How to Build a Successful Blog or Website

Content Magnet

So you're thinking of making a profitable website? Well, I have some tips on how to do that.

#1. BUILD CONTENT

You need to be adding 80 or more new pages / posts per year. This is EXTREMELY important. Building new, high quality, unique content is the bread and butter of any website. The content has to be uniquely yours (not stolen from another source or found anywhere else), the writing should be quality and original, and you should update the site with new content regularly. I say a minimum of 80 pages per year if you want the site to be truly successful.

80 is the MINIMUM if you want to make the website a financial success. There is no maximum. If you can write hundreds of new posts per year then all the better. More power to you!

#2. PAGERANK 2 or BETTER

You want to reach a Google PageRank of 2 or better in the first 6 months. You will need to invest in a SEO campaign in order to do this, either by hiring someone else (eg. designSEO.ca) or you take a Do-It-Yourself approach. Either way it needs to be done.

Your long term goals should be get a PageRank of 3, 4 and eventually 5. But that will take years to accomplish.

#3. DOMAIN NAME

Your website should have its own domain name (as opposed to a free typepad, blogspot, or wordpress page). It will cost you approx. $10 to $20 for the domain name per year, but you will make that back easily in Google Adsense advertising if you actually write lots of blog posts for your website (see #1).

#4. MONETIZE YOUR WEBSITE

Many ways to do this. Have advertising on the side. Offer product reviews. Sell eBooks that you've written. Offer a service that is both desirable and profitable. Sell products you've made yourself.

#5. NICHE TOPIC or BROADER TOPIC

Depending on the topic of your website it might be a niche topic such as "archery lessons in Toronto" or it might be a broader topic like "Toronto real estate". Both are profitable. The archery lessons bring you cash from local Torontonians looking to learn how to shoot an arrow - whereas the real estate blog will bring in advertising revenue from real estate agents and brokers in Toronto and the GTA.

The real lesson here is that it pays to be LOCAL.

Unless of course your topic is more international, such as "art history", which means you are likely advertising to anyone who speaks a specific language and is interested in art history. It is a broad topic which you can build a lot of interest and gain advertising revenue - but it is also a HUGE topic. You might be better off to sticking to one branch of art history such as "DADA" or "Canadian art history", because otherwise you will end up with a website which is half finished and looks incomplete.

#6. PHOTOS AND VIDEOS

Make unique photographs and videos for your website. Make your own graphics. Logos, buttons, etc. An unique look and lots of unique content helps. Post the videos on YouTube and Facebook and get a lot more traffic.

#7. BUILD A SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE

Every time you post a new page mention it on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc.

#8. PROMOTE YOUR PROFESSIONAL IMAGE

That means business cards, business listings, official photographs, logos on your photos and videos - remember to keep things family friendly and avoid anything that could draw negative publicity. Maintain a positive reputation.

How to meet other Business People via Sports

Yes, you can meet other successful people by hanging out and playing golf. Golf is the standard when people think of business deals and sports.

However not everyone likes golf.

And some people from various fields prefer other activities.

So if you decide to take up a sport or activity with the hopes of meeting new people and handing them your business card here is some helpful suggestions.

#1. Get lessons. ie. If you take up archery (lots of IT people do archery) then you should get some archery lessons so you don't look helplessly inept since archery is a lot harder than it looks.

#2. Do not try to hand people your business card at the gym or yoga studio. Its actually kind of creepy and makes you look desperate. Choose a sport that has a more casual and talkative setting.

eg. Billiards and darts are good sports to talk during.

#3. Avoid team sports where you can only talk AFTER the game is over.

eg. Volleyball and gun marksmanship are too busy and noisy to talk during.

#4. You want a sport which allows you to carry your wallet in your pocket the entire time, that way you can pull it out and hand out your business cards easily.

eg. Swimming doesn't work because you can't carry business cards in your bikini or swimshorts.

#5. Always remember to have a good firm handshake (but not try to squeeze their hand like a jerk). A limp handshake makes you seem weak and ineffectual. Make a good impression.

Archery and Innovation in Business - Balance, Aim, Shoot and Run!

To some extent, business innovation does not differ much from archery.

Metaphorically you have your quiver with your arrows by way of ideas, you have your shooting skills in the vein of creative and innovative skills and you finally achieve more or less success depending on the number of arrows that hit the target, that is, the number of ideas that are implemented successfully.

However, when it’s business innovation we often overlook some things that turn out automatic when we do archery. Things that we take for granted and that we don’t catch when innovating. Being aware of these obvious issues is critical for the success and sustainability of an innovation system. Fortunately, fulfilling them is very easy, just do the following: aim, shoot… and run!

Balance

Before you can even aim at a target you need stable footing. In business we sometimes think of this as being location, location, location - but in archery balance also includes attention to details and the quality of your form. For business this means the quality of your business model, the attention to detail with respect to your clients, your products, your services - and paying attention to things that might effect your chances - like wind and rain.

Aim

What is the best way to hit the target? It is so obvious that often we don’t even see it… So make sure you have a target!

Most likely some of you are thinking “What nonsense, of course you must have a target!”. However, how many times do we get down to innovation without having a clear goal? And when I say clear I mean as concrete and specific as a bullseye. Think about doing archery, do you maybe shoot the arrows “over there”? Of course you don’t aim them at a nonspecific area but towards a specific bullseye, with its central circles. Moreover, it makes no sense talking about aiming if there is no target.

Of course, we can devote ourselves to shoot arrows in an intuitive way without pointing to anywhere in particular. Then, if we shoot a great amount of arrows, a few of them will maybe hit a profitable target (it depends on the circumstances of the company and the market). However, won’t we have many more chances to succeed if, from the first moment, we aim our arrows at the kind of goal that interests us?

Some people tend to think that innovation arrows are magical and find their own way. That’s not right. It is a question of volume of ideas or goals. The difference is in the percentage of success. What do you prefer?

You know your company, where the business opportunities are and which the keys to success are, so it can be said that this is your firing range. Set your specific targets there, perfectly quantified, and surprise yourself by checking how your success rate skyrockets.

Shoot

Second obvious issue: You have to shoot! It’s not enough to know how important innovation is, or to mobilize people at an exciting event at your company. It’s not even enough having a good handful of ideas (the quiver of arrows). You should do something to make arrows go all the way from the bow to the target. As surprising as it may seem, just at this moment when the quiver of innovation has been filled with a lot of ideas, is when most of the companies that begin with innovation get blocked.

