Yikes! Learning from spammers? Am I nuts? Nope (at least I don’t think so…). Read on, and you’ll see why I feel we can learn a lesson from spammers. Spammers operate on the idea of quantity over quality. They produce huge numbers of auto generated pages filled with ads. Each page contains specific niche keywords and is blasted out on blogs, websites, comments, etc. A spammer’s goal is to get as many pages out there as possible and promote them, so enough people happen to visit and click on ads, generating revenue for the spammer or their client. They play the numbers: more pages = more keywords = more visitors; someone will click the ads and make them money. They’re all about bottom feeding.
So what can you take away from this?
I know many individuals ranging from web designers to business owners who like to believe that creativity, ingenuity, and hard work will win out in the search engine optimization wars and that “inspired” or “genuine intention” websites (sites that didn’t get their rankings by spending thousands on SEO firms) will outrank those trying to buy their way up. Some even go so far as to claim that SEO is dead and that in the new internet market place user popularity is everything.
In many cases this is absolutely true; a number of promotional packages just don’t work and most expensive SEO firms can be outdone by faster-moving technically-inclined individuals or by smaller companies that are extremely active in the online networks.
You can buy links, you can purchase advertising, you can promote, promote, and promote and you may still not be able to spend enough to acquire the same rankings and traffic as your competitors. People see this all the time and immediately jump to the conclusion that it’s becoming harder and harder to buy your way the top or manipulate Google and the other search engines. However, this couldn’t father from the truth.
SEO involves lots of tedium and hard work. There is no way around it: building links, optimizing pages, researching competition, writing content, posting things on various websites–all this and more is required for a truly effective SEO campaign.
As with most occupations, in SEO, some things have more of an effect than others. That’s why the increasing trend in the SEO profession to put almost all the emphasis on link building and baiting is so alarming. They are spending less time, or even completely overlooking, basics like manual directory submission, perfect on-site optimization, smaller traffic sources and mixed media promotion (like video).
This may not seem like a big deal, considering the above steps are tedious and less important than others, but it is, and here’s why. As search engine algorithms become increasingly complex, they take more and more factors into account in order to reduce the ability of individuals and companies to artificially manipulate them.
Any SEO strategy that puts most of its emphasis on one or two steps and overlooks additional helpful tasks is playing a dangerous game. They’re doing exactly what SEO’s used to do: focusing 90% of their effort on one specific element. Then they’re surprised when the sites they build up fall down on the next round of Google updates. If you put all your emphasis on one step in the SEO equation, and Google devalues that particular aspect, your rankings will collapse. It’s like the age-old saying “don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”
The little things add up. By using a very broad SEO strategy that encompasses productive work in many different aspects of SEO, you’ll be able to maintain high rankings and outdo your competitors, regardless of how Google changes. It will take some time, but in the end is worth the tedium. Focusing on content creation, quality of content, niche and general keywords, perfect on-site optimization, link baiting, reciprocals, social bookmarking, article marketing, correct use of web services like social networks and some type of viral marketing plan will ensure you have a multi-faceted SEO campaign that will produce long-lasting results.
So why do SEO consultants overlook the basics and tend to focus on only one aspect? It’s a lot of hard work and tedium. Find an SEO firm that sweats the details and you’ll experience longer lasting ranking success.
[Tagsseo, seo consultant, seo firm, seo campaign, effective seo campaign, trends in seo[/Tags
CIPR Publishes some amazing strange guidelines.
The President of CIPR, Lionel Zetter, posted a list of conduct for social media on his blog a few days ago. It really details the very reason that most PR companies do not understand social media. If such a code of conduct were to exist and be enforced, it would have to be created “by the readers, for the readers”
Much like the Cluetrain Manifesto, social media needs a combination of personality and group consensus that cannot be handed down by a media group. The very essence of social media is to derive itself from the grass-roots aspect. Years ago I created the Blog Manifesto with the help of dozens of associates that spread it around the world.
If you rely on the universal brain power of the online community, Wikipedia’s definition is-
Social Media Marketing (SMM) combines the goals of internet marketing with social media sites such as Digg, Flickr, MySpace, YouTube and many others.[1 The SMM goals will be different for every business or organization, however most will involve some form of viral marketing to build idea or brand awareness, increase visibility, and possibly sell a product or service. SMM may also include online reputation management.
But the real matter of what a Social Media Platform is all about is relationships. It is about human nature and the personal connections we make with information. As the Web is thrust into “2.0″ or perhaps even “2.5″, online wanderers continue to look for one thing- meaningful information.
Search engines like Yahoo and Google have been harvesting data for over a decade, thrusting our personal decisions through an automated process of A + B = C. Along the way, they have dehumanized the very essence of the information. They have disregarded the human equation.
Social Media is all about being human. It is about conversing with your neighbor, sharing ideas with a world famous author, or even sharing a joke with someone around the world. The “big boys” of the search engine world are finding themselves at the mercy of popular opinion as community sites like Myspace and YouTube encourage users to filter information in the most personal way they can.
