AddedTraffic.com

With linkbait talk swirling in minds of those looking to capitalize on the Social Media Market, I understand the need for icons which allow users to bookmark good posts on their favorite social media site. But how many are too many?

As a good rule of thumb I would recommend keeping your icons or links to one line, featuring the top sites, and maybe one of the newer social media sensations you would like to promote. So in total maybe 4-5 or maybe you are one that prefers to stick to the good old Digg button.

Today, I stumbled on a nice SEM blog that has good content and has been up and running for a few months. With several insightful posts the blog made for an interesting read, and I may even subscribe his feed. However one thing blatantly stood out. Can You find it?

Count em’ there are 55. My blog isn’t even wide enough to display the image properly so I scaled it down, but take a look. I didn’t even know half of these sites existed so could they really push any noticeable amount of traffic.

Now let me ask you, are you desperate for traffic? Because it looks like it to me. Listing even the most obscure social media sites may get you a few extra visitors daily, but is it worth putting all of this clutter on the page?

I think not. So stop Begging for Traffic

I love Bookmark Me and I’m sticking to it. Its clean its easy to implement and it gets the job done.

Thats right! You can now take a college course in SEO offered at Glasscock School of Continuing Studies as Rice University.
Information on the class can be found here SEO Class.

Topics will include the following:

• Researching the competition
• Analyzing and optimizing Web pages
• Submitting pages to search engines
• Monitoring search engine placement
• Reporting and analyzing ranking results
• Developing a reciprocal links list

Judging by the last topic I think this class would be well worth its weight in E-Gold for any aspiring web entrepreneur. “Developing a reciprocal links list”

As a college student I prefer adjunct professors over full time professor, I find often they understand the ins and outs of the material better as they work in the field. In this case Professor Zaman needs to brush up on his skills SEO or the only thing his students will be ranking in is the supplemental results.

It also says:

[Professor Zaman] previously served as a Web master for The University of Texas Medical School at Houston

I hope Professor Zaman reads this because I would gladly reciprocal link with Rice University.

The question that always arises when SEO is mentioned are the ethics that are involved. As many know there are all varieties of SEO Black White even Blue. Some extremists believe that anything goes, others believe anything that displaces their website is wrong. As to where the line should be drawn in the sand, I am yet unsure, but with all the different shades, I ask you:

Which color of SEO does Google prefer?

Got it? Keep that hold of that thought and keep reading.

First off you would answer WhiteHat SEO, because its provides real valuable content to the end user. This is Google’s goal isn’t it? To offer the best service to their users.

Now take a step back:

Lets take a look at some of the higher PageRank and TrustRank pages:
ShoeMoney, TechCrunch, GreyWolf’s Blog, CopyBlogger, and Pronet Advertising.

How many Google Adsense ads do you see?

Very Few.

Now let me ask you? What is Google’s biggest cashcow?

Adsense/Adwords.

With Google’s revenue totaling $10.604 Billion in 2006. It is obvious they are making money, but how if the big traffic sites arn’t pushing their Adwords/Adsense?

A typical BlackHat can toss up a 20,000 page niche site and get it indexed in a matter of hours/days. With many BlackHats using Adsense as part of their game plan it seems they are not the only one benefiting from this relationship. I’m sure Google doesn’t mind the few pennies generated each day from every page a good BlackHat puts up.

Now we have reached the ethical dilemma: How to provide the best SERPS without hurting revenue.

Most BlackHat Spam sites last in Google’s SERPS for about 3 weeks to several months - Some get banned earlier, Some later. Once they are banned these sites often still receive traffic from Yahoo! and MSN. Though these other Search Engines do not drive near the amount of traffic Google can, this slow trickle still generates big momma G revenue.

So next time you think Google only likes WhiteHat SEO’s, you may want to rethink this. I would suggest Google doesn’t care what shade of SEO you are, as long as you are making them money. Take that for food for thought.

