chrisg.com

A key SEO tactic is to gain inbound links containing your most sought after keywords. Many webmasters aim for their exact phrase. If you can manage it, great. The problem is this can be far more challenging than it at first seems, and secondly over-doing the exact phrase can raise red flags in search engines. The main issue I find facing clients who want a certain anchor text is they run out of things to say.

One way around these issues is to simply approach the phrases less obviously. Check out this expertly designed diagram:

This diagram shows the main phrase for my struggling Walrus Polishing Kit blog. I have been trying to get my linkbaits onto Digg using the phrase “Walrus Polishing Kit” and for some reason Diggers are not voting in the numbers required.

As you can see, we can either go for the exact phrase, or split the phrase into segments. Rather than attempt to get Diggers interested in “Walrus Polishing Kits”, we can go for linkbaits about “Walrus”, “Polishing” or “Kit”, or variations, such as “Polishing Kits”.

Finding bait topics containing one of the words, such as “kit”, is far easier than trying for the whole phrase, and while it might not give the instant results of the exact match, it does make it easier to both write and get votes.

Thinking of your site theme this way opens up many more possibilities for articles. Rather than aiming for a “sweet spot” home run, you can build the sites overall theme over time.

Yet again there is another traffic exchange doing the rounds with widgets appearing on blog sidebars. Of course people are asking if they should join in. Here is my advice …

1. Is it really free? - OK, in most cases you don’t actually pay money to be a part of it, but in return for the hope of traffic you have to give valuable attention away to people you do not know nor endorse.
2. Does it work? - By all means try it, but in my experience they don’t tend to work as well as advertised once the initial hype has worn off
3. What will it look like? - The widget itself could be a distraction (after all, the idea is people click on it rather than read your content), but if the images are not moderated are you going to be showing seedy pictures? Hopefully there would be some checks in the system but even the biggest
   well-funded services such as Google and Facebook allow saucy stuff
   through, and I still see NSFW avatars on MyBlogLog even though it has
   improved a great deal.
4. Who are you promoting? - Other than the service owner I mean. If you put one of these widgets on your blog you are sending your hard-won readers away to destinations unknown. Who are the most likely to want free and easy traffic other than smaller blogs? Yup, spammers, scammers and other less-than-quality publishers who wouldn’t get voluntary links. Could you be sending your prized audience to bad neighborhoods? Would they thank you for that?
5. Can you trust them? - This might seem the most cynical reason of all but really, can you trust them? If you can trust the current owners, how about the people who buy the service?

In my opinion you are better off gaining good quality links in the traditional way (ie. having something worth linking to). The only links you should be placing on your blog, plain or Javascript, are to resources you have personally vetted and actually recommend or have a relationship with (eg. advertisers). Your reputation and traffic is just too valuable.

On the positive side, these schemes are a great insight into what works right now in viral marketing and spreading your ideas. Think about it, the people getting involved in these schemes are giving away valuable real estate, promoting another persons asset for free, potentially risking their own brand, in return for the hope of some visitors from it. How do they get otherwise rational people to do this? That is where the real value lies …

By all means try any service you think has potential, you might find an actual good one, just please please monitor it carefully for what appears and where you are sending your loyal readers.

Have you had any success with traffic exchanges? Am I just bitter and deluded? Please share your experiences in the comments …

In the past week I have been interviewed again a couple of times. Some common questions are starting to come up. It seems that there are a couple of things people know about me.

• Authority Blogger
• Flagship Content

This pleases me no end. Why? Because these are precisely the things I want to spread! So if these ideas are so close to my heart why don’t I talk about those topics more?

While I am absolutely 100% confident these ideas work I don’t want to beat you over the head with it. You will find across all of my writing there are themes I repeat. I try to alter my approach to delivering them but the themes are there. I want you to gather these ideas from examples rather than for me to spell everything out. You don’t need me to join all the dots anyway.

Flagship Content builds authority stronger and deeper than any other tactic. Telling you so will not make you believe it, but experiencing it will. Who in your niche do you really believe in? Who do you trust despite never meeting them or working with them?

I am a crappy photographer but I know 100% that David Hobby is the go-to guy on lighting. I know this because of his flagship content. When I meet a fellow photographer out and about and they have ball bungees strapped to their camera bag it is the same feeling of recognition like a gadget fan seeing white headphones sticking out of a pocket.

Why do Davids ideas spread?

