The kind folks at internet marketing company IM Ninjas (formerly We Build Pages) sent me some nice clothes including a tshirt, polo and sweater (can’t show pics since they went to my address in Canada and I’m living in Israel) and to Dixon Jones of Majestic SEO link tools and Receptional SEO for treating myself and a number of other SEOs to dinner during last week’s SMX Israel show.

Downloads For RSS Subscribers:

• Content Marketing Cannon WordPress plugin - Consolidates content for more links, PageRank and traffic. Details: New SEO plugin: Content Marketing Cannon
• Internal Link Building, a WordPress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so you rank like Wikipedia. Details: Check the Internal Link Building update page.
• Get a free chapter from my upcoming book on advanced seo.
• Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data
  
• ROI on SEO Calculator spreadsheet.

It’s no secret that editorial links are typically relationship driven, but who has time to build relationships? That’s why we talk at each other in ephemeral tweets that last 140 characters … if you had that kind of lasting power in your relations with your wife, a divorce would not be long in coming!

So I want to share two little time-saver tools to building relationships by making more meaningful investments of time.

The Problem: People share links over Twitter and Facebook a lot more than they do via their blogs, because we’re lazy. Facebook and Twitter make it easy to do, with embedded widgets that let you share from any page on the web – not just when you’re logged in on their sites. That’s a lot nicer than having to go to your site, login, click new post and then finally create the link.

Turns out at some point in the dozens of version updates, WordPress snuck in a feature called Press This. It’s a bookmarklet – aka a button you can drag to your bookmarks bar in your browser – and when clicked from any page on the web will automatically take you to your New Post editor in WP and auto-insert and link the page you were on. Woohoo!

On a similar note, what if you’re collecting lots of URLs for a link roundup? It’s annoying having to edit the html to make each a link. Not to worry, there’s a plugin for that:

Auto-hyperlink URLs

Link out, make friends, watch them reciprocate. Win-win.

Downloads For RSS Subscribers:

• Content Marketing Cannon WordPress plugin - Consolidates content for more links, PageRank and traffic. Details: New SEO plugin: Content Marketing Cannon
• Internal Link Building, a WordPress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so you rank like Wikipedia. Details: Check the Internal Link Building update page.
• Get a free chapter from my upcoming book on advanced seo.
• Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data
  
• ROI on SEO Calculator spreadsheet.

Via Eric Ward’s newsletter, I found out that Google Chairman Eric Schmidt recently testified (PDF) before Congress about claims that Google is anti-competitive. Amongst his remarks are some truly amusing statements for anyone that knows Google and/or the current state of the web. Other things were less amusing and more amazing in what they revealed.

Some of my favourite selections, and their translations:

Eric: “Microsoft’s Bing launched in June 2009 and has grown so rapidly that some commentators have speculated that it could overtake Google as early as 2012.”

Translation: Some commentators said idiotic things, and I hope you’ll take believe my tongue in cheek reference to said foolishness seriously. In other news, the sky is falling, the sky is falling!

Eric: “For current events, news-seekers can visit the websites of major publications like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal or The Washington Post.”

Translation: “We’re shaking in our boots due to the stiff competition for non-commercial pageviews by bankrupt companies sailing a sinking business model.”

Eric: “From an advertising perspective, Google’s search advertising tools compete for ad dollars every day against other forms of advertising including, TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, direct mail and banner ads.”

Translation: “You have no clue about direct response advertising on a small-scale or for niche markets and I’d like you to be gullible enough to believe someone selling SEO services is going to advertise on the TV or the radio or the newspaper.’

Eric: “Advertisers know that they have other options and they can and do turn off their Google ad campaign whenever they want.”

Translation: “If advertisers don’t like us arbitrarily increasing click costs to meet our predictions for Wall Street, they can spend their money on TV, or get the massive volume available [at the rapidly growing] Bing. *snicker*”

Eric: “Our business principles that have guided us from the beginning include

- “Transparency. We give advertisers detailed information about the ad auction, including their ad quality score.”

Translation: “We tell advertisers explicitly when we’re going to charge them more money ‘cuz we feel like it.” (See Google charging Aaron Wall of SEOBook.com $2 CPC for the term SEO Book. )

- “Loyalty, not Lock-In. As much as we would like users to stay with Google, if consumers don’t like the answers that Google Search provides, they can switch.”

Translation: “You can switch to Google Product Search, Youtube, Google Mortgage Comparisons, Google Travel Search… All with one click [from our search results].

You should also be loyal to Google search to buy ads not just on generic queries but on brand keywords.”

As Aaron Wall writes, “The whole point of building a brand is increased affinity with users & not needing to pay for incremental distribution driven by brand demand. To spend money to build brand only to have to keep rebuying the existing brand equity is quite a futile exercise. ”

- “Be Open Not Closed. [Insert rest of quote]

Translation: “We openly explained to our Android partners that they could comply or get lost. We are using compatibility as a club.”

- “Label Ads Clearly.”

Translation: “We’ll label them clearly as Sponsored Links… in the upper right hand corner so you have a good user experience and don’t think to ignore the ads. That’s because in the upper right, you’re unlikely to pay attention, given the Western reading pattern to start in the upper left and move diagonally down to the right.”

…

Do you have a positive view on Google? Am I wrong on these things… feel free to pipe in and comment, even and especially if you disagree or have something more to add!

Downloads For RSS Subscribers:

• Content Marketing Cannon WordPress plugin - Consolidates content for more links, PageRank and traffic. Details: New SEO plugin: Content Marketing Cannon
• Internal Link Building, a WordPress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so you rank like Wikipedia. Details: Check the Internal Link Building update page.
• Get a free chapter from my upcoming book on advanced seo.
• Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data
  
• ROI on SEO Calculator spreadsheet.

Short tip for today, scratchpad style:

Retargeting ads are very successful … because they target an audience that already visited your site, and because they tend to offer deals to people who almost bought, but for whatever reason left before purchasing. These deals help push people across the threshold and get them to buy.

