E08: Alexandra Tachalova

Richard:
Welcome to another episode of eCom@One. And today's guest is Alexandra Tachalova. Now, Alexandra I met about seven years ago at a marketing live event in... I think it was Olympia, in London.
Alexandra:
Yeah, yeah. In London.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
Right.
Richard:
Yeah. Somewhere about seven years ago. Now Alexandra back then was working for SEMrush and sort of worked through the ranks of SEMrush and became director of marketing at SEMrush and then set up her own agency and her own very well known events company. So welcome to the podcast, Alexandra.
Alexandra:
Thanks for having me today, Richard. Very excited and will try my best to answer all of your questions.
Richard:
Thank you
Richard:
So I think, obviously, so much, no doubt, has happened since we first met. I think, like I say, seven years ago. I did a webinar for you back then, which was a long time ago.
Alexandra:
Yeah, I remember. Yeah.
Richard:
It was one of my first webinars back then and obviously you were working at SEMrush. But since then obviously you've gone on to do quite a lot of very high profile speaking engagements and your own events, which I need to get to. I noticed you had an event coming up, but I guess that's obviously been cancelled?
Alexandra:
Yeah, it was. We were actually first to cancel it.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
Because due to epidemic situation.
Richard:
Yes.
Alexandra:
Which everyone knows about.
Richard:
Yes.
Alexandra:
So, yeah, we were actually, Rich, make September a very, very jam-packed month because I have two speaking dates plus I am a head of European
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
And so they moved also the ceremony on the first week of September. So first I go to ceremony, then I have, as I remember, Digital Olympus, then one event, SEO Campus, in France. And after this, straight to Brighton, which will be at the very end of September.
Richard:
Oh, my gosh.
Alexandra:
Yeah, a very busy month. So they moved everything. Just everyone decided to go with September, which is known because of because.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
But, yeah, it makes, like, nearly any marketer that is involved in any speaking, it's a very, very tough month.
Richard:
While we're recording this, it's now... yeah, we're on the second of April, which, we're only sort of three or four weeks into the epidemic depending on where you are in the world. So obviously a lot of the events that Alexandra's talking about have been cancelled, postponed, and everyone has chosen September, pretty much, at the moment.
Alexandra:
US con as well. Because I know John Anderson, who is a part of US team, they also moved it somewhere nearby, Digital Olympus. So they moved it to the 14th of September and day, like, 12th, or something like that.
Richard:
Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Richard:
So, be good if you could just tell the listeners a bit about your career story. I know you've got some amazing experience in the industry, so if you want to tell us a bit. Maybe how you got started and what you're doing today.
Alexandra:
Okay. So, well, first of all I should say that I've never been dreaming about entrepreneur adventure or something like that. Well, in fact, I was... six years ago when I was working in Russia, just wanted to work on my own rather than doing something big.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
And also, before that, in fact my biggest dream was to be chief or something, maybe like my cat. Chief Cat Officer. Now looking at my husband, who holds this position, well, I'm not jealous at all.
Richard:
No.
Alexandra:
So, yeah, I'm very happy where I am. And so right now we are solely focused so I have... let's say, two businesses, which is actually one, Digital Olympus.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
We just don't write on our website that we do link building, because all our clients come to us just through the word of mouth.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
But we got to start, you know, launch something. We even did a photo shoot. But still have no time. Which is, I think, the biggest problem for literally any small business, that you're just so into your internal processes, like helping your clients and doing your regular routine business that you don't have time to do... just stop everything properly.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
Yeah, we are really focused on link-building, so we have some quite well-known companies among our clients, like G2. They previously were G2 Crowd
Richard:
Yup.
Alexandra:
Also, well, we love working with smaller businesses. Well, we have some like guys that just run a few blogs or might be running smaller businesses.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
The only thing that we don't have, like, clients that are, like, B2C, we prefer B2B niche just due to the process of acquiring links because when it comes to B2C market, people... they're like, you know, size and the process of acquiring links normally involves money.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
So, well, bloggers... B2C bloggers like fashion bloggers especially, travel blogs, they all want money.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
But we don't do this so while... like, how we build links, we never pay for them, basically. The reason why enterprise companies come to us, we use relationship-based link building so it's kind of like, you know, we just connect with sites that are also actively building links and as a result we could easily secure links back to our clients and our own website
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
And so because we have similar goals.
Richard:
Yeah. Okay.
Alexandra:
So and also, I have Digital Olympus which is just a conference. We-
Richard:
Just a conference? Bit more than that.
Alexandra:
Just a conference. Just a small conference. This time we're arranging the venue for 400 people and sadly we were forced, as we already discussed, to rebook it. But it's going to happen in the middle of September.
Richard:
Yup.
Alexandra:
Right now I think we sold... well, for sure we issued some refunds, because people were asking for them.
Richard:
Yeah. Yeah.
Alexandra:
That's a part of this game, sadly. While you are firstly paying on Facebook to acquire those leads and get some sales, and then you are returning this money. Which is quite sad for me.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Looking especially at Facebook bills, you're like,What a pointless situation.
Richard:
Yeah, yeah... it's very challenging, isn't it? You paid out the money for the Facebook ads to get bums on the seats
Alexandra:
Yeah. They're returning this money, like, including, like... you do it also some customer to them. So you're spending the time and money in order to return their money.
