I wanted to share this news story I came across because it makes the best use of Twitter I’ve ever seen.  I know most people who use the service like it just for the purpose of mass communication within their own social group, but from a business standpoint I never really saw the value.  The story below talks about how a unique taco truck has been able to gain and keep a following in part because of Tweeting about their business.  This ingenious application of the ultra simple technology puts it into perspective and shows how it can be used to keep a local market informed of your activities and, in this case, your location.

The image below links to the full article from International Herald Tribune.

Please Share This:

All of us receive spam every day. Some trying to make us better lovers, some promising we will get rich and others that will keep us from going bald. And all of us in the SEO industry have been pitched SEO services via spam. Normally I just laugh and delete, after all we are an SEO link building company. But the one below was just too amazing not to publish.

Of course we removed all the confidential information. But it is important to note that the spam (notice I just can’t call it an email) we received actually did list their clients’ domains below. I find it very hard to believe that these clients allowed them to spam the world using them as references.

I know it is tempting to just skip reading the rest of this post, but if you have 2 minutes, you just have to read this one. I am not sure if they were trying to sound unique, intelligent or what, but it is a real hoot. Again, we did not change a word, only protected the innocent (sort of). Enjoy…

Please Share This:

Most webmasters are intimately familiar with the process of trading links with other websites.  Chances are, if you own or administer a site, you get requests to exchange links many times each week.  While annoying and usually automated, those requests represent one of the oldest methods of SEO there is:  Reciprocal linking.

Conventional wisdom on the subject says that getting a link on a site and linking back to them directly isn’t the best way to go about getting higher search engine rankings since you’re giving up authority to get some back.  Although this is true in many cases, it’s not an absolute rule.  As a matter of fact, some of the best possible links that many eCommerce sites can hope to get are by trading with other related sites in the same or similar industries.

 When doing reciprocal linking, the proof of quality really is in the pagerank (or your preferred value metric):  You’ll notice that sites with a focused link page that only links out to other quality sites relevant to their business will almost always have a good amount of PR, even on the link page itself, which means that an exchange would be valuable to pursue.  Conversely, sites that have full link directories about every topic and will link to anyone who links back are not worth the time it takes for the exchange and are best to pass up.  In those cases, you’ll see that their link directory doesn’t have much, if any, pagerank, and most of it will be on the directory index page, with the inner pages having almost zero authority and sometimes they won’t even be cached.  So, the rule with reciprocal exchanges is simply to be very selective and choose only the best sites to exchange with.

Beyond the value issue, there’s also the question of whether you want to actively engage in proposing link exchanges to other webmasters.  There are plenty of reasons to keep this tactic in reserve, including the fact that it’s an enormously time-consuming process, especially if done correctly.  Despite the time it takes, it’s still a very cost-effective option for getting good links to your site.  There are just a few rules to make sure are followed.  The cardinal rule goes something like “don’t automate” and while it sounds less than efficient, there’s pretty much nothing more annoying than automated emails, period (except maybe unwelcome audio on websites…).  Additionally: 

• Be as polite as possible, compliment the webmaster’s site and tell them what you like about it. 
• Make sure to offer something in return for linking to your site so that they know that you’re ready to make a mutually beneficial trade and aren’t simply trying to hijack their authority for yourself.

The most common exchange offer is, of course, a reciprocal link, but in certain cases something else might be more enticing to the webmaster…  Make sure to cruise their site and see if you can come up with something like that before sending out the requests.

In the end, the success rate of sending out emails requesting link trades is pretty low, even under the best of circumstances.  However, it’s one of the best ways to get high quality, related sites to link to you without indulging in paid linking.

Please Share This:

I remember as a kid having a job delivering Phonebooks. We’d get $0.50-$1.00 for every delivery; it was a great way to make some money before I was old enough to have a real job. Nowadays Phonebooks are a thing of the past. They are just too inconvenient, and impractical. I know I’m not the only one who thinks so; more and more people are flocking to online resources to help them find what they’re looking for.

Please Share This:

There was some big news recently in the world of link building services: did you hear about it? If you missed it, here it is: We’ve recently unveiled an extensive menu of new and enhanced services this year that moves our services to the front of the line for customized link building  and specialized content development for clients. Yes, really.

Please Share This: