A few months ago on a client visit, the new CMO was questioning why he should pay for link building services when he could just pass this task on to one of his interns. This comment stuck with me and has been bothering me for months. Although I might have agreed a few years ago that an intern was capable of handling a task like link building, I’ve since learned that this is not a good idea for several reasons.
Knowledge of SEO Space. As my colleagues and I are always pointing out, link building is as much art as it is science. As we all know, there are no “buttons” we can push for better rankings. For this reason, a link builder must have knowledge of how their efforts affect search engine optimization. Unfortunately, not many interns are coming out of college with this knowledge, and the SEO learning curve can take quite a bit of time to catch on to-most likely more than the few months an intern will be working under your supervision. A lack of understanding of SEO impacts all facets of a link building program from target selection to pitching to anchor text development. Without a solid link building strategy, all of your site-side efforts, whether being done by an agency or internal staff, could end up costing you more than they are worth without the results you would see from a combined program.
Continuity. Having served as a summer intern myself, I realize there is only so much work an intern can do in 3-4 months before the next person takes over. In my link-building experience, I’ve had many people follow up with me months after the fact for various reasons. Most times, these delayed encounters often turn into interviews with keyword rich links or a prominent link on the site. However, if your intern is long gone by the time this follow-up occurs, there is even less of a chance this communication will make it to the right person, resulting in what could have been a great linking opportunity for your site.
Continuity is a great tip to keep in mind in general. My team is always debating if the same person who performs the initial outreach should also do the follow-up. My personal opinion on this is always yes. In my experience, it is not a good idea to send a Webmaster from person to person when they are offering your client a link on their site. Some Webmasters will give up and stop returning communications, resulting in yet another missed opportunity.
Evolution of technique & strategy. My team is always looking for opportunities to grow a client’s link building program. We start with the basics, but after we develop a rapport with the client and boost their initial link portfolio, we are always looking for new, creative ways to secure links. However, what are the chances a temporary member of your staff will be interested in growing your link building program? Most interns are employed for a certain number of months, with the goal of gaining on-the-job experience while also impressing a potential future employer. In my experience, an intern is just hoping to accomplish as much as they can in the short term related to their given task, and is usually not able or prepared to take a program to the next level. Without this kind of long-term strategy, your link building program will never excel to new heights to keep up with the pace of the ever-changing Web environment.
Analytics. No link building program is worth its weight if you can’t track the results of your efforts. However, some of this information is bound to get lost in the shuffle if it continues to get transferred from person to person. Furthermore, one of the advantages of using an interactive agency for your SEO program is the ability to have the agency track trends and adapt their strategy accordingly. Given the nature of an intern’s length of time at an organization, it is not feasible for them to grasp any sort of trending related to your link building program. Analytics allows SEO Analysts to tailor a program based on the performance of said program over time. Without this analytical knowledge, it will be very difficult for your SEO program to grow.
What does everyone else think? Have you used interns before for your link-building efforts? Success stories? Horror stories?
No related posts.
{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
It is true “You Get What You Pay For” even in link building.
Gregg
Thanks for the comment, Gregg. It definitely comes down to a knowledge and experience issue for me regarding allowing interns to perform link building programs. Any horror stories from programs gone bad?
Just let the IT folks handle it…after all, they’re already in charge of the rest of the SEO efforts :.)
Another reason to keep it out of the hands of interns, they are more likely to stray into areas of link building that are gray or not appropriate.
I recall reading that several big companies have been busted in the last few years for shilling on review sites like amazon. Something that might seem reasonable to a college student.
I would expect a professional would have a better handle on what is right and wrong, and where to draw the line.
mark
@Todd
hahahahaha…you’re always good for a laugh. I think you missed your calling (comedian).
Good point, Mark!
Wow…that CMO needs a reality check lol. I think you should sit him down for a day of quality link building/hunting and see what he thinks then.
@Mark
Great point! It definitely pulls back to the point about knowledge of the space. I find that even when I talk to clients who are not familiar with SEO, they ask why we’re not doing certain things, and usually the points they are talking to are gray areas for an SEO professional. Drawing the line is important, and if you don’t know the space, it’s difficult to guess where that line should be.
Thanks for the feedback!
Nice job Valerie!
after reading this post why would anyone source their link building efforts with their intern?? You nailed it, Valarie. Interactive agencies have a vested interest (ie their contract) to perform above AND beyond the goals/benchmarks set forth.
What does the intern have to gain? A college credit and another company to include on his/her resume.
great read…keep them coming Valarie!
Thanks, Jay and Rod! Appreciate the feedback.
This is a great read. The learning curve is a few months and then continual throughout an SEO’s career. The intern would learn it all, start doing a great job (potentially) for about a month, and then leave. What a waste of the intern’s and company’s time.
I think it is more important that whoever is building links knows SEO principles, regardless of their position. It doesn’t matter if it is an unpaid intern, an outside agency, or the company’s CFO – building bad links and not analyzing results wastes resources (or even hurts rankings) no matter who is doing it.
Stripping away the hype, “link building” is a blend of viral marketing, business development, and public relations. There’s plenty of work within such programs for an intern. I’d use an interns to do research, such as compiling lists of websites and contacts. Interns can also make preliminary calls or write emails to gather information or set up appointments for the executives.
As they say, Jonathan, whatever floats your boat. There’s no doubt that interns “could” do a lot of things that relate to link-building. But if you think that an unseasoned intern is going to be as efficient and productive as an experienced link builder that performs outreach and target analysis on a daily basis, I don’t know what to tell you. That said, if interns work for you and your organization, more power to you!
It’s a very interesting question put forth in this post, because there probably aren’t any link building courses of study in schools (yet) so a student is pretty much guaranteed to be new at the process. That’s not bad in itself, since everyone has to start somewhere, but to give an intern a site to get ranked is obviously a bad idea, mostly for the various reasons elucidated here. Some tasks can be farmed out to the young crowd, but any real linking should be initiated and completed by the professional, I say.
Nice…
Submitting to web directories is a vital part of every successful link building strategy. Apart from driving traffic to your website through direct referrals, web directories provide static, one-way links to your site, boosting your link popularity and improving your rankings on the major search engines like Google and Yahoo.
Link popularity is very important if you want your website to rank high in any search engine.~”`
Sadly, some seo agemcies use interns for linkbuilding.
Valerie this is a wonderful article. I tend to agree with you about this topic and think that link-building campaigns need a more “serious” touch. Farming them out to link builders in India, or having an intern do it just won’t cut it. To obtain quality links you need relationships. And someone 2,000 miles away will not offer that.
Heh, my bro put this article on his “Top 10″ (we share the same laptop). Looking great, keep it up!
link popularity is the most important aspect of SEO, you need to gain lots of backlinks~.-
{ 2 trackbacks }