Text Link Brokering Advice from the Best in the Business
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Google Retards ?
5 months, 4 weeks ago
SEroundtable Pointed me to to a story about “Another Insulting Algorithmic Search Result from Google” I didn’t want to blog about the swastika on Google Trends, but this is kinda odd, when you search for Special People you get :
Ok WTF !
DaveN
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Liz Jones Daily Desperate Search
5 months, 4 weeks ago
The power of searching on the Internet can often be undervalued and indeed social networking sites sometimes suffer journalistic criticism. Facebook for example has suffered bad daily press thanks to Liz Jones of the daily mail. Mel Carson at Microsoft ran this by me and I have to concur with his findings. Liz Jones eluding […]
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Looking for Guest Posts
6 months ago
So over the years I’ve been asked more than once do I accept any guest posts, and they answer has always been no. Well I’ve decided to change that policy and try letting a few guests posts go out and see what happens.
So what’s it take to be accepted as a guest author? Well you […] -
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Why do Domain Auctions Partner With Sleazy Registrars?
6 months ago
I recently won a great domain name at an auction. Spent the money, waited a few days, and got the domain management details.
I logged into my domain management account, and searched around the site…no details on how to transfer a domain name away from their site - no transfer authorization code anywhere. The only article I found was one on ICANN rules, stating that you could email them if you needed help locking or unlocking your domain names - but nothing about auth codes.
Most of their contact policies were via email. I could not find a phone number on their site until after I submitted an email to them explaining my frustrations. Then I got sent back an email telling me to check out their help page which consisted of a Google search box. This page actually had a phone number in the upper right corner. So I called it and it told me I was the first person in line. I waited for a few more songs and got told I was first a few more times before hanging up the phone in frustration.
So then I searched for the parent corporation site and hunted around their site for a support number. That worked and was answered within about a minute. Sweet. But…
The guy who answered the phone at first denied that his registrar had anything to do with the domain name I just bought. “Someone registered that directly with Tucows,” he said. I then asked why I was sent a welcome domain name management email to log in at his company’s site and why I have a customer number with them. At that point he looked up the name and saw that it was registered with them, but then he told me that they had a 60 day policy on domain transfers and that I couldn’t get it yet. I said to send the auth code anyway.
After telling me no a couple times he finally said ok. But then the email did not come right away, so I asked if he could just tell me the auth code. He said “no because then we could seize control of the name.” I told him I thought they already did that with their website and customer service.
I finally got the auth code, and the domain name is allegedly “Pending Current Registrar Approval.” I hope it goes through!
Are these shady third party registrars actually owned by the same parent companies? Couldn’t the domain name auctions allow the end buyers to pay a $10 fee per secured name to avoid sending them to some outfit that wastes their time in an attempt to either steal their domain name or cash? Some of the auctions already have the house keeping some of the best inventory and shill bidding against you for what is left…why must they keep screwing you even after the relationship is over?
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Does SEO Consulting Have a Future?
6 months ago
This is a guest post by John Hargaden from wevolution.ie, which is a follow up to our post on selling SEO consulting services.
a chip in the sugar
Try not to look like a country bug. Blend. Blend in.
- Flik, A Bug’s LifeThe complexity of SEO, the forensic nature of parsing words and matching lines, is a hard sell. How do you describe it without sounding like Lou Grant, as opposed to a can-do service provider? PPC is transparent, measureable, a better market to focus on.
SEO versus PPC. Experiential versus rational processing. Intuition versus logic.
Once upon a time, there was no ‘versus’, no sound of a hair, splitting. Just SEO and PPC. Now, as the online market matures, limbs get minds of their own, and the question becomes, “Which would you prefer, working in organic search or working in PPC?” And I say, “Organic search” (because I’m trying to be cool). But I mean, “PPC” (because I need to eat).
And I also speak today, because I can’t help it, about the parallels I see in the evolution of the online marketing sector today, buffeted by a recession (petty distinctions among the econ gurus aside) as a mirror of the games development industry in 2000, buffeted by the dot com deflation.
Why Pay-Per-Click is Important
Pay-per-click marketing allows you to test in real time. Conversely, the more expensive the associated PPC ads are, the more value there is in performing SEO on a site in a paid niche.
