Search Marketing & SEO

The Google "Sandbox" -- Myth or Reality?

2007-02-21T16:42:00.000-05:00

It has been hotly debated in SEO circles for several years whether or not a new website has to go through a "waiting" period before it gets ranked in the Google index.

Those who feel that such a waiting period exists claim that a new site has to sit in some metaphorical "sandbox" for an unspecified time, until Google decides the new site is all grown up enough to play in the real search rankings.

In my experience, the sandbox doesn't exist. What exists is an algorithm -- an algorithm that says if you get some good citations to your site, you will do well in the search rankings, even if you only launched the site recently.

By the same token, if you don't get good citations, you'll never do well in the search rankings, no matter how old and doddering your site becomes.

So why did people ever call it a sandbox to begin with? I think because it makes a handy excuse for when your site doesn't rank well.

I launched a site for a fairly competitive search term about 7 months ago. It has climbed steadily to where it is now on page 3 of Google for the main term, and is pulling about 1500 visitors a day for the long tail. Now how would it be doing that if there was a sandbox?

How did it get there? The old-fashioned way -- I worked on it. Hard. And the best citations the site has gotten so far all came through an amazing technique called publicity. No fancy tricks, no magic bullet. Just good, old-fashioned, p.r. Of the the kind preached by Eric Ward, who if you don't know about, you really should.

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Diary Of An SEO Campaign

2007-01-30T10:59:00.000-05:00

The continuing saga of a site known only as The Site, launched on 8-1-06, as it tries to reach the top 3 slots of Google for its key search term.

Day 191

The Site enjoys continuing success from my SEO efforts. Today it sits on the top of page 4 of Yahoo! results, and top of page 6 on Google. It has even flirted with page 3 of Yahoo! on recent days.

The site is now getting about 1300 unique visitors per day, from the search term tail, with a page view per visitor of around 7.0. It's important to remember that the search term we are going for here is very competitive. The top site for this term pulls about 60,000 visitors a day. It might not be MySpace, but it ain't chicken feed.

How are we doing it? For starters, it's pure white hat. I work at creating the best possible site for the target audience. Most of what works, in online marketing terms, flows from that premise.

Check out our new, daily website promotion blog for quick tips on how to do good online marketing.

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Continued Search Marketing Success for 'The Site.'

2007-01-12T10:44:00.000-05:00

Diary of an SEO campaign

The continuing saga of a site known only as The Site, launched on 8-1-06, as it tries to reach the top 3 slots of Google for its key search term.

Day 173

Just an update on progress for The Site. Nearing the half year mark, and it continues to do well in the search engine rankings, and to draw traffic. For its top keyword phrase, which is one of the top 50 phrases on the internet, The Site is around page 6 of Google and page 5 of Yahoo!.

I continue to publish articles for the linkbacks; brainstorm for quality content (sometimes called 'linkbait', but I don't really like that term); publish a daily blog; add new content from time to time, and generally follow the rule of trying to make The Site the best site in its niche on the internet. We're up to about 850 visitors a day, with a pageview average of about 8 p/v. That's up from around 500 daily visitors just a month ago.

Onward!

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Announcing Website Promotion World

2007-01-12T10:43:00.001-05:00

On this blog I generally publish more in-depth articles about search marketing and online marketing. My publishing frequency sometimes varies from weekly to monthly.

In order to post online marketing tips on a more frequent basis, I just launched a new blog that I hope you'll enjoy: Website Promotion World. Unlike this blog you're reading, Website Promotion World is a daily blog, offering a "fresh, hot tip every day!" The postings are short and snappy, and intended to give you a quick, usable tip on just about any aspect of search marketing, SEO, online marketing, and so forth.

Check it out, subscribe if you like it, and enjoy it with your coffee every day.

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Online Marketing Success For "The Site"

2006-12-13T13:33:00.000-05:00

Diary of an SEO campaign

The continuing saga of a site known only as The Site, launched on 8-1-06, as it tries to reach the top 3 slots of Google for its key search term.

Day 143

You have to be patient in the Search Marketing business. But if you are, you can see things start to pay off.

"The Site" recently passed a couple of important landmarks: it broke into the top 100 for both Yahoo! and Google search rankings, for the sought-after top key phrase. It's currently on page 7 of Google and, incredibly, page 5 of Yahoo. I say "incredibly" because my experience has been that my sites, or perhaps my SEO, ranks first on MSN, then Google, then Yahoo! But "The Site" is showing up best on Yahoo! right now, although I am pleased with both rankings.

Second, I got my first day of 500 + unique visitors to the site yesterday. Another landmark. And with a sticky factor of about 6 page views per visit, I know the site is working as it should. These visitors are arriving courtesy of the "long tail" of the keyword phrase for which I am optimizing. So if my final goal is to rank on page 1 for "blue widgets," currently I am picking up traffic for lesser phrases, such as "plastic blue widgets," or "disposable blue widgets," etc.

How did "The Site" get here? By building good links and building good content. Along the way, I exploded, at least for myself, the myth of the Google sandbox. "The Site" was ranking for some decent key phrases within its first month.