1. They are easy to understand and really work
2. They are soaked in rather than rammed home
3. They are easy and beneficial to communicate

When I worked for marketing agencies we would have spent a great deal of money to get the results we can get through these tactics. Take just one recent campaign. How much would you have to pay in online advertising to get 30k visitors in under 12 hours? Rather a lot? What sort of cost and timeframe to get hundreds of links the old way? Plenty. The ongoing benefits will be even more telling. Those old approaches would have been more more expensive and less sticky.

One thing I have found is trust is paramount.Trust is the foundation of brand, and trust has to be a slow burn thing.I want my ideas to soak in and percolate. Think about it, when I put my ebook together I could have chosen all sorts of topics. Why did I choose a topic that while interesting was never going to be searched for and isn’t in immediate demand? There are much easier and immediately alluring ebook ideas, for example anything in the SEO, make money or traffic line, right? I would much rather a smaller group of people really get it than a massive amount of people bounce off on their merry way.

Sorry if this post comes across as self indulgent but there is important advice nestled away in here

If you want your ideas to spread you have to

1. Distill them down to the core components
2. Distribute your ideas over time in easy to digest and communicate chunks
3. Really believe in what you are saying while being prepared to modify as you go
4. Support your ideas with real world evidence
5. Be prepared to stick with it over the long haul

The more important your ideas are to you the more care you have to take with the delivery. When you have your own ideas communicated back to you as if you have never heard them, then you know you have been successful

Attention Age Doctrine is a free report from Rich Schefren. I am sure I won’t be the only person you hear about this from. In fact I heard about it myself from Yaro. So why am I telling you about it?

1. It’s free - Even though you can be sure Rich isn’t giving it away out of the goodness of his heart, the report itself is free
2. Actionable, useful info - This guy knows his stuff and has obviously put a lot of work into putting together a good overview of the state of social media attention and promotion
3. About Authority Blogging - Building authority through blogs and online communities are the core of his message. A lot of connection with stuff I write about here.

What I don’t like about it

• You have to read past the first load of marketing and “who am I” to get to the meat - skim to the useful ideas despite the rest and you will find it useful.
• He is a bit heavy handed with the marketese, though can be forgiven I guess because of course he is using this to promote his follow-on.
• Had to install Adobe Reader on my Mac (which is a first for any ebook in my experience), otherwise it came out blank.

Go ahead and click here to download it now

You might have seen already that I encourage people to be Authority Bloggers. To demonstrate your expertise and knowledge, build profile, credibility, and trust. A question that comes up a lot is how do you know when you get there? What tells you that you have achieved Authority status?

I see authority as a journey, a continuous process. There is no end point. In fact, if you stop working towards it, or feel like you have “done enough”, that is when you are most likely to lose it.

Authority for me is a combination of the following three factors. Please do supply your own definition, I am interested in hearing your point of view.

1. Personality - This is probably the most controversial factor so I put it first. I believe personality is an important component because to gain authority you need to be able to communicate, network and encourage a loyal audience. Yes, if you can prove a massive amount of expertise despite a lousy personality you might still succeed, but I think people with open and friendly personalities have an easier time.
2. Expertise - With the other two traits you will have the capacity to succeed, you only have to look at television personalities and the celebrities that are hounded by paparazzi. With expertise, experience, knowledge or talent though you have the capability to go beyond “famous for being famous”. Expertise is a draw, it pulls people in. Expertise serves a need. Combined with personality so you can explain things in an entertaining, beneficial way, you are golden.
3. Visibility - With the other two factors in your favor you should be well placed to develop visibility. By visibility I just mean getting noticed and building an audience. Probably the main difference between success and failure is the amount of attention you get. Of course, attention without substance is no use, so you must have the other two factors to back it up.

All three factors are used in combination.

For example to succeed in networking you need to have a friendly personality, be interesting to talk to (expertise?) and it always helps if people have heard of you.

Especially when starting out you have to build each:

• Work on developing your “voice”, your writing and communication style.
• Blog, comment, link, guest post, contribute to forums, Twitter, network, IM, and any other way you can think of to get known.
• Of course always make sure you are up on the news and techniques of your niche.

Do you think this definition of authority works for you? Let me know your thoughts on authority in the comments …

• When kids put together their lists for Santa this year, do you think they will be asking for “an MP3 player”, or will they ask for “an iPod”?
• Did Microsoft have the same impact with the Zune?
• How is the iPhone impacting competitors phone sales?
• What would you think of a search engine that did not rank Apple for the term?

When you create a powerful brand you not only gain recognition and mind share, you change the rules of the game in your favor. The whole market place has to react, you cause competitors to change strategy, the media to take notice, and prospects to change their demands.