Why Traditional SEO Consulting Tires Easily
In a frontier, we few settlers have the time and space to hold hands, to tame the beasties. With online marketing, the elastic mindshare stretches ever outwards, and how a client interacts with the media and people in their marketplace (and here I’m thinking particularly of social marketing, semantic search etc.), rapidly morphs as time delivers a consumer and producer net-literate family – we will watch our care grow surly, independent and, oddly enough (or maybe not oddly at all), conservative and risk-averse.
Oh dear.
As SEO movers and shakers, then, our assumed mantle of progenitors will, as history teaches, count for nought; it will be up to us to change. Again.
But, here’s the thing: companies and corporates, for all their twittering on about flat management structures, are hierarchical, irrespective of how big the base or how shallow the pyramid. And I mention this because, at this stage in the evolution of the search marketing industry, the internal architecture of a company cannot accommodate what is, at this moment in time, an essentially horizontal agent – the SEO analyst. You can tell that companies are caught in the headlights of oncoming online traffic, because they invariably advertise for an online marketing manager “….reporting to the Marketing Manager.”
Ah lads, get a grip.
I have faced grown marketing managers across the mahogany tables of traditional sales and marketing lairs, lilac carpets bristling with empathetic static, as their watership down eyes peer into mine, pleading with me to answer that question normally reserved for their newly-appointed, crabbid-out CEO, but now commandeered almost exclusively on the appointment of an online marketing executive, “What the hell am I supposed to do with him….?”
Empathy is a shared keyword. You hear a lot of talk about empathy. Perhaps, as an online marketer, I can admit to valuing the relationship with the Client more than the relationship with the product. Liking the Client drives motivation. I wouldn’t worry about it – it’s a growing pain.
The point is, search results – the kind that the Client wants – are predicated on future, not current, ambitions. Marketing managers, and their staff – they implement based on what’s coming down the product pipeline. The Head of Search Marketing, on the other hand, is required to be at the conception of the new ambition, before the specifications are written, at the point where the Boss wakes up in bed in a cold sweat, turns, and, leaning over his (shhh, sleeping) Corporate Body, whispers to his online acquisition principal (who, convinced that he as ‘a bit of all right’, as opposed to being, quite literally, just ‘a bit on the side,’ is patiently consuming lines of shifting search engine algorithms under a night-light livid with the colour of validation), “I think I know where this is going to next.”
Yummy.
With marketing managers, size matters; we, on the other hand, console ourselves with the thought that it’s what you do with it that counts. Traditional marketers view adrenaline as a reward; we view it as a rival for our charms. Design versus dasein. A chip in the sugar.
Which reminds me: epistemology and metaphysics, logic, semantics – we need philosophers, not technologists (whatever they are). And still we repeat the sins of our forebears, when online games recruitment banged on about quote having a passion for gaming unquote, until it copped itself on and realised that what games development needed were full sets of feet to march forward upon, not more ingrown toenails. Perhaps even we can teach the old dog new tricks.
Less self-regard, more oxygen. To paraphrase William Goldman about another all-sex, zero-foreplay industry, nobody knows everything.
Why Traditional SEO Consulting Will Persevere
Businesses that value their online objectives will be clever enough to realise that you can internalise process, you can internalise implementation, but you must outsource strategy, you must outsource training, you must outsource mentoring, you must hold your nerve, be sufficiently confident to absorb externals telling you what needs to be done – and what doesn’t. The only people I know who can provide that level of service are people who value what they have learned from their mistakes more than their successes. Scars versus skills. SEO versus PPC.
Cor. And blimey.
John HARGADEN
wevolution.ie -
Website for Sale
6 months ago
You are starting an online business venture and have heard that new sites lack authority and could take months before they see visitors, you don’t really have the budget for ppc or indeed SEO yet can afford an initial outlay on a website. You are not really concerned about how the website looks and have […]
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Yahoo Board to Tears
6 months ago
Money talks, well it certainly may do at Yahoo. Investors line up for the kill and any fears about change of Yahoo ownership are of course allayed with all contenders emphasising maximum shareholder values. Icahn’s proposal to change the Yahoo board may well take flight. Meanwhile, as if waiting in the wings Microsoft are now […]
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Hey Google Going to Drop the Paid Links Hammer on Coke
6 months ago
Hey Google Going to Drop the Paid Links Hammer on Coke? I’m not sure how sending someone a mini fridge knowing full well they are going to blog about it is any different than sending someone cash for link advertising. Then again you created the two tiered internet justice world we now live in, and […]
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Google locks down Universal today
6 months ago
Dan Horton lost a bet today .. to me HAHAHA, after I blogged about Marc Chagall, he said that I was trying to rank for that term, so I bet him a £10 that the post wouldn’t rank in www.google.co.uk by 5 o’clock today.