What is good content? It's content that is worth linking to. I know, it sounds circular -- but the fact is, unless you are very lucky, most of us will need to produce good stuff if we want to get it found on the internet. That's what good link bait is all about. That's why people who do good link baiting can charge such exorbitant rates for it. It's nothing more than good, old-fashioned P.R., dressed up in a new suit of technologically-savvy threads. You create good content, you publicize it, you get good links, you keep on doing it, yada, yada, yada. It's not rocket science.

That's what's funny about online marketing (or search marketing if you prefer). Most people seem to think it is rocket science, and that there is some secret formula, which if you could only tap into it... but, for most of us, that's not how it is. It's just plain old hard work, common sense, and a dash of creativity.

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Rent-A-Blogger Comes To Search Marketing

2006-11-14T10:56:00.000-05:00

Need a review of your website? Rent a blogger!

Product placement for the masses has finally arrived on the internet. The big players on the internet have been buying hosted pages, social networking "events," and other product placement tricks for a while, but finally the rest of us can buy into this particular corner of the American Dream.

Search marketing through blogs

Here's how it works -- you pay a blogger to write about you, and they give you a (usually) good review, plus that all-important link back to your site. Cool, huh? But does it work well?

Two places to buy your product placement on a blog

Two new sites have sprung up recently that offer blog placements. I tried both recently, and like many new enterprises, both left me feeling like they should have worked out some more kinks before launching.

Pay per Post describes itself as "an automated system that allows you to promote your web site, product, service, or company through the PayPerPost network of bloggers." Automated is right. I signed up with these guys to get 3 blog reviews for a website I work on, and ran into tons of aggravation with the interface, the system, and the total lack of response to my emails that I sent them. As in -- emails unanswered. The interface is about as intuitive as Yahoo! Search Marketing, which means it's totally counterintuitive. After scrambling around with it for a while, I finally figured out (sort of) what was going on.

Turns out my three blog posts had actually been written, and published. And as a matter of fact, they weren't that bad. It's just that after I signed up and paid my money, I was floating in space without an umbilical cord, as far as Pay Per Post was concerned. Note to Pay per Post -- I don't want a forum to solve these issues. I don't have time. I want clear instructions, and fast answers.

Review Me, which launched in a very noisy fashion about a week ago, also offers bloggers for hire. So I signed up for a site review ($60 level, which I thought would get me something pretty good). Waited a few days. Then guess what? The requested blogger emailed me and said that he was too busy to blog right now, but would I like to contact him after the New Year? He shared his upcoming travel plans with me (four trips between now and the end of the year), and I certainly can see why he'd be pressed for time to do some hack blogging. But guys -- it's not exactly what I want to hear when I've spent my time at your website, signing up for a bit of paid p.r. This is business, and I was annoyed.

The truth-in-blogging issue

Review Me comes across as much more "white hat SEO" than Pay per Post. But are they? They fired a shot at Pay per Post for not letting blog readers know that they were reading a product placement, and bragged that their bloggers would clearly disclose to the reader that they are hacks for hire.

Pay per Post, by contrast, merely encourages their bloggers to show they are shills. How? Through the newly-launched DisclosurePolicy.org, from Pay per Post. In a gem of business school double-speak, Pay per Post announced on October 31 the launch of DisclosurePolicy.org. What does it add up to? They will pay their bloggers $10 to put a link on their blogs leading to the Disclosure Policy, which will, in the fine print, tell the reader: "I'm a hack for hire". What makes me laugh is that Pay per Post makes such an effort to come across as the good guys, claiming that transparency in blogging is something they really, really care about.

But bottom line? Who cares? The media, from movies, to news, to the books we give our kids, are one big fat product placement. No one cares anymore. It's one big, happy commercial pigs' trough. So I say -- forget the "transparency" issue guys. Stop trying to be more "white hat" than the next guy. Focus instead on providing great service, because you are in business to serve other businesses. Get that part right, and you'll do well. Get it wrong, and you can be as transparent as you like, all the way to the bankruptcy court.

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List Local Business Launches

2006-11-06T10:38:00.000-05:00

Free Listings For Local Businesses In Vertical Directories

Looking for a quick, easy link for your local business? Try List Local Business, a new network of stand-alone business directories organized into local markets. Almost sixty business categories are presently included in the network, with more in the pipeline.

Bricks And Mortar Presence Is Not Essential

The only requirement for inclusion in a List Local Business directory, besides the need for your business to fit one of the categories, is that the business be local in nature. It is not mandatory that the business have a bricks and mortar office or storefront, but it is necessary that it be local in scope and service area. Your free listing can include name, contact info, link to your website, and description.

Wide Range Of Business Categories Available

The directories include a wide range of businesses, covering niches like plastic surgeons, automotive repair, furniture stores, schools, limousine services, landscaping companies, chiropractors, moving companies, dentists, and so forth. You can find the full list of nearly sixty categories at List Local Business, which is the gateway site to the network.

Search Marketing Benefits of a Listing

For a qualified business, this is a very good deal. There are several benefits to such a listing, including the local advertising it provides, and the direct link back to the business website, which assists in search engine ranking for the site. The fact that the listing appears in a vertical directory, rather than a generalized directory, means that the backlink to the business website is surrounded by similar (in scope) text and links, making it a postive neighborhood for the link to appear in. These are all important considerations for how the link ultimately appears to the search engines.

