1.  Submit your site to directories.

If you aren’t already doing this as part of your link building efforts, then directory submissions can be a quick and easy way to help with your SEO efforts.  As long as you train your staff member on the basics (following submission guidelines, varying anchor text) there’s not really anything that can go wrong.

Lists of directories to submit to can be found easily enough via search engines.

2.  Participate on forums

Don’t do this simply for link building – that can lead to a world of pain.  Just look at the negative publicity Jobsite got after spamming one of my forums!

But good, solid community participation can be a great way to gain exposure for your business and brand name, while at the same time helping a little with link building from your signature links.

The aim should be to build the reputation of your company, and not simply to whore yourself for links.  Don’t drop links in posts unless they are relevant – try to offer advice to offers where appropriate and generally conduct yourself as if you were attending a networking event.

Added bonus – any forums that display thread view counts can be a great way to find new keywords to target!  Unusually large thread view counts can suggest that the thread is receiving a lot of traffic from somewhere (and not just the normal forum browsing traffic).

3.  Contribute to the company blog

Even the opinions and thoughts of a junior member of staff can make an interesting read and can also be a good part of their training.  You will need to carefully focus your staff member’s efforts and not simply let them loose on your site, but done well and it can add valuable content to your blog.

4.  Monitor social networking sites / forums / competitors

If there are active communities within your niche, then it is worthwhile keeping up to date on what’s going on in them.  It might give you ideas for new features for your site, or new markets to target.

While the forum participation is an active role within these areas, monitoring them is more of a passive activity – this is information gathering for internal use, rather than participation to improve the outward value of your company.

5.  Link request emails

I’m not a fan of this – it needs to be done right.  You really don’t want to spam other sites with automated link requests – that’s bad for your reputation.  However, sending a few select link requests can be considered a more public relations role – you build a relationship with the site, not just try to get something from them.

For example, getting in touch with local newspapers for a link can lead to conversations about your business and possibly some free exposure.  Treat your link requests in this manner.

6.  Competitor SEO analysis

Scrape their keywords (grab them from title tags) and do some keyword research on what you find.  Are you missing out on some juicy keyword markets?

Ditto for backlink counts – are you missing some nice link sources?  You can usually forget all the directories and crap like that, but finding news site links on the back of some exposure can give your marketing team some ideas that will eventually help with SEO.

7.  Social networking

Get your staff registering accounts with the likes of Linkedin and so on.  Set up a company Facebook account – perhaps advertise them via any forums you participate on.  Over time this will build up a nice portfolio of contacts.

8.  Rankings analysis

Do you have any rankings bringing in traffic that aren’t number 1?  Then perhaps these are worth attention – perhaps your on page optimisation isn’t quite geared towards that term – perhaps some deep links will do the trick!

9.  Find online marketing opportunities

Small sites offering banner advertising or larger sites offering newsletter sponsorship – these are great ways to expand your marketing activities.  A staff member with some time on their hands can easily compile a master list of sites with advertising options for you to look at later on.

———–

I might update this list at a later date (feel free to comment with any suggestions).  The key here is that all this stuff doesn’t require much experience to do well – it’s all about common sense (with a little guidance from more senior staff where appropriate).  It’s good for your staff to be getting involved as well – particularly junior staff.  Just doing this stuff will not only benefit the company, but will help new staff familiarise themselves with your industry more quickly than the usual training manuals, etc.

Anyone have some more top blog marketing tips to add?

I kinda go through phases with this blog – I started off just working on content, but I was little unfocused – I didn’t really write much early on that was original – I just really commented on industry news and stuff like that.

I then moved on and started to find my own groove to work in – which meant I mainly focused on topics that were of interest to me (so I knew I could write reasonably well about them) and have taken it from there.  From time to time I do go through re-design phases where I’ve changed the Wordpress theme or messed around with the current theme.  I think when you get to a certain level of content and exposure, your image is more important than it was – so a good, clean design can help keep visitors coming to the site.

