The pursuit of links is far too often a highly selfish process. It's all about your target keywords, your business model, and your rankings. Getting over your selfish goals and thinking about what others want is where actual innovation comes from.

For everything there is a season, a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to build links. I'm not 100% sure that last one is actually from Ecclesiastes, but it should be in the Book of SEO. Link building is a perpetual pursuit for websites, but that doesn't mean the circumstances are the same every day. And yet, there are certain constants even within continual change.

It's the 4th of July! And while we're all enjoying our hot dogs and sparklers Will Smith is off somewhere punching an alien in the face' Let's be honest, most American Holidays have evolved into some sort of thematic commercial celebration. But at the root of it, this particular 3-Day Weekend isn't just an excuse for potato salad, it a celebration of independence. In SEO most of us are seeking liberation in one way or another.

Ok, clearly for those who can count, link bait is actually 2, 4-letter words. But for some people out in web-land it's become a dirty, almost derivative, term. I'm pretty sure though, that's mostly because the word is so abused. Link bait isn't everything we publish; link bait is a specific kind of content that is meant to draw a lot of attention to a site when it's released. Link bait can be a beautiful thing when it's done right.

There's something I do every month or so that helps remind me that making a fool of myself in public is acceptable. I do improv comedy, we get up in front of "crowds", and I use that word loosely, and we play improv games to make people laugh. Well, on a good night anyway. We all draw from our histories and other parts of our lives to do our day to day jobs. Now, I'm not saying link building is anything like doing short form comedy,

The road to hell isn't the only one paved with good intentions. Most of us set out with the best motives, but somewhere along the way things go wrong. Sometimes our mistakes are a result of inexperience, other times it's just carelessness or short sightedness. We screw up because we don't think things through, because we don't see what's right in front of us or the damage we are actually doing. In link building we make these mistakes when we're in a hurry.

Is there such a thing as over optimized? Can there be too much of a good thing in link building? Well just like eating 100 of the worlds best canolis will make you nauseous, having too much of any good keyword can make your site sick. What is it? On- Site: There are plenty of ways to over optimize on-site for a specific set of keywords. Spammy keyword stuffed title tags, content with obscene levels of keyword density and hidden text or links, all fall into this category.

Creating great link bait is something of an art. Everyone wants to originate that one great piece that goes as a viral as the plague. But the key to making any attempt at link bait successful is in the planning stages. That's why when the creative wind is blowing it's time to nail up the shutters and hunker down for the brainstorm. No man is )or should be( an island This may seem like a no brainer, but creating link bait shouldn't be a solo project. Sure,

A year in the internet world isn't like a year in the real world. The time seems to move faster here. Internet years are kind of like dog years that way. Everything happens so quickly, changes come in rapid succession; news hits us in a constant and often overwhelming stream. New developments, tools and breakthroughs in technology happen on an almost weekly if not daily basis. So no wonder every year feels like ten.

Are you tired of turkey yet? By now we should all be just about done with turkey sandwiches and leftover sweet potatoes. But using up all of the extra food is one of the best parts of Thanksgiving. It challenges us to find inventive ways to make the best of what we have. Most of the time we plough through link building like hungry hungry hippos, grabbing what we can and watching the excess go to waste.

Life is all about the lessons; the things we figure out through trial and error along the way. At its core link building is a simple concept; get people to link to a web site. But the actual task of making that happen can be somewhat epic. In my years of doing this work, I've learned things that apply not only to the business of getting links but to the business of trying to live a decent life.

If you offer link building as a service, there are a few questions you hear over and over. They are the questions which, like a hypnotic suggestion, trigger an almost automated response. But it doesn't happen because you're a jerk. Well, probably not anyway. It happens because you've just said it so many times before that it's become second nature. It's not that they are "bad" or "stupid" questions. At all.

What kinds of people make the best link builders? Well, that's as hard to define as what kinds of people make the best leaders or parents or circus clowns. Because really, that answer is going to depend entirely on who you talk to and what kind of link building you want done. I'm sure there are people who prefer semi-lobotomized drones that can cut and paste, and don't ask questions.  But I respectfully disagree with that philosophy.