Interview med Brian Dean fra Backlinko

På det eneste er der dukket en ny og spændende SEO person op på den internationale scene.

En person som gør tingene lidt anderledes og som gerne deler ud af alle sine konkrete metoder til at få nye links på.

Jeg elsker den kreative tilgang som Brian Dean fra Backlinko.com har og derfor kontaktede jeg ham for at høre om han ville være villig til et lille interview.

Jeg ved at Brian snart lancerer et produkt, så jeg krydsede fingre for, at han ville sige ja… og det gjorde han.

Interviewet vil naturligvis være på engelsk, så der er mulighed for at Brian deler det på de sociale medier med dem der følger ham.

Så lad os straks kaste os over de 10 spørgsmål…

1. Who is Brian Dean and why is it that he is suddenly all over the place?

I’m just a regular guy that eats, sleeps and breathes SEO. After spending a few years “underground” doing SEO for my own web properties and a handful of clients, I decided to launch my SEO blog, Backlinko in December or 2012.

I think the site has grown in popularity because it meets an unmet need in the SEO space: actionable link building strategies that people can actually use.

Most of the SEO world writes about vague terms like “content marketing” and “link earning”. To stand out from the noise I decided to create a site that would be full of practical advice.

2. You’re obviously building links for websites in English. Would you suggest that Danish webmasters try to get the same types of links that you’re getting and from the same places? Why or why not?

Definitely the same types of links. The types of links that work for English sites — contextual links from authoritative sites — work for any language’s SERP.

And yes, some of the sources themselves (for example, donation links) can be the used for Danish sites. But it doesn’t look very natural to have most of your links from English websites. So I’d use the exact sources sparingly. Instead, focus on how you can leverage the same strategies to get links from other Danish websites.

3. Google has battled content quality, link quality, anchor text ratios, EMDs, article directories, large splog networks and so on. Where do you think they will hit next and why?

I think the focus will continue to be on links for the next 5+ years.

The next “big thing” they’ll be looking at is what I call Linking Domain Relevancy. Unlike anchor text, EMDs, and article directories figuring out relevancy is really, REALLY hard for an algorithm.

But they’re making strides and slowly figuring it out: not only to make relevant links more powerful, but to weed out black hat links.

One of the biggest red flags in a link profile is a bunch of links from unrelated sites. It’s easy to spot manually, but harder for the algorithm. In the next year or two the algorithm will get better at figuring out relevancy and will filter out sites with an unnatural amount of irrelevant links.

4. If you should choose between a link on a “not relevant” PR5 page vs. a PR1 link on a relevant page, which one would you choose and why?

It depends on my current link profile.

If I had a link profile full of irrelevant links, then I’d need to get more relevant links to even things out.

But if I the vast majority of my links were already relevant, I could “get away” with the PR5 not relevant link. That’s another reason to build relevant links: when these PR5 opportunities from unrelated sites come along you can afford to take advantage of the opportunity.

5. What factors do you look at to determine how much effort (time and money) you’re willing to put into getting a specific link?

• Linking Domain Relevancy
• The PR (or estimated PR) of the page my link will appear on
• Whether or not the link is contextual
• If the link will bring in targeted referral traffic
• Subjective feel: is the site a “real site” or a “splog”?
• Is the link profile clean and authoritative?

6. Where do you go to get ideas and inspiration for new ways to obtain links? Do you have any specific people to follow and/or places to visit?

I’m VERY selective about who I read in the SEO world. In this field the wrong information CAN hurt you.

Here are the people/sites that I tend to read most:

• Jon Cooper at Point Blank SEO
• Neil Patel at QuickSprout
• Jason Acidre at Kaiser the Sage
• YouMoz
• John-Henry Sherck at TLC SEO
• The Buzzstream Blog

7. What link do you consider you biggest success and how did you go about getting it?

Good question!

I think the link I’m most proud of is the link I got from the SEO section at AllTop.

I chose this link not just because it’s a great link on an authoritative site, but because it represents the fact that my site is good enough to make it into their exclusive list.

8. In one of your recent articles you talk about sending out (well scripted) template emails to webmasters. Have you ever tried using the phone instead of email? If “yes” how did that work for you and if “no”, why not?

Yes, I tried it (once). But it didn’t work out.

I’m definitely not opposed to doing more of this, but the issue is that it’s tough to scale up. But it’s something I know a lot of great link builders do and have had success with.

9. If you were to share one big secret place to get a great link… one that you haven’t talked about before. What would that be?

I’d say the best source that I don’t talk about are resource pages. I’ve had an insane amount of success with them because the site owners create the page for the sole purpose of linking to other sites. It’s much more scalable and easier than guest blogging. And the pages you get your links on often have PageRank.

10. If people want to learn more about Brian Dean. What should they read and how can they follow you?

Obviously, my blog Backlinko is the first place to go. You can also add me on Google+ and follow me on Twitter.