Omitting this subject is terrible, it’s true, but there is an explanation: very often the company doesn’t know what to do with that heap of ideas; they don’t know the process. If we take the uncertainty because of ignoring the concrete steps to be followed and we add the uncertainty of innovation, what we get is a situation sufficiently uncomfortable and confusing as to paralyze people (and therefore the company). Do dissipate this uncertainty by designing a process with concrete steps, that allows people to know where they are and makes them feel that they have a reliable map to go into the innovation adventure.

Therefore, make sure to design an agile and clear innovation system. From the moment that the innovation goals are identified, through the generation of ideas, until developing them and putting some ideas into action. Avoid redundancies and unnecessary meetings, quickly detect the stagnation and eliminate or surround the obstacles so that every minute and dollar allocated to innovation is spent to add value.

Run!

Unlike archery, where each archer has its own target and archers typically stay stationary, on innovation there are usually several companies aiming at the same target, the window of opportunity. Accordingly, it is not enough to hit the target but to hit it soon in order to exploit that advantage ASAP. All the windows of opportunity get closed sooner rather than later, so being able to arrive quickly can mean the difference between coming across an open or closed window.

Arriving sooner also means having more time to take advantage of the opportunity and strengthen your position. On the other hand, a poor time-to-market usually means that all the effort of people, time and money spent on innovation has not been useful for anything.

Once you have chosen your targets, don’t waste time: aim, shoot and run! And when you hit the target, run again to identify other windows of opportunity and set new targets towards which the ideas of your company will be shot.

BadBoyReport.com sued for $40M because they stole content

LAS VEGAS - Operators of Cheaterville.com last month filed a $40 million copyright suit against new rival BadBoyReport.com, a social network site that is stole content / "scraped" data and photos from Cheaterville.com.

As a result BadBoyReport.com has been shutdown, pending a trial outcome, and any attempts to go to the website redirect to Google.com

The lawsuit, filed at U.S. District Court in Las Vegas by adult industry attorney Ronald Green of Randazza Legal Group, says that BadBoyReport stole a lot of its content by an automated process known as “scraping”, using an information collection bot to steal information from another website and then repost that information on another website without permission.

Cheaterville’s website has operated for two years by allowing users to create accounts with the service, and then create profiles for known “cheaters” - those people who have been involved with violating the fidelity of an exclusive relationship by cheating on their partner - with user-generated  written, picture and video content.

BadBoyReport, according to online archive records, has only been on the web for several months and includes categories for cheaters, criminals and escort bad boys - and stole a lot of its information from its rival website in order to get a lot more content in an hurry.

From a SEO perspective this is a thing NOT TO DO. Stealing content is bad for your SEO, and as it turns out, it is also bad for your legal reputation because you can be sued for millions.

Cheaterville notes in its lawsuit that BadBoyReport, based in South Korea, also owns and operates Slander911, a service that will remove posts if it is paid $499 through a U.S. PayPal account. Basically its a dubious way of blackmailing people who have their information posted on BadBoyReport.

Even posts that have been adjudicated as false or defamatory remain up unless the target pays up, the suit said. So even if you try to sue BadBoyReport, their false claims stay up unless you pay them. And even if you do pay them, more false claims can reappear months later.

"The increased traffic BadBoyReport realizes from displaying its unlawfully obtained content from Cheaterville and using its trademarks in commerce without authorization leads to an increased number of removal fees, costing customers of Slander911 at least $499, and donations third parties make to BadBoyReport through PayPal, as compared to the donations BadBoyReport would received without using Cheaterville’s intellectual property," the suit said.

Cheaterville.com, operated by parent company ViaView Inc., has asked for statutory damages of $25,000 per copyright violation for a total of $40 million, plus unspecified punitive damages and attorneys fees. It also has asked the court to place a registry lock on BadBoyReport to freeze all PayPal assets pending the outcome of the case.

Operators of BadBoyReport have not responded to the lawsuit, but their website will remain shut down indefinitely if they fail to show up at court. (They are overseas after all, so they don't have to show up.)

Chances are more likely that the owners of BadBoyReport will just design and build a new website - and this time try to do the same thing, but without using content stolen from other websites.

6 Tips for getting Startup Funds

By Charles Moffat - February 2010.

There are lots of creative people out there who come up with great ideas for a business or a product. I know I come up with several ideas every week, but the key discriminating factors are availability of time and money. Whether the ideas are worthwhile and worth investing time and money in is the next factor.

If a person is able and willing to set aside their current career to run with their business idea, that conquers the issue of time but the question of startup money is critical.

Lets say they've made a new type of ant-farm, except instead of ants they used Fireflies. The Fireflies live inside a glass and plastic container, along with the necessary flowers (fireflies eat pollen and other organic material) needed to keep them alive and dirt so they can lay their eggs, reproduce and burrow underground.

Before attempting to market this product they first need to determine how many fireflies the need, how to build the containers, and which plants work best for feeding them. If their plan takes off it might be difficult to catch/breed enough fireflies to keep up with demand.

Getting the necessary funds to market and sell such an idea might be difficult however. Some people might just scratch their heads and go "Wait, you want to sell fireflies as pets?" and will evidently think you've lost your marbles. Others might respond with "Wow. I want one!" Some people just really like anything that glows.

A more reasonable business idea might be recycling gold and precious metals from trashed computer parts. Right now those electronics parts are sent overseas to Asia where they are ripped apart, melted down and then recycled. A single trashed PC contains more gold than 17 tons of ore. Researching how to recycle the metals, melt them down properly and then selling/recycling the gold is a more promising business plan than "selling fireflies" because gold is a highly valued commodity and unlike fireflies gold won't die by accident.

You could in theory take out a straight loan from the bank, but there are other ways to find financing.

#1: FAMILY AND FRIENDS

Often when looking for an investment people will look to friends and family. "Love Money" comes with its own pros and cons. Your friends and family will want their money back eventually and you will have to put up with them occasionally bugging you about how the business is going and even offering advise, whether its wanted or not.

#2: ANGEL INVESTORS

There are variety of hard to find companies out there who invest in startup companies, providing capital to pre-screened entrepreneurs. York Angel Investors Inc. in Toronto is an example of one such company. Their goal is to determine which startups are worth investing in and then they help provide their collective wisdom to make certain the company starts on the right foot. These investment groups don't like to advertise however and can be difficult to find.

