Technology has sufficiently crept into every nook and cranny of our lives. From the way we brush our teeth to the way we move about town to the way we interact with people, it’s a part of who we are.

I recently led a discussion along with Jen Lopez, community manager of SEOmoz and author Becky Carroll at the Emerging Media Conference in San Francisco. The three of us, along with the audience, talked about how social media and virtual communities impact our lives in ways we could not have imagined prior. It was an exciting and engaging conversation that allowed us to explore social media and virtual worlds outside the realm of marketing.

And, since the topic is fresh in my mind, I thought I’d share some of those concepts with you today. Let’s dive into some of  the research on the virtual world’s impact on the physical world, and explore how these virtual communities have impacted our relationships and what we should do with these discoveries.

The Virtual World’s Impact on the Physical World

We’ve reached a time where there’s certainly no shortage of people studying the impact that virtual worlds are having on us as individuals and as a society. According to research by professor Jeremy Bailenson of Stanford University, half a billion people spend about 20 hours a week “wearing” avatars.

Avatars are the virtual representation of a person in a virtual world, and these virtual worlds include everything from massive multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft and Second Life to Farmville. You could even go so far to say that people wear avatars in their various social communities as well – representations of their physical selves in the virtual world.

Now, the term “wearing” is an important nuance, because reports from the same professor show that people tend to essentially act different than their true selves depending on how different their avatars look from them. For example, if a person’s avatar is better looking than that person, the person’s avatar tends to be more outgoing in the virtual world than this person might be in the physical world.

To take it a step further, these behaviors online can actually impact a person’s behavior offline. Embedded below is a video that presents some of professor Bailenson research, but I’ll sum it up. Stanford University conducted tests where participants would have avatars created to resemble them. They would hook these participants up to special equipment and have them move about the room while the avatars mimicked their body movements in the virtual world that was projected before their eyes.

What the study revealed was this: positive behavior can be reinforced in the physical world if the participant could visualize and experience a particular scenario in the virtual world. Let me explain:

• Scenario one: Participant mimics jogging and sees the avatar of him or herself jogging and losing weight at the rate of one pound for every four knees lifted.
• Scenario two: Participant eats junk food and participant experiences the avatar’s body expanding.

The result? In the weeks following this experiment, participants ate healthier and exercised more in the physical world as a result of being able to visualize the consequences on themselves of that behavior. The same worked for retirement funds, where the participants would begin to save money for the future if they could make a connection with their future selves by seeing a computerized aging process on the avatars that resembled them.

This is one very inspirational example of how we could find new ways of using these types of virtual realities to impact personal growth in our everyday lives. The Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Kinect are examples of companies who are creating games for this very purpose.

But, for every positive, there’s a potential downside. Spending loads of time in these virtual worlds and being more connected to people than ever before has some consequences.

I think perhaps one of the most powerful demonstrations of how accessibility and connectivity in this new era of social networks can affect us negatively is the following story of a young woman (and several others) whose course in life was completely altered in less than three hours following a short video that was innocently posted to YouTube. You have to see this presentation from Tom Scott at Ignite London:

So the question here is not if virtual worlds and communities impact our lives, but how can we capitalize on the positive and seek solutions to some of the most negative impacts? Just like many of us are deeply involved in making our communities a better place, we should take these lessons and try to figure out how can we make these virtual communities better, improve our lives and minimizing the harmful risks.

How Relationships Are Different Since the Advent of Online Social Communities

So we know that how people choose to spend their time in these virtual worlds and online communities can impact lives, but let’s take a look at the relationships forged in those online communities – are they any less real? There’s not a simple answer for that. These are real people, making real connections – but … and there is a “but” here: the depth of how far they go, I believe, is limited.

You can’t always make a genuine connection with someone online. In person, you see how a person behaves and interacts with you and others; you can look into each other’s eyes, share a smile, an emotion, an experience, camaraderie. Sure, you can feel connected to someone online, but how connected?And do these online relationships strengthen or weaken our relationships in the physical world?