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Finally, A Big Link Comes Through

2006-10-27T17:04:00.000-05:00

Diary of an SEO Campaign

The continuing saga of a site known only as The Site, launched on 8-1-06, as it tries to reach the top 3 slots of Google for its key search term.

Day 87

The Site got a big emotional boost today (well at least I did) when I noticed a huge leap in daily traffic. A quick search of the referrals in the analytics program showed a brand new link from About.com

As you can imagine, it has me dancing in the aisles, so to speak. A link from an authoritative, on-topic site with a page rank of 7, deep-linked into The Site, and a complimentary sentence accompanying the link. And why did I get this? Because I wrote an article with a couple of original thoughts in it. I took a set of data that is already widely-known, and came up with a new way of looking at something.

This was very gratifying to me because I feel very strongly that creating quality content is the only real way to succeed longterm on the Internet. Quality can mean a lot of things -- it can mean quality in how you build and maintain your site, it can mean quality in the goods or services you sell, or it can mean quality in the originality and uniqueness of content that you create -- but it all comes down to quality. I think that in the future, on the web, quality is increasingly going to be the only route for the vast majority of websites to rise above the noise and have an impact in their own neighborhoods.

So, three days short of day 90, The Site gets a big old kiss from About.com and some smaller, but significant links are also starting to show up. Again, largely based on the same article I wrote around the beginning of October. The Site is getting traffic from the long tail, but the key search term that I am seeking results for is still not yet ranked in the top 100 of Google. When it breaks the 100 mark, I'll let you know.

In case you're wondering why I'm keeping this diary -- I hope that when The Site finally reaches its goal -- whether in six months or six years -- this diary will be a blueprint that I, and others interested in search marketing, will be able to look back on, and say aha -- this is how the site got to the top. It will be provide a detailed log of a successful search engine optimization campaign. I'm convinced I can reach the goal, and I hope you come along for the ride.

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Time To Revisit The Internet Marketing Scams Issue?

2006-10-26T07:24:00.000-05:00

Back in January of this year, I wrote a post about Internet Marketing Scams. Recently, in my traffic analytics (daily must-reading if you are serious about search engine marketing) I've noticed that once or twice a day someone finds my blog using that term -- internet marketing scam, or online marketing scam, something like that.

It makes me wonder -- is there a growing fear of such sleazy behavior? What's going on? I know that Aaron Wall of SEO Book won a lawsuit recently after he was sued by a company whom he had criticized in his blog for shady tactics. (I hope my small cash contribution to Aarons' cause helped a bit with the costs). But beyond that, I have not seen a particular rise in the flood of scamsters filling my in-box with "get ranked on top of Google now" schemes. Or am I just tuning them out?

I have noticed a proliferation of websites, webmasters, online marketers, and so on, using the hard sell sales technique -- you know the kind of thing: the page that scrolls on and on, the large fonts to EMPHASIZE REALLY IMPORTANT POINTS, the urgent, "time-is-ticking" tone, the appeal to "act now" or forever lose this fantastic offer which will make me become THE ONE to succeed in whatever online business I am engaged in. I tune most of them out, unless they are really, really, REALLY well done (and 95% of them are NOT). But are they scams? Most of them don't really add up to "scams" as such -- just snake oil tactics and advertising hype for mundane, cheesy products that are the equivalent of buying your online marketing gear at the Five and Dime. (That's the first time I've ever used Five and Dime in a post. Kinda cool).

But what is a REAL internet marketing scam? (Hey, this hype stuff is KINDA FUN). If you've had a bad experience with one, drop a comment. If you're running one, definitely drop a comment and tell us all about it. It doesn't have to relate to the search marketing or search engine optimization field -- we take anything here! (Well, almost anything).

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Search Marketing Tips

2006-10-25T08:23:00.000-05:00

Competitive Analysis and SEO

Do you spy on the competition? You should. I was spying on the competition for a site that I own, and I found that they are getting tons of links due to being recommended by elementary school librarians.

I don't think they are getting recommended because they are the "best." They are recommended because they are on top of the librarians' minds. Finding out this information sparked an idea -- I can try a campaign to reach school librarians and offer them an alternative site to recommend -- mine.

This is just one example of how crucial a role competitive spying plays in your search marketing campaign. Far and away the best resource I know of to spy on the competition is Google Alerts.
Note: Google Alerts is not part of Google, although Google has endorsed them. It costs about $19.95 and up to use Google Alerts, depending on your volume. It's money well-spent.

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Using Free Articles For Search Engine Marketing

2006-10-24T13:25:00.000-05:00

Search Engine Marketing News

I like to pass along useful search marketing news as I find it. This morning I read a very useful checklist about launching a new blog. Worth a visit, even though something seemed to be wrong with the page layout when I visited, and I had to scroll way down to find the article.

Using Free Content On Websites

One method often recommended by a search engine marketing firm to add content to a website is to use articles from one of the many article distribution websites that are out there. The idea sounds good -- go to these free distribution sites and grab the article you need. All you, as web publisher, need to do is to keep the article unchanged and make sure to include the "author bio" or "author resource" box that is included with every article.

