I’ve had the following rant percolating in my mind for some time now.  It is a familiar gripe that rings as true in me as any.  It can be summarized as:

Pure white hat marketers need to shut the hell up and stop pretending their shit does not stink.

It has felt to me for a long time that Google, whether consciously or not, has been effective at turning the SEO community against itself.   Hearing “thought leaders” side in favor of outing, and casually characterizing, large groups of marketers as “spammers” feels treasonous to me. Not just because I wholeheartedly disagree, but also because their focus seems completely misdirected.

To my thinking, there are only three sides in the SEO game.  This is how I break it down.

#1. The Search Engines

Despite what has been said, search engines view ALL SEOs as the enemy. That is because the entire industry is a force aligned in direct opposition to their interests.

Not only does the persistent  onslaught of SEO strategizing put immense strain on their algorithms, but SEO’s compete directly for the exact same marketing dollars.

The gesture’s faux transparency and aura of servility are a ruse.  It is merely an instance of keeping their enemies closer.

If Google could get every SEO in a room and use that flashy thing from Men In Black to erase our memories… they would. And trust me, once Rand and Danny had gotten everyone’s attention and had them focus on the light, their minds too would be similarly disposed.  

If you, in your capacity as an SEO, leverage your knowledge of Google’s algorithm in order to guide your actions in pursuit of higher rankings within search results for targeted keywords…(breath)… Google is not your friend.  You are a thorn in their side and are actively mucking with their painstaking semblance of order.

Oh and if you don’t do this, you’re not an SEO. Period.

Google does prefer some types of SEO over others, but their preference isn’t cast along the black/white divide you imagine. It has nothing to do with spam or the integrity of their search results.  Google simply prefers ineffective SEO over SEO that works.  No question about it.  They abhor any strategies that allow guys like you and me to walk into a business and offer a significantly better ROI than AdWords.

Google’s actions last Spring had nothing to do with improving the search results, or cleaning up the polluted web.  Their primary goal was to identify and demote sites that had actively employed successful SEO shortcuts.

From directories, to article galleries, to blog networks and anchor text, Google has moved with purpose – pouncing with precision on the most scalable and effective SEO strategies.   Does it surprise you they’ve already added guest blogging and infographics to their hit list?

I was recently in a conversation with a heavyweight at a top tier SEO company.  It wasn’t long before I felt lectured to about the purity of SEO.  It was about the time I started feeling embarrassed by the corners I was willing to cut when the conversation took a turn.  Without skipping a beat, this person began talking about a new project they were working on; it was going to help automate the guest blogging submission and approval process. I don’t think they understood why I started laughing.

Believing that you’re safe because you’ve drawn some moral line and can point to tactics far more egregious than yours is magical thinking.

In fact, one of the methods that has yet to fall prey to Pandas or Penguins is blatant, high volume comment spam.   I am aware of more than a few niches currently dominated by sites with link profiles consisting of nothing but the ugliest links.  I think anyone with a blog can agree that comment spam is one of the darkest, most offensive methods of obtaining links. Yet this method is somehow even more effective.

#2. Search Engine Marketers

Whether you’re consulting for BMW or cornering the market for boner pills, there is more binding us search geeks together than dividing us.  We are all playing the same game, governed by the same impossible rules.  We are all perplexed and consumed by a mystery that has no experts.

We are all just fanboys with an unrequited obsession.

There will always be an impervious wall between us and Google. No matter how much we obsess over their recent album or doodle their logo in the margins of our books, we remain just fans.  Some of us watch from the cheap seats while others find spots in the front row.  A few may even make their way back stage to tearfully choke on uncaringly delivered idol cock.  But at the end of the day, we all see the same show. Our slightly different perspectives are infinitesimal distinctions compared to the divide between us and the band.

The need to divide this already esoteric clan into factions is preposterous.  From even just a small step back, the gray/white hat chasm seems as trite as the delineations that must exist between wedding DJs.

If someone says they are a wedding DJ, I don’t ask “Oh what type?”  To me, no further segmentation is required.  A similar thing is true for SEO’s.  If I run into an SEO in my regular life, I am overjoyed to meet them. I don’t give a damn if they prefer the early albums or the new material. They are a fan like me.

It isn’t until Google starts declaring super fans and handing out backstage passes that the finger pointing begins.  For someone to say they have a better concept of SEO or a deeper understanding of this game purely because of the tactics they favor betrays a disconnect between the singular and unanimous goal that binds us – our desire to rank.

Sure I’ve seen abhorrent link profiles push a website onto the first page and discovered paper thin sites suspended on top by what seems to be PFM (pure fucking magic).  I’ve dealt with the stress of dissatisfied clients and felt the sting of a SERP ass-kicking at the hands of black-hat ninjas.  The truth is however, that when it comes to the top spots, there has to be winners and losers.

To me it’s just a matter of character.  Even the most expensive, most talented SEO is going to get out maneuvered here or there. The question is how he responds to defeat.  Does he wipe the blood from his chin, shake hands, and congratulate his brother in arms?  Or does he whine about cheating and demand a do-over.