How Virtual Communities Impact Offline Relationships

Being connected to these virtual worlds and communities impact our experiences in the present time. Look around you next time you’re at an event, at dinner or just taking a walk. People are buried in their phones, in their virtual worlds. Sure, we’ve learned how to become more social online, but at what cost? Are we socializing less when we are together as a group? Are we missing out on a the world around us?

Now, it would be a stretch for me to attribute the decline in social skills with the rising of technology, but I can tell you that when I see all those people sitting across from each other at dinner, with their heads buried in their phone updating their Facebook status or texting, it disappoints me. We lose out on the present when we let the virtual community win.

But, with the aid of these virtual communities, we’ve also been able to have richer experiences. Take this example: You’re in Vegas for weekend on vacation. You decide to check-in to a location-based service like Facebook Places or Foursquare to let everyone know where you’re at that. To your surprise, you see that a friend of yours is in the hotel next door because of his check-in. And you and your group and he and his are now able to connect and spend time together that night, which would not have happened without this technology.

These kind of stories happen all the time because of the luxuries our virtual communities afford us. And beyond just letting us find and connect with the people we know in the physical world, they give us added layers of relevance to our experiences. We can unlock best-kept secrets of the places we visit, score relevant deals and get to know other regulars of our local hangouts – all of which would not be possible without these virtual communities.

In the business world, virtual meetings have made it possible for companies to cut down costs on travel and save time; on mental health, many with depression or anxiety disorders have been positively affected by becoming a part of a larger narrative in the online multiplayer games; on the way we receive news and information, social media has made it possible to transmit it faster and further than ever been before, changing the way journalists do their jobs; and social media has totally changed the way politicians campaign, with our current president leading the charge in this area.

The Differences Between Virtual Communities and Offline Communities

It’s really fascinating to see how virtual communities force us to behave in ways we perhaps would have not prior; on the flipside, virtual communities tend to take on characteristics of the way we behave in the physical world as they progress. Take Facebook for example. You post an update, everyone sees it, no matter who is in your friends list – whether it’s Aunt Bee or the person you’re casually dating. And while Facebook continues to make tweaks to its network’s rules for a better experience, you still have to conform to the social norms of that virtual community — even if it’s not how you’re used to acting in the physical world.  This is an example of the virtual community impacting how we would normally behave.

But what’s interesting, is that data show the average number of friends on Facebook is 120 – this is just 30 less than Dunbar’s number, a theory by British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, which states that there is a cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. So, this is an example of our social norms impacting virtual communities.

Then along comes Google+, which understands that we don’t communicate the same way with Aunt Bee as we communicate with the person we’re casually dating, and allows us to create virtual social circles that mimic how we interact in our daily lives. This is a great example of the virtual community can develop to comply with our social norms.

But no matter how you slice it, participating in virtual communities makes our interactions more public than ever before. Social media researcher Danah Boyd once said that our interactions in the physical world seem more private by default (although there’s a lot of factors involved on whether or not that’s actually true), but in the online world, that sense of privacy is immediately dissolved and makes anything said potentially very public and immortalized.

It’s taken time for many people to come to terms with that. So the way we behave in our virtual communities may never fully coincide with the way we behave in our everyday lives.

But what does seem to be happening is virtual communities as a whole first impose their rules on us, and as time goes on, we begin to impose our will on it, making the experience more fluid between our relationships in our virtual communities to our relationships in our physical communities.

So, Where to Next?

We know that more and more time is being spent in these virtual worlds. And we know that this time spent has the ability to either negatively impact or positively impact us in our daily lives. Communities are communities, whether online or offline. And virtual worlds are proving to be very real.

So, my question is, how can we better spend our time in those communities? How can we use social communities online an extension of our communities here in the physical world? How will we, as a society, use these virtual worlds to make a difference?

It’s all still very new and these worlds are still developing. But, as the creators of these virtual worlds, we have a choice in how we shape them. How will you make a difference?

A certain group of consumers has been gaining attention from marketers recently, because of the strong role they play in the purchasing decision; these power purchasers are known as Generation Y. Whether they're part of the target audience to which you sell or not, this group is worth considering as part of your inbound marketing strategy because there's a strong likelihood they either will become part of your target audience in the future, or because they already influence your target audience now.

