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Citation Insights

Testing theories; Taking notes

This is where we keep our lab notes, industry analyses, how-to guides, webinars and experiment write-ups. At Citation Labs, our constant is innovation, and this blog is where we share our findings.

Prospecting for Blogs Using Auto-Complete Suggestions

Finding Unique and Untapped Audience Facets and Topics

By Garrett French

September 5, 2018

Topics: CL Tools: Link Prospector, Content Planning, Prospecting, Understanding & Serving Audiences

(NOTE: This article walks through a prospecting approach that includes mass-scraping auto-complete suggestions using a tool that we have not made public. It’s useful for prospectors even if you don’t have the tool, but just wanted to warn you before hand.) OK so let’s say you want to find 1000s of parenting blogs using only ... Read more...

Towards Market Mutualism

Building Links to Your Current and Future Allies

By Garrett French

August 2, 2018

Topics: Enterprise Link Building Tips

In 2010 I wrote on the concept of “preciprocation,” which I lifted straight from non-profit efforts I observed at or around that time. TLDR: Do superficial favors in hopes of generating a reciprocal gesture (a link) from a publisher. Nothing wrong with link building gimmicks in my book, but I’d like us to consider thinking ... Read more...

Building Links to Sales Pages

a Guide to Citation-Worthy Sales Funnel Elements

By Garrett French

July 6, 2018

Topics: Campaign Creation, Enterprise Link Building Tips

As we’ve grown in capacity (currently at 135 FT employees) and pitched Earned Placement services (often called guest posts) for a little over two years we’ve come to recognize a massive knowledge gap at most companies, from small to large. Their sales pages, whether they’re selling products or services, lack citability. In other words there’s ... Read more...

Citation Justification:

Outbound Linking Methods for Content Placements

By Garrett French

June 1, 2018

Topics: Intro to Link Building

If you’re manufacturing outbound links – particularly via guest placements on third party sites – your work must bear potential scrutiny from Google quality contractors… not to mention your peer competitors. How you link out – to your own or client properties as well as other supporting resources – matters tremendously. And listen – how ... Read more...

Link Building with Stories – Webinar Recording

Introduction to our new online video course, The Story Approach

By Ken McGaffin

September 11, 2017

Topics: Enterprise Link Building Tips, Link Building Industry Insights, The Story Approach

Great stories engage your audience, attract links from authority sites and make your pitches for guest post placements or PR coverage so much more compelling. In this free webinar, Garrett French, Kristina Welch and Ken McGaffin will show you how anyone can find great stories and turn them into terrific content. Here’s the full recording of ... Read more...

Get great value from small publishers [Podcast]

Small publishers often have loyal, responsive readers - are you targeting them effectively?

By Ken McGaffin

June 9, 2017

Topics: Citation Labs News

Public relations efforts tend to focus on the top tier media that everyone knows. But there are thousands of smaller publishers who can be just as valuable.

What are your team’s stories? Case study: ClifBar.com [video]

How to uncover great stories among your staff - and use them in your content marketing.

By Ken McGaffin

June 8, 2017

Topics: Citation Labs News, Content Strategy, Local Link Building, The Story Approach

Duration: 5:52 minutes – full transcript below. ClifBar.com is a different kind of company… “the kind of place we want to work, that makes the kind of food we’d like to eat, and it strives for a healthier, more sustainable world”. The Idaho company recognizes the value that the team members bring, not only in ... Read more...

Heart-Shaped Surprise: How a Valentine’s Day Link-Building Campaign Helped Us Break Into Newsletters

The best holiday for your content may not be during "the holidays."

By Lindsay Miller

April 28, 2017

Topics: Citation Labs News

At Citation Labs, we believe in the link-building power of newsletters, and we also believe in holiday-focused outreach. Never did we think these two beliefs could converge in such a powerful way, but they did and the results led to a bit of a fairy-tale ending…for us anyway.

New ideas for link building [Podcast]

Garrett shares his toughts on what's working at the moment, where he's looking for creative ideas and how enterprise link building is so different from small business strategies and tactics.

By Ken McGaffin

April 21, 2017

Topics: Campaign Creation, Enterprise Link Building Tips, Link Building Industry Insights, The Link Builder's Podcast

So where can you get new ideas to drive your link building campaigns? In this episode, Garrett tells us what is working for him at the moment, what he’s experimenting with and why there is still great value in tactics that have gone out of fashion.

‘Hey Saturday’ Online Dating Photographer on BBC [Video]

When Saskia Nelson set up her business she decided that she didn't want to be just another wedding photographer. Instead, she decided to specialize in photographing people for their online dating profiles.

By Ken McGaffin

Topics: Content Planning, Enterprise Link Building Tips, The Story Approach

When Saskia Nelson set up her business she decided that she didn’t want to be just another wedding photographer. Instead, she decided to specialize in photographing people for their online dating profiles. Her niche business, ‘Hey Saturday’ has thrived and grabbed a lot of media attention, including a wonderful piece on the BBC, The woman on ... Read more...

Why ‘fresh prospects’ are your hottest prospects [podcast]

Focusing on fresh prospects has seen conversion rates at Citation Labs skyrocket.

By Ken McGaffin

March 16, 2017

Topics: Citation Labs News, The Link Builder's Podcast

A website that has been updated in the last month, the last week and even the last 24 hours is what Garrett calls a ‘fresh prospect’. These updates are sure signs of life – that there is a person behind the site that cares about it, adds new content – and is likely to respond ... Read more...