Usually a search engine marketing company is working the other side of this tactic: i.e. they are creating the articles for the linkback. But in this post, I want to focus on an issue that the publisher of the articles needs to watch out for.

A search engine marketing consultant I know gave me a tip, which was to pay attention to the link that is included in the author resource box or bio. Where does that link go to? When I look at a free reprint article for use on a website, the first thing I look at is not the article itself. The first thing I look at is the link back to the author's website. Many times, you will find that it leads to a website built only for Adsense. This is not good.

Google evaluates a website, among many other things, by the sites that it links to. And if your site is linking to too many sites that are built for Adsense, what does that say about your site? It
says you hang out in a sleazy neighborhood, that's what.

I don't think there is anything wrong with using free reprint articles in small doses. It can have a useful place on some types of sites. But remember, the person who wrote the article (or their
search engine marketing service) had an agenda as well. The agenda is to get links to their site. So check out that site carefully, because you only want to hang out with the best, even if you are
getting something for free.

Two sites I have found recently that deliver a high proportion of quality sites "behind the authors" are Search Warp and Idea Marketers. Worth a visit if you plan on using these types of articles.

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Search Engine Marketing Is Slow Work

2006-10-20T14:19:00.000-05:00

Diary of an SEO Campaign

The continuing saga of a site known only as The Site, launched on 8-1-06, as it tries to reach the top 3 slots of Google for its key search term.

Day 80

I remember Jules Verne's classic 80 Days Around The World and I ask myself, if Phileas Fogg could circle the globe in 80 days, how come I can't get The Site to page one of Google for my selected key phrase? The only answer is that search marketing is a heck of a lot harder than travelling around the world was back in the late 19th century, and that's a sobering thought!

But seriously folks, you probably want to know how the SEO campaign is going, as I strive to boost The Site from its lowly launch level to the stratosphere of the Search World. Well, I'm not quite ready to hire a search engine marketing company just yet (or an internet marketing search engine specialist, as I saw someone refer to himself recently). But if I can't make The Site move up from where it's ranking currently, in the next month or two, I may need to seek out a little professional search engine marketing. (No emails please, at least not just yet).

To bring you up to speed, I did what I thought was a significant story a couple of weeks ago, and put it out to a bunch of article distribution sites, as well as a handpicked list of top media. It did not fare anywhere near as well as I hoped when I planned this little search engine marketing strategy. (aka Link Bait). It did get published in a couple of places, with a couple of good link backs, but just not as well as hoped, especially given the effort I put into it. (Search engine marketing tip #1 - this SEO business is not for those of you who can't stand rejection, or for those of you looking for a quick buck).

Anyway -- onward and upward. The task now is to create another article, for which I already have a good idea, and write that one up and put it out there. I am done with submitting to directories. (Not for all time -- just for this site. Directory submissions have their place). I continue to add good content, and I think what is also needed is another round of asking for links, which is a core element of any good search engine marketing.

My own method of asking for links has evolved somewhat over the years. I used to go the route of reciprocal linking, where I would select my target link partner, add their link to my website first, and then ask them to reciprocate. Given how much reciprocal linking has probably been devalued in recent times, I no longer do this. I strive whenever possible to get quality, one-way, in-bound links.

How do I obtain what is essentially free search engine marketing? One way is I simply dig methodically through the backlinks of the competition, find who is linking to them, and I ask for a link. Most times I don't hear back, but occasionally I do get a free link, and I consider it well worthwhile. I feel that one good one-way link has to be worth about ten reciprocal ones, so it's worth the effort. And sometimes, the other website initiates a reciprocal linking with me, which I can then decide to accept or not. There are many other ways to get one-way links of course -- I am not trying to be exhaustive here.

Well, so much for my gameplan for the coming week or so. I will also continue to write the blog on The Site (I am a huge believer in the power of blogging as a component of online search engine marketing). Unfortunately, the blog on The Site it is not on a topic that really lends itself to fresh, daily blogging. Not everything does. I'll be sure to continue recording all my steps in this process. Who knows, maybe I can use the blog posts to start a search engine marketing newsletter.

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Did The Link Bait Work?

2006-10-13T08:13:00.000-05:00

Diary of an SEO Campaign

The continuing saga of a site known only as The Site, launched on 8-1-06, as it tries to reach the top 3 slots of Google for its key search term.

Day 73

Definitely too early to tell if the link bait for The Site that went out about a week ago worked or not. I got a nice link from a major California newspaper, a link from a blog with decent Page Rank, and a "maybe" from the editor of the relevant niche at About. com Those editors at About certainly wield a lot of power!

I'm disappointed with the slow pickup on the article distribution sites. Most disconcerting, I seem to have an administrative problem with the site I chose to handle bulk article submissions - ArticleMarketer.com. As I said, I'll keep you posted on results from this company, because I paid them $39.95 for quarterly distribution services. Although I'm on this upgraded service, my login account at Article Marketer does not show my correct level, and my article has not even been distributed yet. OK, I can see an adminstrative screwup -- not a problem. The problem I have with them is that I have emailed them twice, the first time nearly a week ago, about this problem, and so far I have had no response. Hardly the kind of customer service to inspire confidence! And what is really annoying is that it says right on their site that they usually respond within one business day. Like I said, I'll keep an eye on this one for any of you out there considering using a bulk article distribution service.