Let's break down who these power purchasers are, some of the interesting demographics and inclinations research has uncovered about their role in the buying process, and see how we can align our marketing strategy to better leverage their influence.

Generation Y as a Power Purchaser

Also known as Millennials, this group refers to those born between 1977 and 1994, and it accounts for 25% of the US population. That may not seem like a lot (or maybe it does), but Generation Y is estimated to be the largest consumer group in US history. According to MarketingProfs via a Bazaarvoice survey, Millennials' annual spending power of over $200 billion will eclipse Baby Boomers' by 2017. With that kind of purchasing power, what should we as marketers know about this huge demographic of power purchasers, and how do we alter our marketing strategy to align with their purchasing habits?

Many marketers think the recommendation of a friend or family member is the ultimate green light for consumers, but it turns out that Gen Y cares about recommendations from strangers more. More than 8 in 10 say user-generated content from people they don't know influences what they buy and indicates brand quality, while 51% say it is actually more important than the opinions of their friends and family, and far more trustworthy than website content.

So what are Millennials buying based off all this user-generated content? The top purchases they will not make without first consulting others' opinions run the gamut:

How to Target the Largest Consumer Group Ever in the US

Knowing user-generated content is important to Millennials, what should marketers be doing to align our strategies with the way they prefer to research and execute purchases?

65% of users aged 18-24 considered information shared on social networks when making a purchasing decision (source: eMarketer). On top of that, 2/3 of consumers use search engines to help them research and make purchase decisions (source: eConsultancy). So if you haven't already, get your brand visibility in the social sphere and in search engines, and get control over your online reputation.

When you consider how much more closely social media and search have been aligning over the past year, it makes sense that integrating them both in your marketing strategy will help you achieve more visibility with this crowd that cares what others have to say about you more than what you have to say about you. In fact, Socialnomics reports that if you take a look at the world's largest brands, 25% of their search results return user-generated content from review sites, blogs, and social media updates. Millennials have integrated social media into their day to day lives, making access to the opinions of others easier than ever. With so much knowledge at their hands, you need to ensure information about your business is easy to find -- whether from you, their network, or total strangers.

Getting Started With User-Generated Content

It's strange to say you need to get started with user-generated content...it's your users that need to get started, right? Well, you have to make it easy for them to do, and sometimes a little nudge in the right direction on top of ease of use doesn't hurt, either. Here's the secret sauce for getting your customers, fans, and followers to sing your praises online so you can get the kind of influence you need over Gen Y -- whether they're your target customer today or years down the road.

1.) Make reviews easy to give on your website. 73% of Millennials say that consumers care more about customer opinions than companies themselves do. They also think companies don't offer enough ways to share feedback. Be the company that proves them wrong and gives them what they want. Enable comment functions, provide star rating systems for your products, and create forums for people to easily discuss what they love about your company. Moderate these areas of your site so when issues crop up, you're able to provide a timely response to problems that might otherwise harm your reputation.

2.) Take control over your online reputation. Speaking of harming your reputation, people are probably talking about you online in places other than your website. Namely, their own blogs and online review sites. You can't ask people to take down a negative blog post about you, but you can take control of online review sites that frequently rank in the top of search engine results pages anyway. Claim your listing on review sites, determine whether your presence is positive, negative, or absent, and become an active participant in guiding a positive conversation about your brand on those sites. Our next tip will tell you how.

3.) Solicit reviews from your best customers. You can make your presence on online review sites and your own website positive by soliciting positive reviews from your best customers. There's nothing wrong with asking happy customers to write a review. Think about getting customer reviews like getting inbound links: you can't pay for it, but there's nothing wrong with asking for one from the appropriate people. Consider adding a request for reviews in the bottom of your email marketing messages targeted at current customers. Get your sales and support team in in the action, too -- as the front lines of your organization, they are poised to identify those who are willing to evangelize your brand. Incentivize them to solicit positive reviews whenever they're speaking to a happy customer, making their volume of positive reviews part of a bonus program.