#3: TRACKING YOUR BUDGET

Entrepreneurs often underestimate the costs of bringing a product to market. They don't realize the full extent of their costs, overestimate cash-flow projections and often make assumptions about how big their niche market is and how big they can grow. Keeping track of their budget means having a complete, fleshed-out strategic plan, not just cash-flow projections. Who are you hiring? When and why? What benefits or time off are they getting? What is the overall cost of staff, office supplies, new computers, IT support, photocopier repair, etc? What about emergencies? Does that match up with your spending projections?

Startup companies have a tendency to overspend, buying the best equipment and materials, thinking "Oh, we'll make it back later." But not immediately. Its a procrastination tactic. As such its important to have other people look over your costs and expenditures and see if you're missing anything.

"Wait, have you figured out how you're going to transport these fireflies?"

"Oh oh, I totally forgot about transportation costs."

"And what about insurance?"

Stunned silence.

"And have you determined your packaging?"

More stunned silence.

Knowing what your costs are is an important step for getting an investment. If your investors have doubts about your ability to stay on budget they will have serious second thoughts about giving you money.

#4: KNOW YOUR VALUATION

How much is your company worth? Don't use projected revenues for the next year or 10 years, how much is your company worth RIGHT NOW. Don't assume that just because you've spent $100,000 on your business that is how much your business is worth. You've got debts, obligations and your cash flow must not be that good otherwise you wouldn't be looking for investments. Its probably worth a lot less, especially if you don't own any patents or copyrights.

When approaching potential business partners you want to downgrade your valuation in the event that your partnership will become "value added". For example if you have an exclusive deal to sell your product through a major chain store that adds to the value of your company.

What you want to avoid however is "depleted value", wherein you sign a deal where you can ONLY sell your product to that one business partner. If they already have a competing product (ie. ant farms and fish aquariums) they might decide they don't really want your product and will keep you on the sidelines, your product wasting away in storage.

Its all about who you want to work with at the end of the day. Some business partners might not fit right or be suitable. Some investors might have a lot more experience with your chosen market and you'd be foolish not to take advantage of that if they're willing to give a more hands-on approach.

If they don't know much about the market however their offers to help might become quite cumbersome and not really helpful.

#5. KNOW WHO YOUR BUSINESS PARTNER IS

If you're meeting with an investor you will want to know more about their personal beliefs. Are they a green company? Are they currently being sued or in litigation? Do they have lots of business partners / clients? How much experience do they have? What is their profit margins? Are they doing any questionable business practices that might result in future lawsuits? Did they lose money in a Ponzi scheme (or worse, are they operating a Ponzi scheme)?

#6: BE HONEST AND OPEN

If you start lying about your finances or exaggerating how big your market share is the company you are dealing with might do some background checks and find out you've been covering up some horrible warts (ie. your debts to your family and friends). This could backfire in your face horribly, wasting both money and time.

An eleventh-hour discovery that you've tried to hide a major flaw will kill the deal.

Be honest about the challenges facing your company. Investors don't expect you to have all the answers.

A Guide to Link Buying in Toronto

I included the word Toronto in the title of this blog post for a reason.

Why, because link buying Toronto is really the operating keywords I am going for.

When it comes to getting Local SEO - and more importantly, attracting local clients for your company - it is super important to have your company website optimized for the city, province, state or country you are living in.

So for example, as I specialize in selling SEO packages to Torontonians from websites based in Toronto, it is therefore a necessity for me to attract local clients. If not from Toronto, then at least from the GTA.

Link Buying Advice 101

In a nutshell the concept of buying links (for those who are not familiar with such methodology) is focused on getting high quality, keyword links to your company website.

You can buy such links via intermediary companies such as LinkVehicle, Teliad, LinkWorth, Text Link Ads, and similar websites. Such websites are more expensive, but if you are savvy you can sometimes get deals on higher quality websites (only trick is often you don't know what the website is that is giving you the link, as everything is kept partially anonymous).

Or you can purchase links by contacting websites directly and asking them (politely) if they would be interesting in advertising your website in exchange for a small fee. The industry standard for such an offer is $30 annually per link. More if the website has a higher pagerank, more if you want a banner ad, more if you want it in a prominent place on the website. So you could potentially pay $100+ for a single high quality link.

What you want is one-way-links from websites featuring pages with a high PR - and you want the website linking to you to be LOCAL, so in this case it would be best if the website was in Toronto. Buying links from a website Singapore or India isn't going to help you much.

Further more you want the website to be ON TOPIC with yours. Which could be tricky if they are a competitor website. But not so difficult if you are selling premium dogfood in Toronto and are approaching dog breeders in Toronto and asking them to link to your website. You might even send them a free sample of your product - which is even better, because then you could potentially get a glowing review and a new regular customer.

You won't be able to do that if you use various “link broker” websites. Thus the DIY approach to purchasing advertising is definitely the best way to go, but only if you have the time and knowledge on how to do so. Finding people willing to accept links pointing to your site can be tricky if you don't know how - or worse, don't have time, which is why you should hire a SEO expert.

The purpose of such advertising is not to generate organic traffic from those links, but rather to “simulate artificially” a strong link popularity factor by having links pointing to your site from web pages featuring a high PR. Google and similar search engines track link popularity and then boost your websites search engine results rankings based on the keywords used on your website, in the links going to your site, and the content of the sites linking to you.

The higher the PageRank, the more expensive the advertising space. Link brokering services also allow you to target the industry of the website from where such links will be posted. Thus you can find publishing websites who are willing to advertise you for $$$.

However many brokering companies don't mention WHERE the website is. It could be in Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or some place you've never heard of (Bhutan!)... which is really counter productive when your goal is local traffic from people in Canada, Ontario, Toronto or the GTA.

If you have the money its better to hire a SEO expert to do all of this for you, Toronto SEO companies like designSEO.ca for example which specialize in Pinpoint SEO / Targeted SEO. If you get a good quality SEO expert you can get 10 high quality links for $300.

Lets pretend for a moment you wanted to follow the DIY approach.

If you were offering tour services in Toronto, you could buy links from websites related to tourism, Toronto tourism, Toronto attractions, etc. Which would be good, because Google has been programmed to reward websites for quality links and not for the amount of links. The quality of the sites linking to you is crucial in terms of ranking benefits. The link quality is enhanced by linking to websites that are “keyword family” related.

