Topics to be covered:

10am - 11am    - Overview of Best Practices in Link Building
11am - Noon    -  The New Online Influencers
Noon - 12:30p  -  Buying and selling links.  Best practices, and what to avoid
12:30 - 1:30p   -  Working Lunch – topics open
1:30 - 2:30p     -  How to Acquire Links
2:30 - 3:30p     -  Holistic Link Building: Pursuing links for ALL your content
3:30 - 4:30pm  -  Q and A

All links ultimately accomplish the same thing. They provide a way for someone to click and be brought to your web site.  But some types of links also have other effects and purposes.

Currently, most people seek links due to thinking the search engines will reward them for those links with higher rankings.  This is potentially true, however the resulting chaos has bordered on absurd.  Google has in many ways caused their own headache.

Discuss various types of links, their value, how each is obtained, and how each can impact your site.

Links that improve search engine rankings ( interview with Google )
Search Engine Terminology as Related to Links: 
authority site, hub site, quality link, organic link

Links that generate temporary buzz, like Yahoo Picks - FORBES BOTW

Links from affiliates, or other paid links

Links that improve visibility, awareness, and branding over the long term

Tracking links, scripted links, e-mail based links, image links, paid links

Only a small fraction of the potential links for any given site will ever be found by the search engines.

If you base all link seeking on SEO and rankings factors, you will miss out on a huge number of possible links and publicity since not all links can be found and counted.  Email based links can't be counted, but they are incredibly useful.

11am - 12noon  -  The New Online Influencers

In many ways link building and public relations overlap.  Most people don't think of link building as a PR function.  Press releases are a PR function, linking is SEO.  This is incorrect, because some of links you seek are "editorial" links like those that come from the below "key influencers".

Key Influencer Examples for your specific content: REMOVED BY REQUEST 
Business Intelligence Blogs
Competitive Intelligence Marketplace
Business Intelligence Resources

Blogs - blogger.com

REMOVED BY REQUEST example search: BaseBall Digest - Publisher's site - Links to
Blogger search: baseball links
Google search "baseball blogs"

(Discuss why - 2 min)

REMOVED BY REQUEST  example search: Vaccine Weekly
Blogger search "vaccine sites"
Google search "vaccine links"

(Discuss why - 2 min)

Other Blog related Tools
BlogCatalog - Blog Search Engine
Tool to find similar blogs - blogstreet
Tool to track links appearing in blogs - technorati 
- example search: REMOVED BY REQUEST
Tool that helps bloggers manage their own link lists - blogrolling 

(Discuss why - 2 min)

RSS Feed Publishers - 
Tool to feeds feedster

Discussion List Owner/Moderators
Yahoo Groups - 
REMOVED BY REQUEST example search: OB GYN News
Yahoo Groups search OBGYN

(Discuss why - 2 min)

MSN Groups
ezboard's Forum Finder

E-zine/newsletter Publishers
zinos.com

Topical Newswire Services
netfamilynews.org
religionnews.com/press.html

Subject Specialists or Niche Gurus
About.com - example: power boating REMOVED BY REQUEST

(Discuss more - 5 min)

"Best Picks" Editors
Yahoo Picks of the Day/Week - 
Forbes Best of The Web - 
NY Public Library Best of the Web - 

for your specific content: REMAINDER REMOVED BY REQUEST

A few words about press releases and publicity in a "web2.0" world

First, the entire so-called web2.0 phenomenon is just silly.

(Discuss why - 10 min)

What constitutes news? 

Google news example search "Thanksgiving"

prweb.com
marketwire.com
URLwire.com

The state of the debate REMOVED BY REQUEST

Best approach is to buy links for audience, not Pagerank

Tools and services to assist you with link buying

Very good
http://www.adbrite.com/

Others to be discussed, pros/cons
http://www.text-link-ads.com/
REMOVED BY REQUEST
(Discuss why - 10 min)

Example searches - someone volunteer topic...

Paid links don't have to be just on web sites. There are...

E-Zines - ezinesearchezinehub - ezinelocater - emailuniverse
Blogs - blogadscrispads
Newsletters - newsletteraccesssubscriber.ivillage.com
RSS Feeds - google result
PDF Documents - planetpdf

  12:30pm - 1:30pm - Working Lunch – topics open
 

  1:30pm - 2:30pm  -  How to Acquire Links

Doing it in-house vs Outsourcing - Getting them fast? (CRAP) - 
(Discuss which approach makes sense by topic, and why - 10 min)

Step One: begin by identifying the people online that would be most likely to care about your content. These people could be site reviewers, topical web guide editors, subject specific search engines, directories, blogs, discussion lists and e-newsletters

Example: REMOVED BY REQUEST  Where would I begin?  Start with the basics and then get more sophisticated

a). Do some research at Google as follows: best "Business Intelligence links" resources
b). For this particular content, I'd also do a search at REMOVED BY REQUEST

As I find potential target sites, I drag them to a folder or paste them to a text file.

Step Two:  Do a Competitive Link Audit using a software program like LinkSurvey, or OptiLink. Danger!
(Discuss why - 10 min)

I use my own tools which I hired programmers to write, and which I use for clients only.

Let's look at some sample results for REMOVED BY REQUEST via LinkSurvey

Step Three:  Make contact.  I use email and the phone, but often don't call what I'm doing a link request.

Help Tool: Anatomy of a link request letter

Step Four:  Tracking your link building and publicity efforts.  Software and other tools that can help

Help Tool: REMOVED BY REQUEST New Link Tracking Spreadsheet
Help Tool: TrackEngine($)
Help Tool: ChangeNotes
Help Tool: Google Alerts
Help Tool: URLy Warning($)
Help Tool: ChangeDetect

Tools for further link analysis
REMOVED BY REQUEST

2:30pm - 3:30pm  -  Holistic Link Building: How to pursue links for ALL your content

What is Holistic Link Building?  First, it's recognizing that any web site is more than just its homepage URL, and within the site are content elements that can become linked.  And second, its looking beyond the major engines for "vertical" search tools that your content can be listed with and linked from. 

Pursuing Links (and publicity for) for ALL your content

Within a web site, there are often content and features that on their own represent an opportunity for publicity and links.  These content types include

Discussion Board - example
Audio/Video - Google example - examples
White Papers - example1 - example2 - example3
RSS Feeds - 50+ examples
Podcasts -  example1 - example2
Content designed just for kids or teachers- examples
On-site contests/sweepstakes - example
Content elements: Flash - example1 - example2
Extreme example - Webcams

Vertical and Topical Web Guides, Search Engines, Directories

Most people are familiar with the "major" search engines and directories, such as Google and Yahoo, but there are also industry specific and content specific search engines, directories, and web guides.  Here's how to look for them:

Search Engines Directory
specific example: food

Search Engine Colossus
specific example: International: Puerto Rico

Searchengines.com

Search at Google using keywords
example: Elvis Presley search engine
example: Pharmaceutical search engine
example: Yahooligans
example: KidsClick

  3:30pm - 4:30pm  -  Q and A with live examples by your request