#3. Search Engine Scammers

The final members of the Search Engine Triad are the SEO con men. These despicable urchins rob and steal in the name of SEO.  They are parasites who use clever phrasing, client ignorance, and outright fraud to funnel millions of marketing dollars into placebo strategies that offer little or no benefit to business owners.

These spineless vermin come in all shapes and sizes. They range in stature from the well dressed sales-reps of fortune 500 telecommunication giants to the barely legible emails spammed from the third world.  Regardless of their form, SEO con men deliver little in the way of results and deserve none of the aforementioned brotherly love.

It is the con men in our industry – not the gray hats – that give it a bad name.  It’s the con men in our industry that make business owners feel like SEO does not work. It is they who deserve our collective distain, for it is they who are our real enemy.

In the grand scheme of things, the con men outnumber the gray hats, black hats and white hats combined. They spend an enormous amount on marketing and have an almost ubiquitous presence in the life of the average SMB owner. They oversimplify and can undercut any legitimate search marketer in a head-to-head bid process.

They steal business from us and then ironically, after the con, deliver the business owners back to Google.  Compared to SEO con men, AdWords seems like a safe and steady bet. In many cases, after being conned, a business owner will be shut off to the idea of SEO entirely.

I find it frustrating that some thought leaders have decided to coin phrases like “inbound marketers” or “growth hackers” as a way to sidestep the taint (he said taint) left on this industry by the con men.  I find it frustrating not just because semantics never solved anything, but also because many of these people seem oblivious to the real root cause of the problem.

Understanding the Real Issues

This brings me back to my point. White hat SEOs need to shut the hell up. Or, if that isn’t possible, at least train their guns on the real problem. They should stop throwing temper tantrums and realize that it isn’t blog networks or thin content or paid links that are giving our industry a bad name. Those are just the things that piss them off.

The real problem is that by now, most business owners have been ripped off at least once.  To them, you and I are no different than the dirtball who stole 5K off them last year without delivering a single lead.

I just wish we could all agree that possessing ability and the intent to deliver results – regardless of your methods – would make you one of the good guys. The real SEOs are already so woefully outnumbered; I feel like we need all the friends we can get.

I don’t have a solution to the con men problem.  However, I do think we need to shed more light on the issue.  More articles about local Sprint and Verizon reps packaging AdWords at five times the cost is a good place to start.  Exposing “Local SEO” firms who trick business owners into relinquishing control of their Google+ Local page in order to charge them rent wouldn’t hurt either.  I’d like to at least see more of that then the drama surrounding iAcquire last year.

About the Author: Jarrod Wright is the owner of Subtle Network Design & Marketing. Lately, he has been sharing a lot of his ideas about the SEO community via guest contributions on various blogs. If you liked this Triple SEO article, you might also like this controversial piece about guest blogging. In addition to being a search engine fanboy and sharing his thoughts online, Jarrod also helps clients with their creative design needs. If you want to get in on the brotherly love, connect with him on Google+  orTwitter.

Why Grayhats & Blackhats Aren’t the Problem With SEO by Jarrod Wright - if you enjoyed this post you can read more at TripleSEO or follow Chris on Twitter

In order to truly get the most out of your link building initiatives, your goals should be defined with your (or your client’s) specific industry in mind. The way you perform outreach for finance will be different from how you would do so for travel, and so on. Moreover, the scale, execution, and outcome of your link building efforts will vary depending on your company’s niche.

Therefore it is important that your strategy be organized around a clear set of goals. In order to optimize the time you spend on outreach (and it does require a significant amount of time) you first need to focus your goals.

Firstly, as a general rule of thumb, your link-building goals should be S.M.A.R.T.

Specific (assign a numerical value to your link-building goals based on competitor research)
Measurable (assign Key Performance Indicators)
Actionable (again, do not just say “get more links”. Define what kind of links you want and the results you hope to gain)
Realistic (size and scale of goals should be in accordance with the size and scale of your company)
Timed (assign a timeline of execution for your goals)

So what exactly do S.M.A.R.T. goals look like in a link building initiative? By far the most comprehensive list of link-building goals that I have come across is this guide by Garrett French. While I include a breakdown of the list below, I encourage you to give it a read.

What this list lacks, however, is insight into how to prioritize these goals according to your specific business needs. In recent years creating targeted industry-based goals has become increasingly important in the digital realm. The same is true of link building. Looking at finance, retail, travel, food, teach, legal, entertainment, ecommerce , auto, and health care I will explain how each industry can benefit from certain link-building goals, and how to make them work.

Goal 1: Broaden/deepen relevant keyword portfolio

The purpose of this goal is to expand upon the keywords you are aiming to rank for on search engines. You already have a core set of keywords that you have optimized for, but you would like to broaden your targeted keywords in order to reach a wider audience. The ultimate objective is to increase your long-tail keyword rankings as well as improving consumer conversions from these rankings.

