Disclaimer: this is the author’s personal opinion and is not the opinion or policy of cognitiveSEO or of the little green men that have been following us all day.

Our weekly link building technique column has been dormant for a while as I was link building by guest posts on other SEO blogs myself. You might have noticed or read these postings already. Maybe I will collect them at the bottom in the comment section for those that haven’t yet. This week I’d like to write about a technique that you don’t use for a site that represents a legit business.

The loss of a positive image and reputation can sometimes by itself be more devastating than the actual gain in new links.

I don’t want to preach the obvious things that comment spamming or using linkfarms may seriously harm your business or that you have to use paid links at your own peril.  I hope you know the basics.

After reading a recent post on SEO Book, I decided to explain why link baiting by pissing in your own pool is a bad idea. In this post a guest author whose most outstanding contribution to the SEO industry in the recent years are a few posts on Search Engine Watch in 2007 and being an editor for the niche social news community Sphinn until 2009 lashes out against “celebrity” SEO bloggers.

Don’t get me wrong, I love outspoken individuals that have something to say, especially something that improves the overall quality of the SEO discipline. I have made a name for me initially be being critical of SEO myself. There is a fine line between getting attention by saying outrageous things and link baiting by attacking people that are a thousand times better than you though.

When you represent a legit business you don’t want to offend people that made the industry what it is.

By legit I mean the business model, the niche you’re in and the products or services you offer. Some businesses like gambling, weapons or porn remain questionable even in case you have a sound business plan and only use legit tactics in SEO and beyond.

For SEO, which is by itself a legit business, unless you mistake SEO for spam, this tactic is a nono. You might think you are a “SEO star” or work in a self proclaimed “world’s leading SEO agency” and even write a blog post here or there as long as you keep you mouth shut and don’t offend people other professionals may ignore you so that you can keep bragging.

When you decide to attack the true industry leaders to get links you’ve better have good reason to do so.

In this case there is no such reason. In my example the guest poster on SEO Book uses a whole paragraph to tell us how exceptional his SEO company is. Then he goes on to complain how he can’t get enough true SEO experts to work for him. That would be just a boring guest post. Then he goes on to blame SEO bloggers at large and implicitly the most important publication out there, SEOmoz. He explains that as SEOmoz gave up consulting services they can’t write about SEO anymore because they have no real practice. He goes on to explain that the lack of proper SEO professionals today is to blame on SEO bloggers like SEOmoz who have no clue what they write about.

I’ve written a post on how you get links by nurturing relationships. This is perhaps the most important long term link building strategy. You depend on your peers for getting links. They link and share the content you write and make it thus available to a broader audience. In case you don’t have an audience yourself, nobody knows you or consider you an expert you can’t just exclaim that you are one and that you’re better than longstanding industry “celebrities”.

Apparently some people assume that talking often enough at expensive conferences is akin to gaining authority.

Speaking in front of a paying but limited audience might get you some recognition but it’s the resources you share with the public that make you what you are. Just saying you are the “world’s leading” or “best” SEO company doesn’t suffice. You have to prove it publicly by giving away your knowledge. This way peer review and actual demand decides whether you get the recognition as true leader in the industry.

I’ve been to just a few conferences as a speaker and wasn’t particularly impressed. It’s great for networking but is not enough to become an authority in your trade. When I can’t remember anything of lasting value you have contributed you can’t convince me that you are better than somebody who contributes meaningful resources all the time.

I don’t want to dwell too long on this example but this author blames the lack of educated SEO professionals on SEO bloggers not the lack of actual SEO education. He wants ready made experts to apply at his company but not invest in “years” of education himself. Instead he warns that reading SEO blogs by “celebrities” may even harm these SEO professionals in the making. Instead of reading blogs they have to read books.

I can’t imagine any industry or discipline where reading blogs is meant to be a substitute for formal education, education on the job or reading books.

Are cycling bloggers guilty of not teaching professional cyclist how to win the Tour the France? Are bloggers who write about space exploration to blame for the lack of properly trained astronauts?

I’ve written in the past that you can gain links by being ridiculous. You can’t do it by accident though. Sounding ridiculous without noticing is the worst you can do. Especially when you attack somebody who is way above you and more trustworthy. This is not about self proclaimed SEO stars only. This is about any industry or niche: You don’t want to shout that you are the greatest while spitting on the people who are really great. This is how not to build links as a legit business. After you do it your business looks a lot less legit and you lost much of the support by influencers from within your industry.

Don’t piss in your own pool for link building.

Btw.: When you write in your title tag that you are the” world’s leading SEO agency” at least try to rank for [seo agency] otherwise you also ridicule yourself. Bragging properly must be learned as well. Also advocating paid links in public is no proof of your expertise.

The post SEO Stars: How Not to Build Links as a Legit Business appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

In this week I prepared something special in our link building technique column: Building links by being ridiculous.

Some people believe that trust, authority and credibility are crucial when it comes to organic link building. Why else would be people want to link back to you? Well, they would because you are ridiculous.

Just last week I advised you not be ridiculous so did I change my mind? No, I mean another kind of ridiculous. You are not meant to be ridiculous by accident. Instead you have to be ridiculous on purpose. Just consider these two famous projects:

• I can has Cheezburger
• The Oatmeal

You probably know at least one of them and they are truly ridiculous you have to admit. What you may not know is that the man behind The Oatmeal was a quite well known SEO specialist before he started it as a side project which quickly turned out so much money that he ended his career in the SEO industry to focus on being ridiculous full time. Yes, it’s Matthew Inman formely of SEOmoz.

Just take a look at the impressive backlink numbers both sites have in case you don’t know them or don’t believe me yet. According to Blekko icanhascheezburger.com has 730,212 inbound links while The Oatmeal still sports 164,236 incoming links. Not bad is it? As Blekko numbers are quite conservative we better compare them to something we might imagine the link popularity of, SEOmoz.

