56. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
Don’t scale link building if
you’re building a business

57. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
Spend some time on the
quick wins
(they still work)

58. @paddymoogan www.aira.net
Invest in understanding
good ideas and
how PR works

59. Thank you!
Paddy Moogan
Co-founder, Aira
www.aira.net