Copy Brighter

If you want your social media profile pages to rank highly in the search results, it's important to build links for them. There are billions of pages in Google's index and only those pages with enough linkjuice are going to reach the front page in a competitive query.

Getting quality external links to social media profiles can be difficult, but you can often get good internal links with just a little bit of participation. And those internal links are a very powerful, underrated SEO ranking factor.

Take a look at Tribe.net, an "underground" social networking community that is popular with bellydancers and the Burning Man set. For every discussion group ("tribe") that you join, it creates an internal link back to your profile. The same thing happens when you add someone as a friend. If you joined a few hundred tribes, you would get a generous flow of internal linkjuice back to your profile and blog, where you can link out to anything (without a nofollow tag).

My friend ZagZag has a several hundred internal links and just one lone external link (according to Yahoo Site Explorer) and she has a toolbar PageRank of 4. A well-connected page like this is strong and much more likely to show up in the search results than an orphan profile page with no friends.

A similar thing happens on the popular microblogging site Twitter. The more people that follow you, the more little icons create internal links back to your profile. New media consultant Marshall Kirkpatrick has over 1500 followers, each with a tiny icon that links back to his page, pimping his profile up to a toolbar PageRank 5.

On social bookmarking sites, one of the more powerful ways to funnel internal linkjuice is through tagging. Take a site like Del.icio.us, where the external links are "nofollowed" but the internal ones are juicy. For each tag you add to your bookmark, your bookmark will then get added to the corresponding "tag" page with a internal link back to your profile page.

If you very generously describe your submissions with tags that correspond to popular, high-ranking tag pages, your profile will get some sweet, del.icio.us linkjuice.

Bonus tip: For reputation management purposes, sometimes you just need a page - almost any page - to show up in the search results. The internal tag pages on popular social sites like Propeller or Wordpress.com can rank very strongly. If you wanted to rank for "Blockbuster Video," then just make several submissions or blog posts with those tags and see where it takes you. If the tag page isn't strong enough to rank from the internal links, build some externals. Read the rest of this entry »

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The SEO playbook changes fast. Really fast. Best practices shift on a monthly basis, and time-honoured methods can become obsolete and dangerous – literally overnight. Here are a few SEO staples that went out of style in 2007:

1. Reciprocal links. In May of 2007, Realtors who relied heavily on reciprocal links started to sob as -30 penalties were dished out by Google, harming their business. It became clear that the decade-old tradition of reciprocal links programs was over. Done. Finished. Time to get one way links.


2. The "site: *** -sljktf" command (to show the supplemental index results). Google's supplemental index used to be handy for finding out which pages on your own site were doing poorly and needed some extra TLC, and spammers had their own uses for it. For a while in 2007, the supplemental index still existed with no obvious markings. Now it got merged into one main, regular index.


3. Directory links. Buying directory links is another decade-old SEO tradition that Google took a pretty big swipe at when it devalued the PageRank of hundreds of lower-quality, made-for-webmasters directories this year.


4. Open link brokers and link networks. Not so long ago, it was possible to pick up the phone and call a major text link broker with open inventory and buy your way to good rankings. Now sites that openly sell links are coming under heavy fire. Top-secret brokers and hand-picked, carefully negotiated and camouflaged buys are the paid way in 2008.


5. Sponsored blog post networks. Pay-per-post bloggers also got whacked. Bloggers who accept payments are going to have to do their best to look legitimate and be undetectable.


6. Owning the SERPs with subdomains. This common reputation management and branding technique was recently declared obsolete when Google announced that there would be no more than 2 results from any one domain served up in the search results. However, real life searches show that some companies are still getting away with it. [Note: Nick Wilsdon clarified this issue and provided this link on Google's treatment of subdomains]


7. 10 Blue Links. It used to be the gospel that there were 10 identical search results for any given query and there was some kind of way to rank. Now that Google's universal search includes video, audio, news, blogs and local listings and mammoth sites like Wikipedia and Knol are sure to rank for a few of the slots on popular searches – MFA and thin-affiliates are in trouble. Webmasters can't take being able to rank for granted anymore. Even more remarkable, more linkworthy, more multi-media content is in order for 2008. Quality over quantity.

By offering professional SEO services, I have made commitment to read feeds and forums and keep on top of these changes on a daily basis.

Yet, I wonder: How many local SEO firms and practitioners out there aren't aware of any of these changes and will continue to provide obsolete or dangerous advice to their clients?

Is there anything else that should be on this list? Aside from specific techniques or practices, what were some of the noteworthy changes in the SEO playbook and organic search landscape for 2007?