What if you did that offline? Someone comes into your car dealership and walks away with no keys… Call them back the next day with another offer based on what you think would close the deal. Don’t start chasing the next prospect [yet].

Have you guys ever done this? Or taken other online tactics offline?

Downloads For RSS Subscribers:

• Content Marketing Cannon WordPress plugin - Consolidates content for more links, PageRank and traffic. Details: New SEO plugin: Content Marketing Cannon
• Internal Link Building, a WordPress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so you rank like Wikipedia. Details: Check the Internal Link Building update page.
• Get a free chapter from my upcoming book on advanced seo.
• Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data
  
• ROI on SEO Calculator spreadsheet.

An infographic that provoked my curiosity, by longtime expert in the linkbait field, Muhammad Saleem:

Research and Design by: Online Colleges Site

While it starts off strong, personally, I would have liked the infographic to go a bit deeper into the consequences and any existing research, similar to what Nick Carr did with his article Is Google Making Us Stupid? and his book, The Shallows.

Perhaps that’ll be a follow up infographic?

Thoughts or comments on your personal experiences with changing memory and learning since the rise of Google?

Downloads For RSS Subscribers:

• Content Marketing Cannon WordPress plugin - Consolidates content for more links, PageRank and traffic. Details: New SEO plugin: Content Marketing Cannon
• Internal Link Building, a WordPress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so you rank like Wikipedia. Details: Check the Internal Link Building update page.
• Get a free chapter from my upcoming book on advanced seo.
• Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data
  
• ROI on SEO Calculator spreadsheet.

Social media generates ROI in the form of networking benefits.

Social media ROI comes from the relationships you build on Twitter, Facebook etc.

Listen to the name – it’s social media. The point is to network, only online. Hence the related term, social media networking.

The benefits you gain from networking:

You attend industry trade shows and cocktails and so on to network. That networking leads to sales, partnerships, job opportunities, recruiting opportunities, increased exposure etc.

Likewise, social media leads in turn to sales, partnerships, jobs etc.

The problem with measuring social media ROI …

…Is that people want to measure social media as a direct response medium, like Google AdWords.

While social media can be a direct response medium, it’s different than paid search or direct mail. Why? It’s different because you first need to build a relationship before converting the prospect.

You wouldn’t respond to a stranger at an industry cocktail approaching you and offering his services. So why should social media be any different?

You need to establish a relationship and only later can you seek to get a response.

It’s for that reason that social media analytics need to measure relationships.

It’s why human resources should measure and manage social media marketing.

It’s for this kind of plainspoken insight [and humility] that you should get my latest posts by email or RSS.

Downloads For RSS Subscribers:

• Content Marketing Cannon WordPress plugin - Consolidates content for more links, PageRank and traffic. Details: New SEO plugin: Content Marketing Cannon
• Internal Link Building, a WordPress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so you rank like Wikipedia. Details: Check the Internal Link Building update page.
• Get a free chapter from my upcoming book on advanced seo.
• Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data
  
• ROI on SEO Calculator spreadsheet.

I’ve been digging into online marketing tools and to my chagrin, most want an annual fee (or one time payment usually roughly equivalent). It’s the rise of SAAS…

Email:

MailerLite: Was on Discount from MightyDeals (found via Yoast) for $49/year!! Up to 10K subs… Love this pricing!
Or MailChimp: Free for up to 2K subs, plus very impressive segment-upon-signup options so you can better tailor content and increase open rates. Starting $49/mo thereafter.

I currently have Aweber which so far has been good, and their support’s generally been good – which is very important. I’m mostly interested in switching due to price (mailerlite) and functionality (chimp). Paying $29/mo for service at my # of subs (over 500, under 2k), for the advanced SEO book.

Contact Management / Social Media Analytics

The first two here are relationship-measuring social analytics tools. The latter is a traffic measuring social analytics tool.

I currently have BuzzStream which is pretty sweet. It automatically finds contact info, can track all email contact and Twitter contact too (going forward, non-historical), plus has various link building metrics and social media functions built in too, though personally my orientation is more the link building side. Starting $19/mo.

ConnectedHQ: Contact Management with full historical data and integrations with various social services. Measure and strengthen your relationships so you get more exposure and traffic. $10/mo

The reason ConnectedHQ also appeals to me is because of more integrations (mostly FB, I’m not big on LinkedIn) and historical data for them. Plus it’s affordable, which is great! Strong contrast to so many tools out there where average monthly price for a non-feature-neutered package is $49…

Awe.sm: Traffic analytics focused on social sharing where links are shared via means besides the browser (outlook, tweetdeck etc) and accurately reporting on where Twitter/FB/LinkedIn traffic really originated from, down to the particular tweet! Valuable for optimizing social media campaigns focused on traffic / conversions. Starting $15/mo

VaultPress: Multiple cloud-based backups + security monitoring for WP, by the creators of WP at Automattic. $40/mo and + for service including security. $15 for cloud backups which is basically not worth paying for since existing WP plugins do that.

Or: CodeGuard: Roughly the same idea but not WP specific. Unclear if they provide human support for cleaning bugs and reinstalling. $15/mo — Update: Got CodeGuard!

VisualWebsiteOptimizer: Tempted by their easy WYSIWYG interface… for better CRO testing. GWO’s horrible, sprawling documentation and disorganized forums are also a massive pain to navigate. $49/mo + for a decent package.

Downloads For RSS Subscribers:

• Content Marketing Cannon WordPress plugin - Consolidates content for more links, PageRank and traffic. Details: New SEO plugin: Content Marketing Cannon
• Internal Link Building, a WordPress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so you rank like Wikipedia. Details: Check the Internal Link Building update page.
• Get a free chapter from my upcoming book on advanced seo.
• Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data
  
• ROI on SEO Calculator spreadsheet.

From LiveCity: “LiveCity provides a website building service, which is both easy to use by novice website builders, and robust enough to allow skilled customers to express themselves by accessing the background code. The LiveCity system was developed by us, and with more than 200,000 websites already opened with our website builder, we are glad to be a leading service provider in the field of CMS systems for websites.”