[Video] What you can learn from Shopify’s resident entrepreneur?

Your team can create terrific, newsworthy content if you allow them to use your products as your customers would.

By Ken McGaffin

Topics: Citation Labs News

Your team can create terrific, newsworthy content if you allow them to use your products as your customers would. For example, Shopify’s have a full-time resident entrepreneur, Jane Lee as part of the staff team. And she has set up a Shopify store, using Shopify software to sell Shopify products – and it has proved to be ... Read more...

Video Review: The Sleep Matters Club

So who are the influencers in your market? Dreams.co.uk shows you can go very wide in your choice!

By Ken McGaffin

February 3, 2017

Topics: Citation Labs News, Content Planning, Content Strategy

The Sleep Matters Club from a UK-based bed and mattress company, Dreams.co.uk takes a highly creative approach to content marketing. In creating content for their blog, you might expect they’d concentrate on sleep psychologists and sleep experts. That’s what many of us would do – but that’s not good enough Dreams! So how about a ... Read more...

Is the phone the most underused tool in link building?

Yes, says Garrett French, founder of Citation Labs.

By Ken McGaffin

Topics: Citation Labs News, The Link Builder's Podcast

Old phone unused

Is the phone the most underused tool in link building? Yes, says Garrett French, founder of Citation Labs. In this podcast he takes us under the hood at his agency to show how the phone is an essential tool in all the link building they do. And he also explains how you can persuade, perhaps, ... Read more...

Better Keywords, Better Links

The Prospecting Keyword Trifecta

By Russ Jones

May 2, 2016

Topics: Broken Link Building, Reviews, Technical Link Building Tips

Whenever a new tool is released, the first thing that comes into many SEOs’ minds is how can it help me get links? Certainly, the much anticipated release of Moz’s keyword tool was one of them, as finding good prospecting keywords is often essential for finding link building opportunities in tools like the Link Prospector or Broken Link ... Read more...

VIDEO: Finding Research Phrases for the Link Prospector

by Ken McGaffin and Megan Hannay

By Megan Hannay

April 26, 2016

Topics: CL Tools: Link Prospector

Megan: One of the first pieces of advice using research phrases, and this is something I think a lot of new users to the link prospect are getting confused about, is we really encourage users to go outside of sales and SEO keyword space. I have this example here of this person, for their campaign, ... Read more...

7 Elements of a Successful Guest Post Campaign

How to Brand Your Expertise in the Blogosphere

By Lindsay Miller

March 21, 2016

Topics: Campaign Creation, Content Planning, Content Strategy

In our blog posts and webinars, we often hat-tip our content creation team. Lindsay Miller is this content curator. She, along with our other copywriters, develop the product behind our outreach campaigns. Perhaps you’ve been avoiding guest posting because it seems like such a pain. You have your own blog, and you write for it regularly. ... Read more...

Link Prospector Features You May Have Missed

By Megan Hannay & Ken McGaffin

By Megan Hannay

March 17, 2016

Topics: CL Tools: Link Prospector

Do you know how to use the Link Prospector as a brand monitoring tool? How to eliminate undesired websites from your reports? How to widen or narrow your search? How to create a highly custom report? In this set of videos from our Link Prospector best practices series, Ken McGaffin and Megan Hannay reveal a slew of ... Read more...

The Perfect 1st Client-Agency Date

ASSESSING CLIENT RELATIONSHIPS FROM A DATING PERSPECTIVE

By Valerie French

March 14, 2016

Topics: Citation Labs News

First, a congratulations is in order. You made the choice to commit, to hold hands in the hallway, to check YES. I must say – you two make a super cute couple. You’re not necessarily out of the woods yet, but since this client made it through the initial checklist, the good news is that ... Read more...

Local Engagement Guide – UK vs US

A Guest Post by Michael Fielding of Webrevolve

By Michael Fielding

February 23, 2016

Topics: Local Link Building, Mission-Based Link Building

Note: This is a guest post from Michael Fielding, who contacted us after reading the Ultimate Guide to Local Engagement, wondering if the same tactics worked in the UK. Garrett and I told him that we weren’t familiar enough with British culture to say for sure, but that we felt that the spirit of our ... Read more...

Announcing ZipSprout

Our Sister Agency for Local Engagement

By Garrett French

February 18, 2016

Topics: Citation Labs News

It’s not a secret that we’ve been focused on local engagement for the past few months. But to make it official, here’s the news: Citation Labs now has a sister agency – ZipSprout – focused on finding local engagement opportunities for national brands. ZipSprout finds opportunities with local nonprofits, events and associations, not with national billboard or television brands ... Read more...

VIDEO: Finding Press and PR Opportunities With The Link Prospector

With Ken McGaffin & Megan Hannay

By Ken McGaffin

February 15, 2016

Topics: CL Tools: Link Prospector, Outreach Tips, Public Relations

In this third video of our Link Prospector best practices series, Ken McGaffin and Megan Hannay review how to find topically-relevant journalists and PR opportunities. Megan: So with reporters, we actually have three report types. The first one is probably our most common. It’s accessible reporters. Search for topics, and we’ll help you find reporters who ... Read more...

How To Love The One You’re With

Assessing Client Relationships from a Dating Perspective

By Valerie French

February 11, 2016

Topics: Agency Hacks, Link Building Industry Insights

It’s time for that mid-February Hallmark Holiday – a holiday when we celebrate, or re-consider, romantic relationships. But how many of us take the time and care to assess potential client-based relationships? We’ve all been there: you get an interesting inquiry, you schedule the first meeting, you quietly anticipate your future together, and, at long last, ... Read more...