“The purpose of this letter is to tell you how happy I am to be a client of Rothman Marketing ” (now known as SocialMediaSystems.com)
“First you need to know that I signed up with Coracle in September of 2006 after getting rave reviews -wow!- That was a mess, by December I had not received my services and then found out they had taken the money from many of us as late as the week before closing their doors. Naturally I was really shocked when John Kitts called me again to tell me about Coracle. He assured me that he was devastated about the Coracle Debacle and it embarrased him too about having to call all of us he signed up for the service. Â He spent a great deal of time talking with me about his integrity and agreed to see what he could do about finding a reputable company to meet my website optomization needs. What impressed me the most was that he spent time and effort researching alternatives before calling me back with Rothman Marketing as an alternative. He assured me he had researched them and found them to be reputable, experienced and asked me to take a chance on Rothman and on him. I can say that I am glad I did. I was so disheartened with my Coracle experience and genuinely grateful for Rothman Marketing and the wonderful accommodation they made in their fee structure to mitigate my previous experience. I am thoroughly happy with the service and the results are starting to come as we speak. Believe me when I say that John has my utmost respect and admiration for how he handled himself during this difficult time. Count me as a satisfied customer of Rothman Marketing
Thank you for coming to the rescue. Terrylynn Fisher, Realtor, Diablo Realty
(http://realtor-for-life.com/)
As TerryLynn can tell you, we are the very best at what we do: if you search for a “staging realtor california” you will find her – and we will keep her up on this search end others indefinatley as our client! Â Do you think that helps her listing presentation?
And that is exactly what we do for our clients.
After spending fifteen years in online development for businesses, one of the most common mistakes I have heard was “I can’t afford it”
The truth of marketing is simple. Can you afford not to do it?
The web has became an absolutely essential medium for businesses of all sizes. Small and independent businesses specifically can gain incredible return on their investment, because unlike larger corporations they can adapt very quickly to the fluid nature of online advertising.
With free nationwide community sites like Myspace or specific niche community sites like ActiveRain, small businesses can quickly reach into existing online communities using social media strategy and online word-of-mouth campaigns.
But with millions of people talking, how can you make sure your business voice is heard?
Simple- You need to have a loud voice, one that people can share and build with you. The power of social media marketing is developing messages that encourage growth and collaboration. Rather than rely only on your voice, social media marketing uses Web 2.0 technical features to amplify your message through everyone that reads it.
Have you ever been in a gathering and heard a catchy tune or a joke so good that you just had to tell all your friends? That is the real world comparison to what social media can do online. Through community networks, your message can be shared and multiplied.
For small business, this is easy. Its about being human. Sharing what you are doing, both success and failure. Marketing a small business is about selling the benefit of what you do and not wasting time hiding what you can’t. It is about giving your existing clients a way to share your message, and to reach out through social communities to help them find what you have to offer.
Search engine marketing is one of the most effective ways to drive targeted traffic to your website. Understanding the benefits of a well-designed search engine marketing plan can free up valuable marketing dollars that can be spent on highly focused, consistent traffic that grows steadily over the time of a campaign.
Unfortunately most “SEO Experts” only believe in tweaking the code on your site and submitting it to the top search engines and directories. What they don’t tell you is how similar this is to having a well designed print advertisement that gets published in the local twenty-five cent newspaper with irrelevant readership. Having clean code doesn’t do you any good unless you actually find a way to get people to look at it.
So having clean code on a site is only one step in the process. Every business out there has a different focus and a unique requirement to address that cannot be answered by a cookie-cutter approach. But to tell you the truth, you can get a qualified and talented consultation if you turn to an expert who isn’t pushing a mindless advertising product or miracle solution.
1. Write articles with personality, and keywords
Writing to get noticed on the search engines is an amazing challenge for even skilled writers. There are checks and balances on so many different areas that doing one thing may be great, or it may be the worse mistake you’ve ever made. Some engines rely on automated scripts to double-check the value of your writing, while more and more are turning to the power of community readers to gauge the power of your message.
2. Use catchy titles that draw attention, from robots and humans
Your article title is very important in luring in both automated and human eyes. It should include keywords, but it should also include personality, attitude, and interest. Just like writing any article, take a moment a realize one of the most important pieces of any story is the name.
Low cost search engine optimization may sound like a good idea, but when you realize that any experienced marketer- whether an online marketer or a real world publicist, personality and talent in a field is essential to reaching an audience.
That is right: as ususal, we called it, then did it!
This is an excellent example of how even a fairly mundane product line (two way battery, two way radio battery, two way radio batteries... ) can be sold online with good collaboration between the designer and the advertising consultant who designs the search advertising strategy which will get the website seen on the organic first page results…
This is how it starts: I write an article, then digg it and blog it, and it shows up on the desired search overnight:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=two-way+batteries&btnG=Search - then I replace the article, with the target website showing up on the target search, which is two-way batteries in this case!
It is a sytem that works every time, as long as they post occaisionally!
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