Thus if your goal is tour services in Toronto, you want anything that is related to those keywords. Tours, tourism, tourists, Toronto, GTA, Hogtown, Downtown Toronto, the CN Tower, the SkyDome and various other Toronto related topics. Even the names of local celebrities or politicians (eg. Toronto Mayor Rob Ford) can help you. It is one time it pays to be a name dropper.

Back to my aforementioned example: If your website promotes tours in Toronto, your site would not capitalize from being linked to from a popular forum discussing video games or computer games.

Some people also argue against buying SEO advertising altogether, claiming that people should follow traditional marketing routes such as newspapers, magazines, television, etc. Although it should be pointed out that its typically people who WORK for magazines, newspapers, etc that are spouting that piece of advice... And they're ignoring the fact that television advertising is too expensive for most people, and that magazines and newspapers offer a very low Return-On-Investment. You could easily spend $500 on a single ad in a magazine and not get a single customer from that ad. This happens a lot, so much so that people are now disenfranchised with traditional marketing because they are not getting any return on their advertising investment.

Thus if people want to bash agencies brokering links or the SEO industry, fine, bash away, but at least know your facts first. If you are going to point fingers at websites making a buck from selling link space - or writing blog posts / product reviews, remember that traditional marketing in newspapers and magazines doesn't work any more. The system has become broken and the new solution is SEO.

I have a client in the Toronto real estate industry who loves talking about how online videos are the future of advertising. He will drone on about how YellowPages used to be the place to advertise, except nobody uses the YellowPages any more. Instead everyone is using Google... and if you want to really grab the attention of buyers, at least when it comes to real estate, he is really pushing videos.

And he is probably right. Video will play a huge role in the future of advertising. But text and photography will continue to play important roles too.

The whole SEO industry started because of Google’s link popularity ranking algorithm. The basic essence behind such algorithm was brilliant. However, not every site has the profile for one-way-link enhancement. Due to the nature of some sites, building genuine organic advertising is almost impossible without being “innovative” - and that requires creativity on the part of the publisher / blogger / content wrtier.

And creativity costs more money.

You can't get creativity for free. And trying to get it for cheap will result in two things = crappy content and crappy links.

Google’s determination for rewarding a quality link popularity profile has led to brokering agencies to become what they are - if the leopard changes his spots, the rabbits all do the same thing in order to adapt and survive. In order to please Google’s ranking algorithms, a whole industry was born and flourished.

Website publishers and bloggers saw an easy opportunity to generate income from their sites, while brokering agencies packaged the service based on the popularity of pages accepting advertisements.

Thus “link-buying” became an industry standard and an integral part of almost every SEO strategy. You could try to use Social Media instead (which works well for fashion, but not if you are selling insurance) or you could try using videos (great for promoting documentaries, films and real estate, but crap if you are selling anything that is difficult to visualize).

Hiring a SMO expert or a videographer is certainly a possibility, but you have to think logically from their perspective - those things require CREATIVITY - which again comes back to the issue of creativity costs more money.

So you're still stuck with the same problem. Unless you want to try creating your own SMO / video marketing campaign, then you probably won't succeed much. And even if you do, are you so certain your products / services are that interesting that people will want to Twitter / mention it on Facebook? Chances are they won't.

Thus you're stuck with buying links.

Some people also have problems over the ethical character of link buying and building a SEO marketing strategy and how such activities is questionable from normal organic links from Mavens (people who link to your site without being asked or paid). First, let me point out that Mavens are RARE. Like trying to find Waldo in a Harry Potter book. He might be in there, somewhere, but good luck finding him. So don't expect Mavens to magically appear and promote your website for free. They don't do that unless they really like your product/service.

Back to the topic of ethics I would like to point out that Google has no problem with advertising things on its websites. Newspaper and magazine websites do it too. Pretty much anyone who is an online publisher accepts advertising, in some way, shape or form.

Google rewards a website for the quality of the links, so buying erroneous links with websites that would never refer to you unless they sold space is basically a way to say, “If Google wants links, I’ll give them links!!”... and the end result is shoddy SEO. You want to avoid that if you can so avoid buying advertising from sites that are really off-topic. You want to focus on:

Local sites that are on topic or closely related to the topic.

Now admittedly buying such advertising defeats the original premise behind the link popularity concept. Because if numerous online users are speaking about your site on specialized blogs & forums, if keyword-enriched genuine articles are being published about your site, if regular press releases are being published professionally in regards to your site, if a lot of social networks refer to your site...then Google considers your site to be active and alive - and being seen as such boosts your popularity a lot and your search rankings. Whether this is done artificially or organically (or both) it doesn't really matter.

If anything your goal should always be to have your site start off artificially and then switch to organic over time. A gradual shift from one to the other.

But if you're selling insurance, or real estate, or even used cars then you're probably going to need to continue to invest in SEO for many years to come. Because if you don't, then your competition will.

The link popularity factor was a healthy concept to gauge the live and ongoing presence of a website. Brokering links via intermediary companies just to improve PR is a way to dilute the effectiveness and the ranking fairness within a particular industry because it messes with the architecture of the link popularity ranking algorithm. But if you don't do it, then your competition, especially in a field like real estate, is doing it anyway.

You might say, hey, I don't want to buy advertising from websites, because I don't want to cheat and try to beat the Google algorithm... and meanwhile the other real estate agents are all doing it and you're the only one who isn't. Their websites all have 100+ links going to their company webpages, and meanwhile your company has less than 10. And less than 10 is just plain pitiful.

Yesterday I had a meeting with a client who was thinking about purchasing a website. He wanted to know if the website was worth purchasing based on the quality of its content, its design, its framework and its SEO. On the SEO side the website in question had only 10 links going into it.

I then showed him a website which had over 600+ links going into it. And showed him the differences using Alexa statistics, how often the site was updated, and more. I won't go into much more detail, but basically it was an eye opener for him that the website he was thinking of purchasing wasn't very popular - and probably not that profitable.

That is really the big issue isn't? Is your business profitable? If you are so busy you can't keep up with the demand then you probably don't need SEO. If anything you need to raise your prices slightly.

If you have excess time available and not enough customers, then you can spend that time doing DIY SEO.