4.) Create case studies. Case studies are an ideal content format to supplement user-generated content, because it highlights a customer's opinion like Millennials love but gives you control over how the information is presented. This content can also take on multiple formats -- video, PDF, slideshow, blog post -- all of which are easy to share and disseminate online.

5.) Encourage social discussion. Social posts are showing up in search results, so use your social media presence to encourage discussion from your fans and followers. Ask for their opinion about your products and services, highlight customer success stories, and ask them to share their experiences using your products or services. Whether these posts are indexed or not, many Millennials will visit your social media accounts to assess how much they like and trust you while they make a purchasing decision. Seeing your social network engaging with you on those accounts will paint you in a very positive light.

Sometimes marketers are reticent of pursuing user-generated content because it forces them to relinquish control. But remember that Millennials have spent the better part of their lives on the internet and were the first wave of blogging and social media adopters. As such, they are better at parsing through fluff on the web and can distinguish between critical content and that which is an unfounded rant or rave. That means content you publish, content you solicit from others, reviews posted to blogs and review sites, and social media comments all go through a sniff test that's ingrained in how Gen Y consumes information online. If the content being published by you -- or by others about you -- isn't quality, these folks are good at filtering it out of their purchase decision-making process.

How important is Gen Y to your marketing? Do you target them directly, or as influencers of your target audience?

Image credit: Lemsipmatt

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Some really smart people are developing software programs that aim to spot fake reviews algorithmically, and you can play with one of them yourself.

It’s called Review Skeptic, and it’s as simple as pasting the review text into the site and letting the computer guess if it’s authentic. The public website is out there “for entertainment purposes only,” the site says … and it is kinda fun to see how accurate it is.

The site says it’s best to use English-language hotel reviews, but I did some limited testing of my own using a variety of business types: I cut-and-pasted the full text of my 10 most recent Yelp reviews, and Review Skeptic identified all of them as truthful. Whew.

Review Skeptic is the work of a group of Cornell University researchers, and the result of testing on 400 fake and 400 authentic hotel reviews. There’s a link at the bottom of the site to their research paper, which explains that the software had 90 percent accuracy during testing.

How to Detect Fake Reviews

I’m no scientist, but the way I read the material in that PDF is that Review Skeptic classifies words and text patterns and looks for signs of authenticity or deception. And one of the researchers, Myle Ott, just explained it like this to TIME.com:

…the software takes note of subtle signs that most people overlook. “Truthful reviews tend to have more punctuation, such as dollar signs, which indicate a specific that’d only be known to someone who has been there,” he said. “There are also more specific details, like the hotel location or that the room was small or large.”

Fake reviews, by contrast, tended to have more superlatives and adverbs in the writing (makes sense) and more details that were “external to the hotel,” such as whom the reviewer was traveling with. The fakes were also filled with pronouns, rather than proper names — because someone who had never been to a hotel wouldn’t know the name of the bellman or the woman at the front desk.

Interesting stuff, but I kinda wish the “secret sauce” was kept secret.

That TIME article mentions that no “major websites” are using the software behind Review Skeptic, but I’d be shocked if Google and other major review sites aren’t also using algorithms to identify review spam. Yelp, in fact, is well known for having a review filter in place — although my understanding is that Yelp’s filter focuses as much, if not more, on the user than on the words used in reviews.

Anyway, if algorithms and software can do a better job than we humans of identifying review spam, here’s hoping Review Skeptic and similar products catch on more widely. On that note, one last thing: According to this New York Times article from last summer, the Cornell researchers have been contacted by Amazon, TripAdvisor, Hilton Hotels and other sites … and Google contacted Ott to ask for his resumé.

(Stock image via Shutterstock.com. Used under license.)

Hey! RSS Subscriber: Have you purchased my e-book, “How to SEO Your Site in 60 Minutes”? If not, what are you waiting for? It’s only $25 (for the time being). Find out why Search Engine Guide said, “I can almost promise that following the advice in the book will earn you your money back ten to one hundred times over.” Here’s where to learn more: E-Book: How to SEO Your Site in 60 Minutes.

This is a post from Matt McGee's blog, Small Business Search Marketing.