I would argue that creating a lasting brand is your single most important goal. Everything you do, from content to answering emails works towards your brand. Do not think you can rely on tricks and short cuts. As Aaron says, even Social Media has its dangers.

To make maximum impact it is not enough to just improve on the existing status quo, you have to cause a real shift in the way prospects think. It has to be done in a way that makes your brand stand alone as a shining example of what matters. Compare the lame razor market where each year they add a blade (how, um, innovative) to the disruption Dyson caused when he launched a bag-less vacuum cleaner.

Although most consumers see iPod and MP3 player as synonymous, Apples product was not the first and nor was it particularly revolutionary in terms of technology. It had some great features and an innovative interface, but it was the whole strategy in combination that made the difference. The iPod succeeded because it combined the required features in an elegant package. As much fashion as technology, it visibly fit how the prospects thought of themselves, it practically marketed itself. If you went to market with just another MP3 player, what would customers think? Do people think Microsoft’s Zune is something new and fresh? I would argue most people think of it as “an attempt at an iPod killer”, ie. to describe the Zune people compare it to the iPod.

Now Apple is doing the same thing over again with the iPhone. It’s not the first smartphone, not even the best in many ways, but the loyal Apple customer base combined with a radical user interface has won over many USA customers and is likely to succeed in Europe eventually (once some niggles are worked out).

Once you have one success, and a growing base of happy customers, the next success becomes that bit easier. 

Another brand that fits the prospects world view is Starbucks. It isn’t just another coffee shop. The stores are decorated and planned more like a theater set than a shop. Your prospects have to think “this suits me”. Starbucks created atmosphere, pricing and product that key into a desire in the prospect for perceived quality and sophistication. Now what would people say if you wanted to open just another coffee shop?
How do you use these ideas in your own marketing and promotion?

1. Know your prospect - What are the key motivations and self-image of the people you are aiming for?
2. Know yourself - How do your own attributes overlap with those of your audience?
3. What can you do differently? - You are looking for something disruptive, not just “better”. What are the conventions and how can you break them?
4. How can your point of difference benefit? - What will prospects gain by your difference? Different for the sake of it will not work, people need to see how much better your new way is for them.
5. How can you get the idea to spread? - It is no good being different but isolated, what can you do to make your brand viral?

Look around for examples and learn from them. Who is unique? What are the conventions, how are those conventions changing?

Today I would say the most unique blog is Successful-blog, Liz has changed the rules for how a blog should be. Conventions in blogging are very different to only a few years ago. First Darren made it OK to talk about earning money as a blogger, then John Chow has taken commercialism and made it a virtue.

When we launched Performancing, multi-author blogs were unusual, as were blogs with a forum, now those ideas are so common as to not warrant noticing. That said Performancing has survived unlike some other more unfortunate sites launched at the same time. The key is the community. Being unique is not enough, you have to gain loyalty. Know what is considered radical today will be the minimum standard tomorrow, you have to keep moving forward and keep your audience with you.

Gather your prospects and have them feel part of something. Focus on giving those people the very best experience and they will reward you.

What sort of people does your brand attract and why? How can you serve those particular people better? Is there a word or phrase you can use to describe those people or that activity?

Twitter is a social site based around the idea of 140 character messages, but it has grown to be much more than that.

My relationship with Twitter has mutated over time. My opinion of the service has ranged from true believer, skeptic, objective critic, right up to now which I would describe as “cautious optimist“.

It took a while for me to see any benefit in it but now I think it could be very useful to bloggers when used correctly.

Do you use Twitter? Let me know in the comments. Follow me on Twitter now.

If you are not using Twitter yet, there is a comprehensive guide here.

The service is still developing, both technologically (it is often down or unreliable) and in the way people use it. There are three great non-social uses for Twitter that I can see:

1. Inside scoop - Follow the right industry insiders and you get the news before any other channel. I have gotten access to information and beta accounts this way, can be very useful.
2. Traffic - Drop a link with a good intro and you can see click throughs and comments as a result.
3. Networking - I have stated many times how important networking is for bloggers, Twitter is a growing venue for this.

Driving Traffic with Twitter

Twitter is more and more being used as both a social medium and also as a way to drive traffic. You can see this in action by observing users who do it so well, people like Tamar, Chris Pirillo, Scoble and Steve Rubel.

The key is to paste your link after a compelling headline. I find titles that either announce something intriguing or beg a response to work best, things people will have an opinion on. You can use Twitterfeed to post your RSS content to twitter automatically, or various plugins to Tweet as you post. Another traffic technique is to post Digg URLs to get your followers to vote!

