…so what can we do about it? Link building is the lifeblood of any SEO campaign but for new marketers the entry prices can be prohibitively expensive. For many the only options left once link building tools are discarded is to resort to low quality, sometimes spammy, practices to get those juicey backlinks.
I’m going to cite Ontolo as an example of what you can expect to pay. First off, let me add that they do offer an exceptionally versatile set of free tools which certainly help you in your travels.
Prices start at $297 per month which is no small amount when you’re just starting out. Admittedy, the tools are exceptional (in particular the ‘Most linkworthy content’ tool which helps you to structure killer content that can become pillar articles for your site). As an added bonus, Ontolo also produce some very indepth guides and tutorials on how to research and build great content. One tip for anyone heading over to their site is to check out their Ultimate Guide 2 Ultimate Guides post – great stuff.
Ok, so we’ve established that many of us newcomers to marketing/SEO can’t afford to pay for these tools so what are the alternatives?
For me; it’s SEO for FireFox and the good old Google operators. I had a quick look at Ontolo’s ‘Content Research’ section and came up with an idea that replicates (sort of) what they’re doing. Here goes….
Scenario: I’m looking for websites/pages that rank highly for running shoes so I bounced this query across Google:
intitle:”running shoes” intext:”running shoes” +”follow us on twitter” +contact
What we’re looking at here is a search for any page/site that has the phrase ‘running shoes’ in the title tag and body of content. I then added ‘follow us on *’ and ‘contact’ to locate pages that have links to their twitter account and a contact page.
Once you have all the data in front of you, use SEO for FireFox to export it into a csv file and start tracking down those link opportunities.
Ok, I know it’s a little rough around the edges and you do need to do some manual work to see more information on how pages gain authority but it’s a cheaper way of doing your link building research.
P.S. Garrett, I love your work but can’t afford to buy the tools… yet 