If you’re a consultant or an agency, you’ve undoubtedly dealt with clients in tough verticals. We’ve all been there. The amount of quality link prospects is saddening, and on slow days, it’s hard not to think twice about joining the dark side.

But after working in verticals like this more intensely over the last few years, I’ve realized the thing that I need to change most is my mentality. That doesn’t sound like the answer …

About 7 months ago Don Rhoades wrote up a fantastic post on Downtown Ecommerce about building links with forums for ecommerce websites. If you’re in Ecommerce and you haven’t read it yet, I suggest you do before you go any further.

A month or two ago I got a chance to meet up with Don in person, and I caught myself asking a few different questions that weren’t answered in his post. I …

In November I asked a group of ~50 SEOs one simple question:

“What was the most creative way you, or someone you know, got a link?”

This was personally one of my favorite posts because there was so much awesome, actionable, and insightful responses. But it looks like I wasn’t alone – it’s now the #1 all time post on Inbound.org.

After it was published, I got a lot of SEOs wanting to …

This is a guest post by Brian Dean from Backlinko.

If you’re like most SEOs, you’re as confused as the cast of Jersey Shore at a TED Talk…

…because it seems that the second you master a new link building strategy, Google cracks down on it.

In fact, there’s a lot of buzz that guest posting (guest posting!) may be the target of a future Google update.

It can leave …

Ever wonder what are the right questions you should be asking new SEO clients?

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t. That’s why I decided to hunt down a few of the biz dev SEOs at one of the leading companies in our space: SEER Interactive.

This post is a collaboration between David Cohen, Shawn Cohen, John-Henry Scherck, Saurav Rimal and I.

We created a Word Doc (.docx …

This is a bit of a rant, but it’s important. Comments are welcomed below. 

I wish I could see all the gasps from all the content purists looking at this headline.

But I just couldn’t hold back after the following quote from an article entitled ‘Why Content Marketing is the Only Link Building That Counts’ on Brafton:

“Content Marketing is marketing, link building is manipulation.”

So it seems as though link building is dead …

It’s been a little frustrating for me having to read the majority of SEO blogs lately – everyone’s talking vaguely about content.

“Want links? Create great content!”

But honestly, 95% of the type of content you’re being told to create does not guarantee links in any way; sure, we get reminded that “nothing is certain” and that we need to take risks, but you know what? Screw risk. Let’s take that out of the equation …

Retaining clients in SEO is crucial because campaigns are long-term, and results don’t just happen over night. But the problem is, many of your clients are not necessarily going to understand this right off the bat.

So what is the solution to long term client retention, and for keeping your clients happy and on board?

Ten years of SEO consultation and practice have given me the chance to get a lot of feedback from clients coming …

If you build links and keep up with the latest trends, you’ll start to see a theme.

It’s quite obvious really, and everyone’s accepted it. What we haven’t really realized, though, is the longevity of it.

The theme I’m talking about is tactic X being labeled as spammy and no longer “an approved strategy by Google”. It’s been around since practically the beginning of SEO, and over time the discussion heats up more & …

Blogger LinkUp is of great use to any SEO utilising guest posting as part of a link building strategy. I’m a firm believer that saving time is the key to scaling up link building efforts, and the more tasks you can get done faster, the more spare time you have to be productive. A message delivered to my inbox 3 times a week with a whole list of prospects offering a link …