A few weeks ago I was interviewed by Dan Naumovich of the State Journal register in Springfield, IL.  The article was printed yesterday, in the paper, and it can also be viewed online at the above link. The topic of the article is different ways small business owners can use Twitter to market their business.

The main goal for my clients using Twitter is to show a human side of their business. I recommend NOT blasting out self promoting links in excess, but instead just introducing yourself, being social, and contributing meaningful information, humorous tweets, and a mixture of helpful links, conversation with followers, and [sparingly] alerting followers to any special sales promotions you might be running. This is a nice way to join the Twitter bandwagon without being one of the ‘bad guys’.

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Click the above link to see my profile…

This was started by an acquaintance I met on Facebook.  It is a community of social media experts. It is a young site, so it is still growing.  But if you have interest in seo or Social Media, it would be a good place to start your search for a qualified professional, or to join in discussions about web promotion.  It is a nice site because the aim is not for people to make sales pitches. But there are several qualified professionals on the site.

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Gumawa ka ng bagong site at ito sangap bigat,
Seda ng litrato, Sampalataya ka ito umakma,
Buksan mo ang site, para magdeposito
Pero hindi natin makita ang site sa Google kailan ka humagilap ,
Akala mo hangang rendido ka
Mayroon ka pamagat at ulo, pero hindi “pahina rank”
Mamaya ito litaw kung maghintay tayo,
Samantala siguraduing tama ang kodiga,
At ito tama, na ano ako magbalak?
Idagdag meta malay at “alt tags” rin
Pa Google hindi ilista mo? Taboy, na taboy!
Brad at Chuck payo gumawa kabit,
Simulan hagilap ng sites, hawig halibaw,
Kopyahin mo ang bawi-kabit ng lahat ng iyong kalaban
Sino man kabit sa kanila, kailangan ng kabit sa ako
Ito libre, tayo palit, hindi natin bayaran
Bago ka bayaran, tungkol sa site ka halughugin
Para kabit-magsasaka, at ng dumi daya
At baka kayo mahulog sa pagkamatay,
Magingat ka ng “linkbait” at baka ka masubsob sa gulo
Kanila site ugnay?
Bayaran mo para nasa mayroon
kung mo idagdag iyong salaysay kadalasan,
Puwede ka iyong lakad sa primera pahina ng Google

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seo is Search Engine Optimization.

You want to reach the number one spot on Google (and Yahoo and Live, but we’ll just say Google, because it’s easier). By using the correct keywords in all your alt tags, title tags, h tags, class names, image names, meta tags, etc. That is called on-site optimization.

Off-site seo

Off-site optimization consists of getting other quality sites to link to you. Each link must have relevant link text, and it helps if the site has a high PR (pagerank) and a small number of outbound links. Traditionally, people would hoard PR by getting tons of websites to link back to them, but by refusing to place links on their own site (they were afraid of what we call “pagerank bleed”. But anymore, I don’t believe pagerank bleed is something that anyone should concern themselves with. The use of “nofollow” on external links is becoming worthless, and after boiling everything down to its elements, the bottom line is to give out links to sites only if you think your human audience would find value on a given website.

You want to avoid buying backlinks.  The general consensus is, if you create quality content, you will get links naturally.  In the beginning of the Internet days, before Google, webmasters would put links of to pages that were of interest.  Then the search engines started using inbound links as popularity votes, and it became high school all over again.  Now we are out of college, and more mature, and the best way to go about things is to link to sites you personally like, because they are interesting and you have something in common, not because you are getting something out of it (in other words, don’t buy links, don’t join reciprocal link farms, and don’t sell links! Targeted advertising is one thing–but paying $100 to have your link displayed on 100,000 completely unrelated spammy sites will not do you any good!  Don’t do it!

What’s our mantra, class?

content is king.

Think of it this way. You build a site, and it starts with no PR. Then Google rolls out an update 3 months later and they saw that you have 15 quality sites linking to you, and your site has 50 really good articles, and a good mix of relevant inbound and outbound links. You might skip PR 0 and PR 1 and be blessed with a PR 2. Very few sites have a PR 10. Pagerank is not something to obsess over, more of a general guide to see how important Google thinks your site is. The theory is that a high PR page will get more traffic because it will be listed higher in the SERPs. (SEARCH ENGINE RESULT PAGES) but don’t waste energy worrying about PR when you could instead be writing an article or making a video!