I spoke with CEO Nir Alloush about his company’s product and how they’re helping SMBs. Of most note is his eye for how customers will use the product and providing room to grow with his company’s tool, as well as their thorough QA/usability testing process… For the advanced folks reading, you can skip over the marketing tips as you’ll know them.

1) What is wrong with other website builders that you saw the need to create another tool? What does your tool solve?

Our main goal was to bring the sophisticated craft of website building to entry-level customers – without the need to own a server or a dedicated hosting space, upload files, and configure databases and other activities that small business owners usually have no experience with.

As most other website building services usually require the user to have non-standard knowledge just to get started – our solution requires no programs, is available anywhere and allows the user to complete a short registration process and own a fully designed, operational website.

The trial period is another significant upside, as other solutions require the user to accomplish a checklist of tasks before he has the chance to see the system he’s about to be working with. We also take pride in our rapid development and variety of tools that do not require the user to install add-ons – everything is ready to use, out of the box.

2) What are the most popular aspects of Livecity’s website builder?

If we were to choose one major popular aspect – it would be the virtual store. Our virtual store requires no separate installation, already includes credit card clearing and SSL, leaving the user with the only responsibility of adding products and setting prices. As no further purchase is necessary, having the solution ready allows customers to sell products and create additional income flow, even if they haven’t planned it initially.

In addition, our new interface is a source of pride as well. We have simplified many action flows, while introducing many new tools such as blogs, calendars, drag & drop editing and more. While it is online for less than a month, the feedback from new and existing customers is astonishing!

3) What are some of the better known sites that have been built using Livecity’s software?

Although we initially targeted small and medium businesses, many high-profile companies joined along over the years.

We are proud to support several of the websites owned by MATI, entrepreneurship cultivation centers – a chain of governmentally funded nonprofit
organizations that support local businesses.

Bar-Ilan university has also chosen us to provide them services, as well as Bynet (a subsidiary of RAD Data Communications), EZWay (SAT test preparation school) and many more.

4) What are the top 3 features small business owners should ensure their business has?

That’s a difficult question, as the answer is dictated by their business goals. In a nutshell, a small business must own a website these days, which will represent it online (where most searches for service providers are conducted), in a professional manner. As a result of that, a small business must also aspire to surpass its competitors in the search engine rankings – as the top-rated websites gain maximal exposure to potential buyers.

Another thing we would advise to have is a platform to grow: every business owner will want to expand, so he must choose service providers that will allow him to do so easily. That includes offices, marketing efforts and naturally – the website itself.

5) Do you use usability testing as part of your software development process? If so, can u share some of the things you found and how it influenced your development?

Of course! Over the years, we have introduced a great variety of tools, interfaces and features. All of them require testing and evaluation before we feel ready to launch them officially. As errors could heavily influence business owners (for example, making changes to tools that people already work with might result in unwanted changes), we take measures to ensure the quality of our products.

First of all, every line of code is being observed with many pairs of eyes.

Then, we usually launch an internal beta, in which our workers test out tools and submit feedback. Following that, we usually expand the beta circle to a limited number of tech-savvy customers and resellers, willing to test out tools and submit feedback.

After enough feedback has been gathered and all unforeseen errors have been corrected, we launch the tool to the general public and continue to collect feedback via our technical support operators.

6) What are the most affordable ways for small business owners to market themselves on the web? Why?

In terms of web-based marketing, Google-based marketing yields the best results. As small business owners do not pay there for exposure but for actual clicks – clever campaign management leads to more relevant visitors: only people who are interested in the product or the service click the ad, and the results are measurable and improvable.

Besides paid marketing, it is also advised to establish a well-known brand online, making the name of the business be a synonym to the service it provides. That’s accomplished using SEO, forum participation, social network presence and everything else that assists the business
owner to become the leading brand in his line of work.

7) What should small business owners have on their requirements list for web hosting?

We have learned that small business owners cherish technical support and customer service – as they often do not have the resources to hire someone to tend those specifics. So – the first thing on the list would probably be professional, in-house, non-outsourced and well-trained representatives that will assist the business owner in his time of need. Other than that, it is important to review the reliability, stability, technological proficiency of the company itself.

Ease of use would be another important factor for newcomers, as most starting business owners build their websites themselves. Also, the ability to promote the website in search engines, design it freely and take advantage of various tools that the owner may require should also be checked.

Downloads For RSS Subscribers:

• Content Marketing Cannon WordPress plugin - Consolidates content for more links, PageRank and traffic. Details: New SEO plugin: Content Marketing Cannon
• Internal Link Building, a WordPress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so you rank like Wikipedia. Details: Check the Internal Link Building update page.
• Get a free chapter from my upcoming book on advanced seo.
• Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data
  
• ROI on SEO Calculator spreadsheet.

M.-J. Taylor is a moderator on V7N’s forums and has been working in SEO since 1997. She’s recently launched a SEO & social blog and offers services via her site Cyber-Key , focused on the web design and SEO in the Florida Keys.

How did you get involved with V7N?

I was a moderator on WebProWorld and kept hearing about V7N from other members. I checked it out. It wasn’t the most learned forum I’d ever visited, but it was the friendliest. I was made to feel welcome and a “part of.” And I felt I was needed, as well as wanted.

Of course, no one is indispensable on a forum, but I felt I had something to offer there. I started a daily SEO Tips thread and that’s kept me pretty busy.

What advantage do you find in participating on a forum vs a blog community like SEOmoz?

I haven’t experienced SEOMoz, and I have begun to think I should. I think the cost kept me away. My perception is that would have to buy into the tools to be part of the community. But I so respect Rand Fishkin and others I know associate there. It really is a next step for me, perhaps.

You offer clients web design and SEO services. Why do you prefer that over being an affiliate, or creating your own product and marketing it?

I am my own product. *laughs* Really, it was just how my business naturally developed.

