Loren Baker has put together some guidelines in using blog reviews as an effective link building tactic. What I like best about Loren’s post is that he provides sound advice without revealing any specifics such as blogs that sell reviews or even companies that actually provide this as a service.
With the war that Google has waged against paid links, it is comforting to see posts such as these that provide useful information without helping Google to identify those who are buying or selling the reviews. It fits right in with my previous plea for the entire paid links industry to go underground.
Loren points out some of the benefits that blog reviews can provide including building brand awareness, social media marketing and testing to see how bloggers or target demographics view your service or product for a substantially lower cost than running a market research group. Of course he reminds us that for search marketers, one of the top benefits is gaining links.
Although you should read the entire post if you are interested in venturing down this avenue, some of the
guidelines Loren provides are as follows:
- Fly under the radar.
- Use caution when using well know blog review services.
- Shell out the cash for some reviews from high profile bloggers.
- Beware of “review-only” blogs.
- Watch out for blogs that are cluttered with “review badges.”
- Mix up your review themes as well as anchor text you are trying to use in links.
- Watch out for .blogspot and .info blogs.
- Think outside the box.
- Make sure you market the reviews effectively by taking steps to bookmark them in places like StumbleUpon and Digg.
Great post, Loren and thanks for keeping everything under the radar.