To give credit where it's due, I also used the service of IdeaMarketers.com, where I placed an article for free publication. While my story hasn't gotten published anywhere yet through IdeaMarketers, their customer service was fantastic. I got a response to my question within a half hour, and got the help I needed. That kind of service is worth noting. Check them out.

The DMOZ problem -- still haven't gotten The Site listed on DMOZ. Wrote a really nice appeal to the category editor a few days ago, but I haven't heard back. Any DMOZ horror stories you care to share?

Finally -- here is a trend that is starting to take off: a service where advertisers pay bloggers a fee to write about their product or service. A new one is coming from a very reputable source: the people behind The Link Building Blog. The nice thing here is that the payment is not hidden -- the blogger is upfront with their readers that it's a paid review.

I'll keep you posted.

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Where Have All the Links Gone?

2006-10-09T07:05:00.000-05:00

Diary of an SEO Campaign

Day 69

Well, I got the big story out there last week -- the big "link bait" of the month story that theoretically should bring lots of quality links back to The Site. Did it?

Well, it's early days yet. The first phase of the release, to my custom list of editors and writers at major publications, fell flatter than a pancake. Not a peep from any of them. Then I released it to PRWeb, and that did drive some decent traffic to the site for a couple of days. (We're talking 250 a day versus my usual 125-150). More importantly, the story did get picked up by a major metro newspaper in California, and -- miracle of miracles! -- gave a link back to the site! So chalk up 1 very promising link on the scoreboard for this phase.

Getting it out to the article distribution sites is always slow, and at most of them the story is still waiting to be reviewed and distributed. One site I came across distributes the story to a whole bunch of places, and it talk a very good game -- that is ArticleMarketer.com I'm going to keep a real close eye on results from Article Marketer, who I paid $39.95 for three months unlimited distribution services. Their credentials seemed ok, although their testimonials were not from the most impressive bunch of sites in the neighborhood. Their website tends a bit to the hard sell, which always makes me leery, but I did a bit of research and they seem credible. I'll keep you posted on whether their distribution gives me anything over the coming weeks.

Back to the grindstone. Stay tuned.

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A Big Day For Links

2006-10-04T06:08:00.000-05:00

Diary of an SEO Campaign

Day 64

It's a big day for promotion of The Site, whose story I am chronicling in this diary of an SEO campaign. Day 64. Yesterday, about 80 visitors found the site via search terms, and about 125 visited in all.

We've been adding quality content (interviews, original information) every other week or so, and it does seem like we are starting to catch some traffic via the very long tail. Didn't someone write a book recently about the long tail?

In the end, it seems that getting into the Google Trustbox for top keywords is all about the quality of your site. So we keep on building. Today is a big day. We've sent out a release about some more original work that we have added to The Site. Now I sit here and see if some links come.

I'll let you know.

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So Maybe There Is A Sandbox...

2006-09-29T07:37:00.000-05:00

Diary of an SEO Campaign

Day 59.

I've been wondering in these posts in the last few days if there even is such as thing as a Google sandbox. The Site which is the subject of this diary, now in day 59, has moved up and down in Google, depending on the keyword. Mostly down though. And suddenly, for the main keyword I am targetting, it has disappeared entirely. Sandbox? Shoebox? End of the line?

Then I came upon what is for me the best explanation I have come across as to what the sandbox is and whether it exists. The post is by Andy Hagans, strategist at Text Link Ads, Inc. I trust he won't mind my quoting liberally from his post since I'm giving it a rave:

"What is the sandbox? Does it really exist?
I almost didn't include this little section, because the "Does the sandbox exist?" debate has become as annoying as the "white hat vs. black hat" one. But just to be absolutely clear, the sandbox does exist. No, it's not just a straight aging delay, as originally thought; and no, you don't have to call it "the sandbox" if you don't want to. (In fact, I kind of prefer the term "Trustbox".) But speaking as an organic-only guy who has launched a site every other week for the past two years (really), I can tell you that "this sandbox/Trustbox thingy" appears again and again independent of niche, type of site, number of pages, etc.
As for what it is: The sandbox/Trustbox is a set of filters in Google's search algorithm that together prevent new sites from ranking well until they gain trust." (Emphasis in original).

If you want to find out about the sandbox, and get some great tips on what good SEO is all about, I suggest you go read this post. You will learn a lot about Google filters, indexing, link building, and so forth. And sure, you'll learn some nifty tricks, like how to utilize Squidoo and Wikipedia for SEO. But most of all, you'll relearn (hopefully) that the best kind of SEO is based on building good, unique content, and learning to promote it.

Meanwhile, the odyssey of The Site continues. Looking for trust in all the right places.

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online promotion, search engine optimization, website promotion, search marketing, Google sandbox

To Buy Or Not To Buy? That Is The Question.

2006-09-26T16:49:00.000-05:00

Diary of an SEO Campaign

Day 56.

