On today’s show I will be sharing online brand building tactics that you can employ almost right away in your online retail businesses to not only drive more brand awareness about your businesses but to also build your domain authority.

As you probably already know, I have an eCommerce SEO background,  so all the tactics I share in this episode are tried and tested ways of not only building an ecommerce brand online but also double-up as link acquisition channels, with links being a by-product of brand building to reach to PEOPLE.

Core SEO Metrics for tracking backlink acquisition

Before we embark on brand building, we fundamentally need a deep understanding of the SEO metrics that matter in link building. This understanding will enable us make smart decisions when face with choice;  prioritise our acquisition activity and equip us with sixth sense to help use sniff opportunity.

The core SEO metrics that you must understand and track on both your site and that of your competitors such as:

1. Trust Flow,
2. Citation Flow,
3. Domain Authority,
4. Page Authority,
5. MozRank and
6. MozTrust.

Here are brief definitions of each of the above:

Trust Flow (MajesticSEO)

Trust Flow,  is a quality marker metric measured on a scale of 0-100.
Majestic manually collates ‘trusted seed sites’ across the web; and then accesses if your site is closely linked to their trusted seed site pool.  Sites that that have questionable links typically have a low TrustFlow score.

Citation Flow (MajesticSEO)

Citation Flow is a score between 0-100 that helps to measure the link equity or “power” a website or webpage carries.
Citation flow is used in conjunction with “Trust Flow”. Together the Citation Flow and Trust Flow form the Majestic Flow Metrics algorithm.

Domain Authority (Moz)

Domain Authority is a score (on a 100-point scale) developed by Moz (similar to MajesticSEO’s Citation Flow metric), that measures the “strength” of a website or domain by accessing and combining link metrics such as linking root domains, number of total links, MozRank, MozTrust into a single score.

Page Authority

Page Authority is a score (on a 100-point scale) developed by Moz that uses machine learning to predict how well a specific page will rank on search engines by combining link metrics such as link counts, MozRank, MozTrust, etc to arrive at a since score.

MozRank

MozRank is a link popularity score (on a logarithmic scale between 0 and 10). It reflects the importance of any given web page on the Internet. Pages earn MozRank by the number and quality of other pages that link to them. The higher the quality of the incoming links, the higher the MozRank.

MozTrust

Similar to Majestic’s  Trust Flow, MozTrust calculates link “distance”(on a logarithmic scale between 0 and 10) between a given page and a seeded trust source on the Internet. Think of this like six degrees of separation: The closer you are linked to a trusted website, the more trust you have, yourself. We score MozTrust on a logarithmic scale between 0 and 10.

Now lets  move into the core topic i.e. 14 ways to build your ecommerce brand online for maximum SEO domain authority building.

1: Get in the ‘where to buy’ authorised resellers section on your suppliers and manufacturers’ websites

This is particularly relevant to ecommerce businesses selling and merchandising a wide array of brands. Create a list of all manufacturers and  wholesalers that you work with and start an initiative to list you are an official or authorized retailer of their brands. Manufacturers’ sites tend to have high domain authority.

2: Interviews: Tell your business story on business and industry blogs

Shopify do an amazing job in showcasing up and coming stores – their domain authority is 72/100.

Build leverage with any business that provides a service for your business – if they have an active blog – speak with them!

Search on Google with a command like along with keywords in your industry – you are bound to find a number of sites that accept interviews:

intitle:interview inurl:retailer -job

Here is a list of start up entrepreneur blogs that accept guest blog posts.

3: Podcast Interviews: Tell your business story on business and marketing podcasts

Get on podcast shows such as 2X eCommerce,  EntrepreneurOnFire, Mixergy and the well over 500 iTunes Business Podcasts.  Most Podcasts shows publish their shownotes to their websites and will naturally link to your site without you asking.  Set your domain authority metrics and use it as a baseline to shortlisting podcast shows that you want to make an appearance (along with their listener audience-base stats).

4: Give your products out to bloggers for reviews

Work with YouTube influencers: the video above from sensational UK Fashion blogger Zoella, generated 76,000 links to Boohoo.com.

Yes – 76,000 clicks (Google is definitely paying attention to that click-stream even it is not from here blog).

5: Enter awards – industry, retail, etail, marketing award

Awards not only acknowledge achievements and excellence but are also a great avenue for exposure. Enter awards in both retail and your specific vertical e.g. fashion, cycling, toys, etc.

In the UK, consider entering ORA; Online Retail Awards and in the U.S there’s the  Internet Retailer Excellence Awards. There are numerous other awards you can enter; like for entrepreneurship and local business awards.

Check out this list of Business awards, search Google and check out awards that competition and other businesses you like have entered and/or won.

