Linkbaiting has to come from the heart

True linkbaiting success very rarely comes from an outsourced article. The most successful linkbaiting pieces are written:

• From within the company, using inside company information and expertise
• From concepts which have developed over quite a period of time. Even if the actual writing and creation doesn’t take long, the thought process behind it usually does.
• With rich media – additional videos, graphs and photos to help explain what has been written
• Very rarely as ‘controversy’ pieces. Picking on another blogger or company works well for some … but for most of us, it makes us look like whingers.

Don’t take yourself for granted

Every company does something that outsiders would find amazing. You just need to stop taking yourself for granted, and see it! If you just can’t, grab a few customers or family members, take them on a tour of your working day and ask them what fascinates them. This is how the ‘Will It Blend’ series on Youtube got started.

The spread of bad information in SEO is fast and notoriously inconvenient. Almost all of us have spent time or money at some stage on an SEO tactic that ended up having no relevance to our real rankings. Unfortunately, bad information continues to be published – here are the top 4 craziest myths about SEO and Google.

1. SEO is something you do once, and then never again
   Unfortunately untrue – if you want to stay on top of the rankings, you need to keep working to be there.
2. Google Analytics sends your company information to Google
   Big Brother isn’t watching you … because they just don’t have the manpower and can’t be bothered!
3. Pagerank is directly linked to search engine results
   Actually, Pagerank is an indication of your link popularity, which is only one element of your Google rankings.
4. Keyword density is soooo 2008
   Google would have you believe that if you write your copy naturally, the search engine will understand what it is about just fine. We know from experience in SEO that this is definitely not the case! There is no magic keyword density number, but ignoring density is a recipe for wasted SEO money.

Because Google keeps changing the rules!

If you invest solely in SEO and not in holistic web marketing, your company’s profitability is strongly tied to its relationship with another company – Google. A pretty high risk strategy! Google’s new ideas, like personal search, will keep making life hard is SEO is your only marketing avenue.

Because if you depend on search, you neglect visitor engagement
if you’re constantly thinking about getting new visitors and visibility through the search engines, it takes the focus off engaging your current customers and visitors through blogging, newsletters, etc. Warm marketing costs 7 times less than getting new customers.

Because popular sites get traffic without search engines
Do you think people Google for Facebook nowadays? No. The same is true of many popular sites … and you want to be one of them!

Some people will say you should never use web slang in your site copy.  Some people threaten to violently kill those that do, while some cheerfully chuck out ‘lol-bombs’ like there’s no tomorrow. So … what affect does web slang have on your SEO?

Do you REALLY need these expressions in your website?!

Potential for reader engagement

Web slang actually has the potential to make your readers fully engage with you as a writer. Reading copy with web slang is like reading a conversation with a friend for many people. If you have a very personal site (like a blog), this could be a huge advantage in your SEO, building rankings by boosting traffic and repeat visits.

Potential for reader disengagement

It’s hard to know when to stop … and even people that are happy to use ‘lol’, ‘imho’ or ‘rofl’ in net conversations can often be turned off by the deliberate misspellings and more obscure terms. Obviously you need to know your audience.

A middle ground

Facebook is a great example of a middle ground. They never use netspeak themselves, but provide plenty of opportunity for readers to talk however they like. Increase reader engagement on your website, and you could sidestep this whole SEO issue!

1. Because you can usually get the same company to do both!

A great number of excellent internet marketing firms today have the capability both to do professional, creative, highly functional website designs, and then get the things to rank highly in Google. Dealing with just one company will make it much easier all round for you.

2. Because there are technical ways to ensure you don’t lose your Google ranking when you re-design

Those ways are a little involved (and truthfully, a little boring!) to be going into at the moment. Suffice it to say that Google’s little bots can make some mean assumptions, and SEO firms know how to placate the presumptive beast.

3. Because website design is about more than good looks

Sometimes, website designers have a keen eye for design … but are completely blind to both search-engine friendliness and website usability guidelines. Both of these factors are part of the discipline of SEO, which is why it is valuable to either use the same company, or have your two firms collaborating for your site redesign.

4. Because Flash can be tricky in terms of SEO

Sooooo many website redesigns include Flash elements. That’s because Flash is a wonderful invention and a blessing to the web (despite Jakob Nielsen’s protestations to the contrary!). However, it does need to be handled carefully in an SEO context. It is tempting to have the most important information about your site – headings, taglines etc – within a Flash element, because it is so visible to visitors. However, Flash is invisible to search engines, so you need to be careful what you do with it.

5. Because a redesign is the perfect time to add or change content

And your content is one of the most important on-site aspects of your Google ranking, and because having an internet marketing firm go over it can make a huge difference to your Google positioning!

I know that budget-wise, optimising in conjunction with a redesign can be hard. But there is so much evidence that doing so is best practice for online businesses, that I would always recommend leaving the old site up there a bit longer, and saving up enough cash to do both. Or at least, talk to your internet marketing firm about payment terms!

Who’s Roxy?

Roxy is the women’s clothing brand owned by the Quiksilver company. They make swimwear, clothing and accessories for surf, snow and skating situations, as well as general purpose wear. They are a fairly high end brand.

Roxy internet marketing implementation

Roxy has developed a ‘Style Squad’ – a group of around 900 girls nationwide between the ages of 13 and 23. Each of these girls was handpicked in stores across the country,, and each of them gets benefits for being a part of the Style Squad:

• Welcome pack with the latest clothing designs
• Free access to new items
• Discounts in store

The Panel Manager of the Style Squad posts questions on message boards when there is a business issue such as thoughts on a new design, how the girls respond to advertising, etc. It can be used for both qualitative and quantitative market research.