Review Skeptic: An Algorithmic Approach to Fight Fake Reviews

Every so often, I’m tempted to turn infographic sightings into some sort of drinking game. But then I realize the danger in consuming that much alcohol.

Not to be too cynical. After all, infographics are not dead. Just because we’re all tired of the buzzword doesn’t mean that data visualization, as a whole, is a thing of the past. Consuming information in easy to understand, visually appealing, digestible formats will never lose its popularity (if you need confirmation, just check out the Egyptian hieroglyphs). And corporations have oodles of data about their industry or products that could be interesting to a wide audience.

But not everyone has the internal resources to develop a flashy infographic to dazzle their audience.  If that’s you and you’re short on either dollars, time frame or even data — fear not.  As we’ve seen time and time again, simple visualizations with good data can be just as popular as high budget, flashy infographics.

Of course, having a solid content promotion strategy from the get-go will yield the best return on your infographic spend, but it’s not necessary to spend hundreds of dollars on a designer to create interesting data visualizations. Many of the tools you need are sitting right on your desktop waiting to be used.  After all, the best way to maximize your bottom line is to remove those unnecessary costs.

Don’t be afraid. Dig in.   Below are some tips on how to create awesome infographics while still pinching those pennies.

Finding Data Sources

Sure, your internal data might tell an interesting story, but try bringing in outside sources to add another dimension and relate it back to the user. You may find interesting correlations between product sales and overall economic activity or seasonal fluctuations (Google Correlate is a good place to find interesting correlations)! It’s important to keep in mind that correlation is not causation, so avoid bending and twisting the data until it submits to your will.

FedStats.gov
Not the sexiest site, but a great source of raw data from national, state, and county levels. Data at this level might be a good use for small businesses such as lawyers, doctors, and small retailers who want to create visualizations that appeal to their local community.

CIA World Factbook
Curious about the number of internet hosts in Bulgaria? The CIA World Factbook can probably help you out. The World Factbook contains every statistic you’d ever want to know about any country in the world, continuously updated on a weekly basis. All facts and photos are public domain.

Google Public Data
Search for data across a pool of government and international organizations such as the U.S. Census Bureau, World Economic Forum, and the OECD Factbook. You can display data in line, bar, map, or bubble chart form and embed it directly on your site.

Data Visualization Tools

Around the OSM office, I often refer to Microsoft Excel as being my second husband. I could write an epic poem (or at least a rambling blog post) about all the ways that Excel can make your dreams come true. But there’s a whole world of data visualization tools outside of Excel that can help you turn your drab spreadsheet into a valuable digital asset.

Excel
Again, I could offer a ton of advice about Excel, but I often recommend that everyone get comfortable using Pivot Tables. They offer a way to create cross tabulations of large sets of data. Best of all, after you’re done tabulating your data, you can automatically create a PivotChart and continue to slice and dice the data without compromising your chart. To transfer the chart to an image editing tool, select the drop-down arrow next to “Copy” on the home tab, then select “Copy as Picture…”

Fusion Tables
Use your own Excel or Google Spreadsheet, or pull in publicly available data to create embeddable maps, charts, and timelines. You can allow your spreadsheet to be used by others and specify the attribution of the data so that anytime someone uses your data in their visualization, the attribution will appear next to the table name. Google has also stated that public tables may be indexed, adding more visibility and credibility to your brand.

Open Source Options
Open source visualization tools such as Axiis.org, SIMILE Widgets, and Flare allow you to create interactive, Flash-based maps and graphs. Although these tools excel in terms of flexibility, they are not as straightforward and easy to use as Excel and Fusion Tables.

Design Elements

I’m a big proponent of using the skills you have and outsourcing the tasks that are not your strong suit. With so many vector graphic, mapping, and design element resources available, you don’t have to worry about spending time and money creating cute cartoon characters. Use these resources to find the design elements you need.

OpenClipArt.org
A library of clip art images with CC0 1.0 dedication (public domain). Open Clip Art Library 2.0 contains over 26,000 images, although not all are suitable for infographic design. Try to stay within the same collection for consistency.