Video: The* Local Engagement Webinar

with Garrett French & Megan Hannay

By Megan Hannay

February 9, 2016

Topics: Agency Hacks, CL Tools: ZipSprout, Local Link Building, Mission-Based Link Building, Outreach Tips, Webinar

Local engagement is a different take on “B2C” – connecting a brand with community. It’s so much more than PPC or radio ads. Local engagement means branding floats during the Independence Day parade. It means sponsoring an after school program or underwriting a museum exhibit, finding area customer stories for a newspaper journalist or engaging ... Read more...

The Ultimate Guide to Local Engagement Strategies

by Garrett French & Megan Hannay

By Garrett French

February 8, 2016

Topics: Agency Hacks, CL Tools: ZipSprout, Local Link Building, Mission-Based Link Building, Understanding & Serving Audiences

[Psst! Want more? Watch our webinar on local engagement.] Billboards, radio, television and print publication ads are an essential but ultimately limited method for reaching your local customers. At Citation Labs, we help nation-wide clients establish or expand their presence at the local level – online and off, and we’ve noticed that there are a multitude of ... Read more...

VIDEO: Finding Links and Resource Pages with the Link Prospector

with Ken McGaffin & Megan Hannay

By Ken McGaffin

January 19, 2016

Topics: Agency Hacks, CL Tools: Link Prospector, Link Building Industry Insights

In our 2nd video in the Link Prospector series, Megan Hannay and Ken McGaffin explain the best strategies for links and resource pages finding with the Link Prospector. Check it out, or if you’re more of a reader, we’ve got a transcript below. Megan: I’m Megan Hannay, and we’re today going to be talking about ... Read more...

VIDEO: Finding Guest Post Opportunities with the Link Prospector

With Ken McGaffin & Megan Hannay

By Ken McGaffin

January 6, 2016

Topics: CL Tools: Link Prospector, Intro to Link Building, Outreach Tips

This video is the first in a series between myself, Ken McGaffin, and Megan Hannay on finding outreach opportunities with the Citation Labs Link Prospector. Megan: We’re just going to go through quickly, in a few minutes, if you’re looking for guest posting opportunities in your niche, how to use the Link Prospector to find ... Read more...

Webinar: Website Navigation For Link-Worthy Content Assets

Get your assets in a row...

By Megan Hannay

December 31, 2015

Topics: Agency Hacks, Link Building Industry Insights, Understanding & Serving Audiences, Webinar

For our final webinar of 2015, we rounded up Shari Thurow and Eric Ward to discuss an often neglected topic among link-builders – where in the heck do you put link-worthy assets? A gap exists between the asset and site usability. Watch the entire webinar, or click on the links in the summary below to hear your ... Read more...

Webinar: Citation Labs’s 2nd Annual Live Brainstorm

Eric Ward, Shari Thurow and Garrett French on Link Building and Site Usability

By Garrett French

December 16, 2015

Topics: Content Planning, Expert Interviews, Link Building Industry Insights, Webinar

We had way too much fun live brainstorming with Eric Ward last year, so this holiday season, we did it again. And this time we invited site usability expert (and Citation Labs friend), Shari Thurow. We gathered site suggestions from webinar participants before the session and chose four to analyze off-the-cuff during the webinar: At ... Read more...

11 Email Experiments + The Citation Labs Outreach Best Practices Record

Content Outreach Tactics for Non-Telepaths

By Megan Hannay

November 10, 2015

Topics: Agency Hacks, Content Planning, Enterprise Link Building Tips, Mission-Based Link Building

This is a post made of 4 parts: 1. Outreach elements we test (and recommend others test in their own campaigns) 2. Citation Labs experiment examples 3. The Citation Labs Best Practices Record 4. A webinar conversation between Garrett French and Megan Hannay on Citation Labs Outreach Hacks. The first rule of outreach is that there are ... Read more...

PR Planning for Newbs Webinar

Scheduling Surprisies

By Megan Hannay

October 14, 2015

Topics: Content Planning, Content Strategy, Public Relations, Webinar

This fall at Citation Labs: We just launched our first website refresh in 4 years, and it seems that you all are liking the new look. We recently wrote a case study on our first PR client. Today, we completed our first Citation Labs team webinar. Garrett was missed, and he’ll certainly continue to share his ... Read more...

Plan for Spontaneity

Developing An Annual PR Promotion Plan

By Ken McGaffin

September 30, 2015

Topics: Campaign Creation, Content Planning, Link Building Industry Insights, Public Relations

Sign up for our 10/7 webinar more insights & tips on PR thinking for link building & content teams. Your promotion doesn’t happen in isolation. You have to compete for attention and links with competitor activity, industry events, new product launches, research reports and breaking news stories. If you launch a piece of content at ... Read more...

Duval Roofing PR Case Study

How we secured our agency’s first PR client a national magazine cover story within 2 months.

By Megan Hannay

September 29, 2015

Topics: Agency Hacks, Outreach Tips, Public Relations

How we secured our agency’s 1st PR client a national magazine cover story within 2 months.

Opportunity Prospecting

A Webinar With Habits & Hacks to Enhance Your Campaign

By Megan Hannay

August 28, 2015

Topics: CL Tools: Link Prospector, Webinar

We're not supposed to pick favorites, but this may be our most beloved webinar so far. It's no secret that Garrett loves prospecting in a way that can only be described as "devout and fanatical," so he couldn't wait to share his favorite tips during this session.