I’ve always been a believer in following your bliss, and my discovery of the Internet came at a time when I wasn’t working. I had just moved from Miami to the Florida Keys and the Internet filled a void – people to talk to, and an opportunity to learn. Within a week, I was spending 8 or 10 hours a day online. I loved it! And I still do.

I wasn’t in a big hurry to get a job, but I wanted something to do, and I watched the want ads. When I saw an ad for a webmaster‘s assistant, I knew it was for me. I had the basic skills – I had taught myself HTML to make what I called a vanity page. This was 1997 and it was all simple. HTML was a doddle, and SEO was about meta tags and a title, wasn’t it?

I was developing a skill few had; acquaintances hired me because I was the only person they knew who could make a website for them. I was enthralled with my business because it answered both my right brain inclination to be creative – I like layout a lot. And it challenged my left brain competitive nature.

People often ask about how to attract clients. A more important question is: what tips do you have on closing web design / SEO clients?

This is going to sound arrogant, but I don’t close anyone. People usually come to me because they have seen what I have done for someone else.

And most of the time I don’t take new business. I only take clients that really fit with what I already do, and it’s usually a chemistry that I develop with someone.

For example, I have had a lot of deep sea fishing captains as clients over the years. One of the most recent new clients was someone who approached me years ago and I said no at the time. A couple of years ago we got personally acquainted – he’s my landlord in Key West where I spend the winters now – and when he asked again, I said yes. I’m having fun with his site and part of that is because I care about helping him.

So, I suppose playing hard to get is a good way to hook ‘em.

I will offer this tip; it isn’t about closing, but it is about getting new business. Answer your phone. [Emphasis added] I have always been responsive . I answer the phone when it rings and I reply to emails very promptly.

So many web professionals are overwhelmed – especially the good ones – and they don’t always pick up the phone.

We all lose business when we let it go to voice mail or fail to return messages the same day. You have to make a customer feel they are important to you and that you value their business.

What are some mistakes you made in trying to close sales, when you started selling services?

I took clients I shouldn’t have taken. One of them yelled at me because of what his last webmaster did. I designed the site, and fired client as soon as I could train his staff to maintain the site. I learned the hard way that I have to have good chemistry with the client and I have to want to sell what they are marketing.

How do you differentiate your offering from others’ offerings?

I don’t think about that. I just do what I love and what I know how to do. I don’t believe in the scarcity principle. There is enough business for everyone. Someone will give you money or trade with you for your skills. But you do have to believe in yourself.

I was born blessed, I suppose. My mother made me feel that I could do anything I wanted if I would apply myself. I suppose getting me to apply myself has always been the biggest challenge. That’s why following my bliss is so important. I just started a new blog on my old, circa 2002 website. I am completely energized by this new venture, and I think the poor old site will finally get the update it has so long needed.

If you liked this post, add my rss feed to your reader!

Downloads For RSS Subscribers:

• Content Marketing Cannon WordPress plugin - Consolidates content for more links, PageRank and traffic. Details: New SEO plugin: Content Marketing Cannon
• Internal Link Building, a WordPress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so you rank like Wikipedia. Details: Check the Internal Link Building update page.
• Get a free chapter from my upcoming book on advanced seo.
• Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data
  
• ROI on SEO Calculator spreadsheet.

In yet another fascinating case study, Mr Green’s blog shares a mobile marketing campaign aimed at recruiting panel members for a demographic research service.

What’s fascinating is the bit about optimizing the campaign by device, carrier etc. Some phone models convert better than others, and not always for reasons of usability. Shoemoney years ago shared a case study of targeting ringtone offers by carrier, and showed how he dug into the demographics of each carrier to find the demographic most likely to convert on his offer.

While that’s well and good for affiliate marketers, it’s another thing entirely for customers of panel measurement services. If you’re buying data, you want it to be representative of the audience you’re researching, for ex.: smart phone users in general.

But if the panel is disproportionately heavy on one particular model or carrier etc, relative to the general audience you’re researching, the data you’ll be buying will be skewed. Of course, you can then slice and dice the data to solve the problem, but that depends on the panel measurement service enabling that.

Another related issue is panel recruitment based on giving away freebies. That also attracts a skewed demographic that may exclude the wealthiest elements of the population.

If you liked this bit of critical thinking, then check out my advanced SEO book, which teaches Advanced SEOs’ 7 Rules of critical and creative thinking.

Downloads For RSS Subscribers:

• Content Marketing Cannon WordPress plugin - Consolidates content for more links, PageRank and traffic. Details: New SEO plugin: Content Marketing Cannon
• Internal Link Building, a WordPress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so you rank like Wikipedia. Details: Check the Internal Link Building update page.
• Get a free chapter from my upcoming book on advanced seo.
• Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data
  
• ROI on SEO Calculator spreadsheet.

The IM scene here in Israel is growing and is ripe for a monthly meetup for schmoozing and having fun with your peers. That was most evident this Sunday at SphinnCon, which was very well-attended and featured some pretty impressive presentations from the likes of Barry Schwartz of Rustybrick Web Dev and Adir Regev of Go Internet Marketing in particular.

Marc Levy of Matan Media suggested to me that an SEO meetup in Jerusalem would be great, and based on my experience with Montreal’s Yulbiz scene, I had to agree.

All that to say that I suggest:

Who: Everyone involved in internet marketing: bloggers, SEOs, PPC folks, email marketers, affiliates, social pros, developers, designers etc
When: Next Wednesday, January 19th, starting at 7 and going til 10 pm
Where: Hamoshava 54 address: Shlomtzion Hamalka #5. (NOT the other location on Emek Refaim).

Leave a comment here if you’re interested and blog/tweet about it to pass the message on to others who may be interested. Thanks to @Menucha_Z for her help writing this. Likewise to all the awesome organizers who helped put together SphinnCon!