White hat, Black hat…

That’s some Bad Hat, Harry!

There are tons of ways to increase your SERP position. But it is a very competitive field. That’s where black hat and white hat come in, they are terms that describe the ethics used by the seo experts. If you use tricks that are designed to fool the search engines, using spammy tactics, that is black hat. Quality honest seo consultants use white hat methods, like article submission, social bookmarking, and manual submission to quality directories like DMOZ.

I hope this hasn’t confused you too much. It just all kind of spilled out. If you are interested in the 30 Day Challenge, for your promoting your website, it’s a really awesome free course that covers all of this stuff and shows you how to make your first dollar online. My mom is doing it, which shows how accessible it is to beginners. Stop by our google group for Team Rockstar if ya want to join the discussion. My brother and I started it to help our friends and family who want to learn this stuff, and who are going to take part in this year’s 30 Day Challenge.

Oh it’s free too? Of course. Ed Dale’s cheesy slogan is “There’s no charge for awesomeness!”

Chris
Technorati Profile

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…his name is Eric Ward and he’s a Link Building Expert.

I don’t know the guy.  I promise. Although I did know an Eric Ward in St. Louis/O’fallon who used to throw wicked cool warehouse parties.

Anyway, what can we learn from Eric Ward?  First of all, he has been a professional link builder since 1993. He was arguably one of the first “Web promoters” in the world. He charges $500 per hour for coaching and training.  Up to $50,000 a year for complete publicity campaign for a new site.  I am getting nothing in return for linking to his site; he is not paying me.  He obviously doesn’t NEED me to link to him, I mean the guy is pretty famous. I just think you should take notice of him, because he is THE authority on link building.

I was reading this page and laughed when I got to the end.  He says:

“Is an etiologic approach to link building and content publicity effective? Yes, but don’t take my word for it, read below, then see for yourself.”

I clicked that link that says see for yourself. I am convinced now.

So, he knows his stuff. But you say you don’t have $50,000 to spend on promoting your new site?  Don’t worry.  We can still learn something from his site, without shelling out hundreds or thousands of dollars.

1. Make your content meritorius.
2. Make your linking strategy etiologic.
3. Focus on long-term results.
4. White hat.
5. Don’t waste time/effort on worthless links.

What do these mean?  I told you it would be fun, we are learning new words!  Meritorious content is content that has value.  Not fluff, not spam, not splogs, not script-generated (or any type of) nonsense.  Etiologic links are ones that are trustworthy, logical, and efficient. What is an example of a non-etiological link?  How about when you are on a forum and certain words are underlined, and when clicked lead to some sponsoring site.  I would not have a problem with this (Adbright allows any webmaster to add inline ads like this) , EXCEPT FOR THE FACT THAT 90% of the time these ad-links are irrelevant and UN-targeted.  A site about Dog Rescue ends up having inline ads for words like adopt, but the ads are not talking about adopting puppies!  Even worse is when your “Home” link in your navbar gets linked to a site about real estate.  These links are annoying and actually HURT you.

Let’s not confuse the issue by making this about inline ads, though; the point is, this is the WRONG way to give links, so it is also the wrong way to go about GETTING them. Link text should be relevant; the purpose for having a link there in the FIRST PLACE should be obvious.

When you write your content (or have it written for you), pick out something that is likely going to be considered USEFUL or IMPORTANT.  Ask yourself, who NEEDS to read this?  WHO DOES this HELP?  Choose that one sentence and figure out WHO would benefit from reading it.  Then figure out where that person hangs out online.  And go after THAT site for links.

Why are we doing it like this?  Because, signing up to be included in a zillion web directories will not ever get you any SUSTAINABLE traffic.  But if a friend of mine has a site about helping moms live beautifully, comfortably, and abundantly, then instead of adding her link to some crappy directory, an etiological linking strategy would make me choose instead to focus the effort on getting links back from places where her audience most likely hangs out:  Boudica.com or even EmpoweredAndFit.ning.com.

See how this starts to become fun?

We aren’t paying for links, we aren’t creating useless blogs with keyword-crammed SPUN articles, we aren’t employing any black hat techniques.