Webinar: Agency Hacks 2

Plan to Kick @$$ With Content Calendars

By Megan Hannay

July 24, 2015

Topics: Campaign Creation, Content Planning, Enterprise Link Building Tips, Webinar

Watch our recent webinar, Agency Hacks 2, to learn some of our most stellar secrets and favorite link building tactics. We've included a summary with corresponding points in the video, so you can jump to tactics that you're most interested in.

Link Prospector Prices Are Going Up

Get Grandfathered Into Lower Rates Before July 31

By Megan Hannay

July 17, 2015

Topics: Citation Labs News

The Citation Labs + Whitespark Link Prospector has developed with the times, from a link building research tool to an engine that includes a journalist and blogger database. And bigger things are coming. Get grandfathered into Link Prospector pricing by July 31.

Earn 50+ Authority Links/Month

How To Build a Content & Production Calendar

By Garrett French

July 15, 2015

Topics: Agency Hacks, Content Planning, Enterprise Link Building Tips

Our "Agency Hacks 2" webinar is coming Thursday, July 23. Learn how to put some of the tips from this article into practice, and add on to your link builder tool belt with more organization and enterprise-level execution tips.

Link Building in the Authority Age

A Panel Discussion with SEM Rush

By Megan Hannay

June 19, 2015

Topics: Enterprise Link Building Tips, Expert Interviews, Webinar

On June 17, Garrett French and Nicholas Chimonas of Page 1 Power joined forces on the SEM Rush stage for a Link Building Panel Discussion. Watch the entire panel, or skip around to various commenter questions using our included timeline.

Meeting Customers Where They Live

Building Brand And Authority Links Via Qualitative Research

By Megan Hannay

June 15, 2015

Topics: Content Strategy, Understanding & Serving Audiences, Webinar

What do our customer groups call themselves? Our customers are more than buyer personas; they’re members of communities and online audiences. Most content marketing and link building efforts lack audience-centric design. Focus on the person behind the persona, and you’ll reap the rewards.

601 Linker-Valued Audiences

Serve Them Well, Earn More Links

By Megan Hannay

May 14, 2015

Topics: Content Planning, Understanding & Serving Audiences

Our content creation series has been pretty theory-heavy thus far. In an effort to make our ideas more concrete, we developed out a working list of 601 potential linker-valued audiences for your content. A linker-valued audience is just that - an audience of people who are valued, served and even cherished by linkers.

Link Builders and SEOs Desire PR Skills

Results from our Survey: Online PR in Link Building

By Megan Hannay

April 29, 2015

Topics: Citation Labs News, Link Building Industry Insights, Public Relations

At Citation Labs, we see PR as an essential component of any link building campaign, and we wanted to know if our clients and customers felt the same way. So earlier this year, we surveyed Citation Labs newsletter readers and customers with two questions in mind: How much is PR a factor in your link building efforts? How well qualified do you feel to develop your own PR campaigns? Here are our key findings.

Online PR Should Be an Integral Part of SEO

Results from our Citation Labs survey

By Ken McGaffin

Topics: Press Releases

As Google continues to toughen up its algorithm, search engine optimization experts (SEOs) are rushing to learn online PR skills. That’s because positive media coverage is a strong signal that a site is legitimate and useful - and therefore worthy of top positions in search engine results. Read our survey results here.

The Linkable Audience Guide

Find Them, Serve Them, Earn More Links

By Garrett French

April 13, 2015

Topics: Agency Hacks, Campaign Creation, Understanding & Serving Audiences, Webinar

In our last post, we explained how to transform your SEO keywords into linkable topic subject areas. Now that you can turn SEO Keywords into linkable topics, we’re concentrating on discovering and defining the linkable audiences who generate links.

With a linkable topic and audience, you’ll be fully equipped to spec and create your own linkable content pieces for outreach!

Using the Link Prospector to find Media Opportunities

A Video Discussion

By Ken McGaffin

April 8, 2015

Topics: Campaign Creation, CL Tools: Link Prospector, Public Relations

In this video, we'll go through the process of finding three types of press opportunities with the Link Prospector:

1) Finding accessible reporters
2) Finding press resource linkers
3) Finding opportunities for audience input

55 of the Best Link Building & SEO Posts of 2015

(So Far)

By Megan Hannay

March 30, 2015

Topics: Link Building Industry Insights, Link Building Roundup

Pollen Spring is in the air, link builders, meaning we have another season's worth of great SEO, link building and content marketing posts from some of our favorite influencers in the space.

Linkable Content Brainstorming

From SEO Keywords to Proven Content Topics

By Garrett French

March 17, 2015

Topics: Content Strategy, Intro to Link Building, Webinar

Linkers go for evergreen, informative, educational content. The process outlined in this post is part of our content generation routine here at Citation Labs. It helps us determine topic areas for that content from a starting list of SEO keywords.

A video discussion with Garrett French, and new resource: the Linkable Content Brainstormer Spreadsheet.

How To Approach Broken Link Building in 2015

A Video With Garrett French

By Garrett French

February 27, 2015

Topics: Broken Link Building, Enterprise Link Building Tips, Webinar

Garrett French discusses how to approach broken link building from the right perspective. This is a great resource for teams and link builders who are looking into BLB tactics, but just aren't sure where to start. We highly recommend this video for all new users of our Broken Link Building tool.