Vector Pack
Not a free option, but AppSumo is currently featuring a deal for 162 design elements for $10. The site offers several free vectors sampled from various packs.

Vector4Free
A collection of free user submitted vector graphics. Although there are a ton of options to choose from, select only those design elements that will help highlight, support, and emphasize your data. Vector graphic overload can be distracting or make your data look less professional.

Once you’re ready to put it all together, you can use a simple image editing tool such as Gimp to combine the elements. A simple design scheme such as the one described by Jonathan Patterson can help you construct a visually appealing infographic, or consider hosting your data on a static page. Both formats present link building and customer experience enrichment opportunities.

Every so often, I’m tempted to turn infographic sightings into some sort of drinking game. But then I realize the danger in consuming that much alcohol.

Not to be too cynical. After all, infographics are not dead. Just because we’re all tired of the buzzword doesn’t mean that data visualization, as a whole, is a thing of the past. Consuming information in easy to understand, visually appealing, digestible formats will never lose its popularity (if you need confirmation, just check out the Egyptian hieroglyphs). And corporations have oodles of data about their industry or products that could be interesting to a wide audience.

But not everyone has the internal resources to develop a flashy infographic to dazzle their audience.  If that’s that you and you’re short on either dollars, time frame or even data — fear not.  As we’ve seen time and time again, simple visualizations with good data can be just as popular as high budget, flashy infographics.

Of course, having a solid content promotion strategy from the get-go will yield the best return on your infographic spend, but it’s not necessary to spend hundreds of dollars on a designer to create interesting data visualizations. Many of the tools you need are sitting right on your desktop waiting to be used.  After all, the best way to maximize your bottom line is to remove those unnecessary costs.

Don’t be afraid. Dig in.   Below are some tips on how to create awesome infographics while still pinching those pennies.

Finding Data Sources

Sure, your internal data might tell an interesting story, but try bringing in outside sources to add another dimension and relate it back to the user. You may find interesting correlations between product sales and overall economic activity or seasonal fluctuations (Google Correlate is a good place to find interesting correlations)! It’s important to keep in mind that correlation is not causation, so avoid bending and twisting the data until it submits to your will.

FedStats.gov
Not the sexiest site, but a great source of raw data from national, state, and county levels. Data at this level might be a good use for small businesses such as lawyers, doctors, and small retailers who want to create visualizations that appeal to their local community.

CIA World Factbook
Curious about the number of internet hosts in Bulgaria? The CIA World Factbook can probably help you out. The World Factbook contains every statistic you’d ever want to know about any country in the world, continuously updated on a weekly basis. All facts and photos are public domain.

Google Public Data
Search for data across a pool of government and international organizations such as the U.S. Census Bureau, World Economic Forum, and the OECD Factbook. You can display data in line, bar, map, or bubble chart form and embed it directly on your site.

Data Visualization Tools

Around the OSM office, I often refer to Microsoft Excel as being my second husband. I could write an epic poem (or at least a rambling blog post) about all the ways that Excel can make your dreams come true. But there’s a whole world of data visualization tools outside of Excel that can help you turn your drab spreadsheet into a valuable digital asset.

Excel
Again, I could offer a ton of advice about Excel, but I often recommend that everyone gets comfortable using Pivot Tables. They offer a way to create cross tabulations of large sets of data. Best of all, after you’re done tabulating your data, you can automatically create a PivotChart and continue to slice and dice the data without compromising your chart. To transfer the chart to an image editing tool, select the drop-down arrow next to “Copy” on the home tab, then select “Copy as Picture…”

Fusion Tables
Use your own Excel or Google Spreadsheet, or pull in publicly available data to create embeddable maps, charts, and timelines. You can allow your spreadsheet to be used by others and specify the attribution of the data so that anytime someone uses your data in their visualization, the attribution will appear next to the table name. Google has also stated that public tables may be indexed, adding more visibility and credibility to your brand.

Open Source Options
Open source visualization tools such as Axiis.org, SIMILE Widgets, and Flare allow you to create interactive, Flash-based maps and graphs. Although these tools excel in terms of flexibility, they are not as straightforward and easy to use as Excel and Fusion Tables.