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This week brought us two powerful new resources for link building: * Dutch SEO and link building expert, Wiep, released a survey of over 15 industry-recognized link building experts as Link Value Factors. This reports takes a cue from SEOmoz's Search Ranking Factors, which I call the "Rosetta Stone of SEO" because it offers many different perspectives and trusted opinions on the secret Google ranking algorithm. Wiep's report offers a panoramic perspective on assessing link potency and value. * Another top-notch Dutch SEO and Web developer, Joost de Valk, released the link analysis tool for Firefox. This is a superb tool for looking at backlink profiles of your own sites and your competitors and finding out which links have value. I'd consider both of these resources a "must" for anyone serious about SEO and link building. Enjoy!

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I knew that the Digg user experience was sure to deteriorate when they agreed to let Microsoft serve their graphical ads, but I didn't know they'd allow advertisers to try and foist this type of deceptive blinking schlock on a relatively tech-savvy community:

I was really hoping this was some kind of joke. But sadly, it very clearly states that "This is not a joke." And it seems to run contrary to the spirit of Kevin Rose's promise:

It’s important to say that we’re as focused as ever on a great user experience. So, no dancing monkey ads, and the design will remain uncluttered.

Diggers used to love some of the ads on the site (e.g., Snorg Tees girls) and mention them frequently in the comments. Reddit is doing a little bit better at targeting their audience, and the community speaks up and gives feedback on the insulting ads. Diggers should do this too.

And advertising execs should know that deceptive, blinking "Free Laptop: Must Complete 6 Offers" banners erode social media users' confidence in a site's advertising much more than any short-term profit it could bring them.

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Once of the drawbacks of being a social media power user is that everything moves way too fast. You've got so many amazing stories streaming your way that you barely have time to read and enjoy them. Instead, you're forced to woof it all down: rush to vote on friends' picks and hustle to submit your Google News / RSS finds before someone else beats you to it. You're lucky if you get to partially scan most of it. Making "permanent" bookmarks in your browser can get messy, so the good people at Idea Shower have created Read It Later, a temporary bookmarking plugin for FireFox. When you see a story that you want to get back to later on, just right click on the link and select "Read This Link Later." The story then gets stashed in a convenient browser button for you to peruse later on. It also contains a feature for submitting and bookmarking your best finds to other social sites. Good stuff!

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Sometimes the need to remove negative publicity is very real and overpowering:

In case you are victim of an unwarranted attack, or you need to overpower a pesky duplicate brand – here are some proven online reputation management tactics.

You'll Probably Need Links

Some articles suggest that online reputation management is easy. They say all you have to do is make a bunch of MySpace profiles and Squidoo lenses. If Bill Lumberg of Initech were an online reputation manager, he'd say, "Ummm..... yyyyeeeeeah...... Right."

Just making profiles might work for little-known brands or obscure personal names. But what if you're working on a nationally known company or famous person, and it's exceedingly difficult to rank for their name? What if the dirt is being dished out by multiple international news sites packing PR 9 domains? In these cases, you need to choose your profiles sites carefully, optimize the pages well, and point lots of good links at them. And you're gonna have to do this all discreetly, without attracting attention of the UGC site admins or making a dirty backlink profile in the search engines.
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If you're launching a new site and you are submitting it to some of the more reputable old & expensive web directories, you want to get as much anchor text bang for your $279.95 as possible. But most "reputable" directories will only link to your site by the "official" name, whatever that is. Before: So pick the right "official" name. Just make new graphic header for your site, and throw it up there for the one week that you submit it to the directories. If the site is for a real estate office called "HomeFinders Realty" you might just want to name it "Denver Real Estate, Inc." And change it back after you get accepted with juicy anchor text. After: In most cases, after they've charged your credit card for the link buy editorial review fee, they won't be double checking it anytime soon. Okay, some people might say this is a little bit grey hat... but I rationalize it by saying that if you are going to pay hundreds of dollars for an ad listing, you're entitled to (try and) get your money's worth with good, descriptive anchor text that doesn't mislead the search engines or users. And when that auto-billed $499.95 annual review comes around again, they are more than welcome to change it back– if they notice. Read the rest of this entry »

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A Wicked Social Buzz

I haven't been in the search marketing business for that long, but I'm definitely gravitating towards social media.

I find that creating content and participating in social web is significantly more stimulating than... say... making XML sitemaps, geeking out infront of WordTracker, or crafting copy with judicious use of the phrase "Alabama tax lien attorney." Watching the links, comments and votes pour in after a social campaign is up there with hitting a home run or the jackpot in Vegas. It triggers strong emotions and a massive rush of endorphins.