So why did I win, well it was pretty obvious that if […] -
Follow Me on Friend Feed - Yes it’s Time
6 months ago
We’re getting close to approaching critical mass on friend feed, and with twitter’s horrible performance and feature removal yes I think it’s time people start looking at friend feed.
if you’re interested you can follow me there Michael Gray on Friend Feed
Feel free to drop a link to your profile in the comments, spam from low […] -
Google’s “&suggon=1″
6 months ago
Ideas on a postcard for what this switch does, Seen quite a Few in my referrers recently.
Dave -
Marc Chagall : Google Logo
6 months ago
Today’s is Marc Chagall birthday, born in 1887 died in 1985, the I came across his work years ago ( thats another long story, but I like stain glass windows ) he has an amazing piece in the UN
DaveN
“All colours are the friends of their neighbours and the lovers of their opposites.” -
How to Guarantee Your Stories Will Fail on Digg
6 months ago
Here’s a perfect example of how to shoot yourself in the foot on Digg (link)
What’s going to get more attention, clicks, or votes …
“How to avoid laptop loss at the airport”
or
“US Airports Lose Over 10,000 Laptops Every Week”
If you’re wondering why your submissions flounder look at your titles are they more like #1 or […] -
Selling SEO Consulting Services
6 months ago
Why Traditional SEO Consulting Usually Sucks
I do not like doing much traditional SEO client work, and see the business model as having limited longterm value for most SEO consultants. The best consultants could usually make more promoting their own sites and brands than they would working for clients.
- Most prospective SEO customers are not ranked well because their businesses are unremarkable and have little to no competitive advantage. Worse yet, some of them have arbitrary constraints that hold back growth potential. In many cases it would be cheaper, easier, and more profitable building from scratch with a strong brand and domain name that was built around succeeding on the web.
- Those who have not fully bought off on the power of SEO often end up underpaying the first time they buy services, which precludes honest consultants from working with them. After they got burned once, they want to minimize future risks, which sets off a market for lemons effect.
- As the web gets more competitive many of the best SEO techniques are going to relate to content strategies and how a client interacts with the media and people in their marketplace…something that is a bit hard to control as an external consultant unless there is an internal team that also pushes to get it done.
- Businesses that *really* get SEO and value SEO bring it in house.
- The people with in house SEO teams sometimes hire 3rd party consultants, but there is a limit to what they *can* spend before their own competency is called in question.
- Most the time clients do not want you to mention them, and if you do there is a risk that Google will edit the ROI right out of your service.
3 SEO Consulting Models That Work
If one wanted to sell search marketing services for the long haul then the best options are probably
- Quasi-Publisher: having an editorial position in a niche vertical (like automotive or consumer credit) where you act as both a thought leader and a promoter who monetizes through display ads, affiliate offers, and product sales. The diversity of revenue streams allows you to shift focus as desired or needed.
- Paid SEO Tools: some sort of tool or software product that adds incremental value to the SEO process, though this model is hard because so many people are giving away tools to gain mindshare. At the higher end this model can work for companies that get SEO but have temporary IT related roadblocks that prevent indexing, though it is hard for that to be a longterm strategy for clients because tool providers could keep hiking prices after the companies are dependant on them.
- In House SEO Training: some sort of training program where you help others succeed, but you offer guidance more than doing the work directly, though this model is also hard because there is so much free information, and most people do not realize the hidden cost of free.
Why I Still do Limited SEO Consulting
If it doesn’t pay well relative to my other income streams, why do I still occasionally sell SEO consulting services?
- Projects where I feel I can learn: one of the things that attracted me to search is that it intersects with so many marketing disciplines and site aspects that it feels like I am always learning. Having a partner who is a 20 year veteran of the ad agency world that knows the algorithms better than I do makes it easy to learn something from every project.
- Projects where I feel I can have fun: when I was new to the market cash flow would have been a bit more of a criteria, but if client work is a pay cut (which it usually is for me) then it needs to be enjoyable.
- Ego and validation: I think more than most people I find a need for validation. This is still a bit of a remnant character flaw of mine that I have been quickly losing since meeting my wife. But it is cool to go to websites you know and patronise often, and see your ideas and strategies make their way into the source code and marketing.
- Diversity: variety is the spice of life, and if you sit and look at a computer screen far too long every day it is nice to mix up what you are doing from time to time.