But if you lack time because you are so busy, but always need more customers - that is when you need to hire a SEO expert. Especially if you are in a seriously competitive industry like real estate.

Now you might say "Who is to blame for this link buying status quo?"

You might say it is Google who is at fault. Or the people who just follow whatever Google does. It’s easy for internet pundits/critics to criticize Google technology, but criticizing it won't get you anywhere. Google.com is still the father of all decent search algorithms and has over the years successfully circumvented the challenge of its overwhelming database growth. The fact that it accidentally gave birth to a whole “link brokering” industry is only normal.

eg. You can't blame the big grocery store for selling melons and then the small green grocer stores follow suit and start selling melons too. That is normal in any industry.

Anyway, as you might know, SEO services through “link-buying campaigns” may be a controversial issue for some people - but I can tell you with all honesty that the magazine and newspaper industries have no problems with selling links. Its their bread and butter.

You might also think that SEO is a gamble. In truth, all advertising is a gamble, but anyone who has studied the history of marketing will tell you that a quality marketing campaign uses tried, tested and true techniques that are much more likely to be successful - when it comes to online SEO then what you need is local advertising on local topic-oriented websites.

Black Hat SEO / buying links from India / shoddy SEO... well that is just going to hurt your website's reputation.

Google started cracking down on link-brokering agencies by dropping either the PR of the syndicated websites offering link space for sale or simply by dropping their rankings. A company like Text Link Ads, which has been and still is the leader in the industry for years, recently lost their PR, and after recovering the PR, they lost all rankings ... Just Google “text link ads” and you will see that, even with the 3 words that make up their URL (text-link-ads.com), they are probably nowhere to be found.

Not to fingers, but basically Google was punishing the company for using Black Hat SEO. So be forewarned about buying links from India and similar companies which specialize in bulk crappy links.

Not only are link brokering agencies being kicked by Google, but new algorithms are being released to penalize websites selling link space. If the website is popular enough, they can take the hit fortunately, but the link popularity algorithms are the core of Google technology - and it seriously undermines the question of what is fair and what really matters when it comes to SEO.

From Google's perspective what they also did was increase the ranking of websites being linked to from blogs and social media websites. With blogs this is okay from Google's perspective, since they own blogspot, but it becomes tricky because it means giving rival Facebook more credit.

But whatever. The SEO industry is an ever changing marketplace.

Making one little change gives birth to a new advertising-brokering industry.

In most cases, buying link advertising is simply trying to outsmart Google for better rankings - but in competitive fields like real estate where everyone is doing it, if Google changes an algorithm it effects the whole industry.

Which is why it becomes ever more important to have quality SEO from the get-go. Shoddily done / Black Hat or poorly executed DIY SEO will result in the next time Google changes an algorithm that your site could and probably be hurt/punished during the change.

The best links are those that you will earn through business dealings, partnerships, etc. That is true. But you first need to attract those clients in the first place, which means you need to use marketing savvy to get them because they just aren't going to fall out of the sky and land in your lap.

Important DIY Buying Tips

#1. Only buy links from local companies that are on topic or closely related to your topic.

#2. Aim for higher PageRanks, at least a PageRank of 1 if its on topic, or at least a PageRank of 2 if its closely related.

#3. Don't buy too many links at once. That raises red flags.

#4. Alternate what link text you use for the keywords.

#5. Don't just buy links for your main index page. Advertise specific subpage topics for your products or services and use keywords specific for those pages.

#6. If you can't find local sites to buy links from, build your own! Start a blog, a video blog, or create historical / information websites on topic with your site.

#7. Add more content that is on topic for your products / services to your own website. The more quality content the better.

#8. Always go for unique content. Never copy paste the work of others (Google ignores duplicate content).

#9. Think entertainment when writing content yourself. Even if the topic is real estate or insurance, people still want to be entertained.

#10. If you don't have time to do this yourself, hire a SEO expert from designSEO.ca.

The Three Rules of Marketing

Its something they teach in marketing / advertising classes in colleges and universities: The Three Rules of Marketing.

Sadly it is often forgotten about when it comes to online marketing.

RULE #1 -  BRANDING AND POSITIONING

You need to brand your product / services and position your company either as a niche market or a general "all purpose" company.

When it comes to online SEO this means getting a good domain name and then positioning your content towards your target audience.

RULE #2 - ADVERTISING

You need to be BIG and BOLD. Nobody pays attention to small dinky bulletin boards. You want your ads to be IN YOUR FACE, brightly coloured, easy to notice, and appealing to people (eg. sex sells).

When it comes to online SEO this means making your ads on big / popular websites and you want a big bold banner placement on multiple pages.

RULE #3 - GET PAID UPFRONT

Why? Because nobody believes in marketing. And if you don't get paid upfront, then you don't get paid at all.

The industry standard for ad prices are a MINIMUM of:

$30 for a small link ad annually.

$50 for a banner ad or premium link ad (better location) annually.

$70 for a premium banner ad annually.

And when I say minimum, I do mean minimum. Really popular websites will want a LOT more.

And also remember that those prices are per annual ad on one webpage. Its not worth the publisher's time and effort if you want to only pay $5 for a 1 month ad. You're just wasting their time. When it comes to link buying you have to buy for the whole year otherwise they won't be interested.

Some really super popular websites might take ads for 1 month or so at a time, but they might be charging $50+ per month, so its worth it for them.

As a rule of thumb expect to pay a minimum of $30 per link on websites with a PageRank of 0 to 3.

A PageRank 4 website will typically cost $60 to $100 annually.
A PageRank 5 website will typically cost $100 to $300 annually.
A PageRank 6 website will typically cost $300 to $1000 annually.

And you probably cannot afford anything higher than that.

And that is for 1 little link ad. Expect a lot more if you want a premium banner placement.

Now you could buy links on cheap websites made in India... But don't expect much in terms of quality. You could get a link for $15 from a Made-in-India website, easily. But it will be shoddy SEO and shoddy writing... or worse, it will be Black Hat SEO or a link from a link farm. Which would actually hurt your website's reputation and possibly cause Google to ban your website.

No, if you want good quality SEO - hire a local SEO expert in Toronto or whatever city you happen to live in or near. Local SEO will get your company the best results.

How to Avoid Link Spam and Getting Banned

Alternate Title
Three SEO Spamming Techniques that Can Get Your Website into Trouble

We all know the importance of that elusive top spot ranking on the Google search results page. In fact, an entire industry, has evolved to help businesses achieve precisely that result – the SEO industry.