6: Reinforce all relationships with a link – like agencies and freelancers you work with

Backtrack and take a list of all agencies, consultants and service providers that you work or have worked with. They will most likely want to showcase some of their clients on their site. Explore the possibility of getting your business featured on their sites or in their case studies. They will more than likely naturally link to your site without you asking.

7: Speak at conferences, events, meets-ups – give give give mentality

Adopt Gary Vaynerchuk’s Give, give, give, give, give … Ask mentality. Go out to not only your industry conferences but conferences that will allow you speak and inspire their audience.

Organise and participate in events and meet-ups; they will all have websites. And with the more value to offer these platforms, the more likely they feature you on their sites. Use the SEO link metrics I mentioned earlier (and their audience reach) to shortlist platforms you will engage with.

8: Create a tool that sits on your site

This is may be limited to certain kinds of online retailers. The principal here is that you should aim to solve a pain in your customers’ buyer journey.

Your imperative for creating a tools should lie in Ben Horowitz’s definition of ‘disruption’; i.e. your tool should be 10X better than the available solution.

An example is:

Warby Parker’s Pupillary Distance (PD) Tool:

Has generated 157 backlinks from 33 referring domains.

9: Join BloggersRequired.com….and hire a blogger

Bloggers Required is a blogger outreach platform that helps facilitate communications between small businesses, agencies, brands and start-ups (on the one-hand) with bloggers (on the other).

Brands create ‘blogging assignments‘ like:

• Promotion of products or services
• Attendance at events
• Running giveaways or competitions
• Surveys and market research
• Creating blogger networks
• Job offers
• Crowd sourcing ideas

I have used their service and got quite a decent response from bloggers.

10: Subscribe to a media request service – HARO, ResponseSource, Gorkana

Media request services are a reactive (yet effective) means of carrying out PR with a higher probability of coverage. Subscribe to the platforms (I have found HARO to be the best platform for small businesses).  ResponseSource and Gorkana are UK focused.

My advice for avoiding email fatigue is to either hire a trained junior staff to spot opportunities OR a PR consultant/agency to handpick opportunities and respond to them on your behalf.

11: Be an expert – go to leading forums & quora in your vertical, answer questions and add value

The key here is to continuously provide value to the point that you become an authority on key forums and communities in the retail vertical that you operate in. The link from these platforms to your store will be a by-product. Don’t….never place a link before adding value to a community.   A lot of the time, some of the solutions to their problems will reside on your website.

12:  Run competitions with top tier bloggers

The principle here again is to focus on the blogger’s influence, their audience and your brand. You should obviously use their domain authority metrics to gauge their SEO influence but don’t both asking for a link. I have never discussed about backlinks in all of the contests I have been involved in with bloggers.

13:  Run competitions on your site and promote on ‘comper’ websites

Run a contest on your website/blog. Here are a list of competition sites you can list your competition for free (that will link back to your site):

• MoneySavingExpert Competition Time forum (MSE)
• Hot UK Deals Competition section
• Loquax
• Superlucky.me
• Competitions Today
• Prizebug.co.uk
• ThePrizeFinder.com
• CompetitionDatabase.co.uk
• CompetitionHunter.com
• Competwition
• CompersNews.com   
• Competition Club
• Competitors Companion
• SimplyPrizes.com
• Twitaculous
• My UK Competitions
• Ninja Win
• WinnerooPrizes

14: Recruit Brand ambassadors

Recruit online brand ambassadors from a range of platforms. Here are a few examples:

1. Instagram influencers – models, comedians, musicians
2. Vine influencers – most likely comedians
3. YouTube Vloggers
4. Celebs active on Twitter
5. Respectable blogs in your vertical
6. High achievers (with significant online following) in disciplines similar to your products

The principle here is hiring someone of influence that can either work with you on a long term basis (tough) or that will post a message, video or image about your brand.

Someone that will not only have the ability to generate significant clickstream to your store but a person that can also create news and discuss around your brand.

BONUS TIP: Offers University jobs

I have the privilege of living in a University city – Oxford and have taken full advantage of the access it provides to really clever students.

I have hired both full-time and part time staff from our local universities. I placed a job listing on Oxford Gazette and got a link from a highly authoritative:  .ox.ac.uk  domain (with a domain authority of 93/100).

I also took a more direct approach with our second university: Oxford Brookes; I got in touch and met up with members of their Careers department on a number of occasion.  As a result, they have listed temp jobs and intern jobs on their site with a link to my website (without the mention or discussion of linking).

BONUS TIP: Run an affiliate program

I have worked with Ecommerce brands that have unknowingly acquired a significant number of backlinks from their partner affiliate sites.

Note that the caveat here is that you vet every single affiliate that applies to join your site because affiliate marketing can potentially attract low quality sites that could do potentially more harm than good to your site.