Downloads For RSS Subscribers:

• Content Marketing Cannon WordPress plugin - Consolidates content for more links, PageRank and traffic. Details: New SEO plugin: Content Marketing Cannon
• Internal Link Building, a WordPress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so you rank like Wikipedia. Details: Check the Internal Link Building update page.
• Get a free chapter from my upcoming book on advanced seo.
• Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data
  
• ROI on SEO Calculator spreadsheet.

Sending cards is a cheap way to build goodwill, especially when personalized. Here are some nice examples I’ve received from my friends at Outsourced Program Management Pros, Milestone Internet Marketing, and Aweber Email Marketing.

OPM Pros Holiday Card

OPM Pros Stock Shot

Milestone Internet Marketing Holiday Card

Aweber Post Card

Downloads For RSS Subscribers:

• Content Marketing Cannon WordPress plugin - Consolidates content for more links, PageRank and traffic. Details: New SEO plugin: Content Marketing Cannon
• Internal Link Building, a WordPress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so you rank like Wikipedia. Details: Check the Internal Link Building update page.
• Get a free chapter from my upcoming book on advanced seo.
• Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data
  
• ROI on SEO Calculator spreadsheet.

Recently, Sphinn has changed from a vote-driven (read:clique) system to editor-driven (read:non-social) system. This explains any things that seem out of place, as well as Twitter not being mentioned). Besides that, this continues our Sphinn Interview series, which previously featured Bob Gladstein, Pat Altoft, Sebastian, and Dave Harry.

Wiep runs the popular Link Building Blog aka Wiep.net, and co-founded LinkBuilding.nl which you’ll agree is pretty self-explanatory. (It’s part of the inspiration for me to get off my ass and do something with linkbuilding.ca …)

1) What benefits have you seen from your activity at Sphinn?

Sphinn turned out to be not only a great networking tool, but also the perfect place to find outstanding SEO related info. I subscribed to at least a few dozen RSS feeds from blogs that I came across on Sphinn since the launch in July last year.

The direct traffic to my own blog is a great side effect.

2) Share 3 – 5 key elements of your success with Sphinn.

I guess that would be passion, dedication and a strange urgent need to
share stuff…

3) What other social networks do you participate in? Can you share your usernames there, and what type of content you’d consider sharing with the other members of those sites as well what you wouldn’t pass on?

While I try to use as many social media websites as possible, I always find myself struggling to find enough time to do this sufficiently.

I do participate on Digg, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn and a few Dutch social websites on a regular basis, though.

4) What features (besides those announced, like “Mark as spam/Bury”) would you like to see on Sphinn?

I’d love to see a “follow this user” option, or something similar. Lots of members submit nothing but excellent stuff, and subscribing to their submissions would make sure that I don’t miss anything of it.

5) Are you a socialist or a medium? [A weak attempt at playing on 'social media' that no one I asked this of understood. = bad joke]

Not sure what to answer here, could you elaborate a bit more?

6) Define the term: “Sphinn doctor.” [Ditto]

You mean this guy (http://sphinn.com/user/view/profile/login/sphinndr)?

7) Besides only submitting their own stuff or only sphinning their own stuff, what are some common mistakes people make with social media?

Submitting stuff that’s not relevant to the community. For example, submitting a serious post about the latest fashion trends in France probably isn’t very interesting for the average Digg community member.

People will consider something that’s not relevant for them to be SPAM quite easily.

Because there are lots of communities that DO like stuff about French fashion trends, I’d recommend focusing on those communities in stead of just submitting your stuff everywhere.

8 ) Tell us a minimum 3 non-Sphinn items about yourself that people could use to catch your eye on Sphinn (i.e. to Sphinnbait you).

Do something with guerrilla marketing, graffiti art or football (soccer), and you have my full attention instantly. (Oh, and I hate to disappoint you, but unlike you mentioned in your YOUmoz post, I’m not a big fan of former Spurs player Davids… I’m a big fan of Dennis Bergkamp and Robin van Persie in stead, who happen to play for the Spurs’ rival Arsenal.)

9) Which of Cialdini’s 6 principles do you feel most important to gaining influence and why? Can you share some anecdotes?

That would definitely be Commitment. Participate with passion on a regular basis, and you will get noticed.

10) What is the future of social media?

The future is what you want it to be, since you have influence on social media yourself.

p.s. I pre-scheduled this and am currently on vacation. For more pre-scheduled awesome posts, add my rss feed to your reader!

Downloads For RSS Subscribers:

• Content Marketing Cannon WordPress plugin - Consolidates content for more links, PageRank and traffic. Details: New SEO plugin: Content Marketing Cannon
• Internal Link Building, a WordPress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so you rank like Wikipedia. Details: Check the Internal Link Building update page.
• Get a free chapter from my upcoming book on advanced seo.
• Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data
  
• ROI on SEO Calculator spreadsheet.

Do you want to make 15% – 25% commission, recurring month to month?

If so, contact me for more info! For details, read on.

Here are some other benefits of working as a salesman for SEO ROI Services:

• Professional development with training on product, industry, lead gen techniques, analytics etc
• Work anywhere – home, your car, the local internet cafe
• Be proud of your work: 10% of all profits go to charity
• Services that clients rave about, so you can feel confident in every sales call

Here’s a sample testimonial, from Dave Davis of Red Fly Marketing.

“We’ve used the link building services of Gab Goldenberg and SEOROI for the past four months and we have found the service absolutely amazing. The quality of the links we got was astonishing and nothing that we could have gotten without incredible effort on our parts. Probably not at all. I would highly recommend Gab and SEOROI for any link building or SEO services. The knowledge, quality and attention to detail provided is an extremely rare thing.”

Contact me for more info!

Downloads For RSS Subscribers:

• Content Marketing Cannon WordPress plugin - Consolidates content for more links, PageRank and traffic. Details: New SEO plugin: Content Marketing Cannon
• Internal Link Building, a WordPress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so you rank like Wikipedia. Details: Check the Internal Link Building update page.
• Get a free chapter from my upcoming book on advanced seo.
• Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data
  
• ROI on SEO Calculator spreadsheet.