Richard:
Yeah, I mean, the events business as a whole, in the whole world obviously, that's going to be one of the hardest hit.
Alexandra:
Yeah, yeah.
Richard:
You know? So we've just got to... yeah, it's really challenging, isn't it? Very, very challenging.
Alexandra:
Yeah, very challenging. But I think we are not in the worst position because we've been able to reschedule without additional penalties.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
Plus, finally, well,] firstly they didn't want to allow us to do anything with our booking. Not, like, hello, and ask schedule or refund or whatever it is, but then they launched a new rule just for all their teams because they create obviously kind of a separated from the main... their groups or something like that. They have their own rules in each country. So finally they did it and so they allowed us to reschedule it so we are not really losing a lot of money right now.
Richard:
Yeah. Fingers crossed. When this pandemic is over, I think obviously we don't know
Alexandra:
Hopefully.
Richard:
We have no real understanding of time scales, really.
Alexandra:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Richard:
But I think the reality is, people will just want to go out. People will want to go to events eventually. Obviously, we have absolutely no idea in terms of time scales, really.
Alexandra:
Yeah. Yeah.
Richard:
So I would say your 400 tickets will become 700. You're going to need a bigger venue, that's the way you've got to look at it, I think.
Alexandra:
I was actually... I was considering this for the next year.
Richard:
The next year?
Alexandra:
Because the first one, we did it for 200 people. Then we switched to 400 people, and I'm just like, to scale it more.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
But we will see.
Richard:
Okay, so I think that's... you know, thank you for that introduction. So I think, knowing Alexandra as I do and observe from afar as well, Alexandra does some very big things in the industry. Speaks on all the stages, you know, literally.

Alexandra:
Thank you, Richard. I appreciate your kind words
Richard:
There isn't really a high-profile stage I think you haven't spoke on in the last few years. And when it comes to link building, that's your sort of passion, but we'll get to that in a minute, I think. We're going to go in there, we're going to go in quite deep.
Richard:
But I think what'll be good to maybe kick off with... so the guys that are listening in to the podcast now, we're focused on e-commerce, specifically. And I think obviously certain verticals are doing well right now, but a lot of verticals are obviously struggling while we talk about their management, and travel, and, you know
Alexandra:
Yes, sadly.
Richard:
Food verticals and different verticals, different things. But overall there's a percentage of people that are doing pretty well, but there's a lot more not doing so well and need some ideas that are maybe quicker things that e-commerce stores can do.
Richard:
Now I know there's no magic bullet, there's no sort of secret potion day two and we've made all this money, but the reality is, there are things that we can focus on, I think, that can help us in the short-term. What would your sort of thoughts be on that for e-commerce stores right now that are looking to get some quick wins and quicker returns?
Alexandra:
I think some companies could start investing in, like, pay debts. I think it might be a good option, but more like on an organic side of things, I'd say I'm more like looking at things that could help e-commerce businesses grow without investing money, but more like, time, resources.
Alexandra:
So I would say, like, for instance, they could try Excel. So for those clients it doesn't cost anything and so if you have a client database you could try to upsell them something that might be done through e-mail marketing, for instance.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
Or if you have enough resources, you could start upselling goods by doing it on your website, by suggesting, like, products that normally other buyers prefer to buy together, for instance.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
That might be a good one. Also, I've noticed that some companies, they also upsell through sending e-mails. By saying, like, "Hey, we reduced the price on a particular item that you've recently just browsed on our website," which is also, I think, a good strategy. If you have some item that you want to get rid of.
Richard:
Yup. Yup.
Alexandra:
Finally, that might be a good option.
Richard:
Yup.
Alexandra:
Also, I think one more thing that should be quite beneficial right now since a lot of businesses are struggling or at least have some limited resources when it's comes especially to delivery, because that's the biggest struggle right now. Like, I know that a lot of businesses, they receive a lot of inquiries from clients that they want to receive something in a particular time frame but those businesses simply aren't capable of doing that, because they have limited resources of delivery.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
So what they could do, they could partner up with other businesses that sell, let's say, like, complimentary to their products and in that way they could do delivery together as well as run together marketing campaigns, which will be a good way of selling products and reaching out to new audiences without, like, you know, using pay debts.
Richard:
So joint ventures. Yeah.
Alexandra:
Yeah, yeah. Joint ventures, something like that.
Alexandra:
So if you, I don't know, if you sell some... I don't know, IT products and you have someone who's selling similar to you products, something, like, that complement them.
Richard:
Yeah, help each other, promote each other's product.
Alexandra:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
Yeah.
Richard:
Very good, very good, very good. So e-mail marketing, upselling, cross-selling, using some of the technology there to help identify products that they've maybe looked at, but not bought.
Alexandra:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Richard:
Abandoned car technologies for squeezing more out of the existing visitors, potentially
Alexandra:
Yeah, yeah. Getting more from what you get, basically. Because a lot of businesses are right now getting more traffic, but what they need to do is to find a way to turn them into leads and plan. And so if you... for instance, if you haven't yet started capturing leads, then you should do that.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
Create some forms and start capturing people and so if you have some products out of stock, then let people subscribe to something to be notified about this. Because I guess there might be some particular demands on some product that you have out of stock.