The buzz of brainstorming a massive social campaign and watching it spread is much stronger than watching the rankings incrementally improve during a manual link building campaign... it's a much bigger bang than modest pleasure of crafting a clever 301 redirect...

But Is It Sustainable?

Naturally, I'd love to make social media the main focus of my workday. But as a Capricorn, and I'm way too practical to just follow my bliss without any kind of business plan. As I think about how to take my social media skills to the next level, here's a few concerns that come to mind:

1. The ethics of SMM are blurry.

Is it OK to make a second account? Ask friends for votes? Buy votes or automate them? Write fake reviews? Recycle content? Bury the competition?

I generally try to swing straight, organic, white-hat and transparent-ish (I don't want anything coming back to haunt me)... but I'm aware that the pressures of client expectations and making profits (a.k.a. stayin' alive) can really stretch people's morals and ethics. And if you think Digg and Stumble are competitive now (in the absolute infancy of the genre) it's only going to get harder. 2007 is to social media what 1996 was to SEO.

Will we see teams of professional voters and commenters? Rampant payola and Multi-Level Voting (MLV)? Online reputation extortionists and protection rackets? Social media username and brand squatting ("MrBabyMan" is already registered. Please choose another name.')? Account brokers? Officially sponsored story submissions ("$2999 for express home page submission, subject to editorial review")?

2. SEO is steady. SMM is volatile.

Just about any website can be helped out by solid SEO. Search algorithms are mechanical and more "impartial". In contrast, social media success depends entirely on the tastes, opinions and politics of people - and their feelings at the moment. Some brands are loved as "way cool" and others are poo-poo'ed as pariahs (i.e., Mircosoft's Zune's "Welcome to the Social" campaign ). You can give things your best spin, but ultimately you have no control over the outcome. The audience decides... and they'll either get a kick out of your story, or they'll kick the snot out of it. And if the sysadmins decide there's anything fishy about your account or voting history... GAME OVER.

3. Social media marketing can be hard on the nerves. The highs are spectacular, but the lows really suck. Every time the sever goes down from a traffic spike, the mob revolts and smashes you and your content with seditious smacktalk, and the burry brigade starts taunting you with libelous comments... it's enough to trigger a heart attack. Especially if weeks of hard work have gone into a project and an expectant client is sitting there, biting their nails right along with with you. I've gotten myself so worked up over social media campaigns that I needed crack open a beer at the end of the day to calm my nerves. I don't want to end up actually ordering that Xanax and Tramadol stuff that always shows up in the comment spam.

4. So many sites, so many profiles, so little time. Technology is a harsh mistress. The only thing my iPhone did for my life was seduce me into spending 15 hours a day online, rather than just 10 or 12. Nowadays, I find myself checking on my Reddit stories while hiking (!).

It's getting harder to find original content that hasn't been submitted already. More time consuming to post it to all the sites that are popping up, keep up with what is going on, AND find time to update 5 different blogs.

Some people have referred to social media promotion as "the new link building" because it's so massive and overwhelming a task. New social media account consolidator sites like Fuser are trying to make access to your Facebook and MySpace-type accounts available in one place, but the social landscape and user base are growing faster than tools and widgets designed to keep up with it. Sooner or later... we'll have to adopt 30 hour days in order to get it all done.

Social Media Career Ideas

I think that becoming a social media professional is possible and sustainable. But it hasn't yet evolved into recognized business marketing role yet... so we'll have to take define this emerging profession and market ourselves aggressively.

Here's a few ideas on how you can start to do that:

• Become an expert a seeding and growing online social communities for corporate or non-profit sites. Many well-funded companies are throwing up massive web infrastructure, but they don't have a clue how to kick things off socially. You can use the same interaction skills you've sharpened on forums, blogs and Facebook... where there is a growing, commercial market for it.

• Work with startups. Here in Boulder, there are tons of tech startup companies with venture capital and solid developer talent. What they seem to be lacking, in most cases, is someone with serious social networking influence and viral skills to make their concept popular. They spend $2,000,000 developing and launching a site. For promotion, they send out a couple of electronic press releases and do a half-baked Blogspot site. Then... while woefully carrying the desks out of the office, they wonder why their site never "caught on."

• Seek cool brands that could be leveraging social media, but aren't. (Think: surfing companies, solar technology, DRM-free audio downloads.) Offer to help them out, and show them how they could benefit by participating in the social web. It's probably on the back of their minds already, but they don't even know what – or who – to ask. You might literally be the answer to their prayers.