Right now, I’m in a kind of an expansion phase – I’ve just made a few tweaks to the site and now I’m going to be working on expanding the content.  Fused Nation will have another author onboard soon and I’m still looking for a few more folks to contribute as well.  I’m not posting here as much as I’d like (bit busy just now), but hope to free some time up next month to work on some content (feel free to post suggestions for anything you’d like to see).

I’d say one of the key techniques that’s helped with the growth of Fused Nation is linking out to other sites.  Not only do you create a more informative article, but it is also a subtle way of letting other bloggers know you’re there (most folks check their logs and Wordpress lets you see via technorati almost instantly who’s linking to you).  I’d say this has attracted more regular readers, commenters and links from other sites than any other marketing technique the average blog could use.

I think the success of this is down to the fact that it isn’t forced upon people (unlike comment spam, forum spam, web spam, link requests, etc) – it’s a more subtle form of marketing.  I like this approach.  It doesn’t ask anything of anyone – it’s not intrusive – all it does is send up a small flag saying “hey, I’m here!” and leaves it to the judgment of others.  This is why I think content and image are important at different stages of your blog’s life.  Both of these factors play a strong role in encouraging repeat visits to your site.

For example, there have been random debates on forums and blogs about pay per post services such as ReviewMe.  The problem with this is that paid reviews impact both your content and your image and as these are key conversion factors for your blog marketing campaign people should be looking at the long term impact.  Perhaps sacrificing some repeat visitors to make some money now isn’t the best approach in the long term?  I know Aaron did a good post somewhere covering some of these concerns and the approach ReviewMe takes, but I can’t find it offhand.  Worth a read if you can find it though (and an excellent example of a company taking a proactive approach to dealing with potential problems).

So what has worked for you in the past or is there anything you are trying out just now that has a unique approach?

MG

Worth checking out.

MG

“When submitted stories are consistently reported as spam and users complain via our feedback email about submission spam, we ban the domain. The domain will not be unbanned. The domain would consistently get reported as spam otherwise.”

Sooo…I thought it would be worthwhile writing a post that looked at social marketing, with a particular focus on Digg.

First of all, some background reading if you feel like it:

• Threadwatch – Growing list of domains getting banned at Digg
• Lee Odden – The hypocrisy of Digg and spam
• 10e20 – List of domains banned by Digg
• V7N – URL banned by Digg.com
• Graywolf – How to be a dirty Digger
• Digg – FAQ

The difference between social marketing and SEO

I think this is core to the issues facing a lot of sites that have been banned by Digg.  An SEO strategy is a very flexible thing.  You can take your broad strategy for any site (or page for that matter) and apply it to other sites (or pages).  Of course, this is an over simplification – there are obviously differences from industry to industry and site to site, but generally, what works for one site can more or less be applied to another site for similar results.

You optimise the same core areas, write content in a similar style and build links from standard sources.  It’s a very transferable strategy.

Social marketing has largely been adopted by the SEO community due to the fact that “buzz” and “viral” campaigns can result in some sweet links, which are great for SEO.  But more and more, SEOs are beginning to appreciate the traffic and brand value from this form of marketing – the problem arises when the SEO mindset is applied to this emerging channel of marketing.

Simply put – a social marketing campaign needs to be tailored to your specific objectives and although certain aspects are “standard”, each strategy isn’t as obviously transferable as SEO is.

Example 1 - an innocent mistake

A blogger who has been banned from Digg had posted on his blog that he had “only” submitted each of his 30 or so articles to Digg once.  Not gonna name names at this point because I do think it was an innocent and non-malicious action intended to “seed” the stories on Digg in the hope that they would “grow” in popularity.  However if he reads this and doesn’t mind being named, I’ll happily add in links, etc to his posts.

The problem here is not his intention – just the implementation.

When devising a social marketing strategy, we need to look at the big picture, particularly when exposing our sites to a large community.  As with forums or blog news sites such as Threadwatch, there are different levels of issues and etiquette we need to consider.  For Digg, I would make the following assumptions:

• They receive a lot of rubbish submissions
• Most of which probably come from the SEO community (or at the very least, people with a knowledge of SEO)
• As such, the Digg community may frown upon SEO flavoured submissions.