The probably most popular site in the SEO industry has 259,690 backlinks. So given the fact that Matthew Inman left SEOmoz after four years of existence in 2007 he gained so many links with his new venture in half the time that SEOmoz had for their link building. As far as I can see The Oatmeal is still a one man show so that makes it even more impressive. I can has Cheezburger is a 30 million dollar venture capital business now. That’s as much as Tumblr received this year as well. Tumblr is one of the biggest blogging sites on the Web today, even bigger than WordPress. Back when I can has Cheezburger started it was also just run by two people.

Ridiculous = memorable

So now that you see it works the only logical question now is: I can has links? Yes, you can has! You don’t have to be ridiculous full time. Sometimes just a tiny bit of ridiculousness can help you quite a bit. For instance my avatar is so ridiculous that over the years I’ve become one of the most recognizable figures in the SEO industry, at least online. I have considered changing the avatar to look more trustworthy but by now the ridiculous Mexican with the huge white sombrero and fake sideburns is already too famous to abandon it.

Ridiculous = outstanding

Not everybody can afford to be ridiculous and still look good. One way to be ridiculous is by poking fun at somebody. The best person to poke fun at to be ridiculous is you. I’ve been successfully ridiculing myself in the past numerous times. I have written blog posts like 57 reasons not to read my blog. I could do it beacuse the blog was outstanding enough to stand such a posts ridiculing itself. Also being ridiculous on purpose is outstanding by itself. People are taken off guard. I remember a guy I knew from Chicago who went to anti-war demonstrations. As the police in the US does not like people protesting and many protestors have been arrested for next to nothing he had one advice for me: Wear a ridiculous hat! Everybody will notice you but nobody will know what you are up to.

Ridiculous = courageous

These days everything is ridiculous. Just watch TV for a few minutes, consider trillions for bank bailouts or browse the Web randomly for a while.  We’re so used to it that we don’t even notice it anymore. What? Another financial crisis? Another country bankrupt? Who cares. So it takes courage and lots of effort to even try to be ridiculous enough to get noticed. You can be ridiculous where nobody expects it. Just look at the group postings I’m sometimes part of. Everybody is pictured with their real life serious or friendly looking images. I’m the only guy who has a ridiculous avatar.

Ridiculous = trustworthy

So you see, people will notice you because you’re ridiculous and then wonder “How can this guy get away with it?”. Once they realize you can and why they will adore you and respect you, not because you’re trustworthy and boring but because you can be ridiculous without having to be ashamed of it. As long as the core of your message is truthful you can dress it up in a ridiculous costume. In the past when monarchies ruled the world the jerk aka court jester was the only one who was allowed to say the truth. To this day people trust the jerks. Just consider some late night show hosts.

Ridiculous = hilarious

Most people love to laugh. Laughing at the computer screen is very difficult. Usually you laugh with other people when you’re laid back in the evening or during the weekend. So here you are staring at the screen and laughing. This is really hard to accomplish so you are so glad and thankful that you want to share the experience with others. You spread the word on social media and link back to the ridiculous aka hilarious page.

There is no blueprint on how to be successfully ridiculous on purpose.

You have to find out in your won niche, industry or country. First try by adding conventional humor to your average post or article. You can use colloquial language. Exaggerate. Use funny names for yourself and your products. Just think of Google and their data liberation front.

One day you’ll become ridiculous in the most positive sense of it. Then the overall success will be astonishing. Return on that day and comment here please. Tell the others how you did it. I can has links? Yes, you can has!

* CC image by Sharyn Morrow.

The post I Can Has Links? Building Links by Being Ridiculous appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

In this week’s link building technique column I’d like to write about bragging. Yes, bragging, as in telling people you’re the best. I don’t just mean success stories and case studies. I’m talking about bragging like hip hop stars do. Also I want to explain how to make people link to you by bragging.

Just watch the typical mainstream video with the “hot chicks”, big cars and gold chains. These may be cliches but they are still working even after thirty years of hip hop.

While you most probably think that these videos are stupid, sexist and even fake (after all everybody can rent an expensive car for a video shoot) think about it for a minute: Why do these bragging videos work so well?

People want to get inspired. Modesty does not inspire. Bragging does.

People want to see people similar to them who made it. They want to see why and how as well but at first the braggart has to catch their attention.

I don’t even own a car, I’m a cyclist but even I notice a sportscar when I see one. Also I know the difference when driving with someone else who owns one. People, especially women, really look at you. I think this is a remainder of our ancient past as animals but nonetheless it works.

On the Web nobody can see you and nobody knows that you rock. Unless of course you tell them and behave like a rock star. The early John Chow is an example of this art. Many people followed this path and some mastered the self fulfilling prophecy method as well. My favorite rockstar of this sort is Glen of Viperchill.

Glen made it by showing off what he already accomplished. He was bragging and inspiring at the same time. On the Web you don’t just brag to impress people. You brag to inspire others to follow your path. I have tried it myself and was quite successful for a while. I didn’t take it as far as Glen and thus my success was limited but I don’t say I was right to do so. I was just too busy to keep going like that.

People love successful individuals. They want to be like them.

That’s a natural reaction. Who wants to be a loser? In most cases we fail often enough to need inspiration by somebody who succeeds. You don’t have to be a superstar from day one. Glen was a teenager when he started on his path to online success.

Of course people subscribed and linked to his blogs (as he already had two of them, one he was able to sell). They shared his success stories and inspirational pieces of advice on social media. I did myself and I still do from time to time even though I’m less active on social media these days than once.

You don’t have to be a rapper though and wear gold chains thick enough to get used for ship anchors. On the Web sometimes a few stats are enough. You have to show them off and explain what you did.

You have to use strong language and impressive numbers to stress their importance. Something like “How I Got a Conversion Rate of 4%” won’t help but “How My Conversion Rate Skyrocketed 300% in Three Days” can. In fact your conversion rate could have grown from 1% to 4% so that time period so that both post headlines would be true.