• Try pitching some traditional PR firms (if you've got boatloads of patience and professional tact). Work for them and help them understand how the Web is changing the world of communications. Help them realize these are no longer the days of pompous-sounding press releases and licking stamps. Teach them how to make "social media relations" a part of what they do.

What Do You Think?

If you've read down this far, you're also probably pretty excited about social media. I'd love to get your take on things: Do you think social media marketing can be a viable business and career?

What kind of issues, problems and potentials do you see with it?

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Today I am joining 16,000 other bloggers on Blog Action Day to speak out on a topic that directly affects all of us: the environment. In addition to my monthly contributions, I pledge to donate 100% of this year's ad earnings on my other blog to Environment Colorado, a local action group that is putting pressure on the government to get movin' on clean energy adoption and incentives.

I was raised with respect for nature.

As a kid, I was in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, so I got to go camping every month. In college, I further honed my wilderness skills at outdoor festivals and Rainbow gatherings, where I learned how to live on the land and leave no trace. My first professional job was on the JET program in deep rural Japan. There was nothing to do in my country town besides swim, hike, climb volcanoes, and surf - and I found great peace and refuge in nature.

After Japan, I spent 2 years on a personal vision quest / RPG adventure... backpacking and camping across Asia. From high glaciers in Western Nepal, to horribly polluted cities and devastated forests in Indonesia, to uninhabited coral-ringed islands near Burma, and in outback bush of South Australia... I got to deeply experience some of the most pristine and some of the most disgustingly damaged ecosystems on the planet.

I saw how quickly the third world was developing, and how many BILLIONS of people were craving a fossil-fuel and plastic powered Western lifestyle... way more people than the Earth can possible support at our current level of energy and disposable technology.

I realize my nature and travel experiences were much more than an adventure or an indulgence – they were an initiation. Last year, when I was shocked to find out my friend Chelsea Gerlach was arrested and sentenced to 9 years in prison for radical environmental action (arson) – I felt the call to action. I decided that what I wanted out of my life was to master the science of marketing (affecting mass-scale changes in behavior) and find a green technology "killer app" that will seriously reduce carbon and environmental damage... not just a "feel good" indulgence... and use my marketing powers push it through to adoption.

I've been immersing myself in copywriting, SEO and social media with the sincere hope it will allow me to play a more powerful role in preserving the environment and leaving the Earth in decent condition.

I want to look back on this life and know what I did professionally really mattered. Not only for my fellow man and my ancestors, but for the corals and the squirrels, and for the bees and the trees... who can't do anything about it... like I can.

That's what the focus of my trip is going to be, from now on out. Thanks for reading, and thanks for contemplating what your part in the game of life is going to be...

I'll be back to social media and green marketing coverage, shortly!

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Recently the Digg interface got an extreme makeover. There are now more social features on the site, like photo albums and public "shout" messages. And the new system has been designed to make reciprocal voting on friends' stories far less convenient. Instead of blasting down a list of your friends' submissions ("Digg! Digg! Digg! Digg!")... Uzi style... it now takes some real mouse-clickin' effort. It takes so much patience that some people are submitting less, and others are ditching personal politics and "friends of convenience" and only voting on stories that they actually like. While many of the hardcore Diggers complained that the site is ruined, I think the changes are probably making the site fairer and more accessible for the average user. And I think it has (marginally) improved the diversity and quality of the content that hits the home page. The interface changes make it far more time consuming to maintain a Digg power account. Before you could maintain relationships with people by checking in once a day and spending 10 or 20 minutes on the site. Now it takes more like 30 to 90 minutes a day just to vote on friends' stories, and you need to check in two or three times a day because you can only see three pages of your friends' recent submissions. Thankfully, there's a way Digg through your friends' submissions much quicker. If you've got a Mac, the Dugg widget for your dashboard is highly recommended.

Just hit the F12 key, and click on the tiny "i" in the upper right corner of the widget. For the "Digg Topic" select "friends' submitted" and put your username in below:

Click "Done" and then you can see a list of your friends' stories. Click on them and it will open up the story in your Web browser (in tabs) All it takes to Digg a story is a quick: F12 + Click-Click rather than: Opening up a browser, going to Digg.com, (maybe) logging in, clicking "Friends' Activity," clicking "Submissions," then click the story, then click to Digg it, then click the back button. I personally find the Dugg widget really makes voting quicker and more enjoyable. You can check in on your stories and your friends' stories several times a day with minimal effort. The only downside it is gets kind of "messy" by opening dozens of browser tabs while Digging a long list of stories...

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