The 1 Question To Ask Before Determining Content Strategy

Until we answer this question, we don't start writing.

By Megan Hannay

February 25, 2015

Topics: Content Strategy, Understanding & Serving Audiences

Whether we’re prospecting for links pages, bloggers or even broken links to rebuild, it’s important to keep the needs of our intended audience in mind. This article, the first in our series on content strategy for link builders, explains the difference among content audiences and the type of content each seeks.

6 More Archetypal Stories You Can Use Right Now in Your Online PR

6 More Stories to Add To Our November List

By Ken McGaffin

February 19, 2015

Topics: Content Strategy, Public Relations

Media stories have recognizable patterns that appear time and again in all sorts of outlets. Learn what they are, use them to tell your own PR stories and you’ll create pitches that resonate with journalists - and that increases your chances of coverage.

The Free Co-Citation Analysis Tool

Prioritize Your Outreach Efforts

By Megan Hannay

February 11, 2015

Topics: CL Tools: Co-Citation Tool

Our new Co-Citation Tool organizes domains or URLs by the number of outbound links to sites relating to your content or website. The philosophy is: pages linking to three or four related sites are much more likely to add a link to our content than pages linking to just one related site. So why not go after those highly linking sites first?

Introducing New Language Prospecting Options

A new feature in our Link Prospector tool

By Megan Hannay

February 4, 2015

Topics: Citation Labs News

Great news, Prospectors! We're releasing new language prospecting options in the Link Prospector Tool, meaning our customers will soon be able to search for blog partnership opportunities among native speakers of many more European languages. We're partnering with UK-based communications agency, ICS-digital, to create and implement these new international language report types.

PR Editorial Links & How You Get Them

A Webinar With Garrett French, Ken McGaffin and James Clark of Adaptainer

By Garrett French

January 21, 2015

Topics: Agency Hacks, Public Relations, Webinar

Today Ken McGaffin & Garrett French spoke with James Clark of Adaptainer, a successful shipping container company that hasn't quite reached its PR potential. Looking at the news coverage Adaptainer has received, we mapped out a PR plan for building highly influential online media links, using The Golden Rules of Link Building.

Live Link Building Speed Consultations

A Video with Eric Ward & Garrett French

By Garrett French

December 18, 2014

Topics: Expert Interviews, Link Building Industry Insights, Webinar

We brainstormed link-building, content creation, PR opportunities and business growth ideas for ten businesses, randomly selected from 101 newsletter respondents.

See how even companies that describe their product as "very boring" have great content waiting to be found, and hopefully, you'll gain an idea or two for your business.

Press List Prospector

A Video Tutorial of a New Feature in our Link Prospector Tool

By Megan Hannay

December 12, 2014

Topics: CL Tools: Link Prospector, Public Relations

We've been beta testing it for a couple of weeks, and we're finally ready to announce the arrival of a new feature in our Link Prospector tool.

Our three new report types search through Google News to help prospectors and PR teams build thorough press lists for any topic area.

12/18 Webinar – Link Building Brainstorm with Eric Ward & Garrett French

Announcing our Webinar on 12/8

By Garrett French

December 2, 2014

Topics: Citation Labs News, Webinar

On Thursday, December 18th (at 12pm ET), Eric Ward, and Garrett French will speed brainstorm link building ideas for ten websites. They'll be developing content and outreach ideas for each business as if working for a new client.

Want your website to be considered for a free on-air speed consultation? Fill out our survey to enter.

PR & Link Building Webinar

A Webinar with Garrett French and Ken McGaffin

By Garrett French

November 20, 2014

Topics: Content Strategy, Public Relations, Webinar

In this webinar, Ken McGaffin and Garrett French take on PR for Link Builders, discussing the types of stories that capture journalists' and readers' attention. Ken lists ways that any company, even a business in an over-saturated industry, can stand out and place unique press pieces.

How Online PR is a Powerful Link Building Tool

A Post from our new Director of PR Services, Ken McGaffin

By Ken McGaffin

November 6, 2014

Topics: Link Building Industry Insights, Public Relations

Every day businesses of every size get media coverage and valuable editorial links - but many SEOs and link builders don’t quite know how to approach the media to get this type of coverage. It takes much more than just sending out a press release - it takes effort and hard work. But the opportunity is very real and the good news is that link builders will already have many of the skills they need.

53 Link Building & SEO Posts

A Round-up From Fall 2014

By Megan Hannay

Topics: Citation Labs News, Link Building Roundup

What a Fall we're having at Citation Labs - new Director of PR Services, Ken McGaffin, making our link building agency service offerings stronger than ever. We held our first webinar, and we're currently planning our second.

We're also big fans of learning from our fellow link builders. Explore our round-up of the best link building & SEO posts we've read this fall (so far!)

11/20 Webinar with Ken McGaffin & Garrett French

A Live PR Brainstorm Workshop

By Megan Hannay

November 3, 2014

Topics: Citation Labs News, Link Building Industry Insights, Public Relations

Ken McGaffin and Garrett French will use your business PR concerns to fuel the discussion on PR Strategy from a link-builder's perspective. From our first webinar, we learned that participants join with questions and ideas already brewing. This time, we're making viewer participation a key component of the Webinar. In other words, WE NEED YOUR INPUT to make this FREE WORKSHOP a success!