Richard:
Yeah. Yeah.
Alexandra:
Plus optionally, you could try to find someone who had this products and be like a middleman in that situation. So, like, getting a fee to... like a reseller, because that might be also an option for you.
Richard:
So, yeah, the whole out of stock products on an e-commerce store is a whole... another conversation around SEO, I think
Alexandra:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That might be. That might be.
Richard:
Maybe we'll go there for a minute, because I think a lot of stores, they've spent all this time building their stores and their product pages, and then they have a bestseller, and then that bestseller goes out of stock for an amount of time.
Alexandra:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Richard:
Any recommendations what you should do with those pages and what you should do with those products?
Alexandra:
I think there are a few ways. So one way... if it's a good fit to your current situation, you could try to find someone who is selling this product and simply redirect and get a fee. That may be my way, but not really that might be a good fit for big enterprise companies. But if you are a smaller business, that might be a good idea for you just to sell it, you know, to get your money right now.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
I think, due to the current situation, the cash flow really matters right now. You need your money right now in order to just purchase new products and to get things going. And to pay salary to people, to your employees, as well. Because that's one of the biggest share of your budget, I guess, when you separate it.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
What else you could do? You could simply put some similar products on those pages and, as I've already mentioned, put a subscribe button and say, you know, "It's out of stock and we are going to get it back shortly.
Richard:
We'll let you know.
Alexandra:
Yeah. It might be a text message as well, which I really prefer. Depends on how you run your business.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
What else you could do, I think... well, you could also redirect just within your website, to similar products, as well. Which might be an option.
Richard:
Yup. Yeah. Yeah.
Alexandra:
Yeah, what else? I don't know. I guess more... like, you know, there might be... I'm certain that there should be more options, but it depends on a certain situation, when you are looking through how exactly your website is structured.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
And... yeah.
Richard:
Yeah, because I think sometimes you see certain products that sell well that are out of stock. Some e-comm stores take those product pages down, and take them out.
Alexandra:
Oh, no, no, no, that's a bad idea. Definitely. Because you are going to be kicked out of from the... like, if you rank well, all those pages will be removed from Google search results, which is bad. No, no, no, you shouldn't get rid of them.
Alexandra:
So, you should find a way to keep them and let people know that it's out of stock but not really in a frustrating way so they will see also... so what you need to do, I guess, you need to communicate clear to user that you keep this page because you want to let them know when it's going to appear.
Alexandra:
So something like that, so they're not going to be frustrated. Like, opening a page where it says, like, "Out of stock."on this page? They're going to get a very high bounce rate if those people will be coming from Google results.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
So, yeah.
Richard:
Okay. So, lots of ideas there, but do not remove the page, obviously.
Alexandra:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Keep it. Keep it, definitely.
Richard:
You spent all that time building the authority of that page, that product. You know, you're ranking well, and then you take it out of the backend of the CMS or whatnot, you know, crazy.
Richard:
So obviously that's the worst thing you can do, and then there's a few options, depending on sort of what other products you've got in stock or relationships you've got there. So on the SEO theme then, what would you say are the biggest ranking factors right now for e-commerce stores?
Alexandra:
Well, I think there are two major areas. So one area is related to on-site SEO, so what you have on your site, basically. Mobile friendliness, how well a user could navigate through your website, and everything like that.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
So all those factors. Also, having sufficient content, a sufficient number of words on your pages if you want to appear at the top of Google results. Plus, keywords research. And then you have, like, a link-building site.
Alexandra:
So I think... it depends on what kind of business you have. I mean, how competitive your niche is and whether it's possible to run well within your niche. So there might be some cases when you sell something, that you have a niche that is overclouded by gigantic marketplaces, or some e-commerce source, like Amazon, for instance.
Richard:
Yup.
Alexandra:
And there is no way to... just to compete with them or it's a very long-term. Like, you know, you need to understand it's a very long-term investment. So basically, I think you need to use link building when you understand that you really have an opportunity.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
Otherwise, it's just a waste of time and money, because obviously it's always about calculating how much time and money do you need to invest to get... I don't know, to a certain position in Google versus the same amount of money that you could invest into, I don't know, paid channels. And the results
Richard:
Where would somebody start to sort of... it's quite a tricky question, I think, but...
Alexandra:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Richard:
So, I've got an e-commerce store, I'm on page three for smoked salmon. I sell fish. I'm on page three, I sell smoked salmon, I want to get to page one. There's a lot of big people, a lot of big site there. There's ten Amazons and ten other high street stores. But I have quite a lot of money. Not me personally, but
Alexandra:
Yeah, I understand you.
Richard:
I actually feel that I do want to go for it, because I'm very passionate about my business and I've got a lot of fish to sell. So, how do you go about calculating it, and what's your sort of formula?
Alexandra:
Yeah, so it's quite easy. So basically what you need to do, you need to see the between your website and those websites that are currently rank on there... let's say on there... first, at the top results. So, you know, very top ones.
Richard:
Yup.