So, in this example, submitting every one of his blog posts, the author has applied a SEO mindset by creating a social marketing strategy that isn’t entirely appropriate to meet his objectives.  By submitting so many of his own articles, the community system (a combination of human and automated factors) has flagged his domain as spam.  The number of submissions as a proportion of the size of his site were so high that Digg has banned his site (as most articles would have been buried).

The point here is that not every post made on a blog actually deserves to be added to Digg.  Most blogs cover niche topics and in the grand scheme of things, it’s unlikely that everything you (or I) write will be “Digg worthy” – remember the community out there is much larger than just SEO.

A more appropriate strategy for this type of site (a blog) would be to submit ONLY articles that high quality and are likely to appeal to a broader community, or at the very least just space out your submissions (as submitting an article from your own site as and when you post them could trigger a spam flag).

Example 2 – social bookmark buttons on larger sites

Another domain that has been banned from Digg is the popular business networking site ecademy.  This is an interesting one, because it is an active site with a vibrant community of it’s own.

Of course, I can only speculate as to why they were banned, but I would assume that the following factors are core:

• Lot’s of user generate articles (different authors), each with a Digg It link.
• Authors most likely Digg their own submissions.
• AND / OR regular users Digg the story.

Why is this a problem?

Let’s put it in context.  The site receives 100,000’s of visitors each month and as a networking site, a high proportion are likely to be returning visitors and as such they will be familiar with regular authors.

The chances are that even if the author doesn’t Digg their own story, some regular users will.  Only one person needs to do it, but given the scale of the content being generated this could lead to a lot of submissions on a regular basis.  Again, as with example 1, lots of submissions + low Digg count could lead to spam flagging.

But surely sites shouldn’t be banned because users Digg their content?

No, of course not.  But what we would like and what happens in reality are two different things.  I’d love for Google to not index the site belonging to the guy who is copying my content, but here we are!

As I said at the beginning – we need to look at the big picture.  Where do your articles fit into the grand scheme of things?  Generally, not where we would like, but then that’s why we’re developing a marketing strategy, right?

The reality of the situation is that Digg receives a lot of spammy submissions and as such we need to factor this into our strategies.  Some people will spend time working out ways to get around this – fake usernames, pay to Digg, etc.  Personally I think this is a waste of time.  It is social marketing after all and if you can’t embrace the community for what it is, then you have a larger problem that won’t be solved by a short term burst of traffic from social media sites.

Tips for smaller sites and blogs

I would be inclined to avoid larger social media sites such as Digg until you can get yourself some decent professional kudos from fellow bloggers and industry professionals.

Basically, if you are considered to be a nobody, then your submission isn’t really going to carry the weight that it otherwise would.  But if your site or blog has a lot of blogsphere / press / authoritative exposure, then the articles you write a much more likely to stand up to close inspection.  Plus it’s useful for smaller sites to have an established user base that can support submissions by Digging them – that will mean there’s less chance of your submission fading away into nothingness.

Also, think about it before you Digg something.  Does it really warrant the submission?  Is it a topic that would spark a several page discussion on a forum or be covered by industry news sources (or is sufficiently sensationalist for neither of those to matter)?  If you can’t answer yes to any of those questions, then why would other people Digg your submission?

Tips for larger sites

If your site generates a lot of content (larger forums, sites where users can submit articles, etc), then consider how you will approach social bookmarking buttons.  Do you really want every piece of content to have a Digg button on it?

In my opinion, a good strategy for larger sites would be to have some mechanism to monitor and list popular topics – either by comments, replies, page views, etc.  If you can shuffle these to a “popular page” and then ONLY add social bookmark buttons to these pieces of content, then there’s more chance it will be accepted by the Digg community.

Basically, for most sites, the onus is on the site owner to filter out the crap content and promote selective social bookmarking, instead of broad based bookmarking with a “let them sort it out at their end” philosophy.  This will give you the best return on your efforts, while minimising the risk of a ban.