Agency Hacks for the In-House Link Builder

Our 10/17 Webinar

By Garrett French

October 17, 2014

Topics: Agency Hacks, Citation Labs News, Content Planning, Content Strategy, Webinar

We held our first Webinar - "Agency Hacks for the In-House Link Building Team" on Friday, October 17. If you missed it, or would like to watch again, the video and Webinar notes are below. Or, to skip to a hack or audience question of the video, check out the minute-by-minute here.

The Guide to Local Link Building Campaigns

A Citation Labs Guide

By Garrett French

September 24, 2014

Topics: Local Link Building

Local link building stumped us when we first began. The "local web" presents a shallow microcosm of the broader web. Topically speaking it's an inch deep and a mile wide. Our initially dismal results forced us to retool our strategy design process, which we present below.

10/17 Webinar Topic Announcement

Agency Hacks for the In-House Link Builder

By Megan Hannay

Topics: Citation Labs News

You’ve got a small SEO team. Your organization understands the value of building links, but you don’t have the organizational power of a full-on link building agency. From prospecting to content creation to outreach (and then reporting!), it can feel like you need an office full of you-clones. How do you pull off a thorough link-building campaign with an in-house sized team?

Big Prospecting with Authority Anchors

A Process Guide

By Garrett French

August 22, 2014

Topics: CL Tools: Link Prospector, Technical Link Building Tips

Though our team has passed the 30 member mark I still hold tight to link and audience prospecting. This is in part because I love the hunt, but also because the relevance of our prospects to our promoted assets massively impacts conversion rate (being on a mission helps too...).

That said, I have recently formulated a scalable and repeatable process for some of the deepest, broadest niches of audience and link opportunities that exist. Think 10s of thousands of ops at a strike. Here goes…

Mission-Based Marketing for Brand Visibility

(oh yes, and those link things)

By Garrett French

August 20, 2014

Topics: Campaign Creation, Content Strategy, Mission-Based Link Building

Creating something to be excited and passionate about has become our first and foremost task at Citation Labs. We make sure we're "on a mission" with every new project. That's because over the past four years we've learned that exciting, passionate outreach brings us brand mentions and new audiences like nothing we've done before.

Link Prospecting Pro Tips

Discovering New Pages on Massive, Multi-Author Sites

By Garrett French

August 13, 2014

Topics: CL Tools: Link Prospector, Technical Link Building Tips

Terry Van Horne of the SEOTrainingDojo presents the first video in a series of tips for using Link Prospector to perform SEO and Webmaster tasks. Use two tools to solve a common problem for anyone marketing a large website with multiple departments and webmasters constantly adding content to the site.

Developing Surveys for Outreach

Six Questions with Buzzstream’s Stephanie Beadell

By Garrett French

August 5, 2014

Topics: Citation Labs News, Expert Interviews

Getting responses from email outreach can be difficult. You must ask the right questions, and crafting the perfect survey can be difficult without adequate preparation.

For expert insight into survey development, we asked Buzzstream’s Content Marketing Director Stephanie Beadell to share some of her essential tips.

2 New Tools for Outreach-Based Campaigns

Contact Finder + Outbound Link Scraper

By Garrett French

December 30, 2013

Topics: Citation Labs News

I have a confession. It’s more than a little embarrassing… Off and on for the last several years I’ve gathered contact info by hand. Yup that’s right, I’d spend hours going site by site to copy/paste contact us form pages and email addresses into a spreadsheet. Usually for batches of 100 or fewer sites. Sometimes ... Read more...

Domain Authority on Demand

Announcing a new feature in the Link Prospector

By Garrett French

May 14, 2013

Topics: Citation Labs News, CL Tools: Link Prospector

You want it? You got it!

The Link Prospector now provides domain authority on demand for all of your qualification needs.

Here's how it works.

A Networking Recipe for the Micro Business

Finding Key Relationships Using the Link Prospector

By Garrett French

February 6, 2013

Topics: Campaign Creation, Local Link Building, Outreach Tips

As an itsy-bitsy entity you have all sorts of advantages that your behemoth cousins do not. A teensy-weensy effort is infinitely better than no effort at all. With a few hours and few dollars a month you will be able to outshine 90% of your competitors.

The Ultimate Guide to Phone-Based Outreach for Link Building

Leverage Conversation With an Actual Human Being

By Garrett French

January 9, 2013

Topics: Agency Hacks, Outreach Tips

In a world where our inboxes fill up faster than a Justin Bieber concert, email has become a less effective form of communication. We get backed up, our inbox becomes clogged and things get lost.

That’s why I’m proposing a radical way of link building: Pick up the phone.

How to Use the Link Prospector for Multilingual Prospecting

How to set up a report for non-English prospects

By Garrett French

December 21, 2012

Topics: Campaign Creation, CL Tools: Link Prospector

We get a small but steady trickle of inquiries about using the link prospector in languages other than English. The answer, in short, is YES, absolutely.

The Link Prospector now supports searches in some non-English languages, including French, Spanish, Dutch, German or Portuguese.

Contact Finding + Link Outreach

Link Prospector Mastery

By Garrett French

May 22, 2012

Topics: CL Tools: Link Prospector, Outreach Tips, Technical Link Building Tips

Congrats, Link Prospector - you've come a long way in learning how to use the link prospector tool. You've selected your link building tactic, discovered productive research phrases, dialed in your parameters to a razor focus and qualified your list down to 100 or 1000 of the best-suited prospects.

Now, at last, it's time for you to start on the final outreach portion of the process.

