Adobe: link building in a crowded software market

• Different product lines need different readers
• Informational pages and product pages call for different kinds of articles
• Tech publishers vary widely in editorial standards
• Every link has to support the purpose of its destination page
• Quality checks must stay consistent across many placements

1. 1

   Publishers by product line

   We grouped targets by audience: designers and photographers, office and document users, and marketers. Then we researched technology, software and digital media publications read by each group.

2. 2

   Evaluating every opportunity

   Each site was reviewed for topic, writing quality, organic visibility and the articles it already ran, which separated real publications from sites built only to sell links.

3. 3

   Content that fits the target page

   Article topics were chosen to lead naturally to the linked page: a tutorial pointing to the tool it teaches, or a workflow guide pointing to the matching solution.

4. 4

   Documented quality control

   Target URLs, anchors, publishers and live placements were recorded and reviewed, which made it easy to spot weak placements and do better on the next round.

• The publisher's readers match the product line
• Article topic leads naturally to the target page
• Editorial standards and original content
• Organic visibility in the relevant topics
• A natural anchor that describes the page

• Plan by audience, not by brand
• Look at the whole publishing environment, not one metric
• Consistent records make every round better than the last
• Measure with reliable data before claiming impact

We don't publish traffic, ranking or revenue figures for a client's campaign unless the data is verified and the client has agreed to it. Rankings also move for many reasons besides links, so we would rather show you how we work than claim numbers we can't prove.