Links, of course. To buy, or not to buy. Links, the currency of the SEO marketplace. Links, the coin of the internet realm. To buy them, or not to buy them?

As usual, when a site is apparently stalled in the search engine rankings, as The Site is right now, I always return to this existential question: to buy or not to buy?

At least I always have. After reading a Washington Post.com story about "Google Juice" (aka links), by Technology Columnist Leslie Walker, I may be several steps closer to keeping my cash in my pocket.

You may want to go read it. Just to give the highlights -- Walker interviews several experts, who point out that paid links ain't what they used to be. In fact, one search consultant whom Walker interviewed even stated that Google can now spot paid links, and devalue accordingly.

If things are that bad, I don't think I'll buy any more! They don't seem to be doing me much good anyway. So why would people in the SEO community continue to buy links, if their value is so questionable? That's because SEO is one of the few occupations where the rules of the game are completely hidden. Kinda weird when you think about it. And when SEO practicioners can't figure out what else might help, they buy links.

As the saying goes: hope springs eternal.

Technorati Tags: online marketing, SEO, links, link building
online promotion, search engine optimization, website promotion, search marketing

Sandboxed by Google?

2006-09-25T07:41:00.000-05:00

Diary of an SEO Campaign

Day 55.

It's a bad morning. The Big Story, the one that was going to jumpstart all those great in-bound links to The Site, has been delayed, for reasons unrelated to SEO, for at least a week. My p.c. suffered a brief power surge, and some really important emails sitting open in my in-box got fried for ever. And that's the good news. The bad news is that The Site more or less vaporized as far as Google Serps are concerned -- its tenuous grasp on a lowly ranking was prised away over the weekend, and it slid to oblivion for all but the most arcane search terms.

Hit the panic button. What could it be? Did I purchase too many site-wide text link ads? Did I wander into a bad neighborhood by mistake, and get mugged by blackhat spammers? Did I get sandboxed?

In my experience, it's impossible to know. I don't really believe that sandboxing exists. I did read a blog post over the weekend, that tried to prove (along with nifty charts and statistics) that sandboxing does exist, especially for competitive keywords. I was getting all excited reading these charts, until I realized that the blog in question has zero page rank and absolutely no backlinks! And I mean none. And I'm sitting here reading what the writer is saying about SEO and sandboxing? Yikes! I'm panicking again...

In the recesses of my memory, I do recall a phenomenon (or did I dream it) that new sites appear in the Serps for a while, then vanish inexplicably, only to reappear some time later, better-ranked than ever. Let it be so!

More tomorrow, and the next day...

Technorati Tags: online marketing, SEO, links, link building
online promotion, search engine optimization, website promotion, search marketing

Waiting For Something To Happen

2006-09-22T19:49:00.000-05:00

Diary of an SEO Campaign

Day 52.

Not a whole lot to get excited about today. It's Friday, people are tired, ready for the weekend. The Site has achieved nothing new in the rankings. I hate it when the week winds up this way. I much prefer to end the week on an SEO high, like moving up a few notches, or getting a great new one-way link. Ever notice how much patience this game takes?

Come to think of it, us SEO practicioners (and if you're still reading this diary, you must be one) are an incredibly patient bunch. Either that, or extremely masochistic. We do an incredible amount of work, day after day, with no assurance that any of it will pan out. Worse yet, the rules of the game are deliberately hidden by the great judges (the search engines). And just when you think you've got something figured out, they change the rules again. Maybe. Or maybe you didn't really know them the first time. Or not. It's enough to drive a person crazy. Which is why there's not much left in the old gas tank by the time Friday night rolls around.

On the news front -- the "Big Story" is ready for early release on Monday, to a select group of journalists. This is the one that is supposed to jumpstart the waves of media attention that will soon be washing over The Site. Everything done by the book: great, original content for the site; turned into a story; give to journalists first; release to PRWeb 48 hours later. Offer customized content to major media who pick up the story.

Frankly, I don't see how it can miss. I can almost smell all those new links, cookin' away. So now I feel confident again. On top of the world. That's SEO for you. One minute you're down, the next minute you're up. See ya next week.

Technorati Tags: online marketing, SEO, links, link building
online promotion, search engine optimization, website promotion, search marketing

How Do You Pronounce Del.icio.us?

2006-09-21T19:23:00.000-05:00

Diary of an SEO campaign.

Day 51.

I don't know how del.icio.us got to be a top 1000 website. Their domain name alone should have ruled them out completely. Let me explain: www.Google.com - easy. www.Yahoo.com - easy. http://del.icio.us -- not easy. Where's the www? How can they get away without one? And can you honestly say that you figured out where all the dots go the first few times you saw it? I've seen the name dozens of times, and every time I write it I have to stop and figure out whether it starts with del or deli.

Be that as it may, del etc is here to stay, so you might as well get used to it. I went to their website (again) to try to figure it out. What I figured out was, grab that little del etc button (or chicklet as it's known in some circles) and plaster it on every webpage or blog you own. And then just sit back and watch the bucks roll in.

If all that sounds a little trite, it is. It's been a long day. Of course, the bucks don't just roll in just because you put little del etc buttons everywhere. People have to:

a/Know what the hell the button is when they stumble across it on your site
b/Like your site enough to actually click on the button
c/ Have an account when they arrive at del etc, or have so much time on their hands they will create one, just so they can vote for your site.