Different SEO strategies are employed to secure high rankings for websites. And some of these strategies, which are intended to fool the search engines into bumping up the search rankings, while adding no real value to the searchers are collectively termed as spam (or webspam to distinguish it from email spam).

Such techniques often border on or are Blackhat SEO and are banned by Google, which means overuse of such techniques can get your website downgraded or even banned.

So What Exactly is Webspam?

It is all a matter of perspective. If you look at it objectively, what an SEO expert does is come
up with techniques that influence Google to place your website high on the search results. So
is SEO itself spam? Fortunately not, as Matt Cutts of Google has confirmed on this page http://searchengineland.com/google-says-seo-is-not-spam-98266. To quote Mr.
Cutts “SEO is a valid way to help people find what they are looking for via search engines”.

What we can infer from this statement is that any ‘invalid’ ways of influencing search engines
constitute webspam and will not be received kindly by Google.

Spammers Were Smart… Google Got Smarter

We have to admit that spammers are smart businessmen who took advantage of the loopholes
in the system to enhance their rankings. However the fact that remains that in the process that they were greatly inconveniencing searchers probably did not even cross their minds. (They belong to the ‘end
justifies the means’ school of thought). Thus Google has found ways to determine and spot spam websites (link pages, three-way-linking, link exchanges, etc) and have downgraded the value of such links so that they aren't as valuable as good quality article links or blog post links.

Three of the most common SEO spam techniques

(a) Keyword Stuffing

As search engine bots are designed to look for specific keywords while crawling the web,
keyword stuffing was the # 1 SEO spam tactic. Nonsense content stuffed with keywords,
automatically generated by software programs was used to enhance rankings.

Google’s algorithms are well up to the challenge of detecting keyword stuffing and can take
strict action on your website including banning it, as Matt Cutts explains on http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/avoid-keyword-stuffing/.

Thus why take that risk when with genuine relevant content, you not only rank higher on
organic results, but also add value to your readers and keep them coming back. Check out The SEO Checklist for a list of techniques for improving your SEO.

(b) Content Submission to Article Directories

Article marketing was considered a very useful (and easy) SEO technique. Getting articles
submitted to various article directories enhanced the online visibility and increased the chances
of higher search ranking.

But along the way, content farms entered the fray, focusing on submitting multiple copies of the same articles to the directories, rather than focusing on the quality original content itself.

The Google Panda update changed all of that. The Panda update is a content focused algorithm
change that aims to ensure that content available on websites is original and relevant and not
spammy. An important change brought about by Panda was that it reduced the relevance of
content on several popular directories such as ezine, goarticles, hubpages, articlesbase and
others.

HOWEVER if the content was original, then it became more important and more valuable for SEO.

(c) Link Spamming

Link popularity has always been an important factor for search engine ranking. And this led to the proliferation of manipulative link building practices such as reciprocal link exchange programs, paid links from links from link farms and obtaining backlinks through comment spamming. All these techniques focused on getting maximum number of links, without bothering about the relevance of the linking site.

The Google Penguin update changed all of that. The focus is now on natural links, anchor text
diversity, and diversity of the link profile.

Website owners beware. If you are entrusting your SEO to a third party, make sure that it is a
reputed White Hat SEO company like designSEO.ca.

And remember that SEO, like all advertising is a gamble. If a SEO person is trying to guarantee you huge results in a small amount of time, they're just trying to get your money and their guarantee is no more valuable than the piece of paper it is written on.

A true SEO expert will tell you that SEO takes time, at least 6 months, to see the full results. You need to be thinking long term White Hat SEO. Short term Black Hat SEO may look good on paper, but you will regret it later when your website gets banned or downgraded.

Why Spamming Comments on Other Blogs doesn't Work

When doing SEO for a client you want to get lots of links from on-topic websites with specific keywords that will boost the client's website in that topic.

Now lets pretend for a moment that you want to get links from popular blogs by posting comments on them and including a link in the comment.

In my experience this doesn't work because too often people just spam comments that have little or no value and it is very obviously spam.

What then happens is the blog owners monitor the comments and then delete all the spammy comments and approve the comments which aren't spammy.

The end result is that spam comments don't work. It only annoys the blog owner and they will routinely, with a dose of anger in their minds, delete all the spam comments.

So then your client gets zero links from all that effort.

Lets pretend you even wrote a good quality comment. A nice long, well thought out comment. And then sometime during the comment you include a link to Italian cooking lessons in Toronto or whatever it is you are promoting.

I would wager apples to oranges that even though you spent all that extra time and thought writing something meaningful that half the time people will just delete your comment anyway. Thus such comments on blogs are not a reasonable way to promote your website.

Yes, you could spam the words private cooking lessons in the comment sections of websites... But you would probably just be wasting your time and annoying the owners of those blogs.

What you should be doing is contacting the blog in question and then offering to PAY THEM for a review or an advertisement for cooking lessons in Toronto or similar keywords. Having the keywords in an actual blogpost are 10 times more valuable because the topic of the blog post should be closely connected to cooking lessons, the name of the local city (in this case Toronto), the specific topic "Italian cooking lessons", and so forth. The quality of the blog post and the quality of the links will be dramatically better.

Furthermore people don't usually click on links within comments. But they DO click on links within the actual blog post.

Conclusions

Spammy comments = Bad

Paid blog posts = Good

To learn more about blog spam check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_in_blogs

Affiliate Programs = Waste of Time

Don't get involved with any affiliate programs. They are just looking for free advertising, are basically a complete waste of time, and any amount you receive from them will be a pittance.

My message to affiliate program organizers:

You have to understand that advertising is a bit like gambling. There is no incentive for me to gamble on your product. If you want advertising then the gamble has to be yours.

Online Marketing Methods

Search Engine Marketing - Commonly known as PPC (Pay Per Click) SEM provides you an instant way of gaining visitors to your website but be careful as the money can soon mount up as you are paying for each and every your receive a visitor so making sure the phrases you are paying for is totally targeted to the page you are sending them to. ie. Google Adwords.

Banner and Link Advertising - Pay to have a banner and direct link placed on another website. Research what other types of websites your target customer base uses. Contact the owners of these websites and ask them if they could place a banner on their website for a monthly fee. You will find that websites which accept banner advertising have a page setup advertising the fact. The link is usually located at the very bottom of the homepage 'Advertise'. ie. Lilith eZine Advertising Opportunities.