If you work with anyone else, watch this video. Via Got Safety.net, Michael Roberts, and its creators, Cognitive Media Graphics / TheRSA.org. Cognitive does the graphics fwiw.

The RSA is like TED but with cartoons instead of talking heads. More fun . (“The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) has been a cradle of enlightenment thinking and a force for social progress. Our approach is multi-disciplinary, politically independent and combines cutting edge research and policy development with practical action”)

Downloads For RSS Subscribers:

• Content Marketing Cannon WordPress plugin - Consolidates content for more links, PageRank and traffic. Details: New SEO plugin: Content Marketing Cannon
• Internal Link Building, a WordPress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so you rank like Wikipedia. Details: Check the Internal Link Building update page.
• Get a free chapter from my upcoming book on advanced seo.
• Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data
  
• ROI on SEO Calculator spreadsheet.

This is a guest post by Troy Redington. Find him on Twitter @TroyRedington !

I’ve been into web development since 1995. I started dabbling in high school and just couldn’t stop. I felt comforted, and challenged by the vast sea of knowledge that I could learn. Plus, since the languages, technologies, and trends were always changing – I knew I wouldn’t get bored with it.

In the year 1999 I scored my first real, full-time web development job for an audio company. My boss was a man named Tim Storm. I learned a LOT working for Tim. I went from dabbling and hacking, to actually producing and innovating. Tim started Fatwallet.com (a coupon site) as his hobby while we were still working together. I felt honored to be a part of its community development in the first couple years. Tim quit his day job and went full-time on Fatwallet.com shortly after.

Fast forward to 2006. I was a web developer for Fatwallet, on a team of 4 or 5. I had been dabbling in SEO on the side for the last two years, mainly for my wife’s [former] online scrapbook store. I was incredibly passionate about Fatwallet. Tim, and his company, had both done great things for my career. Knowing some SEO basics, and seeing the major SEO problems and HUGE search traffic potentials of the site, I went to Tim and told him that the company needs to spend some time on SEO.

Maybe I wasn’t clear with my intentions since Tim transitioned a different coworker to SEO. The next six months were miserable as I was the developer in charge of implementing the new SEO’s techniques. I watched and fought tooth and nail as the SEO spent countless hours on extinct techniques like meta keywords. After several arguments with the SEO, and whiny complaints to the man in charge, old SEO out, Troy in.

I was given 3 months to see if I could make an impact on traffic. Tim and I both agreed that we needed a kickass metric system for measuring the efforts and results – so I spent the next 2 months doing nothing but writing a new search traffic analytic tracking system. I used it to monitor the current search traffic, and find opportunities for easy optimization.  I quickly found terms like GoDaddy coupon that were driving some traffic to pages that were NOT optimized (and quite unfriendly to search engines).

I rewrote URLs throughout the site, changed paging systems, implemented dynamic cross linking systems, cleaned piles of dirty, messy, pathetic code (that I had written in years past). Once the site was search engine friendly, and KINDA optimized, we watched the traffic increase day after day. After a few months, search traffic had doubled. Hell yeah, I felt like a winner.

Then I met with Tim again. Tim wanted to know which terms were converting, and how much traffic has increased to the terms that are the highest converting. It took another couple of months to tweak the system and start producing metrics that prove ROI. And then I became the full-time, in-house SEO for FatWallet.

The next couple years were brutal, as I fought many challenges. FatWallet’s search traffic is incredibly long-tailed, with a million plus members in the forums, the site is loaded with rich user generated content – and we all know how search engines love UGC. However the terms I was expected to target were far from long-tail, and often far from reality. Most people in the company didn’t really know what I was doing, hell sometimes *I* didn’t really know what I was doing.

I kept trying and kept learning…and more importantly, I kept finding search traffic opportunities that could align with our content. My passion for the company, and now for the industry, fueled debates with sales managers, designers, developers, and sysadmins. In the end, our results have made it all totally worth it.

My responsibilities, and respect for what I do, are higher than ever at Fatwallet. I’m producing results, getting involved with big projects, and even driving big projects.

Tim continues to inspire us, and is currently a finalist in the Entrepreneur of the Year contest.

My career has been created by passion and a strong desire to learn and succeed. What drives you guys in your search careers?

Downloads For RSS Subscribers:

• Content Marketing Cannon WordPress plugin - Consolidates content for more links, PageRank and traffic. Details: New SEO plugin: Content Marketing Cannon
• Internal Link Building, a WordPress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so you rank like Wikipedia. Details: Check the Internal Link Building update page.
• Get a free chapter from my upcoming book on advanced seo.
• Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data
  
• ROI on SEO Calculator spreadsheet.

For those of you who don’t know, my name’s Gab Goldenberg and I run SEO ROI Services. There are a few practices that I’d like to share, which give me both pleasure and pride in running this business.

1) Donating 10% of profits to charity. While occasionally I have forgotten and missed a payment, by and large my track record is good in this regard.

Some charities I give to serve the needs of:

• The Jewish community
• The poor
• Those needing education
• Smokers trying to quit

2) Fair payment. I pay people I work with – regardless of their location around the world, in Europe, the Phillipines or here in Canada – fair wages. I also seek to recognize them for taking the initiative and also for being exceptionally reliable.

Some things I’ve done in this respect include sending [unsolicited] chocolates, and other times cash bonuses.

My experience with this has been that people appreciate you making the effort to think of them and it’s a positive cycle – you do extra for them, they do more for you. It also reduces turnover, which is a big time saver.

3) Overdelivering. I admit that in the past, I sometimes met deliverables late or exactly in quantity, the past few months have seen a big improvement.

These past few months, on link building deliverables, SEO ROI Services exceeded requirements by numbers varying between 15% and 60%! And on time as well as commitments for redesign and other projects, I’ve bitten the bullet when things took longer or cost more than anticipated. It’s my quote, and I’ll stick by it.

4) Our online reporting makes life hassle-free for everyone – clients, myself and my team.