How you can follow Roxy’s internet marketing example

• Create your own community of brand ambassadors, asking people to become part of the community in your physical stores, and offering significant benefits for doing so.
• Make sure there are ongoing benefits for remaining part of the community
• Create an online forum – social media like a Facebook page, Myspace account, or Twitter account that your members should add.
• Whenever you are wondering what your customers think about a change in your business – a new idea, a new promotion, a competition, a new page on the website … ask them! When people feel valued, they are happy to give their opinion.
• Use the information to improve your brand in the eyes of your customers.

The keys to success for Roxy’s web marketing strategy are offering significant benefits to the members, and them implementing enough new strategies and changes to make the effort worthwhile! Don;t forget that this sort of marketing has a direct effect on your SEO, by encouraging backlinks and pushing your traffic (and therefore your Google rank), skyward.

A social network

Set up a Myspace profile

Myspace is far more commercially oriented than Facebook. There are spaces to offer music samples and downloads, and facilities to take orders for your products through the site. You are marketing in a normal way, just on a social media. Myspace is a relatively non-threatening way to get into social media marketing.

Start Tweeting

There are plenty of guides around the net about how to use Twitter for business purposes. Read a few of them, and start Tweeting. It is best to do a little research before you get into this regularly – follow some of the leaders in your industry and see how they use the service.

Start a Facebook page or group … and update it

Connect your company with people who like your products, and connect your customers with each other. The average Facebook user joins abouthte same number of groups per month that they leave … so give people a reason to keep following your page or your group. Wish them happy holidays, leave product updates, post news relevant to your product, etc.

Create content with a view to getting it Dugg

The easiest way to do this is to have someone do it for you – it is a fine art!  Once you have your content on your site, get a few of your friends to Digg it using their accounts, to get it going.

Cut out the ‘be’s

Okay, you won’t be able to remove all of the ‘be’s from your writing – but odds are, many of them are superfluous. Look at the sentence: “I will be putting these up on the website next week”. You can change that quickly and easily to “I will put these … etc”, and retain the same meaning.

Given the fact that conciseness is of paramount importance on the web, this and the next tip are more useful than you might think!

Cut out ‘is’s

Clunky heading, I know . Keep reading anyway. Often you can cut out ‘is’ from sentences quite easily, and chop out surrounding words along with this little seed of verbosity. You can either:

• Shorten your full ‘is’s to contractions – ‘what is’ to ‘what’s’. Roughly the same characters, but easier for people to grasp.
• Look for instances of ‘there is’, and rearrange the sentence to cut them out completely.
• Look for other ‘is’s, and think about whether you can use other words to shorten the sentence. It’s usually possible.

When it comes to facts, don’t generalise

Here is a handy cheat-sheet of words to help you identify whether you are generalising. If you say:

• Often
• Many
• Approximately
• Can (as opposed to will)
• Virtually

You are telling your audience there’s an exception to whatever you have just written. It’s like a legal loophole for getting out of having your product do what you implied it would. These aren’t forbidden words generally, but you shouldn’t use them when you are talking about facts.

Learn to love full stops

Any sentence that goes on for longer than 15-20 words is usually too long. Full stops are the best way to break up sentences, but not always possible. Use semicolons where you can, or simply cut out a part of the sentence that isn’t really necessary.

Aaron Wall of SEObook would do things like…

• Setting up an alternative source of income while he put himself through a self-paced study course, spending around $20 to $200 on books
• Buy a cheap domain
• Get cheap hosting
• Start a WordPress blog that included no ads whatsoever, and he was truly passionate about and involved in
• Get a cheap logo
• Use free keyword research and analytics tools

Once the site started making money, Aaron says he would reinvest in the growth of the site first.

Andy Hagans, author of Tropical SEO would do things like…

• Buying good quality content
• Buying good quality links

He has said he would spend his entire budget on this, no matter whether he had $100, $250 or $500. The ‘good links’ he indicated were joeant.com or botw.org for lower budgets, and the Yahoo Directory for slightly higher budgets. All leftover money would go to hiring writers for linkbait.

By the way, thanks go to SEOish for the SEO expert opinions in this post!

Caught by linkbait

Linkbait for its own sake is worthless

Your linkbait content must support your overall internet marketing strategy, or it is almost worthless. The point of creating linkbait content is to get relevant links, pushing your site higher in Google’s estimation, and therefore presenting you earlier in the results when someone searches for your keywords. However:

• If your linkbait content is not relevant to your core business, you will get few ‘qualified leads’ clicking through
• If you encourage sites that aren’t relevant to yours to link to you, the worth of the links in Google’s algorithm is lowered.

So, you can’t just publish a controversial rant about Barack Obama as a linkbait strategy, if your company sells medical diagnostic equipment. You must think within the box!

Fake Linkbait could get you de-listed in Google

The best example is a story published at money.co.uk, titled ’13 Year Old Steals Dad’s Credit Card to Buy Hookers’. This FAKE story got plenty of links … but it wasn’t made obvious on the page that it was fake. Matt cutts of Google indicated that the company would view that as dishonestly trying to create links (no matter what the writer’s intention), and could be added to the list of things that will get you banned from Google.

Linkbait’s ROI is unpredictable

This is the case with all activities in internet marketing – you must test and refine your techniques over time to be confident of getting a good return on investment. So just be cautious of investing a lot of money in linkbait content, without an *excellent* understanding of what makes the market tick.