MG

Most SERPs relating to areas that Google have a business interest already display Adwords for the service, but this is one of the first times I’ve seen an additional snippet advertising the service.  Plus it’s also unusual for Google to include branding (blogger logo) in otherwise text based SERPs.

An interesting change – perhaps just a test, but could lead on to more commercial Google properties being advertised in SERPs outwith the Adwords model.

What strikes me is that with the recent debates about the Pay Per Post model of link building (let’s not mince about – it is link building, regardless of how the facilitating companies choose to position themselves!), and FTC requirements for disclosure, surely Google should be under some kind of requirement to disclose the fact that they own Blogger.

Keep in mind, although we (in the SEO industry) are more than aware of Google’s various acquisitions over the years, the average user may not be.  So advertising a “tip” on ALL “blog” and “weblog” related searches may seem like more of a recommendation than a promotion.  Certainly a dive into a very grey area.

What do you think?  I know a few people I chat to about these things (that aren’t instantly bored my choice of profession!) don’t really look at SERPs in the way that I do.  Most will look at the results and perceive them to be in some order or relevance and importance (and not simply as an easily manipulated set of data as I personally view them).  And as such, I would assume that these type of users would perceive any information outside normal and sponsored results as being a message from Google (or any search engine they are using).

If Windows pops up a “tip” for me, I know (as does the average user) that it is for usability purposes.  I would suspect a lot of people apply the same logic to stuff they read on websites, and I would go on to assume that for strong brands such as Google, small details such as this can and will be taken very literally.

That said, the statement, “Tip: Want to share your life online with a blog? Try Blogger” is a very common way to plus sell products and many websites use this technique.  Amazon for example will use the same offhand recommendation style to pitch related products, so why shouldn’t Google?

But then, why can’t a blogger be paid to make a post about a product?  Google, it seems, doesn’t need to label their promotions as “sponsored results” anymore.

Should Google have to disclose their relationship with Blogger?  At face value, Blogger is a free service, so technically Google aren’t selling anything – but Blogger is a huge network that allows Google to plus sell Adsense and therefore expand their product offering to Adwords advertisers, so they do profit from it.

It doesn’t really bother me – I think anyone should be able to do whatever they please with their website, regardless if you are Google or Ma n’ Pa’s e-shop.  But I do think this approach by Google is somewhat borderline grey area territory.  Considering Google’s historically “do no evil” approach to marketing and the current climate for the need for disclosure with business relationships, this otherwise innocent addition to Google SERPs could raise a few eyebrows.

MG

I was tagged by Aaron Shear, who was tagged by Avinash Kaushik.  The game was started off by Jeff Pulver.

I decided to pass this on to: Dean Bloomsfield, Brendon Scott, Craig Wilson, Dave Carruthers and Brian Turner, mainly because I’ve chatted with them all in one form or another before and I know they blog regularly.

So on to the 5 shocking (or utterly boring, depending on your perspective) facts about me that you might not know…

1.  I’ve had an insane amount of jobs in my time – I’ve worked for Scottish Opera, the Scottish Executive, the local social work department, restaurants, estate agencies, national banks, shops, marketing agencies and a plethora of other random jobs.  My top 5 (in order) are:

1. My current job (freelance SEO, working from home)
2. Night shift in a 24 hour shop when I was at Uni (I don’t like mornings)
3. Washing dishes in a restaurant while I was still at school (they gave me a beer after I finished work each night!)
4. Temping at Scottish Provident (crap job, great team and we had loads of great nights out!)
5. Working in Spain (crap jobs, great weather!)

2.  I once jumped out of a 1st floor window to prove that I could do it without hurting myself.  I then did it another 2 times because people arrived who missed the previous efforts.  It was 1st year at Uni though, and there may have been some beer involved.  I think I twisted my ankle the 3rd time.  It’s the charm.