So what's a good SEO drone to do? As always, follow the latest suggestion and hope for the best. So I did. I plastered that little sucker on every page and blog I could. And deep down, I knew that this time, it was going to work. I'm going to see a real bump in my rankings from this trick.

In the interests of field testing, feel free to move your mouse to the top of this page and click on that blue thingy.

By the way, I have it on good authority that it's pronounced just like the word delicious. That's dee-lish-us. Aren't you glad you finally found out for sure?

P.S. Nothing good happened to The Site today. Traffic was down a bit, and even the lowly bottom of the barrel keywords that it was showing up for have slipped. Meanwhile, in order to generate some amazing links, a Big Story is in the works -- one that will be sent to a select group of journalists next week, to see if they'd like to run with the story (complete with linkbacks to The Site) before it runs on PRWeb. Came up with that little trick all by myself. Feeling on top of the world again, just thinking about it. SEO is all about getting up off the floor, to fight again another day.

Technorati Tags: online marketing, SEO, links, link building
online promotion, search engine optimization, website promotion, search marketing, del.icio.us

The Road So Far

2006-09-20T15:01:00.000-05:00

Diary Of An SEO Campaign.

Day 50.

I'll bring you up to speed on what's been done, and you'll be able to follow my trek through SEOLand.

What I'm reporting here is my day-to-day struggle to promote a site that I launched very recently. It's simply called The Site. Its niche can be described as "Family." It is an advertising-driven site, meaning the only thing it sells is space on the site. It's an informational site.

What am I trying to achieve? Basically, it has to rank for the top key phrase in Google. By "rank," I mean hit the top 3. This is because it's one of those sites where the top phrase is the real money maker, and the so-called tail is so far behind it's barely connected to the head at all. There is a tail, of course, but when you are advertising-driven, you really need to drive traffic in big numbers, relative to your niche. Current goal: 10,000 visitors a day.

So far, I have:

- Built a high-quality, content-rich site
- Added a blog which I update frequently
- Optimized the site for keywords, in a user-friendly way
- Bought my way into some pricey directories, including Yahoo!
- Checked the backlinks of the competition, and started hustling for links from the same sources
- Submitted a couple of good, original articles to the best of The Article Submission Sites
- Added a useful forum
- Submitted to DMOZ
- Purchased a few well-chosen links from Text-Link-Ads
- Set up an alert tracker to monitor everything that moves, for me and the competiton
- Tried to sweet-talk a few authority sites into giving me a link
- Joined some relevant forums and left some thought-provoking comments
- Registered blog with a syndicating service
- Improved my content

I'm sure I've done a few other clever things, and that they will be disclosed as the days progress.

Success so far:

- A couple of really long-tail terms are showing up in the search engines, more so in MSN than anywhere, but even one or two in Google. In Google, I'm talking one term on page 2, and one on page 9. Adsense rewards generally still under $1 a day. Memo to self -- it's a long way to go.

- Getting about 100 visitors a day now -- sometimes a few more if we get a bump from my related "feeder-blog." The feeder-blog, set up a few months earlier, is actually getting about twice as much traffic as the site it's supposed to feed. Maybe I'm focusing on the wrong site!

- About a dozen registered users in the forum. I feel like I know them all personally. I'll have to add them to my Christmas card list.

Hanging in the balance: DMOZ. Submitted about a month ago, but despite (finally) an update by DMOZ, I'm still not listed. Sweating bullets. What if I don't get into DMOZ? Doomed, doomed!

Current effort underway: focused on preparing a major story that I think has some news, and on building a small, custom list of handpicked journalists to pitch it to. Just like it says in Aaron and Andy's 101 Ways To Build Link Popularity In 2006. Should be ready to send out the pitch in a day or so.

That's pretty much it so far. Still have to go back to MySpace after registering a few weeks ago. Need to let people know that I have a site they should see. If I can believe what I read in the press, I should be able to get about half a million "friends" over to see my site, just in the first 24 hours.

Tomorrow, I'll report back on whether I've been able to figure out that del.icio.us thing, and how to use it to my advantage. First I have to figure out how to pronounce it the same way twice.

Suggestions gladly accepted.

Technorati Tags: online marketing, SEO, links, link building
online promotion, search engine optimization, website promotion, search marketing

The DMOZ Torture

2006-09-19T09:06:00.000-05:00

Diary of an SEO Campaign.

DAY 49.

Everyone knows that DMOZ is the single most influential factor in the Google algorithm. It works like this: if your site is listed in DMOZ (aka The Open Directory) you stand a chance of ranking well in Google some day. If you're not listed in DMOZ, you're toast. Your site will never rank better than page 67 for your top keywords. That's why I call the process of getting listed in DMOZ the DMOZ Torture.

Every day, I check DMOZ about 4 times, to see if the listings have changed yet. So far, they haven't. I submitted my site about a month ago, and each day when I check, I see a little note at the bottom of the results page on DMOZ that says: "Search database last updated on: Fri Aug 11 18:21:12 EDT 2006." I'm so glad they gave me the exact second that they updated it. That makes all the difference while I'm waiting to see if my site gets the DMOZ seal of approval. I would have been really sweating it if they had last updated at say 18:21:06, instead of 18:21:12. It's the attention to these little details that makes DMOZ the great service it is.