In recent years I’ve tried to be more modest when I wrote blog posts. I tried to be more business like and less emotional. I wanted to be more objective and less inspirational. I only became boring. People do not want to read mediocre stuff. Life is short so why waste time and effort on small steps when you can make big ones?

In reality you need the small steps as well. You need lots of small steps. There are a few huge leaps but there are the small steps along the way, all the time. People want to read about the huge leaps not the small steps though. Just watch the popular videos on YouTube, When it comes to sports like skateboarding, BMX or parkour the bigger and more spectacular the jumps the higher the number of views.

Also in reality not always the awesome looking stunts are the hardest. Sometimes the less obvious things are harder to accomplish. Nonetheless on the Web we’re dealing not only with hypertext but also hyperreality.

Some of the most awe-inspiring images having the most people spread them are simply Photoshop manipulations.

You don’t have to fake to make it like some suggest. Just focus on the success you have and don’t be afraid to show it off to inspire other people. In such a way many of the sports videos I have mentioned above are filmed from the bottom so that it looks as if the skater is jumping sky high while instead he’s just a few meters above ground.

So provide the best possible perspective to make people want to spread your message on Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr. Don’t be modest on the Web where attention is crucial. You can succeed without bragging but if you want to truly inspire people you have to show off. One of the most successful bloggers, Darren Rowse has been doing it for years and it still works.

What you don’t want is to look ridiculous though. The bragging can’t be over the top.

You can’t show off much more than you have so you need to focus on your true strengths. One of the most successful rappers today is Jay Z. I remember his early work. He was rapping about how he was rich and famous even before he really was but it wasn’t vulgar or obnoxious. His biggest successes followed later with sound business strategy. Nonetheless he was already inspiring even to me in my youth.

When even a black guy from the poor inner city can make it and become a millionaire why can’t I?

This is the question that is most inspiring in such a case. You don’t have to make millions, sometimes a successful blog is enough to inspire other bloggers to link to you. Be as open as possible as possible to be living proof. Once you’re the superstar you professed to be you don’t have to brag as much any more. That’s one of the reasons I stopped bragging.

So let me summarize. What do you need to make people link to you by bragging?

1. Succeed at something and unearth this success
2. Collect statistics showing this success or make images depicting it
3. Be enthusiastic about your successful actions
4. Cover the few huge leaps, don’t focus on the many small steps in-between too much
5. Do not appear ludicrous by showing off more than you have
6. Limit your bragging once everybody knows about your success

* CC image by Kim Erlandsen.

The post How to Make People Link to You by Bragging appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

Welcome to our weekly linkbuilding technique column! Back when I first started out to use the Internet around 1997 it was all about hypertext.

Hypertext, the interconnected text containing links where you do not have to structure reading in a linear way with numbered pages that follow each other. Instead you can use links like some wormholes to end up on the other end of the world within an instant. Links made a huge difference and we willingly embraced linking out as the early Web enthusiasts we were. I remember creating interactive “digital poetry” with links, frames and scripts.

Today the Web is not the same as back in the beginning. Many people and especially companies do not want to link out.

When they actually link out they make sure to make these links as worthless as possible for the linked to website by using nofollow attributes. In many cases just the URL gets mentioned so that you can’t even click on a link. I use an extra Firefox extension that allows me to open these non-links despite not being linked.

Clearly we experience a post-link Internet, post means after here, so it’s the Internet after the link.

Facebook is probably the most important factor in this paradigm shift: The like is not a real link anymore, it’s just a proprietary kind of vote other websites can’t see by default: You have to connect to Facebook to be able to read some aspects of the like data and you rarely will find out who actually likes you.

A link connects both ways, a website that has been linked can track who linked it and where from. This is particularly meaningful as this way a connection between two people is established. Liking on Facebook or even just mentioning an URL without linking to it allows you to stay in the dark. It also limits your connection, it becomes one way. So it’s not a real communicative act or a conversation.

In SEO for years we depended on links for our Google rankings. Also Google depended on them and was thus dependent.

Then Google shot itself in the foot by introducing the nofollow attribute with the other search engines. From now on Google couldn’t follow many of the most important links. For example the back in the days very important social bookmarking platform Delicious used nofollow and noindex on all of their content to hide it from Google.

Other sites like Twitter have introduced the attribute just on the links like Google suggested initially. Google wasn’t unable to check Twitter links from then on and had to buy access. Finally Google +1 votes have been introduced to allow Google a direct access to real time social graph data.

So today it’s very common to get links that are in one or more ways non-links:

1. nofollow-links
2. script/forwarded links
3. shortened links like t.co or bit.ly
4. not linked URL mentions
5. brand mentions
6. not indexed social bookmarks
7. Facebook likes
8. Google +1 votes

Real links like those we used to play with back in the nineties are a rarity by now. Even Google had to adapt as the Google+ and +1 development shows. They can’t rely solely on real links anymore. Some people already argue that or at least suspect that Google counts not linked brand and URL mentions and uses them as ranking signals as well.

In 2011 you can’t ignore non-links anymore. Some SEO practitioners still try to go after real links only. Such a site is by now obviously a SEO site a no other regular site with a healthy link profile has solely real links. Matt Cutts and Rand Fishkin are quick to weigh in that just a small percentage of links use nofollow. Around 1% or 2%. On the other hand almost all the important sites like Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Delicious use nofollow on outgoing links.

You have to appear on these social sites in order to be on the Web today. A website without any mention on social media is either outdated or suspicious. While Google can’t index these sites it can see many of the links. Also third party services link Trunk.ly make them spiderable because people opt-in to use them and share their links.

One of the best ways to get links in the post-link Internet era is to connect with people like I suggested last time. You connect to a person and stay connected and the person will most probably “link” to you via different means, like social bookmarks, tweets, likes etc.

Each time you successfully connect with a person you lay the foundation for many links in the future.

