Back linking is hard. Especially when you are looking for regional links. With the help of Ontolo.com, we were able to generate a massive list of footprints that should make finding Minnesota-relevant back links just a little bit easier. Footprints are simply a pattern of text or characters left behind by certain site-types, page types, and platforms. Think of a blog looking for guest authors, this would most likely contain footprints which we could find by searching for “Submit a Post” in conjunction with our keyword.
For those of you located outside of Minnesota, can swap in your state of choice wherever applicable. The footprints will still work for any state in the US. These will include:
- Article Directories
- Web Directories
- Guest Blog Posts
- Donation Pages
- Potential Link Partners (link exchange pages)
- Coupons and Events
- Business Profile Page Opportunities
We decided (after much debate) to only display 100 here, and include the full list as an attached .XLS file, making it easier for you to record your findings.
Minnesota-Business-Footprint-Guide
Selecting your Prospecting Phrases is the single most important step in account set up. The choices you make now will determine the quality, depth and actionability of the back link prospects that fill up your data set.
Here is some basic information and tips for choosing the best possible prospecting phrases for your campaign!
How We Use Your Prospecting Phrases
The Ontolo Toolset combines your prospecting phrases with your Link Type Weights when discovering your prospects. Your Prospecting Phrases serve as topical guides that tell us what verticals, industries and even what types of websites you consider to be prospects for your campaign.
The Difference Between Prospecting Phrases and SEO Keywords
Prospecting Phrases describe your prospects, while SEO keywords are the terms you’d like to rank for. Using SEO Keywords – the terms you’re targeting for rankings – can result in prospect data sets that are full of competitors. Further, it’s highly unlikely that you’d ever want to rank for your Prospecting Phrases.
…Let Your Back Link Building Campaign Determine Your Prospecting Phrases
For example if you’re conducting a guest posting campaign for a used car sales website you might consider targeting frugality and personal finance blogs. Your guest post content could educate consumers on the pitfalls of buying a used car, and how to really save big money.
If you chose “used car listings” and “used cars for sale” as your Prospecting Phrases you would not find very many frugality or personal finance blogs for guest posting. You’d want to use Prospecting Phrases such as “frugality,” “personal finance” and “saving money” and turn the Guest Post link weight up to 10.
For many SEOs these words would not be an intuitive choice – after all, you don’t want your used car site to rank for these words. However, these words line up with your prospects for the campaign. This is why, ideally, you’ve got a good sense of your campaign and the types of prospects you need to execute.
Another Prospecting Phrase Example…
Let’s say your used car site has a phenomenally well written and illustrated resource for college students (and/or their parents) looking to buy a used car. This resource includes calculators, worksheets, a script for dealing with used car salesmen, how-to videos and even a free Flash game. In short, they have a resource that could potentially earn some solid .edu and even .gov links.
In this scenario your big-head SEO keywords can come into play as Prospecting Phrases… You’d want to turn Links Pages Link Weight up to 10 and use Prospecting Phrases like “used car resources site:.edu,” “buying a used car site:.edu” and even “car buying site:.edu”.
The Key Question You Must Ask About Prospecting Phrases
The key question you must ask is: “do my prospecting phrases actually appear on the pages that I’m targeting.”
If you sell running shoes online and you’d like to sponsor local runs, you will find more prospects by turning Donations up to 10 and using Prospecting Phrases like “fun run” or “charity run” rather than “Nike Lunarswift Mens Running Shoes.”
It’s all about the link prospects you know you can convert into links.
“How Have You Built Links in the Past?” …A Final Annecdote on Selecting Prospecting Phrases
We had a prospective client who wanted to rank for the term “buy cookies online.” When reviewing his Prospecting Phrase selections we found terms relating solely to buying cookies online. His link weights targeted blogs.
We asked him: “How have you built links in the past?”
“Cookie reviews in blogs,” he replied.
“What kind of blogs?” we asked.
“Mommy blogs, mostly,” he answered.
Can you guess what his Prospecting Phrases were?
That’s right – we kept the Blogs link weight turned up to 10 and used Prospecting Phrases like “mom,” “mommy,” “mom blogs” and “mommy blog.” This ensured that his data set filled up with the right kind of prospects for his outreach for review campaign.
If you have questions about selecting your Prospecting Phrases, please feel free to email us at support@ontolo.com
Excellent article, I find that a commom mistake people do is focusing on just getting traffic to a website by only looking for ‘phrase match’ keywords. By doing this you are only targeting browsers, not buyers. They will put an analytics code behind the site and become impressed with the traffic results but if no one is buying then it is almost redundant.
I would much rather have 10 buyers than a 100 browsers. I use keyword tools and make sure I research all keywords throughly and make sure I am looking for people typing in keywords which are an ‘exact’ match – not broad or phrase matches.
For increased local exposure getlisted.org is a great place to go. Here all in one place are the top 5 directories online, which include Qype, Brownbook, Hotfrog as well as Google Places where you can obtain a free placing on Google Maps. You select which countries you would like to the directories to advertise in, enter your address for local search purposes and the keywords for that area. This helps your website get exposure and relevant backlinks to your website with keyword rich anchor text.
I enjoyed reading your article, thank you for letting me sahre my thoughts.
June 3rd, 2011 at 1:45 pm
Aw, this was a very nice post. In concept I want to put in writing like this additionally taking time and precise effort to make an excellent article but what can I say I procrastinate alot and on no account seem to get something done.
June 13th, 2011 at 2:12 pm
Excellent post! I do a lot of local search marketing for small businesses in my area. I have run across a million footprint lists, but never one geared for a local market. This list has already been copied into my permanent toolbox.
For local clients, I generally push citations. Lots of them. Any business directory you can get into, especially statewide directories are invaluable for getting a localized back link and helping the search engines place the business. Google maps has also been the best for this until recently, they made a lot of changes to the “info” section on the listings and they don’t seem to be as effective anymore.
Sorry to ramble, thanks again for the list!
August 21st, 2011 at 9:50 am
I looked up Ontolo from the start of your article. It is far too pricey for the services they offer. why can’t they just do something like that as freeware. anyway, after I started reading your 100 suggestions, I got bored and stopped reading them. I thought your article was good, and made a lot of valid points. This site should definitely be rated higher, as it is about prospecting potential links.
August 30th, 2011 at 5:21 am
They have a cheaper pricing option now.. I know what you mean though =)
It does get a bit spendy!
October 26th, 2011 at 7:24 am