Exporting and Qualifying Your Link Prospects

Link Prospector Mastery

By Garrett French

May 17, 2012

Topics: CL Tools: Link Prospector

Congratulations, Link Prospector - you're moving right along! By now you've selected your tactic, identified some productive prospecting phrases, and dialed in your parameters.

Now, learn some next steps, including using regular expressions, tracking your non-op domains, and learning about special options the Link Prospector provides.

Setting the Advanced Targeting Parameters for Useful Prospects

Link Prospector Mastery

By Garrett French

May 13, 2012

Topics: Citation Labs News

Once you've selected your report type and found some productive research phrases, it's time to "dial in" your prospects with the Link Prospector's Advanced Targeting Parameters. Setting the parameters can help reduce your time spent qualifying your results by "weeding out" or narrowing the non-prospects before you even download your results.

Finding Highly Productive Research Phrases

Link Prospector Mastery

By Garrett French

May 12, 2012

Topics: Agency Hacks, CL Tools: Link Prospector, Content Planning, Enterprise Link Building Tips

The Link Prospector takes your research phrases and combines them with tactic-specific footprints. This is what we use to find prospects for you. Your research phrases determine how useful and relevant your prospects will be. Learn our three rules for selecting successful research phrases.

Choose Your Link Building Tactic

Link Prospector Mastery

By Garrett French

May 9, 2012

Topics: Campaign Creation, CL Tools: Link Prospector

This is part of a series on using the Link Prospector. After creating a new campaign for your account (campaigns are essentially "folders" for organizing your link prospects) it's time to click "Find Prospects" and pick a report type. The report types in the Link Prospector are roughly organized around tactics. Here are a list of the report types, the tactics they support, the resources you're likely to need and any notes.

5 Advanced Guest Post Prospecting Tips for the Link Prospector

A guest post by James Agate, founder of Skyrocket SEO

By Garrett French

April 26, 2012

Topics: CL Tools: Link Prospector, Intro to Link Building

My team and I are pretty heavy users of the link prospector tool. Combined with a couple of other sources, Link Prospector helps us to find a large number of guest posts consistently every month for our clients.

Today, I'm sharing a few of the little tips and tricks we’ve uncovered after several months of heavy usage of the tool.

Citation Labs Process and Tools for Large Scale Broken Link Building

Find & Analyze Thousands of Resources Quickly

By Garrett French

March 25, 2012

Topics: Broken Link Building, CL Tools: Broken Link Builder, Enterprise Link Building Tips

The process we outline is not elegant, but it does help you cover a lot of ground - you can find and analyze thousands of resources and root out the dead pages and sites quite quickly. I've been building 40+ links a month with this method for one of my clients, and selling BLB prospecting as a service to others. As I've said before, link rot is your friend.

New Bulk Backlink Checker Tool

Input URLs, Check for Links

By Garrett French

October 7, 2011

Topics: CL Tools: Broken Link Builder, CL Tools: Link Prospector

In some types of campaigns - value-add commenting and broken link building for example - you know the URL where your link will show up, assuming it gets published. And until today though I've always had to go, URL by URL, to see if my links went up. So I built a bulk backlink checker tool for my fellow link monkeys out there!

List-Scrape Prospecting for Link Builders

List Scraping In a Nutshell

By Garrett French

September 18, 2011

Topics: Outreach Tips, Technical Link Building Tips

Link builder, there remain deep wells of link prospect opportunity... Even if you've queried every last prospect from Google and snatched every last link from your competitors' backlink profile. If you can make the right offer and have a ready team for outreach then list-scrape prospecting could add a steady stream of powerful links to your portfolio.

Gab Goldenberg’s “7 Curiously Obvious Rules” SEO Book

A Review

By Garrett French

September 17, 2011

Topics: Reviews

With "Advanced SEO's 7 Curiously Obvious Rules," Gab identified and filled a "necessary niche" in the SEO Book space. His work is more accessible and engaging than the (necessary reading) Art of SEO, and narrow enough to make itself a requirement on book shelves containing Aaron Wall's sprawling (and mandatory) SEOBook. And while his is certainly a book about SEO, and contains fresh, timeless advice, it's more a book that urges its readers to retool their mindset.

15 Questions on Broken Link Building

An interview with Nick LeRoy, the Minneapolis SEO

By Garrett French

August 21, 2011

Topics: Broken Link Building, Expert Interviews

Nick LeRoy, the Minneapolis SEO, adds to the broken link building interview series that began with Melanie Nathan and moved next to Napoleon Suarez. I'm conducting these interviews to add to my knowledge base for my August 25th webinar: The Content Marketer’s Guide to Broken Link Building.

4 Prospecting Approaches for Broken Link Builders

Broken Link Building Tips

By Garrett French

August 20, 2011

Topics: Broken Link Building, Content Strategy

Prospecting for broken link building opportunities typically begins with a "seed set" either of competitor/relevant sites to check for 404s, relevant pages with lists of links and old/niche directory pages.

You can also use the new Broken Link Finder tool for industrial-strength broken link prospecting.

53 Broken Link Building Resources

A Round-Up

By Garrett French

Topics: Broken Link Building, Link Building Roundup

I'm currently at work on a sort of "multi-tool" for large scale broken link building. Obviously I'm learning by doing, but reading definitely adds to my education that culminated in the launch of the Broken Link Building tool!