It is no good thinking you can drive loads of traffic to your blog if you only have five followers, you have to get out there and make some friends. See “networking” below.

Twitter as a Back Channel

Originally when I signed up I did the usual thing of following my friends. Thing is, I talk to my friends anyway. What I missed out on was what I find really beneficial now, finding stuff out as it happens and getting insights that I would miss otherwise.

The key is to follow the right people. This can only be worked out through trial and error; follow people for a while and see what they produce.

On a basic level I have been able to follow the key points from conferences I would not have been able to access, but at best there have been quotes and links that have kept me informed better than following 1000 feeds.

Twitter Networking

You don’t just post and read on Twitter, you can discuss and make connections too.

Be careful that you do not follow more Twitter users than you can handle, this kind of thing can really leach on your time. The way I have gathered contacts is by gradually following other peoples conversations and following who they reference. You will find a lot will follow you in return or if you reply to one of their comments.

It is very important when replying to remember that your conversation is public, keep it interesting for those outside the conversation too by making it inclusive. Be clear in each “tweet” what it is you are talking about, don’t expect people to follow the whole thread, do not post too much in quick succession and don’t use shorthand or private jokes.

To reply to another Twitter user you just include their @name in your Tweet. To see who replied to you there is a “replies” link.

Who Uses Twitter and How?

I asked on Twitter if people find the service useful, here are a few replies:

• @Marshall finds it sends a fair amount of traffic and has an excellent post on how Twitter helps pay his rent
• @Sylvainbriant gets good blog traffic from Tweets (approximately 3%)
• @Reese says she gets exposure but knows she doesn’t leverage it enough
• @cmiddlebrook has seen a lot of traffic from Twitter, particularly since she posted her guide

Over to you, do you use twitter? How do you use it? What do you love or hate about it? I want to know your opinions, please share in the comments …

A couple of times this week I have seen great stories get buried on Digg. It happens and it sucks.

The thing is we all tend to think our own story is worthy of getting votes. But in many cases I think the people who complain about getting buried the most secretly know they were trying to game the system. If you have to ask every person online you know for a vote that is probably a good sign that you are pushing quite hard.

Digg is actually a lot fairer than people might believe, lousy stories get the same treatment but the authors still complain about the bury-brigade or auto-bury or whatever.

Ask yourself this; if you had never seen the article before, would you voluntarily vote for it?

If the answer to that question is a firm “no” then why should anyone else Digg it, stumble it or del.icio.us it?

Here is the secret to Social Media success …

… Social Media is a popularity contest. It’s a lot like high school really. Being nice is great, but being popular and having lots of friends is far more important. 

I know some of you will disagree with me but I see “evidence”, or what I regard as evidence, might be just a misfiring of neurons, all the time.

To even get a story seen you need votes. Hardly anyone looks in the dark and hidden corners of social media sites where new and unnoticed stories live. The popular pages get all the attention, followed by “about to become popular with a little push”. Who hangs out with the “brand new and unlikely to become popular unless a miracle happens” pages?

So you need a bunch of friends to give you a kick start. The more the better.

That’s ok because Digg and such give you tools to allow you to send a story to your friends to get them to vote on it.

Even better if some of your friends are really popular and successful. If you hang out with the cool crowd your stuff will get far more attention.

So through your friends and adoring fans you get your stuff noticed. Most of the work is done. In fact that can be all that is required. Sometimes though people see through the charade and point out that the Emperor has no clothes and buries it.

The thing is we really shouldn’t be at all surprised when that happens if the article really doesn’t have any substance.

Unfortunately, just like high school, there is a ruling class clique with their own likes, dislikes and prejudices. Being popular is not enough if you break the unwritten rules.  

When you are looking to use Social Media, hang out and observe. Look at what gets popular, what hangs around long term and what gets to the front page then disappears just as fast.

Most people will tell you what works on Digg tends to have some relationship with Apple, Linux, Ron Paul, etc. Things that probably won’t do well are anything that seems to be third hand (submit the original not a livejournal writeup of a copy and pasted story), overly commercial or overly self promotional.

Basically, unlike high school, it is the young male geeks who rule the roost. Remember the AV club? Yup, they control what gets to the front page, and they have a lifetime of bitterness to get out of their system.

The same old advice applies here as much as anyone else; consider the audience first over what you want. What will they enjoy and get value from? How best to deliver it? What do you need to do to appeal?