Design Elements

I’m a big proponent of using the skills you have and outsourcing the tasks that are not your strong suit. With so many vector graphic, mapping, and design element resources available, you don’t have to worry about spending time and money creating cute cartoon characters. Use these resources to find the design elements you need.

OpenClipArt.org
A library of clip art images with CC0 1.0 dedication (public domain). Open Clip Art Library 2.0 contains over 26,000 images, although not all are suitable for infographic design. Try to stay within the same collection for consistency.

Vector Pack
Not a free option, but AppSumo is currently featuring a deal for 162 design elements for $10. The site offers several free vectors sampled from various packs.

Vector4Free
A collection of free user submitted vector graphics. Although there are a ton of options to choose from, select only those design elements that will help highlight, support, and emphasize your data. Vector graphic overload can be distracting or make your data look less professional.

Once you’re ready to put it all together, you can use a simple image editing tool such as Gimp to combine the elements. A simple design scheme such as the one described by Jonathan Patterson can help you construct a visually appealing infographic, or consider hosting your data on a static page. Both formats present link building and customer experience enrichment opportunities.

Recently I’ve found myself turning to the Backlinks and Keywords sections to discover new backlink opportunities that I wouldn’t have been able to find without Research Central. Let me show you what I mean.

Research key members of a company for new link partners

If you head over to the Backlinks section of Research Central, you can sort by any of the table columns. The key to this trick is to sort by the Keyword/Key Phrase column. While we’d normally look for the anchor text of keywords we’re targeting, in this particular exercise we want to uncover where our competitor is guest blogging, doing interviews, etc.

Once you sort by anchor text, find one of your competitor’s key stakeholders’ names in the table. Here you’ll be able to identify all of the links to their website that use that stakeholder’s name as anchor text. Now you have a list of websites that they’ve either commented on, been mentioned in, guest blogged on or some other type of press that you might be able to recreate for your own client/company.

Finding the anchor text you want out of a link

Over in the Keywords section, Raven is able to identify both internal and external keywords that a website is likely targeting. On the External keywords tab, sort the table by “Ext. Root Domains”. The table will now sort in a way that focuses on how many different sites link to the site you’re researching using particular keywords or phrases as the anchor text.

If you click the gear icon for any link in the table, you can choose to view all of the domains linking to the website with that anchor text. This is a great way to quickly identify a large number of potential link partners who are willing to use the anchor text you’re trying to rank for.

Those are just a couple of the cool ways you can find new backlink opportunities with Research Central. What tricks have you found?

Research Central is just one powerful piece of Raven’s full Internet marketing platform. Get to know all the tools in our arsenal. Sign up for a free 30-day trial today!

Recently I’ve found myself turning to the Backlinks and Keywords sections to discover new backlink opportunities that I wouldn’t have been able to find without Research Central. Let me show you what I mean.

Research key members of a company for new link partners

If you head over to the Backlinks section of Research Central, you can sort by any of the table columns. The key to this trick is to sort by the Keyword/Key Phrase column. While we’d normally look for the anchor text of keywords we’re targeting, in this particular exercise we want to uncover where our competitor is guest blogging, doing interviews, etc.

Once you sort by anchor text, find one of your competitor’s key stakeholders’ names in the table. Here you’ll be able to identify all of the links to their website that use that stakeholder’s name as anchor text. Now you have a list of websites that they’ve either commented on, been mentioned in, guest blogged on or some other type of press that you might be able to recreate for your own client/company.

Finding the anchor text you want out of a link

Over in the Keywords section, Raven is able to identify both internal and external keywords that a website is likely targeting. On the External keywords tab, sort the table by “Ext. Root Domains”. The table will now sort in a way that focuses on how many different sites link to the site you’re researching using particular keywords or phrases as the anchor text.

If you click the gear icon for any link in the table, you can choose to view all of the domains linking to the website with that anchor text. This is a great way to quickly identify a large number of potential link partners who are willing to use the anchor text you’re trying to rank for.

Those are just a couple of the cool ways you can find new backlink opportunities with Research Central. What tricks have you found?

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