Here are broken link building tools, articles, interviews, forum posts, videos and link rot information that you may find useful in your efforts as well

Broken Link Building: How Napoleon Suarez Gets 8-12% Conversions

An interview with Napoleon Suarez of SEO Company Seer Interactive

By Garrett French

August 19, 2011

Topics: Expert Interviews, Outreach Tips

Big thanks to Napoleon Suarez of SEO Company Seer Interactive for generously contributing to my education on broken link building... I will be citing both him and expert broken link builder Melanie Nathan in my upcoming webinar: The Content Marketer's Guide to Broken Link Building.

Broken Link Building Tips

An Interview with Melanie Nathan

By Garrett French

August 16, 2011

Topics: Enterprise Link Building Tips, Expert Interviews, Link Building Industry Insights

In preparation for my upcoming webinar - The Content Marketer's Guide to Broken Link Building (August 25th 8:30 AM - 9:30 AM PDT) I sent some "best-practices" questions over to Edmonton SEO Melanie Nathan, creator of a formalized broken link building process.

Read her broken link building tips here.

5 Key Units of Expertise

On the Classification of Expertise Structures for Content Marketers

By Garrett French

June 29, 2011

Topics: Content Planning, Content Strategy, Link Building Industry Insights

Through marketing with tips and tip inventory creation I came to think of tips as the smallest expressible unit of expertise. From a research query perspective, tips are quite easy to extract from a market's community of practice.

But what about larger and more complex units of expertise?

Towards a Methodology for Classifying & Collating Market Research Queries

For Content Marketing Campaigns

By Garrett French

June 23, 2011

Topics: Technical Link Building Tips, Understanding & Serving Audiences

Marketers who develop a methodology for classifying, collating and documenting their market research queries facilitate, speed up and create meaningful work segmentation opportunities at all stages of a content marketing campaign. This article outlines not a methodology, but the elements I believe are required for developing your own methodology.

48 Query Stems for Creating a Tip Inventory

For Content Marketing Research

By Garrett French

June 16, 2011

Topics: Content Planning, Content Strategy, Technical Link Building Tips

Combine these tip-stems with your subject matter phrase roots to create an initial body of research queries for use in your favorite search engine or search scraper tool. These queries are meant to be used in conjunction with your tip inventory spreadsheet.

11 Suggested Columns for Your Tip Inventory Spreadsheet

The How-To for "How-To"s

By Garrett French

Topics: Content Planning, Content Strategy, Technical Link Building Tips

Tips are the distilled, actionable wisdom of subject matter experts. Tips become apparent to the subject matter expert as his general principles encounter reality. For the content marketer, creating a tip inventory of a market's knowledge provides a deeper understanding of a market's pains and opens up the opportunities outlined in this post.

A Brief Introduction to “Subject Matter Phrases”

For Content Marketing Research

By Garrett French

June 15, 2011

Topics: Content Planning, Technical Link Building Tips

Every market comprises a universe of subject matter phrases that, once discovered and cataloged, provide a marketing researcher's basis for mapping, understanding and engaging that market or market segment with content. These phrases enable a researcher to identify a market vertical's content needs, its subject matter experts, its publishers and its potential content-promotion targets.

Link Building Agency Interview #5

With Arnie Kuenn & Michael Schwartz of Vertical Measures

By Garrett French

May 16, 2011

Topics: Expert Interviews

While link building techniques are important for marketers to follow, I find that the nuts and bolts of link building campaign design and execution - especially at the agency level - gets short shrift.

Agency-side link builders Arnie Kuenn and Michael Schwartz share how they design link building campaigns, manage clients, and design & price their services.

Link Building Agency Interview #4

Julie Joyce of Link Fish Media

By Garrett French

May 15, 2011

Topics: Expert Interviews

While link building techniques are important for marketers to follow, I find that the nuts and bolts of link building campaign design and execution - especially at the agency level - gets short shrift.

Agency-side link builder Julie Joyce shares how she designs link building campaigns, manages clients, and designs & prices her services.

Link Building Agency Interview #3

Jason Walker of Performics

By Garrett French

Topics: Expert Interviews

While link building techniques are important for marketers to follow, I find that the nuts and bolts of link building campaign design and execution - especially at the agency level - gets short shrift.

Agency-side link builder Jason Walker shares how he designs link building campaigns, manages clients, and designs & prices his services.

Link Building Agency Interview #2

Joe Davies of Teknet

By Garrett French

Topics: Expert Interviews

While link building techniques are important for marketers to follow, I find that the nuts and bolts of link building campaign design and execution - especially at the agency level - gets short shrift.

Agency-side link builder Joe Davies shares how he designs link building campaigns, manages clients, and designs & prices his services.

Link Building Agency Interview

Peter Attia of Home Improvement Leads

By Garrett French

Topics: Expert Interviews

While link building techniques are important for marketers to follow, I find that the nuts and bolts of link building campaign design and execution - especially at the agency level - gets short shrift.

Agency-side link builder Peter Attia shares how he designs link building campaigns, manages clients, and designs & prices his services.

83 New Link Building Resources

The "Link Cops and Pandejos" Edition

By Garrett French

May 11, 2011

Topics: Link Building Roundup

3 weeks have blown by since I announced the launch of Citation Labs with a roundup... I hope you had enough time to read through all 89 resources in my last edition cause you've got 83 more now.

89 New Link Building Resources

The Citation Labs Launch Edition

By Garrett French

April 21, 2011

Topics: Link Building Roundup

Let's get this round up kicked off with a bit of news - I'm starting a link building agency, Citation Labs! You can read more about Citation Labs on our About page, and do check out my training and custom campaign services. I look forward to hearing from you - Garrett@CitationLabs.com.