**by Julie Joyce**
If you've never worked for a client who also has other people doing
the same thing you do, just wait&you will. For particularly large or
especially competitive link campaigns, it has become more commonplace
for a company to try various options, sometimes all at once.
While covering several angles is definitely a smart marketing move,
it also can lead to a bit of confusion on the part of each person
involved as to how exactly to determine whether or not results (good
or bad) have come from his or her own specific efforts. Hopefully your
client is measuring ROI as well, but it's definitely best if you do
keep track of your own results.
Before becoming involved with something of this nature, you might
want to ask a few questions in order to determine whether this is the
type of link building that you feel comfortable doing. Considering the
mess that can come about from a poorly executed cooperative link
building effort, you'll want to make sure that you keep the following
10 tips in mind if you're considering this.
1. Determine whether a group link building effort is the right fit
for you.
It may not be something that you're comfortable doing, for whatever
reason. If you have expectations in place (such as open communication
and honesty) then you may find it difficult to deal with this
situation if you're not allowed to speak to other parties. In some
cases, you won't have a clue that others are working on the same
campaign, for example. If this isn't something you can handle, don't
get involved. If you are involved and then find out after the fact,
just do your best to work around it, or, if you feel that you have to,
lose the client.
2. Establish which methods are being employed by others, and let
everyone know which ones you'll be using.
If you're lucky enough to have a smart client, this should be a
well-planned link campaign where everyone brings a different strength
to the table, but it's best not left to chance.
3. Work together.
For example, if one team is doing a big content release and you're
working on emailing and asking for links, time it so that you're
pointing to their new content. For large campaigns, you can move
faster if there are more hands on deck. If you can work together, you
benefit from bouncing ideas off each other. There can be several
different types of link building going on at once (content writing,
social media promotions, emailed link requests, etc.)
Some people excel at different forms of link building than others,
and if you put together an ace team, your results should be stellar.
Communication within the various groups is an absolute must if you
want to avoid stepping all over each other and entering into deals
with the same site from different angles.
4. Check to make sure that no one is negating your efforts and that,
in turn, you aren't negating anyone else's efforts.
If you have a particularly strong belief in link building without
going against Google's guidelines, for example, you may find yourself
working on a campaign that's also employing people who are buying
links. You could be buying links and doing it in what you think is a
very low-risk and natural manner, and then discover someone else
working on the campaign who is blatantly buying horribly spammy ones
that are risky and exceptionally obvious.
The odds of two or more entities working on one campaign and having
the exact same mentality about what is and isn't ok are very low, of
course. My guess is that if this situation does arise for you, you'll
find that determining that the good that you think you're doing may be
negated.
5. Create a master list of who's doing what, and stick to it.
Just as with any group effort, there needs to be a set list of
responsibilities and assignments that you can refer to when necessary.
List out method of communication (team calls, emails, run everything
through the client and let him/her handle it, etc.), critical due
dates, and absolutely anything that's relevant to keeping this all
running smoothly for everyone involved.
6. Set your own conversion goals and figure out how you'll track
them.
I talk about marketing different keyphrases below, but what I mean
here is that you should first determine what you will consider to be a
successful effect of your own efforts. Is it an increase in traffic, a
sale, more links on a certain social media platform, and so forth? If
you don't typically ask for access to a client's analytics, now's a
good time to start.
7. Market different keyphrases.
If this is possible, do it so that you can get a better idea of
results from specific rankings and traffic data. In accordance with
making sure that no one is negating your efforts, however, I'd also
advise routinely checking on keyphrases that other teams are working
on just to make sure everything's all proceeding nicely.
8. Create timelines for different link releases.
Just as development follows a schedule of releases, so should a large
link building campaign. The last thing you want to do is sabotage your
efforts by creating link spikes that throw up a red flag.
9. Keep everyone informed beforehand.
It's better to be able to make alternate plans if what you're doing
will have an adverse effect on someone else's work, and vice versa.
It's not fun to rush to clean up a mess that could have been avoided.
10. Be open to suggestions, revisions, and criticism from others.
It's entirely possible that another person will see a problem with
your method, so listen to what he or she has to say without flaring
up. The criticism may be well-warranted.
As is probably obvious by now, working in such a collaborative way
definitely has its challenges, but if you're making an effort to stay
involved and on top of things, it may prove to be a very fruitful
experience. You can definitely learn from people who do things in a
very different manner, especially if everyone is able to bounce ideas
off of each other.
Opinions expressed in the article are those of the author, and not
necessarily Search Engine Land.
Julie Joyce <http://searchengineland.com/author/julie-joyce/>
owns the link development firm Link Fish Media
<http://www.linkfishmedia.com/>
and is one of the founding members of the SEO Chicks
<http://www.seo-chicks.com/>
blog.
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