Alexandra:
And so you just compare your domain authority, domain rating, depends on the tool that you are using. You could use, for instance, I use Ahrefs, and they have domain ratings. And if your domain rating is... and then you just calculate the number of links that you need to acquire, looking at your competitors, to reach the same tier.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
So that's the first step.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
Then you look at the number of referring domain and the quality of those referring domains back to their particular pages that are currently ranking well in Google.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
That's the second So basically, what you need, if your DR is, like... let's imagine your competitors have DR of, like 80, which is very good, actually. Which is a very decent DR. And you have, like, let's say a 60. But they don't have too many referring domains to their particular pages.
Alexandra:
Which means you need to get around... maybe in that case, I'd say around, maybe, less than 100 referring quality domains. You know that you, I guess, to outrank them. It depends, you need to look at their pages, you need to also take into consideration how popular those websites in terms of getting traffic.
Alexandra:
So for instance, if you have a website that doesn't get a lot of traction, that might be a problem as well. So while user behaviour factor, they also play... not a significant role, but they also affect how well you're going to rank if, for instance, you want to outrank an Amazon that has down to a fraction.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
It's like, you just go in there, they have, like, actually pressures in there, they are not bouncing from their website.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
So, yeah. That's the second question. Because I noted that, like, we have some clients that have quite decent years and we built a good number of referring domains, but after that page, they don't have relatively the same amount of traffic versus those sites that are currently ranking at the top results.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
And in this situation, we just need to build more links in order to kind of close this gap in terms of traction, as well.
Richard:
Yeah, yeah.
Alexandra:
So links could solve this, but you need to remember that it's quite expensive.
Richard:
Yes. Yeah.
Alexandra:
So, yeah, you need to take into consideration all those gaps that you need to fill, basically, with links.
Alexandra:
Because I know a lot of websites that even rank by very, very poorly optimized pages, I would say. It's like not having a lot of content. We all actually... when we Google something, we stumble upon on those pages. And so they don't have a lot of content, and so they don't look really good, but, yeah, they are ranking.
Richard:
Yeah. Okay. So we're looking for... I think the keyword there was the gap between where they are, where you are.
Alexandra:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Richard:
And then looking at the domain authority difference, the link quantity,
Alexandra:
Link quantity and quality, yeah. Because you need also very, you know... there might be some cases when you first you look like they have tons of links, but they are not really good. And you could outbid them by, I don't know, acquiring only a few links but high-quality and that's it.
Alexandra:
By the way, the last one thing, being a brand is very important. Even Google understand that you are a brand, but link building helps with this.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
When you start acquiring links from high-quality website, Google automatically see this as a signal that you are a brand because relevant websites to your niche are referring to your website.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
So yeah, there are real guys, they really does a business and so, well. Yeah. Basically.
Richard:
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So obviously links, very important. Very, you know, you obviously.
Alexandra:
It's like recommendations in real life. They're really important. If you don't have recommendations, no one recommending you, yeah, for sure you could acquire leads and clients through pay channels.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
Yeah, that's an option, but if you want an organic... a client that will be coming organically, then you need those recommendations.
Richard:
Yeah. No, totally. Totally. Totally on the same page. So talk to me about some of the strategies that an e-comm store could actually do for... so we know you've got to look at the gaps, you know that you've got to pick the right fight, if you like, to make sure you're not going after something that's unrealistic, depending on your budget.
Richard:
But let's say we've got a reasonable budget. And what sort of links can people build quite easily? Maybe not easy, but what sort of link types could e-commerce stores go after? You know, what sort of things do you think will be a good idea?
Alexandra:
Yeah, I think the link building and the quick is it shouldn't be together. Like, not to meant to be together at all. Because link building, like... I should say that link building takes a lot of time.
Richard:
Yup.
Alexandra:
And it's a very complex process and you need to be... if you've never done it, then you'll be lucky enough to build a few links in the next few months when you start doing link building. That's very true, I don't want to, you know, tell that, you could build tons of links and that's very much it.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
Yeah. So I think the best way of building links, and that's what we do. There are tons of ways and techniques that allow you to build links, starting from creating an adding content then pitching it to, I don't know, journalists, influencers, whatever it is.
Richard:
Yup. Yup.
Alexandra:
And ending up with trying to just simply persuade people who mentioned your brand to turn it into a link, which is also... if you have those kind of brand mentions, definitely do that.
Richard:
Brand mentions, yup.
Alexandra:
Yeah, brand mentions, which is quite easy. But the thing that those who didn't add a link back to your website, most probably they did it on purpose.
Richard:
Yup.
Alexandra:
You should remember about this. Like, you know, when you don't do something, most probably it was on purpose.
Richard:
There's a reason why.
Alexandra:
Yeah, there is a reason behind this. It's like, "Oh, no, I just forget about this." No.
Richard:
Oh, sorry.
Alexandra:
I don't think it is like... even though a lot people say that it's a low-hanging fruit, I don't think like that, because we don't use this strategy, but while you are getting into link-building process, you understand that there is no... like, you know, kind of... those situations where people didn't mean to do something or forget to do something, everything happens on purpose.
Richard:
Okay.
Alexandra:
Especially when it comes to links and competitive niches, because people understand the value of the link.
Richard:
Oh, yeah. Okay.
Alexandra:
Yeah, the power and value.
Richard:
Okay.
Alexandra:
So what you could do...