When PPC is Better Than SEO
The complexity of SEO makes the barrier to entry much higher, which is why I like SEO so much from a publisher standpoint. But if you are selling consulting services PPC is a better market to focus on. Businesses using PPC spend lots of money and would look at any external help as a chance for cost savings on current spend, rather than an unknown investment or investment that had to be limited in scope for internal business reasons.
Are you still selling SEO consulting services? Do you still plan to do so in 5 years?
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Automated Internal Linking on Steroids
6 months ago
For a while Google was against the idea of seeing search results inside of search results, calling them redundant. But over the last couple years they losened up their stance on the issue…not only do they index and rank tag pages, but they go so far as generating content pages on the fly by entering keywords into search boxes on websites.
Search and tag pages usually have some editorial input, but some community content sites (like associated content) automate the process of adding links to content through algorithms which are likely self reinforcing on rankings and revenues. eHow takes this one step further by automating the internal links and pointing them at recycled content from Dealtime, eBay, and Amazon.com…just in case you are shopping for Ice online ehow.com/shop_ice.html.
Automated internal linking will become a big SEO trend in 2008 and 2009. Jim Boykin offers an interlinking tool inside his Internet Marketing Ninjas program, which came as inspiration for Gab Goldenberg to make a free Wordpress plugin to do the same. If a site like TechCrunch installs the plugin they could basically pick any phrase and own top rankings in a week. For smaller sites they might need to partner with a circle of 20 or so friends that swapped promotional editorial links back and forth.
Search has been a driving force in lowering the value of most traditional media business models, but how useful will search be if most major publishing platforms aggressively use automated internal linking, especially if they start doing it to point links at custom advertising pages focused on high value keywords? The problem with many publishing business models is a high cost structure coupled with poor targeting. Automated internal linking fixes the targeting issue, and those ad pages would subsidize the cost of their editorial.
Update:
I am guessing that if people are too aggressive with this they could get penalized. In fact, at SMX Todd Friesen stated the following tip, attributing DaveN as the source
Because different link brokers moved from Sponsored Links to inline linking, there’s now a Google filter that looks for too many new links coming from old blogs. If you have a network of 40 aged blogs, go back into the archives, add a link to the site you want knocked down across the network; you’ll knock someone down.
A safer way to use the automated linking strategy is to look at data from tools like SEO Digger, ranking reports, analytics, and SEO Digger. See where you rank close to the top, and then add a few more links pointing at pages ranking for the best keywords…keep iteratively testing and make a number of smaller moves rather than automating mass shifts in PageRank, especially if you are doing automated linking cross site.
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When Will Mahalo Add Nofollow to Outbound Links?
6 months ago
Wikipedia is a powerhouse because
- they have so much content
- they don’t run ads on their site
- they turn users into evangelists by making it easy to contribute
- they have so many inbound links
- where possible they replace their outbound links with links to more internal Wikipedia pages (I just saw a page on performance based SEO pricing models, which seems outside the scope of the goals of an encyclopedia)
- when they do link out they use nofollow
Nofollow is the flip side of paid links - you pay content creators for a while (with links), and then stop paying them while keeping their content.
In an attempt to follow Wikipedia’s strategy (but with monetization) Mahalo…
- is creating a bunch of easy to read how to articles (though I am not sure I would trust a guide covering how to invest online from a person who is willing to spend a couple days writing it, for less than $100)
- now allows people to recommend links without logging in
- allows anyone to create new pages
In the past couple years Google has killed many paid link sources, and stripped PageRank from most general directories and most article directories. Given how much harder it is got to get clean links, some SEOs will be tempted to add content to Mahalo hoping for the outbound reference link, but in a year Mahalo will likely claim they need use nofollow to stop spam, so the opportunity is probably fleeting.
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Hey Fortune Would it Have Killed You to Put in A Few Pictures
6 months ago
So Fortune Magazine has an article titled Jimmy Choo founder’s well-heeled office. In it they talk to Tamara Mellon the founder and president of Jimmy Choo and she gives some tragically desperate to sound hip and inspired, suggestions on setting up an executive office space. OK good title, lame-ish content, but where’s the payoff with […]
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Would you buy a HTC Diamond ?
6 months ago
let’s have a quick straw poll here, If you had decided that you are going to buy a sim free HTC diamond, and someone sends you two sites to buy from both are the same price, same offer really, but one site is covered in adsense and one isn’t.
are You like me, does Adsense turn […]