The great thing about the Internet is that you do not even have to meet them in person. Of course it’s even better to know a person from face to face encounters but it’s much easier to reach out to people on the Web.

When you get a non-link you have to first find it and second contact the person responsible for it. You don’t need shiny tools to do so. Google search and email are enough for a start. Google Webmaster Tools and Blekko plus a free CRM tool like the one at Zoho are better. On the other hand complete a link building tool suite like ours can greatly improve your workflow and let you focus on the actual connecting.

A Google search like
cognitiveseo.com -site:cognitiveseo.com (insert your URL instead of ours)
can already reveal sites that mention your URL without linking especially when you use Google Blog Search.

The editors of these sites will be prone to giving you a real link. Just the other week a client of mine received a list of ten sites and their editors who have mentioned his URL without linking it: He got two links immediately which is a conversion rate of 20%. I asked him to send them an email and a note with some branded schwag (ball point pens etc.)

It’s not just an idea, it’s a proven technique. There are also ways to monitor social media mentions, Facebook likes etc. I may follow up on these in the near future. Or suggest another addition in the comments. Do you know other techniques to practice linkbuilding in a post-link Internet? Tell us!

*CC image by Hiroyuki Takeda.

The post How to Practice Linkbuilding in a Post-Link Internet appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

In our weekly link building technique column I’d like to stress relationships again. Connecting with people is crucial as websites do not link, people link. Of course there are automated links as well but most of them aren’t worth it.

The best links are editorial links by real people.

Who you get editorial links from? “Editors” obviously. On the Web there are all kinds of editors. They can be

1. webmasters
2. bloggers
3. journalists
4. curators
5. social media users
6. content creators
7. business people

Of course many people fit more than one of these categories. Personally I a bit of all of them. Nonetheless I’d like to explain a bit each one of the groups so you get what I mean.

I consider webmasters people who own a static website. They are capable of adding links to these sites on their own without having to ask a “techie”. According to that definition even my wife and my mother are webmasters. Both of them have more than one site after I they learned to use content management systems. So you see, as even my wife and my mother who aren’t working with the Internet like I do have websites you have millions of webmistresses and webmasters to deal with. Many of them already need your products or services. So by giving away them for free or offering a rebate for a link you might already win them over.

Bloggers are fewer than webmasters but by now also tens of thousands of them you can potentially talk to. I don’t even count dead blogs that get never updated. I mean real regular bloggers with active blogs who cover topics similar to your business. Bloggers are always on the look out for the latest trends, weird products or viral videos. They already wait for you to approach them with your latest gadget.

There are less real full time paid journalists these days but many more part timers and freelancers who struggle to make a living. These people often have minutes to decide what to write about and barely more time to research their subjects. In case they know you already or find you when searching for a specialist in your niche they will be glad if you help them.

Who are curators? Blekko is is so called curated search engine. People are hand-picking sites that get used for Blekko’s custom search engines called “slashtags”. These slashtags get used to display searches from the most trusted sources. Curation is wide spread on the Web today, it’s not Blekko. Many bloggers compile lists of daily articles or other resources. Thus they act as curators.

Admins and active users on forums are curators as well. Everybody who is sifting through the incredible onslaught of information and sorting it to find the gems is a curator on the Web. Some social sites like Tumblr are more about curation than content creation or social networking. Curators are always on the look out for new resources. Some even have forms where you can suggest them. Otherwise email is your friend.

Most social media users have the ability to link to you in one way or another. Remember that every vote, tweet or like are links too. Some count less, other may be even more important than a link as they propel articles to the top of crowdsourced current news or “popular” sections. Social media users are more fickle but also quicker to react. They might feature your content on a whim just because thy like the color of your image or the choice of your background music. True social media users love sharing. Give them something to share and they will to do so.

There are lots of people who aren’t webmasters, bloggers or journalists but who create content ion one way or the other. They might post it on Facebook, in a forum or on another third party service allowing user submissions or user generated content. These content creators have less responsibility than webmaster, bloggers and journalists but often they contribute to big and popular sites. Even in cases where the sites only allow “nofollow” links the support of these content creators can help get more links and exposure elsewhere. Content creators sometimes just need a place to publish their content.

Business people have websites and want links themselves. Thus they are already willing to cooperate with you to create a win to win situation. They might not have great content but instead just a site marketing their products or services. They may even have an ecommerce site aka an actual shop. They may be your plumber, lawyer or even doctor. They would be proud to exhibit your positive review or display you in their featured clients list.

There is no one way to connect with the above mentioned editors. Each one of these groups has some interests and typical needs.

You have to find out what they want and how it relates to your site.

Then you offer them what they need and they are eager to link back to you and say thanks. Of course I don’t refer to money. Paying for links results in the weakest possible link between you and them. It’s neither a relationship nor a real connection. Make sure that you have more to offer than just money. It must be something valuable, useful and extraordinary.

CC image by marcosHB

The post Link Building by Connecting with People appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

One of the most common blogging mistakes when it comes to corporate and business blogs is being opportunistic.

Just earlier today I have been interviewed by one of the largest German radio stations. I haven’t been interviewed as an SEO specialist or SEO blogger though.  I work from Germany and I also blog in German but not about SEO. One of my blogs I have created in the past for clients and still write for is called zeitgeist. As the name already suggests to some extent the blog deals with trends, design, gadgets and the likes.

So I have been interviewed as a blogger of a client blog.

The topic of the interview was Apple, or rather its changing image from the cool outsider to the scary huge moloch. I’ve been critical of Apple for years, like I sometimes also am of Google on my SEO blog. Almost everybody else has been hyping Apple products parroting their ads.

I didn’t like the Apple hype so I started looking behind the curtain of corporate PR and I’ve found things I didn’t like, lots of them. Back then most people didn’t want to read that. Nonetheless I took a stand and over time I’ve become one of the few if not the only blogger really critical of Apple in Germany.