Before, updates on link building projects were handled by email. Wanted to know where we’re at on deliverables? You’d email me.

What did I do next?

Email the bloggers or blog editors I work with.

- “How’re we doing?” I’d ask.

- “The editor’s been on a Caribbean cruise for a month,” my blogger would casually respond. “We’re waiting for his return to get the posts published.”

- “But I’m shvitzing this deadline and we still need 7 links to make quota,” I’d cry girlishly, paling light-green. “What’s he think he’s doing in the Caribbean??”

- “Continuing Castro’s Bolshevik revolution? [Vacation, duh, you idiot.]” came the languid reply.

- “Since when is he allowed on vacation?” I’d silently sigh to myself.

Next I’d unceremoniously inform the client that a tornado had tragically killed half our staff and made the rest homeless. Obviously, we’d need more time…

Nowadays, we handle it with BasecampHQ. Bloggers post the URLs as they go live. Clients and I can login to track progress any day, any time.

Around mid-month I can see where we’re at and make adjustments if we need to do more.

(I’ve also solved the problem of bloggers/editors going MIA by aiming to have more bloggers and blogs than strictly necessary to meet deliverables. Worst case, we meet exactly our promise. Best case we overdeliver. Hence #3 above.)

5) Because I love you guys too! Look at all the posts in my blogroll category and how much I link out .

Heck, I’m going to make this a meme. Those tagged have to write their own version with 5 reasons to love their company and pass it on!

(*Shouts:*) “Tag! You’re it:

Outspoken Media

San Diego SEO (Check out his great link tunnelling tip btw.)

Wiep / LinkBuilding.nl

Wordstream Internet Marketing Blog

Rimm Kaufmann

Red Fly Marketing

Tamar’s Social Media Marketing

RustyBrick / SERoundtable

Julien Smith

SEO Dojo / Dave Harry

Aimclear

Downloads For RSS Subscribers:

• Content Marketing Cannon WordPress plugin - Consolidates content for more links, PageRank and traffic. Details: New SEO plugin: Content Marketing Cannon
• Internal Link Building, a WordPress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so you rank like Wikipedia. Details: Check the Internal Link Building update page.
• Get a free chapter from my upcoming book on advanced seo.
• Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data
  
• ROI on SEO Calculator spreadsheet.

Mixergy.com is one of my new faourite sites, because it’s got a huge archive of high quality interviews with fascinating people! The guy making it happen first and foremost is Andrew Warner, whom I got to interview. Here’s what we discussed.

1) Which interview have you most enjoyed doing and why?

I knew I wanted to do interviews with entrepreneurs after I interviewed my friend Rosalind Resnick. She built a company from her house with no outside money and took it public. It was an inspiring story about what could be done in business. Even though I knew her for years, it wasn’t until I interviewed her that I learned the full story. I learned that interviewing will make me aware of just how much I don’t know and help me fill in those knowledge gaps.

2) What feedback have people given you in terms of the value they get from you site?

In many of my interviews, I say, “I’m doing this so you, the listener, could learn how to build a business from those who’ve done it. My goal is for you to take as much as you can from these programs and go out there and build something incredible. Then, hopefully, you’ll come back and do an interview with me and teach others.” I’m finally starting to see that happen. If you listen to many of my latest interviews with successful entrepreneurs, you’ll hear them say that they’ve been listening and now want to give back by helping others.

3) If you could improve 2 things about Mixergy, what would they be?

A. I’d like to find a way to have the audience pull out the key points from each interview. Hidden in those hour-long interviews are simple, usable insights. I need help highlighting them, but I haven’t figured out how to do that yet.

B. I’d like to write better headlines. Each interview is thousands of words long, but the 7 to 10 words in the headline will decide if all those others will get noticed.

4) You’re really energetic in videos and engaging; is that a TV personality that you find necessary to keep people’s attention, or do you interact with people like that normally?

I’m more energetic in real life. I haven’t figured out how to bring my personal energy to the interviews and make it feel natural. In my old videos, when I tried being my high-energy-self, I sounded like a mental patient who had too much Red Bull. So I’ve slowed down.

5) What’s your vision for what you’d like to be doing over the next 12 months?

I’d like to pull out more key ideas from my interviews and make each one more useful.

6) How about the next 3 years?

Not sure.

7) I’ve noticed you have various collaborators who help with the site; how do you draw talented people to work with you and motivate them to keep working with you?

They’re all volunteers who’ve heard my work and offered to help. I’m very lucky to have their support and do whatever I can to make sure they get more value from the work than they put into it.

Downloads For RSS Subscribers:

• Content Marketing Cannon WordPress plugin - Consolidates content for more links, PageRank and traffic. Details: New SEO plugin: Content Marketing Cannon
• Internal Link Building, a WordPress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so you rank like Wikipedia. Details: Check the Internal Link Building update page.
• Get a free chapter from my upcoming book on advanced seo.
• Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data
  
• ROI on SEO Calculator spreadsheet.

Patrick Altoft directs search for Branded3, a Leeds-based full service digital agency. He also runs the popular Blogstorm SEO blog and is a pretty interesting guy to chat to overall! Hit him up if you’re looking for search services in the UK!

We’re continuing a series of interviews I conducted in 2008 with active Sphinners. You might also like to read the interviews with David ‘theGypsy’ Harry and ‘Sebastian‘.

1) What benefits have you seen from your activity at Sphinn?

I use my real name and people now associate my Sphinn profile with my blog. Any bit of publicity helps on the web.

2) Share 3 – 5 key elements of your success with Sphinn.

1. Use your face as your avatar
2. Use your real name
3. Only submit great stuff

3) What other social networks do you participate in? (E.g. Digg/clones, Facebook/LinkedIn/Myspace, Ning-type sites, forums, specific blogs you comment on a lot) Can you share your usernames there, and what type of content you’d consider sharing with the other members of those sites as well what you wouldn’t pass on?

I use Digg and StumbleUpon and used to be active on Digital Point until it was overrun by to much noise.