Joint Ventures or Partnerships - Let's say you are a supplier of kitchens but you do not fit them. Why not contact the kitchen fitters in your area and do a deal where you advertise their fitting services on your website if they advertise your business on theirs. Maybe this is not the best example of a JV partnership but it gives you the general idea. HOWEVER WHEN LINKING BACK AND FORTH REMEMBER TO USE rel="nofollow" To learn why read The Importance of Non-Reciprocal Links.

Google Places - If you are a local based business then you need to make sure that your website is listed within the Google Places (or Google Maps as most people know it) section of the homepage.

Online Sponsorships - Sponsor an event or a charity in return the charity will be happy to provide your company with exposure on their website and exposure means brand awareness.

Social Media Marketing - With the massive following sites like Facebook and Twitter have it is a must that your business has an account. There is no cost involved, just a little of your time is needed. Building up a large following on both Twitter and Facebook can provide massive brand awareness. Do not use these sites to try and sell your services or products but use them to provide free information. Post links to the new articles you have written. Be informative not sales orientated. The idea behind using social media is that you want to make a name for yourself and seen as one of the experts within your industry. People might not need your product there and then but if they keep hearing your name you can be sure that you will be the first place they go to when they do require your service.

Online Press Releases / Newsletters - If you have some very interesting news about your business then getting a press release written and distributed is one of the best ways of getting the news out to the world. Maybe you have a new product launch or you are the only company within the UK who are able to supply the latest craze. If the news is good enough then spend a few quid and get your press release professionally written and distributed. You never know, you could even get a call from your local newspaper wanting to do a story on you. Building a newsletter and getting lots of people to read it is tricky, but worth doing.

Industry Related Blogs - Search for the top industry related blogs. Sign up and start contributing to the latest discussions. Again, do not try and sell but just provide advice, help people and join in the discussions. Once you have been a member of the forum and if you maintain an active presence, provide quality information then you will start to get asked for a quote.

Affiliate Programs - If you sell anything online then you should consider setting up your own affiliate system. This is where other people promote your business for you and in return they get a set percentage of any sale from people they have refered to your website. There are also well established affiliate networks you could look at.

Viral Video Marketing - With sites like YouTube viral video marketing has never been easier. We now have a free to use platform with millions of active viewers. The question is, how do you get a video to go viral? Viral meaning lots of people spreading the word about your video to lots of other people and so on. You need to create a video that includes an element of comedy. If something within a video is really funny or very unexpected then it will go viral a lot quicker. The video does not have to directly promote your company. As long as your brand is in the video somewhere then subconsciously it will stick in the back of peoples mind.

Researching Keywords for SEO

Making sure you are Search Engine Optimizing your website with the correct keywords and key phrases is vital. Especially if you are running a niche business or a local business.

We have seen it many many times before where we get a call saying "I am on the first page of results for bla bla bla but do not receive any inquiries".

Why? Because they chose the wrong keywords that nobody uses and/or they forgot to focus on LOCATION. If you're advertising Italian suits but live in Toronto Canada, people are going to be confused by your website.

One of the biggest factors which contributes to having no inquiries is that you or your marketing company are just not working on the right phrases. You need to do keyword research and make sure the phrases you are targeting are actually getting searched for. If you get this wrong then you might as well throw all the time and money you have spent in the bin.

ie. Don't bother with synonyms for the name of the place. Hogtown may be a slang term for Toronto, but nobody actually searches for it.

A very simple way to find keywords is to first determine who are your main competitors who are successful and see what keywords they are using. Look at their website titles and headings to see what phrases they are using. You can then use the Google Adwords keyword tool to see how many people per month are typing those keywords and phrases in. The tool will also suggest other keywords and phrases and list them in order of search volume.

You need to implement your selected phrases into the title, meta description, meta keywords, page title, first sentence of your content, your H1 and H2 tags, the body text etc... If you do not know how to do this, ask your web designer about these things as they should have been considered at the time of designing and building your website.

If you get the right keywords and phrases then you are on the right path to Search Engine Optimization success.

Organizing your Website to be Search Engine Friendly

It is important that the search engines bots can easily spider through your website, read all your original content fast without anything delaying or blocking them. Search Engine Friendly Website Design is a rarely used skill in the website design industry because so many designers these days want to use Flash and know nothing about making a website Search Engine Friendly.

Here is a few pointers to make sure your website is search engine friendly are:

1. Make sure you do not have any dead links. These are old links on your website that points to pages that no longer exist.

2. Build an internal multiple linking structure. By this we mean, do not just have one single link going to any one page. Link to other pages from the content your website making sure the words you are linking actually relate to that page.

3. Do not use a flash buttons to link to other pages on your website unless you have a second standard form of linking structure.

4. Every single page on your website must be accessed within three clicks maximum.

5. Make sure that every page on your website loads fast. The search engines are not going to stick around if it takes too long to load your website or pages.

To learn more on this topic read Search Engine Friendly Website Design.

Branded Content is King

Have you ever heard of the saying 'content is king'?

Well it is partially correct. "Branded Content" is the real king. By branded I mean its unique, Google recognizes it as your original content because you were the first to post it, and anybody else who copies you is just ripping it off word for word and Google can recognize when other sites do that and bans/devalues them.

So in order to make sure your website isn't devalued you MUST make sure that your website includes quality and unique content. Never copy content from another website and paste it onto your own. For one you do not own the copyright to that content and two search engines like Google will know that the content on your website is a direct duplicate of that on another site and as such they will devalue your website.

No Duplicate Content, create your own Branded Content

Always write your own Branded Content for your website. We hear all the time "but I don't know how to write content". You may not be able to write a story book but this is your website and as such you are writing about a subject that you are meant to be an expert or professional in. All that knowledge you have in your head, just sit at a PC and type it all out. Don't worry about mistakes and grammar at this stage. You can always proof read your content after and use SpellCheck / GrammarCheck.

If for any reason you just do not want to write the content for your website then take on the services of an experienced copywriter. This is a person that writes website content for a living.

It is also important that new fresh original content is added to your website on a regular basis. No matter if you do it once a day, week or even month the fact is you need to be adding new pages to your website filled with fresh unique branded content. You also need to make sure that the content you are writing is informative and is of a nature that people will actually want to read it. Add a couple of images to the new pages which relate to the subject you are writing about.