Richard:
What’s your best... what sort of tools do you recommend to sort of... there's obviously quite a few different options out there to analyse a website, find the mentions of your brand that aren't linking to you, what's the quick win there?
Alexandra:
Well, Google alerts will be... if you want to find the new ones.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
But if you are searching for historical ones, there are a few options out there. I know a tool, BrandMentions, they show historical mentions. And also you could go... if you the most tool, you could go there and they also show some historical brand mentions.
Richard:
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So two or three options.
Alexandra:
Yeah, yeah. So I think... yeah. By the way, if you have, like... we have a brand that sounds quite close to something else, like Digital Olympus, which is quite close to digital Olympus cameras, Olympus cameras.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
It's quite pointless to track your brand mentions.
Richard:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Alexandra:
So that's the biggest downside of Digital Olympus. While I was creating this company, I didn't take it into consideration so if you plan to create a new company, then think over all those overlaps, because, like, yeah.
Richard:
Yeah. ranking and whatnot, and look up... yeah. But you're doing okay.
Alexandra:
Yeah, I'm doing okay, but I mean, Google understands that we are a brand right now, so that's okay.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
Yeah, but still, when someone's most likely write about Digital Olympus, that's not related to us.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
Because it's linked to cameras or whatever it is.
Richard:
Yeah. So
Alexandra:
So...
Richard:
Yup.
Alexandra:
Going back to a strategy. I think the best way to build links if you are an owner of a white label website will be finding people among your circle. So first of all, you could check your current circles, like clients, people with whom you're connected leads as well, and there is a high probability that they among them will be people that are relevant to your link building campaign. So the best thing about them is you don't need to build relationships with them. So they already know who you are, they trust you, and you don't need to spend time in doing that.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
However, the thing that everyone wants link back, and you don't want it to do a direct link exchange, right? Right. Which is wrong.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
And that way if you want to really scale this process and you need to do guest posts. But you need to do guest posts, not in order to build links, which is a stupid strategy and quite... it's not a cost effective one. I think it's very... it solves some problems, but not related to link building. I mean, it's a good one to build your brand... you know, to build your brand awareness, or whatever it is, but that's not the right bond when it comes to link building.
Alexandra:
But if you use guest posts to link back to your link building partners in your guest post. Then it starts to be a very, very good one, strategy, a very effective one.
Richard:
Okay.
Alexandra:
Because you could link to up to 10 partners inside your content and they are going to return your links.
Richard:
Yeah. So one blog post, ten
Alexandra:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Richard:
more basic content that you put out there.
Alexandra:
Yeah. Yeah. And so... well, for sure, well... you need to find those partners that have some decent content because linking back to something that doesn't deserve a link is quite hard, most probably editors will be removing those links. You need to remember about this.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
But, well, normally, people don't want to build links to some shitty pages, because they understand that it's not going to bring them the right traction, the right results.
Richard:
Yeah. Yeah.
Alexandra:
So what else you could do beside that, you could be like a middleman. So you could connect them and basically get a link back to your website by connecting your partners, as well.
Richard:
Yup. Yup.
Alexandra:
And sharing some opportunities with them so you're building some kind of a network, which is also good. Well, the best link building partners will be those who are contributing regularly to other blogs, as well.
Richard:
Yes.
Alexandra:
And that way, you could really scale this. So what you could do, you could do to Basooma and search for blogs, your industry blogs, and see who is writing there.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
And by exploring those people profiles, you could search by those author names inside Basooma as well and see to what kind of blogs those people contribute besides, you know, one blog.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
And in that way you could find the right people to connect with. Because those who are doing it on a scale, they're definitely building links in some way. Whether they're doing it in a stupid way, just one link from one guest post, or they're scaling, it depends.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
I hope that the majority of people understand the power of guest post and use it in the right way rather than doing it in that way. Or at least they're using it for digital that will be good as well, but otherwise, yes.
Richard:
So obviously you work on a lot of different clients, more so B2B I think, is that what?
Alexandra:
Yeah, it's B2B and so we do what we do basically. Also, by the way, there are one more good strategy to use which we are also using quite frequently. Finding your industry groups with marketers that are like, you know, content marketers or something like this and basically connecting... looking.
Alexandra:
Well, there are tons of groups on Facebook related to literally any niche where you could find people that are trying to promote their businesses. And what you could do there, you join those groups and look through their members. But you don't connect on Facebook, because Facebook is not for business. You go on LinkedIn and say, like, "Hey, we're a part of the same group on Facebook and I'd love to explore some ways to work together on a link building site."
Richard:
Yup.
Alexandra:
And they're very responsive, for sure.
Richard:
You do that manually, then? Or have you got some automation?
Alexandra:
Yeah, I do this manually because you don't need tons of those partners.
Richard:
Right.
Alexandra:
You need to find only those that are really available for you because when you go with... you know, you have tons of partners and you get only one link from one partner, it's quite hectic because you need to spend a lot of time to communicate with them, but the results are not so big.
Alexandra:
So we try to minimize the number of partners we are working with different niches, the reason why we can't really list, well, to a smaller one. Plus, we have some clients, new ones, that are coming and we need just, you know, to circle back to our old contacts. Yeah.
Alexandra:
We are kind of, like... but if I were just a business only doing link building for my Digital Olympus, I only go with a few partners that write across a good number of blogs. Actually, we have a few that are related to Digital Olympus and they just do, like, 10 guest posts per month.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
And that's very much it.