Most other bloggers have been opportunistic, they were just writing what everybody else already did

and what Apple announced itself. The iPhone, iPad or whatever are “magic”, “revolutionary” etc. Their business model was sometimes simply to sell Apple products but mine wasn’t.

The blog I’m talking about is a blog for a price or shopping comparison engine. Or rather it’s less engine it’s more a place where the people are meant to review products. So It’s also a review site. The blog wasn’t really about the ad revenue so I didn’t care. My client knew that I was a real blogger and they let me write what I wanted. 

Do you think I’m really controversial or something? Well, I’m not. I just take a stand and I don’t follow every hype. When I started blogging in 2003 most bloggers were like that. They were very critical and didn’t have to abide by corporate rules or business logic. These days most blogs have to earn money in some way and thus the posts they publish are often shallow, “salesy” or feigning objectivity.

Business bloggers are afraid to get sued, to scare off advertisers or readers.

Or they just hype stuff they sell themselves so they can’t criticize it. Corporate and business blogs do not have to be dull, boring and opportunistic though. Businesses often have whole teams of lawyers. So while bloggers who had no money were not afraid to say what has to be said business bloggers backed by professionals are? Isn’t it a paradox?

There are hundreds of bloggers who write about Apple but they interviewed me because I expressed my honest opinion and didn’t just regurgitate PR. So of all the hundreds of bloggers they chose me for the interview. Also Apple is by far not the only topic I write about. Other blogs deal with Apple only.

Journalists have to at least appear objective while they are not.

Most publications are obviously biased, just think Fox News or CNN and compare them to the BBC and Al Jazeera. Everybody has an agenda. Also most journalism today is about republishing from the major news agencies like

• Reuters
• AFP
• DPA.

In contrast bloggers are by definition subjective and may err. You don’t blog public relations messages or press releases in corporate newspeak. A real person has to blog. A real person has real feelings, preferences and even prejudices. All of these make the blogger trustworthy.

The reader knows the blogger’s limitations and how to read the particular blog.

Readers don’t want more of the same they read everywhere. They want a recognizable voice, they want honest opinions, they want a personal view on things. This is what blogging is about. Business and especially corporate bloggers tend to forget that. Such blogs often fail. The real authentic blogs on the other hand get called up when a national radio station needs an expert to talk to.

How to take a stand when blogging for business?

1. Express yourself and your opinion saying “I don’t like x”, “I prefer y”.
2. Cite other, sometimes less known sources “x reports about issues with y”
3. Be honest about your bias “I’ve never been a fan of x”
4. Point out that you represent your own opinion not the company you work for’, say “I” not “we”.
5. Stay true to yourself and when you change your mind say it
6. Don’t follow every hype just to get a few more ad dollars or followers
7. Accept that not every reader has to agree with you
8. Be respectful nonetheless, don’t attack people for no reason
9. When there is a reason, you have the right to be angry (the iPhone suicides are one)
10. Don’t dwell on the positive aspects only, you’re describing not advertising

In the long run intelligent people choose the honest blogs over the shallow ones. When I look at the most popular blogs these days even though they are part of huge media companies by now I still recognize outspoken or controversial individuals behind them. I don’t even like many of them but I even know their names:

• Ariana Huffington
• Pete Cashmore
• Michael Arrington
• Om Malik
• Cory Doctorow

So as a blogger you have to find your voice and make the people out there on the Internet recognize it. I’m still learning how to do it. Now that I write for three SEO blogs I have to manage to stay myself while having a both recognizable and unique voice on each one of them.

* CC image by Trey Ratcliff

The post When Business Blogging Take a Stand appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

In our weekly link building technique column I’d like to elaborate on last week’s post on ego feeding and introduce the concept of trust transfer. By definition links provide trust transfer to some extent. You link out to a site you trust in most cases, even if you disagree. There is even a so called Trustrank by Yahoo. Many people argue that Google uses a very similar concept to assign trust to websites. I don’t want to cover this aspect of trust on the Web. Instead I’d like to

focus on the more direct measure of trust we encounter on the Web.

When visiting a website for the first time visitors usually look out for common signs of a site being trustworthy. It’s not only clean usable and readable design it’s also about real signs like logos or badges.  In a way it’s about trust transfer by association. You might not know the site you visit yet and be undecided whether you can trust it or not but visible signs of trust like logos of well known brands can make you trust the new site as well.

You have certainly witnessed this kind of trust transfer on the Web.

1. Usually in a list of clients a company attempts to place at least some logos you might recognize.
2. The payment methods are also a way to display signs showing that other confirm your trustworthiness.
3. Another way to make you appear trustworthy is the “as seen in” press appearances portfolio symbolized by logos of the publications that have written about you or your business.

On the Web there is also a newer version of this: badges. All kinds of sometimes wacky badges have been common for years on the Web. It has been an old school SEO trick to build links by letting websites win awards so that they will display them on their sites. Of course the number of meaningless awards grew exponentially over time so that soon enough webmasters got disenchanted with them.

The idea behind awards and badges is still alive

but today you have to offer real value to establish yourself as a website able to transfer trust. Of course you have to be trusted yourself to be able to transfer trust elsewhere but you don’t have to be the number one authority in your industry. You can transfer what trust you have to others and by doing it even multiply your own trust.

First let’s take a look at a badge that is commonly used in our industry and the site which is behind it: the AdAge Power 150. AdAge is one of the most prominent marketing publications and it has enough trust to spread you might argue. On the other hand it gets lots of the trust from the blogs that display the badges actually. In the same way that worthless website awards have earned links for the shallow award sites here the bloggers who take part, as you have to opt in, do it on their account because they seek the trust transfer.

The Power 150 goes beyond feeding egos, it provides not only trust transfer it also has a value on its own.

By clicking on your badge a reader can look some stats about the listed blog. The number on the badge changes depending on these stats. My two other blogs, SEO 2.0 and SEOptimise are already listed. As I shifted my time and focus over the years from the first to the second one SEO 2.0 lost my position in the top 150. At the same time SEOptimise entered the top 150. So the badge is a dynamic one that gets updated frequently. It’s not just frills.