Recently, I have been amazed at the amount of blogs posting articles about “link baiting.” The key behind this phenomenon is nothing new. It’s something that nearly all successful websites have. Compelling and useful content. If you don’t offer content that makes your audience want to return then you just lost a visitor. After all the content is why people want to visit your site in the first place. If you have compelling content this will inevitably leads to links. The term “link baiting” is really just a new term for an old concept with a twist.

Wikipedia defines link baiting as “any content or feature within a website that somehow baits viewers to place links to it from other websites.”

In my own terms link baiting is: Offering compelling content with a hook. This hook is anything that will make people want to put you on their site or to get people talking.

As blogs have hit the mainstream, it seems that every webmaster needs content. Often times they write about something that left an impression on them. This is exactly what link baiting is. If you can leave your visitors wanting more then there is a much higher chance that they will link to you, because you gave them something to write about.

Today Neil Patel over at Link Building Blog spoke on the use of widget to get back links. Within this post he references Flickr with over 1 million back links. This is a prefect example of compelling and useful content. Flickr has made photo shareing a global sensation and they have offered many features that allow users to integrate their photos into many other softwares, thus providing them with numerous back links.

Putting together a widget can be as complex or simple as you want to make it. A couple of great examples of useful widgets have been published by ProBlogger and Hype2.0. Although both of these range in complexity, they both offer the end user something useful.

If you would like to do some more reading on link baiting (although you probably already have) I would highly suggest:

• Andy Hagans’ Ultimate Guide to Linkbaiting and Social Media Marketing
• 2007 Guide To Linkbaiting: The Year Of Widgetbait?
• How to Attract Links and Increase Web Traffic – The Ultimate Guide

And suprizingly good:

• Link Bait How To: Obtain 42,000 Unique Hits and 1,000 Inbound Links in 1 Week

Will a search engine named “Powerset” have the potential to dethrone the sleeping search giant? VentureBeat broke news that the San Fransisco based company has won the exclusive rights to a new search technology that may give Google a run for its money in the realm of search. This new technology, which was developed at Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in Silicon Valley, has been 30 years in the making.

Natural Language, as it has been coined, seeks to understand language and focuses on the meanings of words and how they relate to one another, not just rely on strong key word associations as many popular search engines do. Google has not taken “natural language seriously enough.” States Kaplan, PowerSet’s chief technology officer, instead “their orientation is toward shallow relevance, and they do it well.”

Powerset’s new technology has the potential to change the way people search. Instead of replying heavily on key words we may soon be able to ask search engine more complex questions such as “Who did IMB acquire in 1996?” The most exciting part is the technology has to potential to learn with time. VentureBeat revealed that Powerset’s core team now includes more than 40 employees, many of whom are well known in the realm of search.

Read the whole story at VentureBeat.com

Recently Eli of BlueHatSeo.com revealed a technique known as link laundering. Eli does a great job at explaining this technique but in essence you create a shareware software directory. For authors to submit their program to your directory they must in turn link back to one of your sites. This does not have to be the directory. This in turn generates a great deal of back links, making promoting your real money making endeavors much easier.

Talking this advice to heart I decided to run with it. The biggest obstacle to clear now is getting my directory into the databases of directories. The Association of Shareware Professional offers a directory on their site. My first impression was that this must be the place to start.

As soon as the site went live, I submitted my directory for inclusion on their list. While their directory seems to be comprehensive hasn’t been updated since early January this poses a real problem - how to get authors to your site?

Having hit a brick wall I returned to blue hat. Within the comments of Eli’s post I posed the question: Where to now? Within minutes he pointed me to Dmoz (Duh) and Rudenko which has a software submission service and a shareware program to semi-automate submission to directories. With both of these directories your site may take weeks to months to get inclusion on. Until then we will just have to wait and see what happens.

Needless to say I BlueHatSeo.com has won me over as a loyal reader. Though posts aren’t daily Eli offers great new perspectives to SEO, in general. I love checking Netvibes and seeing that there is a new post there. It makes my day.

Update: After taking a few hours to get my site included in a few of the auto PAD submitting programs, I’ve received a few inclusions. This should pick up shortly.