Richard:
Yeah. So working on a lot of different projects and a lot of projects over the years. You know, I've seen a lot of different strategies and sort of differing degrees of success with different things, but what would you say... could you give us a bit of insight into one of your best campaigns that you've worked on, maybe over this last year or so? Some of the things that you did?
Richard:
Obviously you might not be able to tell us everything, confidentiality I understand, but you might be able to sort of give us an insight into a real-life project where you researched in a certain way and then you created X to get so many links and...
Alexandra:
The very bad thing about link building strategy that it allows us to build us links to commercial pages as well. For sure those commercial pages should be designed in a particular way, but we have some clients who reach we've been able to grow their organic traffic back to their commercial pages around, like, 40, 60% on a yearly basis.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
On an annual basis. And that's very good, I think. Because it's not like, you know, generic traffic. It's just linking straight to their commercial pages and their... well, their intention.
Richard:
Very high.
Alexandra:
They are ready, yeah, they are ready to pressure those leads. We also had one client they are a very big company, and they launch also new commercial pages to monetize their traffic because they monetize it through their pages by sending people through those pages further and getting commission. And so it's been only... we've built only 20 links back to those pages, back to one page, actually.
Richard:
What sort of things did you do to build those links?
Alexandra:
Well, we do like I've already told you, basically we just... yeah, what we do, like, for clients. We do a similar strategy, basically.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
We do guest posts, but only on behalf of our partners. We have, like, some people with whom we are just partnering with. We produce content for them and they publish them under their names.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
If it's not relevant to, like, niches where we could do it under our names.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
And, yeah, we just produce those guest posts under our name. I will plan it, they are not involved in this process, they are just simply getting links. We return links in our guest posts, our content that we control.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
And so, that's very much... and by the way, if you don't have time to write a solid guest post but you know some blogs that are ready to take on board a round up post, and you know some cool perks within your industry, that's your... we'll say ticket to a link building campaign, to a successful leading link building campaign. What you could do, you are reaching out to all those who view it.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
Collecting their answers, publishing these guest posts, they all... you know, you're also involving, for sure, your partners, as well.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
Everyone getting links. And you could get up to 20 links from one guest post.
Richard:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Alexandra:
And that's very much it, easy peasy.
Richard:
Easy peasy. Easy. Just like that. Just like that. So...
Alexandra:
Well, it's not easy at all. It only sounds like, "Yeah, let's do a round up post."
Richard:
Let me just contact 20 people in our industry, ask them a question, collate that into a Q and A style, and then everyone's featured. Okay.
Richard:
So where do you see SEO going, you know, this next sort of 12 months? What sort of things do you... you know, I've had a lot of conversations with a lot of different SEO authorities over the last month for the podcast, for our own agency, and there's some definite threads in there around sort of time on site and dwell time, and that sort of thing.
Richard:
Well, what's your sort of take on what's the most important thing? You're not allowed to say the word link building. No, you can, you can, you can, you can.
Alexandra:
Well, I think it remained the same. I mean, the basic principles remain the same. You need a website that your users could navigate through a website effectively, so this means you need a mobile-friendly website.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
You need to optimize it in terms of structure, you need to ensure that your internal structure makes sense. Also, you need to get, you know... what I am a big fan of when it comes to on-site SEO is getting rid of... especially if your website is quite small, so your number one goal is to get rid of old pages that are not really available.
Alexandra:
So you need to on a monthly basis or at least on a quarterly basis, open your website and go through all pages that you have. And if you see that they are not getting traffic, and, you know, people are not coming there, internal as well, and they are not really ranking well in Google, then most probably you need to get rid of those pages.
Richard:
Get rid. Yeah.
Alexandra:
Yeah, the less pages you have, the better your main pages will be ranking.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
So, yeah, even... you know, my heart was broken when I had to delete some content pages from my website, because I remember that I spent some time writing content, but then, the next question is, I sit and I try to relate how many links I should build to back those pages and to a website in general.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
Just to keep with... just, you know, going up in terms of DR and so I, like, no way. I just deleted them because the process... like, the number of links I realize that I need to build, in order to fill this gap, of the quality of those I was like, "No way."
Richard:
Get rid. Yeah.
Alexandra:
Getting rid of this.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
And actually, it's really helped us, so we... firstly, we were like, you know, all impressions, etc., everything was like, going like, down. But then, while impressions were really going down, we saw a very significant decrease of clicks. And pages that we'd been building links to started to rank much better.
Richard:
Yeah. Yeah.
Alexandra:
So don't afraid of getting rid of those useless pages. They are not going to help you.
Richard:
No, that's great. Yeah, I think that's great, because you see so many sites where they've built another the page about a similar thing, another page about a similar thing, and then it's just Google is just confused, isn't it? It's like, which one should I rank? The problems. You know, you're just putting more crappy pages on your website, basically. Rather than
Alexandra:
Yeah, and what you need to remember, that you split your domain authority across all those pages.
Richard:
Yes.
Alexandra:
So the more pages you have, the more links you need to build.
Richard:
Yeah. Yeah. Good. Okay. So what would you say is the most common mistakes that you see people making with SEO and link building that they should avoid? It's quite a lot, I guess.