Originally the Power 150 was an independent website. It was later on acquired by AdvertisingAge. So you don’t have to start from a well known and respected site. You can build it up yourself. Also some people, social media marketer Mack Collier for example, weren’t that happy with the “partnership” back then. They considered it a negative example of “just linkbait”. I don’t like the term linkbait myself. I have argued in the past that you have to rethink the term to be able to deal with the people you bait as people not fish.

You need link incentives. Personally I haven’t added the AdAge badge to my SEO 2.0 blog. I applied to be listed on the Power 150 but even at the time when I was in the top 150 actually not 300+ like now the temptation wasn’t enough. There are many others though who do insert the badge on their blog. SEOptimise does for instance.

In the best case your link incentive is so strong that you do not only get viewed as a linkbait attempt

but that people can identify with you and are proud to display you badge. AdAge apparently hasn’t done much beyond creating the badge but their success is already considerable. So the trust transfer and the value the stats offer is enough for many bloggers to link back.

Another fresher example of trust transfer is Alltop.

It’s a fairly new venture and wasn’t popular from day one. The founder had some influence to provide a good start for it but it wasn’t the most important factor in making it a success. Alltop is basically a hand picked blog RSS feed directory displaying the latest posts from a few dozen chosen blogs for each topic. There is a selection of SEO blogs, there are far more popular ones for web design or gadgets.

Alltop not only offers trust transfer and value for webmasters, it also has more than one use cases for the average web user. It offers a reliable curation of the best blogs in almost every niche and can be used as an RSS reader. In cases where you don’t know the authorities in each niche you can go to Alltop and find an overview of them. So the site has an actual function. I think you can also apply to get listed on Alltop but both of the SEO blogs I have written for until now, SEOptimise and SEO 2.0 have been added by the Alltop team.

I see some dark horses on that Alltop SEO page as well, where I’m not really sure whether they deserve to be there but as I trust the team on the whole I think they had their reasons to include them. Many bloggers also use Alltop badges on their pages. I consider doing so as well.  I may even add it instead of the AdAge badge which is huge and also shows that there hundreds of other blogs more important than mine. Also I don’t consider SEO to be about “ads”. The Alltop badge is a static one but as the site has a very strong use case is enough.

You don’t have to be a successful startup entrepreneur either to transfer trust though. Even a blogger can do it.

Tamar Weinberg has started to transfer trust with her by now legendary top 100 blog posts of the year lists. I’d be proud to show off such a badge just for the sheer expertise and name of Tamar.

In the search industry we also have the SEMMY’s. It’s also a way to highlight excellent blog postings but takes a bit more of work than one person can do. Still even the SEMMy’s are no multimillion dollars endeavor and I guess many advertising budgets are bigger than the costs of staging the SEMMY awards. Even many blogs just nominated for the SEMMY awards display the “SEMMY nominee” badge.

Link building by trust transfer is even better than simple ego feeding. You provide value and the trust transfer goes both ways. It’s another win to win link building technique both the linking to party and the linked one appreciate.

Btw. do you need a badge for trust transfer? I don’t think so but it simplifies the linking.

CC image by Nick Ford.

The post How to Build Links by Providing Trust Transfer appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

In our weekly link building technique column I introduce acquiring links by feeding egos. It might sound a bit weird as most people consider egoism or the ego itself a trait to be ashamed of. So do we actually forage on the negative or even try to take advantage of people into linking to us? No, we and you have just to

appeal to those who you like and make it worthwhile to link back to you.

So again this technique is not a “SEO trick” to fool people, it’s a way to ensure a true win to win situation takes place. In this case you give a lot and receive a lot as a result. What do you give first to be remunerated with a link? You link out. You not only link out you “flatter by association”.

You can make a list of “best of” x list for instance. X can be a blog, a website, even a brand or personal brand. In the best case you combine all of them. Example: “the best SEO blogs” is a typical ego feeding hook I fall prey to when other people are linkbaiting. As I write for two well known SEO blogs for years I tend to wind up on these lists. The CognitiveSEO blog does not show up on these yet but soon enough will as well.

I digress though. The purpose of setting up a the best x blogs list is manifold:

1. You show the others in the niche that you know and like them.
2. They notice you and remember you later.
3. They may even comment.
4. They may spread the news/share the link on social media.
5. In the best case they link back to you. They may today, or they might half y year from now.
6. Also you will rank the term x blogs or x blog in future.

Of course you also make some of the bloggers mentioned in your post part of your audience. Some of them may return of their own accord, others may even subscribe to your blog. Many will forget you until they see another post of yours in their Twitter, Facebook or Google+ stream so make sure to connect with them on these platforms.  Don’t steal time though. Most influencers, connectors and social media mavens have enough to do so time is a sparse resource. Rather reply to their messages and postings than pushing yours.They will become interested in you anyways. Do not focus solely on a-list blogs though.

Famous bloggers do not have the time to connect with new bloggers and they don’t need to anymore.

They are so well known that most of their posts spread by themselves by now. I can see it on the blogs I write for. On SEOptimise posts get shared by the hundreds. On SEO 2.0 only some posts get popular and in most cases they need an initial push to work. Here on CognitiveSEO even some outstanding posts remained unnoticed without active promotion efforts despite the fact that I have a pretty large readership due to my personal brand.

So it’s not the big guys who will help you most in many cases, it’s your peers,

bloggers who are as popular as yourself, or in case of beginners starting out like you do. A guest post on an a-list blog can bring you a larger traffic wave but it’s the other bloggers who are similar to you that will be your readership and send you more visitors repeatedly.