I can almost hear the neophytes among you say "why don't you contact DMOZ to see what's up?" If only. You see, even though DMOZ calls itself the "Open" directory, it should actually be called the "Closed" directory. As in "North Korea is the world's most closed society." No it isn't. It's a distant second. DMOZ is the world's most closed society.

No-one knows what goes on at DMOZ. You can email them, but you'll never hear back. They are concealed behind a veil of secrecy thicker than the walls at Fort Knox. There is no charge to submit to DMOZ, but that's not the point. The point is that they wield far too much secretive power. Why? Because Google gives a lot of weight to whether or not a site is listed in DMOZ. I have submitted a number of perfectly acceptable sites that never got listed, with no reasons given. So now, as I embark on the SEO campaign for the most important site I have ever launched, I wait. I watch. I check in. I experience the DMOZ torture.

Tomorrow I'll give you a round up of the campaign so far. What I've done, what has been achieved, and where the site is in the Google rankings.

Technorati Tags: online marketing, SEO, links, link building
online promotion, search engine optimization, website promotion, search marketing

Diary Of An SEO Campaign

2006-09-18T20:25:00.000-05:00

Introducing the diary of an SEO Campaign.

Day 48.

(Yes, the story begins here, on Day 48).

Probably like many in the Search Engine Marketing field, I have been looking for a long time for something new to write about, something distinctive, something that can stand apart from the reams of verbiage that are created each day in the name of "advice."

I was feeling particularly discouraged after reading a depressing article by Mike Grehan. Mike Grehan is a very talented SEM expert. The only reason I found his article depressing is because he made the very fair point that "mom and pop" enterprises need more money than they usually have if they want to play the SEO game effectively.

That's when I hit on my bright idea. Rather than attempting to pass on my hard-earned SEO insights to my knowledge-hungry readers in the conventional way, I should take the reader by the hand (figuratively speaking) and, each day, lead him or her through the gritty odyssey of a real SEO campaign -- a campaign which surely fits the description that Mike paints of the "mom and pop" variety. By any measure, this campaign, which began only recently, is woefully underfunded. It is, in fact, more or less totally impoverished.

The website is my own, built by myself and my partner. It launched about 48 days ago, with high hopes and a low budget. I don't intend to disclose the exact site, or the niche, but over the coming months I will paint a full picture of the type of site it is and the neighborhood it operates in. Day by day, I will keep you, the reader, posted, about what I have been doing to promote the site, and how well I'm succeeding (if at all). We'll walk this journey together, and we'll find out what this SEO business is really all about, down here in the trenches where most small webmasters live.

Maybe Mike's point, that a small operation like this can't really hope to hit the bigtime, will be proven correct. Or, maybe, this site will be the exception to the rule. I have no way of knowing. One day at a time, we'll find out.

Tune in tomorrow for "DMOZ, the exquisite torture."

Technorati Tags: online marketing, SEO, links, link building
online promotion, search engine optimization, website promotion, search marketing

Link Bait or Link Worthy?

2006-09-14T09:57:00.000-05:00

I hate the term link bait. It implies something deceptive, as in "bait and switch." In many link-building situations, that may be true, but in many other cases, it is definitely untrue.

I prefer the term "link worthy." As in, if you want a website to link to yours, do something "link worthy." I don't think there's any need to practice deception or trickery. Just be creative.

I write a blog in the entertainment field, and recently ran a contest for readers. Doesn't matter much what it was about. The point is, it was simply a fun contest that people enjoyed. Hardly rocket science. I kept the momentum going, the story got picked up by a major media website, and bingo, I got a nice interview from a top 1000 website. Link bait? I don't think so. Link worthy? Sure. Many people beat their heads on a table trying to come up with some way to "trick" the system (ie the search engines). Don't bother. Put all that brain power to work by coming up with something really "link worthy."

For more ideas on getting worthwhile links to your site, try the LinkSpiel blog. For an in-depth discussion of how Google may be determining what websites to trust for ranking purposes, check out Who Does Google Trust Now?

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online promotion, search engine optimization, website promotion, search marketing

Aiming For A Well-Rounded SEO Campaign

2006-09-13T09:36:00.000-05:00

When it comes to website relevance and authority, it's important to remember that search engines are looking for natural growth. If your site suddenly adds 10,000 links overnight, that hardly looks natural. It looks like you bought a bunch of "run of site" text link ads. You may not be penalized, but you may not get much link popularity credit either.

Keep your search marketing campaigns looking natural. For a small business website, try dividing up your allocated SEO time each week into a variety of tasks. Do a little link hunting; add some worthwhile content to your site; follow a forum discussion and post to it; submit to one or two directories, work on an article for online publication. Chip away at it a piece at a time, keep it organized, and you won't get overwhelmed.

The idea is to do a little each week (or month) on all aspects of your search marketing campaign, and this will keep it looking natural.

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online promotion, search engine optimization, website promotion, search marketing