4) What features (besides those announced, like “Mark as spam/Bury”) would you like to see on Sphinn?

I would like to be able to subscribe to a feed that tells me when my blog posts get sphunn so I can go vote for them too.

5) Are you a socialist or a medium? [A weak attempt at humour playing on 'social media'....]

Neither.

6) Define the term: “Sphinn doctor.” [Ditto]

Somebody who can get to the front page of sphinn.

7) Besides only submitting their own stuff or only sphinning their own stuff, what are some common mistakes people make with social media?

Submitting content that is blatantly linkbait or content that is full of adverts.

Tell us a minimum 3 non-Sphinn items about yourself that people could use to catch your eye on Sphinn (i.e. to Sphinnbait you).

a. Mention my name or blog
b. Write something I’ve never read before
c. Give a real life example of making money from the web

9) Which of Cialdini’s 6 principles do you feel most important to gaining influence and why? Can you share some anecdotes?

I have never heard of Cialdini I’m afraid.

10) What is the future of social media?

Sites will try harder and harder to become spam free and probably ruin themselves while doing it. One persons spam is another persons clever marketing and it is a very tight balance.

Like I said, you might also like to read the interviews with David ‘theGypsy’ Harry and ‘Sebastian‘.

If you want to keep up with future interviews from this series, add my rss feed to your reader. You may also like my advanced SEO book.

Downloads For RSS Subscribers:

• Content Marketing Cannon WordPress plugin - Consolidates content for more links, PageRank and traffic. Details: New SEO plugin: Content Marketing Cannon
• Internal Link Building, a WordPress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so you rank like Wikipedia. Details: Check the Internal Link Building update page.
• Get a free chapter from my upcoming book on advanced seo.
• Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data
  
• ROI on SEO Calculator spreadsheet.

Sebastian is the technical genius and SEO behind Sebastian’s Pamphlets. This warm fellow’s well-known avatar is rather ironic – a crab! We’re continuing the Sphinner interview series that began with Dave ‘theGypsy’ Harry.

1) What benefits have you seen from your activity at Sphinn?

Sphinn is the best aggregator for SEM stuff (stories, links, discussions), ever. Despite the noise on the upcoming pages, Sphinn has all the news that matter. In other words Sphinn is a great time saver, although I didn’t dump my feedreader yet. Also I’ve met nice folks at Sphinn, people I wouldn’t know otherwise. Joining Sphinn was this decade’s best decision (besides moving my WebDev/SEO-pamphlets away from blogspot).

2) Share 3 – 5 key elements of your success with Sphinn.

Define success. I’m just a user, taking more than I can give back. Thanks to great Sphinners I’m pointed to interesting stuff, bookmark (sphinn) it, and every once in a while I submit a pamphlet and my fellow sphinners honor that with very nicely targeted traffic, thoughtful comments, and sometimes even links. I’ve no sphinny world SEM community domination plans.

3) What other social networks do you participate in (Digg/clones, Facebook/LinkedIn/Myspace, Ning-type sites, forums, specific blogs you comment on a lot)? Can you share your usernames there, and what type of content you’d consider sharing with the other members of those sites as well what you wouldn’t pass on?

I’ve spread my red-crab.ico under the “SebastianX” label everywhere, but besides Sphinn I use only Delicious and StumbleUpon as bookmarking tools, and Twitter for gossip and communication. Of course I vote elsewhere for a tiny fee when nicely asked, provided I like the content. I’m not in the social media game. I just use those services when they make sense for me. In my spare time I help out Google with Webmaster support.

4) What features (besides those announced, like “Mark as spam/Bury”) would you like to see on Sphinn?

On the submission form I miss the “bypass the new list” checkbox. Sometimes sphinn+save is not enough to praise an awesome piece, hence an easy way to manage a few dozens user profiles for power-voting would make sense.

5) Are you a socialist or a medium? [Me trying to be witty and failing miserably.]

I’m an anarchist. My code rules the chaos.

6) Define the term: “Sphinn doctor.” [Ditto.]

All sphinners properly feeding my ego deserve this title. Seriously, I nominate Michelle who keeps things running and makes Sphinn an even better hangout with every update. Having so many attention whores and probloggers in the community we tend to forget the seabees.

7) Besides only submitting their own stuff or only sphinning their own stuff, what are some common mistakes people make with social media?

Taking it too seriously.

Tell us a minimum 3 non-Sphinn items about yourself that people could use to catch your eye on Sphinn (i.e. to Sphinnbait you).

I won’t sphinn “how to get raped by aliens” items like “new version of MS Visual Studio is out” and crap like that. Titles like “Why TrustRank is way sexier than plain old PageRank”, “Increasing index penetration without abrading link condoms” or “Automating unpenalized paid link gangbangs” get my vote for sure, provided the article is geeky enough and makes sense. You see, sex sells, even to old farts crabs like me.

9) Which of Cialdini’s 6 principles do you feel most important to gaining influence and why? Can you share some anecdotes?

Social Proof. It might be wishful thinking, but I hope that applying a brutal zero-bullshit tolerance in combination with sharing knowledge and experiences can influence people and prevent them from crappy decisions.

10) What is the future of social media?

Getting plastered with so many ads that one can’t find the contents any more.

Thanks Gab!

Like I wrote above – this is part of a series of interviews with Sphinners. They were actually conducted years ago then left to rot in my inbox. Time to get ‘em out!

If you liked this, check out the interview with  Dave ‘theGypsy’ Harry, or get a free chapter from my advanced SEO book.

Downloads For RSS Subscribers:

• Content Marketing Cannon WordPress plugin - Consolidates content for more links, PageRank and traffic. Details: New SEO plugin: Content Marketing Cannon
• Internal Link Building, a WordPress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so you rank like Wikipedia. Details: Check the Internal Link Building update page.
• Get a free chapter from my upcoming book on advanced seo.
• Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data
  
• ROI on SEO Calculator spreadsheet.