Thus a list of top blogs should be as big as possible and as inclusive as possible. As not all niches and all countries have hundreds of blogs you won’t be able to make it huge everywhere but in some niches beyond SEO a “100 great x blogs” is possible.  You can mix some similar niches or you simply do not focus on the best of but on a comprehensive list. Quality beats quantity though. In case you decide to add crappy or dead blogs just for the sake of getting more weblogs to link to the active bloggers you mention might not feel flattered or even be amused.

Here are some examples of successful feeding ego link baits for SEO bloggers and beyond:

1. Top 100 Social Media, Internet Marketing & SEO Blogs – 2011 | Cision Blog
2. The Ultimate List of SEO Blogs | Yello Robin Blog
3. 29 SEO Experts Share the Most Compelling Content that Influenced Their Works | Kaiserthesage

I also want to point out an older list that didn’t work out as well despite of containing lots of the best resources:

The Top 100 SEO & SEM Resources | Sam Tilston

Why didn’t this post get as much social media and link love? It  contained too many a-list blogs or sites whose owners did not even notice they were included in the list. Mentioning the obvious champions is not enough. Those who are on top don’t care anymore even when they notice. To put it bluntly,

a-list blogger egos are obese by now.

Feed the hungry egos to acquire links. Don’t forget the most important ones of course but the most important 10 may not notice you. My ego is still small enough to notice and appreciate incoming links. I may even use cognitiveSEO tools to search for my backlinks and find out. Also my ego is not too big to appreciate others like I did with the best linkbuilding blogs post.

* CC image by Xabier M.

The post How to Acquire Links by Feeding Egos appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

A few years back I used to get popular on Delicious with my resources lists for SEOptimise. Delicious has been already neglected by then as their owner at that time, Yahoo didn’t really invest in it. Nonetheless when a post got popular and thus entered the Delicious it still got around 1000 – 5000 visitors but more importantly it got many more Delicious saves which resulted directly in links on websites, often automatically.

Later on, Delicious abandoned the front page concept and moved the popular items to a separate tab. From then on Delicious became obsolete for most publishers and many users turned to Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and Tumblr.

Now that Yahoo has been sold Delicious to the YouTube founders there are new hopes that the almost 10 years old social bookmarking  service can get a meaningful update that would make more apt for today’s Web environment. Until then Delicious works as it did under Yahoo’s reign. It’s not dead but it’s not thriving either. Other modern services have and with them the idea of social bookmarking has evolved, Evernote, Diigo and Trunk.ly are all in some ways better than Delicious.

Despite the lack of features I other services offer and the lack of a traffic-rich frontpage I have been using Delicious for a few years now. I was a very later adopter, I started using Delicious in 2008. By now it’s already three years though. So there seem to be reasons why I still save my bookmarks online with Delicious. As I mostly bookmark SEO, social media and blogging related resources there it must have something to do with my writing habits for three important blogs in the SEO arena: SEOptimise, SEO 2.0 and cognitive here.

Today I will explain why and how to use Delicious for SEO & blogging.

So I don’t mean getting popular on Delicious with Delicious SEO anymore. Of course I also don’t mean low quality “social bookmarking services” some questionable SEO companies offer. It’s basically spamming what they do. They mistake social bookmarking for directory submission. Of course the correct way to use social bookmarking for SEO is still encouraging people to save your site or articles of their own accord.

I also don’t want to cover the basics here like adding Delicious buttons or widgets etc. My focus is on the encouragement. How do you actually encourage Delicious users to bookmark your stuff? Also I want to cover the second use of Delicious, blogging. I use Delicious in a twofold way, to find out what gets bookmarked and thus is a good topic to blog about and at the same time for saving for my own work related bookmarks.

Most people to this day haven’t grasped what social bookmarking is all about.

Even well known SEO practitioners consider sites like Digg or StumbleUpon to be social bookmarking (while they are social news and social discovery). To make proper use of Delicious you have to understand the main use case of the site: Saving  for later. For yourself.

While most other social media sites get used for sharing links, Delicious’ purpose is to save links.

What’s the big deal? Isn’t it technically the same thing on the Web? Not really, on Delicious you can really see what the people deem valuable enough to be reread, reused or returned to later on. They save it without the need to share. In a way the saving is done for selfish reasons. Only combined these bookmarks turn social.

So while other sites are often a place for the “awesome” but short-lived stuff, Delicious bookmarks are often resources archived for future use and reference.

Thus Delicious is like a bookshelf while other social sites are more like newspapers or TV sets. The purpose of SEO is not to insert sales brochures in there. You, as the blog author or website owner attempt to find out what kind of books people prefer and like to read themselves. Once you have found out you can provide such a book or rather website, article or blog post that matches those preferences.

Delicious does not work for all topics, it’s good for

• technology related sites
• Web start ups
• Internet marketers.

These people can find out what the actual demand in their industry is by using Delicious. Also you can see who the people are who would use your product. Last but not least you can see how topics are interrelated by watching your own and other people’s tags. For example my tag SEO is most often combined with tools, Google, issues, howto, SEO2.0.

Three of the five tags are common ones while issues and SEO2.0 are tags I have personally chosen to organize by bookmarks. I have 1506 bookmarks with the tag SEO so it’s best to combine them with the 204 related “tools” tags to recognize trends.

Sadly Delicious doesn’t allow to sort the bookmarks according to the number of saves but nonetheless I can quickly see what the most important SEO tools are I have saved in my Delicious library. Also some tools lists are among these. Now I could make a blog post with the “top 10”,  “most popular” or the best “SEO tools” out there:

1. Open Site Explorer
2. blekko | slashtag search
3. SEMRush
4. tynt – who’s interested
5. WooRank
6. Online SEO Tools – the Ultimate Collection
7. The Internet Marketing Handbook
8. Why people abandon your website
9. 15 Tools for Monitoring a Website’s Popularity

Such a tools list would be probably quite popular by itself. This is the whole secret of using Delicious for SEO and blogging: You find out what’s popular and give it to the people on your blog. Thus you get links from Internet savvy individuals. Delicious is a place for geeks for sure.

* CC image by Hiro Shinohara.