Although adding regular Branded Content to your website is good for your search engine reputation but it also increases the number of people looking at your website with every article you write. Why? Simply because people are looking for information on a daily basis and as long as you write about a subject which people want to read then each and every article will be found on the internet somewhere.

The search engines, especially Google, want to see websites growing with good solid information that is original.

Building great original content on your website should be the first step before you even discuss promoting your website.

The Benefits of Search Engine Marketing

What are the benefits of doing Search Engine Marketing?

1. Marketing your website on the search engines is sometimes more cost effective providing a much higher ROI compared to most offline marketing methods.

2. You have the ability to promote your business Locally, Nationally and even Internationally.

3. The ability to target directly the people who want and need your product or service.

4. Depending on your industry and geographical target area(s) you have the ability to send a large amount of visitors to your website.

5. You can build up a strong brand awareness. If done correctly your brand (business or company name) could be seen many thousands of times per day.

6. Unlike an advertisment in a newspaper or magazine (unless you are paying a serious amount of money), search engine marketing has a long term future as long as you conform to all the online guidelines.

7. SEM takes less time than doing traditional SEO. SEM is great for people who lack patience and have extra money to burn.

However we should note that money wise SEO (Search Engine Optimization) may take more time and patience, but it also produces MORE BANG FOR YOUR BUCK.

Common Search Engine Marketing Terms

FOR A MORE DETAILED LIST SEE THE SEM GLOSSARY.

Knowing what these terms mean is the first step in strategizing your SEM campaign.

SEO or search engine optimization is the process of gaining a first page ranking on the search engines for any given keyword or phrase.

SEM or search engine marketing is a collection of all internet marketing methods you use to market your website on the search engines, such as Google, Yahoo and Bing.

ROI or return on investment is the difference in percentage between what you spend on your marketing campaign to how much profit you generate from that marketing.

PPC or pay per click is the ability to pay a search engine for advertising your website on the internet and each time anyone clicks through to your website, you then pay an agreed amount per click / visitor.

Search Engine Spiders are the tools that the search engines use to automatically spider through your website and then determine where to rank your site.

Landing Page is a page on your website which has been designed to sell or promote a certain service or product. These pages are sales based with a good call to action. The landing page is the first page on your website which your potential customers will see.

Keyword or phrase is the wording used when performing a search on the search engines.

Keyword Research is the process you use to determine what the best key phrases are for each page of your website. You need to find out what people are typing into the search engines to find your product or service then optimize your website for them phrases.

Analytics is the software used to track your website visitors, the number of visitors to your website, what pages are being looked at and much more depending on what analytics system you are using. ie. Google Analytics.

Confessions of a Designer

Anneke Short is a London-based designer who has come up a series of minimalist posters that are out to challenge the preconceptions that people have of graphic designers and website designers.

‘Confessions of a Designer’ is a collection of quotes based on ideas Short has either found herself thinking or she has heard other designers complain about. The quotes portray the frustration and realities that designers often face when dealing with clients who just don't understand the business of design.

Update, see also:

10 Things People Say to Graphic Designers

10 More Things People say to Graphic Designers

What is VVM? Viral Video Marketing

Want to learn more about Viral Video Marketing?

Visit http://www.designseo.ca/Viral-Video-Marketing.html to learn lots of great business advice on how to make your own viral videos. Or if not viral, at least how to make videos that generate customer leads.

The Changing Responsibilities of SEO

When it comes to keeping SEO clients happy you really have to deliver the goods. Its basically a shopping list of responsibilities you have to do.

However as time goes on its becoming clear that there is many more responsibilities for the SEO expert to do than there used to be.

In the beginning...

1999 - SEO was really just links, navigation and basic keyword search. Over time things like spider readability, avoiding duplicate content, HTML sitemaps and so forth. Blogs started appearing, image ALT text became more important.

2004 - Five years later they were making HTML and XML sitemaps, issues surrounding rel="nofollow" coding, complex keyword analysis, social media was starting to appear, widgets, articles, content research, Search Engine Marketing rears its ugly head...

2009 - Videos and social media has gone mainstream. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, bookmarking websites, AddThis codes, guest writers, guest bloggers, PR companies getting in on the SEO action, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, reputation strategy and tracking...

2012 - Its become so much that one person can't do it all. You have to have separate people doing SEO, SMO and SEM because one person can't be an expert at all three.

The problem is that the general public sees "SEO" as a catchphrase for SEM (Search Engine Marketing, which is completely separate) and SMO (Social Media Optimization, a whole other topic)... without realizing how different they are.

Here to sort out this mess is three handy definitions:

SEO - The process of creating a network of links to promote specific keywords targeted at one website with the purpose of getting it to the top of the search engine. This process is called Search Engine Optimization (or SEO for short).

SEM - The process of advertising on search engines directly via Google AdWords and similar advertising programs and paying per click each time people click on your ads. Search Engine Marketing does not boost SEO.

SMO or SMM - The process of writing buzz on Twitter, Facebook and other social networking websites. The links all have rel="nofollow" and Social Media Marketing do absolutely nothing for SEO. SMO, wherein the O stands for optimization is a misnomer because it doesn't really "optimize" anything. Its just buzz.

And last but not least...

VVM - Viral Video Marketing. Blame YouTube for that one. Still in its infancy VVM is either a grand waste of time and money or a really lucky win when it actually works. VVM is a bit like shooting a bullet at another bullet and hoping the two will ricochet, that is how awful the success rate is.

See Also
The Laughable Expectations of Non SEO People

5 Hot SEO Tips

1. If you absolutely MUST use Javascript drop down menus, image maps or image links, be sure to put text links somewhere on the page for the search bots / spiders to follow.

2. Content is king, so be sure to have good, well-written and unique content that will focus on your primary keyword or keyword phrase.

3. If content is king, then links are queen. Build a network of quality backlinks using your keyword phrase as the link. Remember, if there is no good, logical reason for that site to link to you, you don’t want the link.

4. Be SMART about PageRank. If the topic of a PageRank 1 website is more on topic with your product it is more valuable than a PageRank 2 or 3 website (but not a PageRank 4).

5. Be sure you have a unique, keyword focused Title tag on every page of your site. And, if you MUST have the name of your company in it, put it at the end. Unless you are a major brand name that is a household name, your business name will probably get few searches.