What we are doing is figuring out who needs to hear our message and then getting the most relevant, useful content that we have written for those people, into their field of view.  Whether that is a forum, a ning community, a popular blog, a news portal, bookmarking site, whatever… it depends on your content.  The fun part is that we will actually become involved with the people who we are targeting, by joining them where they go.  Instead of just shouting at people, “HEY! COME OVER HERE!  SEE WHAT I AM GOING TO SELL YOU AT MY PLACE!”

We will be better off saying, Hey, mind if I join you here for a bit?  I have something I would like to contribute, that you might like, and I would like to hang out with you here, on YOUR turf, thanks for having me as your guest.

But whatever your niche, it all starts with having QUALITY content that people will actually WANT to read.  Without that, you are just spinning your wheels.

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If you don’t understand the significance of this, think of it this way:

Say you have a site called Webovater, and you use it to blog about Kickass seo Resources.  And you want to know where it would turn up in the search results on Google, when you searched for that exact phrase.

In the past, you would have to go to Google, type it in, and manually search for your site in each page of the search results, until you FINALLY found it.  There were 10 results per page, so if you were result #1001 for a particular keyword, you would have to click through 100 pages before you found your site.

Who wants to do that?  Not me.  You can now save yourself time, by checking where you rank for MULTIPLE keywords, using this seo tool. What is even cooler is that you can export your results to a .csv file, which is basically a text file that can be opened in any spreadsheet app, like Excel.

So now, you can easily check your ranking on multiple keywords, fast, and save the results to track your changes.  If you notice your site is decreasing in rank, you can then start to make the necessary changes to fix it.

Hope this helps!

What other seo programs and tools are in your arsenal?  Leave a comment, and let us know why you like them/how they help.

Also: It just so happens that Webovater ranks #1 for kickass seo.  Yay.  Obscure?  Perhaps.  But still a small victory that causes me to smile.

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Page Strength seo Tool ”

Thanks to our friends at Geek Under Fire, I found this article back in 2007 but am just now getting around to thanking him for it

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Tags: kickass, seo, tools, resources, PR

Step Two: Bookmark, bookmark, bookmark. If you don’t already have accounts on Digg, Fark, Furl, del.icio.us, Propeller, Mixx, Yigg, Reddit, and every other bookmarking site in existence, get them.  It will be incredibly tedious setting them all up, but after that four or five hour trek is complete, and you autosave your passwords, and drag your bookmarklets to the browser toolbar, you will be on the fast lane to success. There are at least a couple hundred bookmarking sites to choose from these days; for a few of the popular ones, look to the bottom of this article.

A quick note about social bookmarking: it used to be a great tool for seo.  The importance of bookmarking in terms of backlink building has decreased a little bit over the past two years, but it is still a good practice to get into, because you will get traffic.  Even though you might not get tons of diggs, if you just get a few, and one person likes your stuff enough to link to it from HIS or HER site, then you will get a backlink indirectly from a living breathing human, who liked your content.  And when you have a chance to network with other living humans, it is a good thing.

Bookmark other people’s content, link to them, leave them comments and shouts, and they will remember you.

Step three: leave comments on blogs that relate to your content. Yes, you have heard this idea before, and it’s time consuming.  And you have heard that a lot of blogs insert the rel=”nofollow” into all links to keep from passing along any PR juice to your site.  But now, remember that you want to write content for humans. You want to network on social bookmarking sites with humans.  And you want to get traffic from humans.  So who cares if the link has “nofollow” attached to it?  Over the long haul you will find plenty of “dofollow” links.  Don’t discriminate, grab them all.

Still not convinced? Ok, well here is a trick to find other blogs that are HUNGRY for your comments, and DOFOLLOW.  Use the “Do Follow Diver” search box over at our friends’ site, and just type in your niche keywords.  It’s easy, it’s fun.  Why is it fun?  Because the blog owners you will find here actually respond, they are waiting for you, and they are happy to link back to your site.

Just be respectful and make sure your comments are relevant, not spammy.

If you bookmark one of YOUR blog articles and one of someone else’s each day, AND leave a comment with your link on ONE blog each day, your traffic will pick up.  Make it fun, and don’t do too much at once.  You will see results faster than you think.

Steps 4 and 5: Forums and Article Directories, coming in the next entry.

Time for me to make some pasta.  See you soon.

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