The post How to Use Delicious for SEO & Blogging appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

Earlier this week one of my favorite link building blogs, SEER Interactive, has published a post on why Google +1 votes are not a good ranking signal. The post by Wil Reynolds recapitulates 10 years of history of ranking factors in search to make its point.

It all sounds very convincing unless that it is not true. The old school SEO thinking does not apply here in the case of Google +1 which rather has to do with social media than search. I’m far from a Google fanboy but the

+1 votes, especially now that Google has a social network built around them, have real potential to be the most significant ranking signal from now on.

You can’t compare the simplistic Snap.com model of “the more clicks the better positions in search results” to the complex Google +1 architecture.

The only thing both have probably in common is the click, everything else differs. First off, Snap.com apparently used clicks as one of the if not the most important factor. I don’t really know, I haven’t tried it back then. Anyways Google uses hundreds of ranking signals, at least 200 as officially announced a few years ago.

You didn’t have to log in back then, you just had to “spoof a browser”. For Google+ and +1 you have to use your real name and you have to log in to vote +1.

Wil Reynolds goes on to explain that you can pay fake or legit users to click +1 votes as well. That’s true. On the other hand the sheer amount of tasks to look legit he suggests is more than the amount of time and effort to create legit content and get real +1 votes as far as I can see:

• “Check in” using Google’s check in services once a week? Yes
• Add a new feed to their reader once a week? Yes
• Go into Google reader and read a few posts? Yes
• Buy something for 5 dollars from a web site once a month? Yes, and use Google checkout to do it (credit cards might be a qualifier).
• Upload a video to YouTube and get some views on it? Yes
• Go to YouTube and watch 1 video every 3 days, leave a comment once every 10 videos you watch? Yes.

This is quite a lot of  fuss to simulate a legit account.

Why do people cheat? They do because it’s less tedious, cheaper and faster than the real thing.

It has be all of it as the risk of getting caught is an obvious drawback when cheating. So why should I employ a dozen outsourced Indian puppets when I can pay the same people half the money to write great content and promote it instead?

Let’s assume that some people just cheat out of habit, yes there are some in the SEO game as far as I can see. Also let’s assume that even legit users will get bribed to click +1 votes. People buy links so they will but +1 votes as well. Assuming the above we have to ask ourselves whether Google will be able to count just the legit votes and spot the paid ones, or at least better than Google can spot paid links. As of now Google is still not very good at finding those. I agree with Wil Reynolds here.

Let’s take a look on how Google manages Google Profiles, Google+ and Google +1 votes to understand why +1 votes are probably the best ranking signal Google can get now that the hyperlink is not reliable anymore.

1. You have to be a real person using a real name.
2. Your friends and fans categorize you in their Google+ circles so that Google knows who you are, what the relationship is and on what topics you are an expert on.
3. You click +1 on third party websites and your own search results without really sharing it so that unlike on Digg or Twitter stuff doesn’t get pushed just because a friend recommends them. You push them up just for yourself.
4. Google+ /+1 does not allow automated voting or cross posting from other sites.
5. Google Profiles get connected to multiple other social media profiles and sites to verify your identity.

Can you spoof your family ties and lots of friends who engage with you? You could pay Asian outsourcing firms to do that but again this would be quite a lot of work. I also know that there are bots that do it on StumbleUpon and Digg. I have seen lots of fake profiles there. Even the US government is investing in sock-puppet software for a cyberwar to manipulate social media.

I’m quite optimistic though than Google is smarter than StumbleUpon and the Pentagon here. It can most probably separate the wheat from the chaff. This is why they are frantically deleting fake user accounts, they want keep Google+ uberclean to make sure the ranking signals do not get diluted. Why am I so sure that Google will get it? It’s personalization.

Personalization of search results based on data from numerous Google services will unmask fake users.

Google shows me results from sites I clicked the +1 button on top. It shows me results from Google Reader subscription in the top 10, I see sites on top that I have bookmarked years ago or shared on Twitter, Friendfeed or Quora. I also see stuff shared by others.

Can you spoof that? You can: You have to use Google search then and click these personalized results like a normal person would. Also your friends and family have to click these results and read them without bouncing. I know you could force Chinese political prisoners to do so like they already toil on virtual farms in games to make money for the corrupt regime. Some sadistic prison guards may come up with a similar scheme for SEO. Everyone else would spend tons of money to fake just a few dozens of real users or to pay real users to vote on +1.

Cheap plus votes can already to be bought by the hundred but how obviously fake are these votes?

What do you think? They are as fake as the 5000 links for 19$ packages you get offered on the Web. It’s not difficult to determine these links to be fake.

Paid links work beacuse they are difficult to find without actually looking at the sites and even then it’s difficult to prove that they got paid for. Fake Google Profiles and paid +1 votes on the other hand can be seen from afar. I’m pretty sure that you can track them algorithmically without having to resort to desperate measures like “report paid links” forms. You just have to find patterns in which the average real users use Google search and other services. Those who do not fit this pattern get either banned or their votes downgraded.

There are still some issues with Google +1 votes, no doubt.

Just an example: I was the second person to +1 the NASA homepage a week or two ago. Also I won’t +1 pages on medical, financial and political topics in many cases as I don’t want everybody who can see my Google Profile to know about my health and financial issues or political views. Last but not least sites that actively encourage +1 votes have many more of them than site that don’t. So not all websites and +1 votes are created equal.

Google has to count some votes more than others and I bet it already does.

A vote of Danny Sullivan counts a lot more than other votes. The more “real” you are and the more authority you have the better. You can’t fake trust. +1 votes are a trust based system. For links you can only count authority, on Google Profiles you can verify it. That’s why +1 votes are the most accurate ranking signal Google can get. It’s even better than other anonymous engagement metrics like bounce rates from search results etc.

* Partial screen shot from a site that sells Google +1 votes.

The post Why Google +1 Votes Are a Great Ranking Factor appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.