If getting on Digg is so important to you and it means sexing up your story and making Star Wars references, so be it. Personally, I am still happy when I get the ego boost from a front page digg story but now I focus on my actual audience rather than trying to please everyone.

Probably why I was never that popular in school

Aaron has a great post about PR agencies in the social media / web 2.o space. Worth a read, if only for the Office Space inspired giggle.  Reading this made my brain connect what Aaron had written with a thought I had been having all morning about authenticity.

The attraction of blogging and social marketing for companies is strong. There is a feeling that with a little bit of cunning you can siphon off some of this juicy traffic and pump up your product. A lot of tips and advice out there reinforces this belief. Added to this, look at all these tools that are available now allowing you to “submit your content to hundreds of social media sites simultaneously”. Um, submit a lame story all you like, you ain’t going to get voted on!

Reality fortunately shows that this is not true. It is a lot harder to profitably game the system for your own commercial benefit than it appears.

It’s a real shame that many of these companies are going to try a half-hearted approach at gaming social media then decide that social media “doesn’t work”. If they would only truly engage the audience, take time to truly participate and create value, they might see a whole lot of benefit for both their company and their customers.

I have said this before but it is worth repeating. You have to start with the audience, what they need.  But saying the right things is not enough, you have to show with your behavior that you really get it.

Attracting an audience with the right words in the right places will only work so long, sooner or later you have to truly deliver what your audience came to find. If you attract people with one story but tell another with the way you act then those people who were once attracted and favorable will feel cheated. Consider Apple, they have a huge fan-base and now pundits are squawking about their percentage of the PC market but Mac customers don’t see Apple as a PC company. If they started selling generic beige boxes would the customers stick around?

Social media and blog marketing are not throwaway tactics, attracting an audience this way is setting up a promise that you are going to make yourself an authentic part of the conversation. Don’t waste the opportunity by only putting on an act, really take part and you will be rewarded.

Often clients assume I am always going to recommend blogging but that is simply not the case. I am not going to push blogs as the magic bullet solution because as you know, blogging does not suit every company or individual.

In most cases the decision is down to:

1. Will a blog provide significant benefit compared to other tactics? - There are a number of ways a company can market, build an audience, attract search visibility without blogging. While for some companies a blog will be ideal, this is not always the case.
2. Does the benefit outweigh the cost? - There are costs to blogging, from having the initial blog set up through to the staff time or paid cost in having it maintained.
3. Can you as a company create a worthwhile blog? - Not all companies have people on staff or the budget for good, consistent writing. Also you need to know there are enough article ideas to see you through long term.

Now all that said, the risk of “getting it wrong” is small in most cases. People do worry though if there is a greater risk doing a blog badly compared to doing nothing at all.Let’s take a look at ways a blog could conceivably damage your brand:

• Saying something damaging - This is the worst thing you can do through your blog, and it could well be much more damaging than saying something bad in person because as you know, internet news travels at light speed, provides its own evidence, and is hard to erase. If you have staff members with controversial views or who tend to run off their mouth then keep them away from the blog. Do not let anything go live without being checked for legalities, accuracy, intellectual property and good sense. My advice would be to avoid any form of snark or dark humor in a company blog. This is kind of the internet equivalent of letting the company big-mouth talk to the press. Just don’t.
• Not responding to an issue - Not posting can be as damaging. If there is an issue building and you have a blog but do not address it then it looks like you are being evasive.
• Over-prioritizing the blog - A blog is one thread in a multi-tactic strategy. Relying on your blog alone, to the expense of other marketing tactics, would be a mistake. Take me for example, I am a blog and marketing consultant but even I have to get out from my own blog, market myself and network.
• Using the blog as distraction from work - Sometimes people get caught up with the thrill of blogging or just would rather tinker with a blog than get on with their real job. Blogging is fun, much more fun than many chores you might have in a business, so be careful that hours are not wastefully spent “blogging” rather than being productive.
• Starting then abandoning a popular blog - This is not quite as damaging as people believe, but still can be a mistake when you have a lot of people who have subscribed only to find the posts dry up. Raising and dashing expectations is not the best business move. For this reason it is best to start a blog in “stealth mode” to see if it is possible for you to maintain a blog long term. Also do not think you have to post multiple times a day or even week. Once a week might be sufficient providing what you post is valuable. Far better to set expectations low and exceed them than the other way round.

As you can see, there are risks, but knowing risks before hand allows you to mitigate against them. I have in the past recommended companies go with an “articles” section and an email list over a blog when I didn’t feel they could keep up a blog. There are always options and ways around these issues.

Can you think of any other ways a company could harm their brand with bad blogging?