Alexandra:
Quite a lot. Well, I think when it comes to SEO and whatever it is, you don't need to overcomplicate the think... I mean, if you have a small website, you don't need technical SEO. I just say that even though it's right now and everyone is concerned about technical SEO, unless you are Amazon or something similar, you don't need technical SEO. That's not your pain.
Richard:
Yup.
Alexandra:
So what you need to do, you just simply need to ensure that you target the right keywords. Yes. That's your job. Because there is no way to start ranking in Google without targeting the right keywords. And it doesn't matter how many quality links you're going to build back to your pages and to your website if you are not targeting the right keywords so people basically are not searching about... are not doing searches, then there is no way.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
Well, for sure you will be ranking on the first... You will be ranking at the top result, but no one will be coming to your page. No visitors, useless.
Richard:
Yes.
Alexandra:
So start with literally any kind of SEO process should start with targeting the right keywords, but you don't need to do a comprehensive keyword search. No need. Just find a few keywords that you want to target that have not an insane competition, so, like, open search, check them as well. Not only relying on tools and using SEO tools but also opening search is very important because...
Alexandra:
... what they are doing... yeah, you are ensuring that users really have this intention, which you are assuming they have because you need to double-check it.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
With the help of search. Plus, you look at those websites as well. You are double-checking that a tool that you are using is right because no one is perfect.
Richard:
Yeah. Yeah.
Alexandra:
Even me. No, kidding. Just kidding.
Richard:
Well, a lot of tools out there, but when it comes to keywords, there's obviously different tools out there, but nothing better, really than checking what is coming up in the index. See who you're competing. Yeah.
Alexandra:
Yeah.
Richard:
What the market is like, the competition, it may be. Okay, so a lot of different training courses out there for SEO, a lot of different resources, a lot of different tools. A lot of events, so much stuff that you can learn. I think it's big field, isn't it, SEO? Just link building alone is so much stuff there. But for the guys that are listening in that are quite interested in maybe learning about SEO in terms of training courses, what sort of training courses would you recommend?
Alexandra:
My favourite is by Robbie Richards. So it's for advanced SEO.
Richard:
Sorry? What was the name?
Alexandra:
Robbie Richards.
Richard:
Robbie Richards?
Alexandra:
Yeah.
Richard:
Okay.
Alexandra:
He is very knowledgeable and I highly recommend him if want to do SEO in the right way.
Richard:
Yup.
Alexandra:
You need to subscribe to his... he has a landing page where you need to subscribe because he opens enrollment a few times per year so you can just simply go and grab it.
Richard:
Yeah. It's like a closed community.
Alexandra:
Yeah, kind of. Well, one more thing will be Traffic Think Tank, which is, I think, Nick Eubanks and if you are the guys they are running... Matthew Barby as well, from HubSpot. They are running... it's a community plus they have some courses as well, so you could subscribe to their community. They have a select channel.
Richard:
Oh, okay. Yeah.
Alexandra:
And you get access to, you know, tons of other community members, plus they do some webinars, you could ask questions. So this a very good way into... conversational way, I think, of learning. If you have some questions you could ask the community.
Richard:
Yeah. Yup.
Alexandra:
And the last thing, I think, I would recommend Talia Wolf. Even though she's not purely SEO, she's more like a mixture of SEO plus conversion rate optimization. But I think for e-commerce businesses that will be a very good one.
Richard:
Yes.
Alexandra:
Because you need to keep a balance between SEO and conversion rate optimization because it's very important. And she's very good, she has a course about e-mail marketing, how to convert people more effectively using emotional triggers.
Richard:
Oh, okay. Good.
Alexandra:
A very good one, too.
Richard:
And that's Talia Wolf, yeah.
Alexandra:
Talia Wolf, yeah. Her name.
Richard:
So that's really good, actually. Some very good courses there that I've not actually heard of so I'm looking forward to having a look myself.
Alexandra:
Yeah, now we have plenty of time to do that. Time for learning.
Richard:
Yes, yeah. There's a bit more time now. Well, I think there's a bit more time now. I've got another 10 weeks sat in my kitchen, possibly, so who knows what I'll be doing.
Richard:
So tools. There's a lot of different tools. I know obviously you worked at SEMrush for, I think, four years or so and obviously you were holding their flag for four years and that was the best set of tools. I know they had some amazing tools. But what's your sort of stack? What's your day-to-day tool set?
Alexandra:
I think my number one tool currently is Ahrefs.
Richard:
Yup.
Alexandra:
So I'm on a direct competitor set of SEMrush.
Richard:
You could fight.
Alexandra:
Yeah. I think, no, SEMrush is just... they are great when it comes to competitor analysis, but they don't have some grabs when it comes to backlink analysis. So for instance, the main grab for me is the historical growth of referring domains steadily. SEMrush doesn't have this grab, so well, being honest, in Ahrefs, I don't really go too much into details as well. Mostly I just look at their main dashboard and it tells me everything. Just a quick look at their dashboard.
Richard:
Which is good, isn't it? Simple.