3.  Given number 2, you may be surprised to find out that I’m a member of Mensa.

4.  I play poker regularly with my mates and much to their dismay, I’m actually getting quite good at it.  They would of course put it down to luck, but we all know differently, right?   It’s a lot like SEO – learn the basic rules, get a little practice, then shove all your chips in, close your eyes and hope for the best.

5.  My first experience with SEO was starting with an agency and being introduced to WebmasterWorld.  And then being given the task to setup loads of fake sites to build links for our client’s site…I didn’t stay there long!

If anyone is interested in how this is working out in terms of a viral marketing campaign, check out the technorati stats which update more or less in real time.  As of midnight 14th Dec 2006:

• Fused Nation – Rank 147,655 (46 links, 24 blogs)
• Jeff Pulver – Rank 4,600 (1,698 links, 526 blogs)
• Anyone else wants their blog added to this, add a comment with your current technorati details.

MG

tag, you’re it!

And…

www.mattcutts.co.uk does 301 redirect to www.mattcutts.com – so why are Google picking it up?  Interestingly, there are no references to “UK” on the page, so the ranking probably comes from link text (Matt does rank quite well for “SEO blog”).

Off topic, but this is a good example why link weight alone isn’t a great deciding factor for rankings – Mr Cutts isn’t a UK SEO!

This result has just popped in – I suspect that it will be gone in a day or so, which suggests Google deal with 301 redirects after-the-fact – listing the content first, then implementing a 301 filter of sorts to remove superfluous content.

However it could be (and most likely is) that the short term flood of IBLs to mattcutts.co.uk is causing a weird result – in most cases the redirecting page wouldn’t probably appear in obvious results (ie, not in the top 10 or so) – this is just an unusual situation where loads of people have linked to an unused domain that was already 301 redirecting, but not previously used.

The question is – why are Google even listing a page that delivers a 301 response (and I assume has done so since Google first found it)?  Surely results such as this should be filtered internally before going live…

MG

In his example, he explains that jpeg files contain meta data that includes make and model of the camera used to take the image and how this is and could be used by Yahoo (owners of image hosting site Flickr).

Worth a read (as is the rest of John’s blog if you haven’t already).

MG

So far, Google indexed and cached a version of my homepage only (even before I updated the template) and has just updated the results page for “fusednation“.  Interestingly the secondary result is for “Dylan, Jeremy and nofollow“, a recent blog post (ie, the first content link on the front of the blog, outwith nav and such).

However, a few days ago, the secondary link was to the post about the 2006 WWW conference.  Why?  Because when Google came to visit, that was the top blog entry.

Given the recent indexing changes at Google, I would hypothesise either of these theories are true:

• Google is only also only following a few links on the page (due to low backlink “priority”, and as a result is only catching the top post.  However why aren’t the category pages and about page (links at top of every page) indexed first instead?  This question leads me to think the following is more likely…
• Google is indexing as above, but treating blogs differently (easily identified by multiple traits) – that is, only indexing homepage + most recent post (singular) while the inbound link quality is low.

Obviously there’s not much evidence to go on here – just speculating based on my experience and some of the things I’ve seen with this site.

If Google is indeed treating blogs differently (for the purposes of indexing) – and I think they could be (this site was indexed in Google Blog search long before the main index), then what other factors could affect your crawl depth and frequency?

We consider constantly updating content as a popular indicator (hence the increasing popularity of forums and blogs within the SEO industry), so would Google take this as a factor?  Perhaps with frequency, but with crawl depth?

Do blog posts even need to be in the main index?  I’d hazard a guess that direct referrals from various blog engines, tag sites, etc would be good for business too.

Maybe this is a step towards Google treating sites as sites – individual entities and not just random slabs of HTML that may or may not be spam?  Who knows?  Hope so – it would make life a little easier.

MG

Some ideas:

• Guides (to SEO, marketing, online marketing)
• News (same)
• Rants (rawr!)

Kinda just been posting things that interest me and stuff I haven’t seen splattered all over the web yet but looking to build on that a lot.  So feel free to comment with any wish-list ideas you have.

MG