Alexandra:
Yeah, it's like, I look at few graphs and... well, sometimes it's like I need to go into details because there might be some specific striations or, like, yeah, for sure.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
Or suspicious cases, let's say, when I want to ensure that this particular website's not a part of a VPN or they are not acquiring links in some unethical way because it's very important for me when it comes to link building.
Alexandra:
It's very important to acquire those... it's like, you know, I want to refer one more time to recommendations. No one wants to get recommendations that are not going to pay off in the long term run. So you need to trust what they recommend. You don't want to buy fake recommendations, they're the same.
Alexandra:
You want those links to keep your website growing throughout the years. Not only for today.
Richard:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So Ahrefs but we're still using SEMrush, as well?
Alexandra:
Yeah. Yes, still. Still, still.
Richard:
Hanging in. No, they're really good.
Alexandra:
Yeah, yeah. I use them for organic research. So they have a very powerful set of as well as I use their position tracking tool.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
And so, what else? I use their a little bit because we don't technical SEO just for my own purposes.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
Yeah, we also also their social media toolkit.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
As well, inside SEMrush. And one more tool that we are using time to time is Pitchbox. This one is specifically for e-mail outreach.
Richard:
Pitchbox?
Alexandra:
Pitchbox, right. Even though we don't send mass e-mails, mass e-mail outreach, we time to time go there to do some link prospecting. So what you could do inside Pitchbox, you could do everything from A to Z when it comes to e-mail outreach, but if you do mass e-mail outreach, you could still do link prospecting.
Alexandra:
So basically, you could type in any relevant keywords to your client or to your own website and it's going to give you a list of websites that have relevant to your search query's content. So, like, pages with content that are relevant to what you've just typed in there.
Richard:
They seem to be very popular, Pitchbox, at the moment
Alexandra:
I think so. They're one more option, to me, for instance.
Richard:
Yeah. Yeah.
Alexandra:
Which is, I think... First of all, they are cheaper, because Pitchbox kind of enterprised too, I think, because they don't allow you to purchase it on their website, you need to go through through them, and blah, blah, blah.
Richard:
Yeah. Yeah.
Alexandra:
So, yeah, I think if you're just starting an e-mail outreach and you want to do like you were saying, a kind of a tool
Richard:
Yeah
Alexandra:
A better match just to start
Richard:
as you build up, depending on the size
Alexandra:
Yeah. But being honest, you don't need any tool besides Ahrefs to check the quality of links and you need just to join your industry communities. It will be enough.
Richard:
Final question.
Alexandra:
Okay.
Richard:
I always like to finish on a book recommendation. What book would you recommend to our listeners? Anything.
Alexandra:
I think my favorite one when it comes to... related to link building, let's stay there, Getting to Yes.
Richard:
Getting to Yes.
Alexandra:
Yeah, it's about negotiations. It's about how you need to just go through the process of negotiations so people will be happy to connect with you, to keep working with you. So it's all about, like, what do you need to do, basically, when it comes to negotiation literally with anything?
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
You need to start with thinking not about your benefits, but about benefit that you could bring to this person. So first of all, you need to analyze what kind of needs they have, and you need to address those needs. Your messages should be about them, not about you.
Alexandra:
I think that the reason why all those quite traditional standard e-mail outreach messages doesn't work because what happened there, everyone is talking about their awesome content.
Richard:
Yeah.
Alexandra:
So you don't really address... yeah. Yeah, you need to change this kind of process and you to just talk about them, first of all, and then only about you and about your needs. Once, they are satisfied in reality.
Richard:
You are a master negotiator now.
Alexandra:
Well, yeah.
Richard:
That's what you're doing
Alexandra:
Link building is all about negotiations.
Richard:
Yeah. Yeah. So we need to maybe re-brand link building is now link negotiating as well.
Alexandra:
]. Yeah, it's kind of partnership marketing.
Richard:
Yeah. Yeah, it is, isn't it? I see when I see your... I was looking at the speeches that you have for Digital Olympus and obviously the amount of relationships you have in the industry is amazing, you know?
Alexandra:
Thank you.
Richard:
And obviously that's taken time.
Alexandra:
Thank you.
Richard:
That's a lot of genuine work, isn't it? Where you're actually taking time out to speak to these people, build relationships, that's obviously taken years.
Alexandra:
It's like I should say thank you to SEMrush because they were helping me to build those... the very beginning, those connections, and so I should say a big thank you to SEMrush that allows me to build those connections. And yeah, for sure, the next step is to just now to nurture them, to keep engaged with those people, and... yeah.
Richard:
Okay.
Alexandra:
That's the next thing.
Richard:
Yeah. So for the guys that are listening in, want to find out more about you and your company and the different things you're doing, what's the best place for them to find out everything about you?
Alexandra:
You could go straight to our website, it's just digitalolympus.net, or you could connect with me directly on LinkedIn.
Richard:
Yup.
Alexandra:
So just search for Alexandra Tachalova, that will be also an option to go, or you could just simply connect with us on Twitter. We are super responsive if you have any questions. To me, or just in general. You could write also to Digital Olympus. And we are going to reply.
Richard:
Fantastic. Well, thank you so much, Alexandra.
Alexandra:
Thank you.
Richard:
amazing. So much value in there. It's officially going to be the link building edition for the podcast. And I will speak to you again soon. Thank you.
Alexandra:
Yeah. Thank you very much, Richard.