Works Best For: Industries where keyword searches tend to be more broad and varied than specific
Industry Example: Health Care
Why It Works: Keyword searches related to the health care industry typically revolve around individual or patient inquiries about certain symptoms and conditions. These can relate to anything from a headache to a hangnail. There are countless keyword phrases that a user can put together when performing a search inquiry. Therefore, the more relevant keywords and keyword phrases you are able to rank for, the better. Achieving this will require both internal and external link building. Internally you can work on building deeper links on existing pages, as well as creating new pages that address patient concerns that were not previously given attention. Answering questions on external, yet related sites is also a great way to join in on the conversation within your niche while building links back to your website.

Goal 2: Increase targeted referral traffic

Focus on the quality, not the quantity of links. If you have a large volume of links you might get a lot of traffic, but this traffic will most likely not consist of viable leads. Building links should focus not only on increasing traffic, but increasing relevant traffic. To do so you want to concentrate on generating organic links from websites related to your industry. Therefore it is more than likely that the individuals who click on your link will already have a vested interest in your business, which will in turn translate into conversions.

Works Best For: Generally any industry, in particular those with a selection of industry-related authoritative sites on which to build links
Industry Example: Legal

Why It Works: While this is a goal that can benefit any and all industries, the legal sector provides a good point of examination. Law offices typically differentiate based on the type of claims they deal with. Your linking strategy for one law firm will differ from that of another. The traffic that you want to generate for a law firm dealing with family law will be different from the traffic you want for a firm that handles copyright law. You’ll want to ensure that your traffic is targeted, and this is best achieved through referral links. As mentioned above, these are links from websites related to your firm’s “niche”. Therefore relationship building will play a large part in succeeding at this goal, as in order to gain guest posting opportunities or media coverage, relationships must first be cultivated with the individuals you hope will assist you.

Goal 3: Steady high-flux rankings

Ranking fluctuations are a fact of life when it comes to SEO. Search engine updates, adaptations of human search patterns, and the constant influx of newly optimized webpages from the competition all contribute to these fluctuations. Ideally, we want the rankings to be as steady as possible, especially when they’re in our favour and we’re ranking high. In order to do so, it is important to go after the right links.

Works Best For: Any industry (especially niche’s within industries) that experiences high-flux rankings and where steadying these fluctuationswould positively affect click-throughs and conversions
Industry Example: Auto
Why It Works: The auto industry is highly competitive when it comes to SEO. Like everything on the web, there are a multitude of factors that go into determining which companies rank above others in this industry. Because of the nature of search engines, what ranks #1 on Google one week could very well be bumped down a few slots the next week. Performing the usual link-building activities such as submitting links to directories, creating content, and generating backlinks will definitely assist in stabilizing your rankings. Ensure every action is targeted to the keyword(s) you’d like to stabilize your rankings for. If you’re still having trouble keeping your place in search results and are seeing big fluctuations in positioning, another option is paid search advertising. When I searched “2013 hatchback” into Google earlier today, the only organic results for a car manufacturer was one at the very bottom of the first page, but all three of the paid results give me a link to a brand. It might be worthwhile to invest in a paid search listing as opposed to trying to stabilize extreme fluctuations

Goal 4: Increase market awareness

Sometimes spreading the word about your brand without focusing on immediate sales or conversions is just as important to your SEO efforts. Growing your number informational links on influential websites is just as important of a link-building goal as those related to search engine rankings.

Works Best For: All industries regardless of size or scale
Industry Example: Tech
Why It Works: The tech industry is the ultimate realm of innovation. There is constantly new software and devices being created, and many of them sadly disappear into oblivion. The market structure makes it very difficult to succeed as a new company. Putting your product out there and waiting for sales is not enough. Active steps need to be taken to generate brand awareness. A lot of time was spent to develop the product so it makes sense to dedicate the right amount of time to properly brand it as well. Performing the appropriate PR (one-off distribution of content) and participating in the right conversations are some strategies to help make your product or service known, before it gets forgotten. This initiative is important for building consumer trust, which is not only important just for new companies, but should be an ongoing initiative of established brands as well.

Goal 5: Move from 2nd to 1st page for proven keywords

Do some research to determine which keywords place you on the second page of search engine results. Chances are these are keywords that you have not optimized for, but clearly should be. Doing so will give that webpage an extra needed boost to push it to the first page of search results, which ultimately generates more traffic and click-throughs.

Works Best For: Highly competitive industries for SEO, can be taken on as a short-term initiative for all industries offering time sensitiveproducts/services or deals
Industry Example: Food
Why It Works: You own a cupcake shop and right now you’re ranking close to the top of the second page for your targeted keyword phrase of “buy red velvet cupcakes”. But you want to be on the first page. Achieving this goal organically largely comes down to persistency and consistency. The focus should be both on creating a diverse backlink profile as well as producing relevant and useful content. If a keyword is more competitive, paid search might be a more realistic approach. However this should primarily be considered if being on the first page will yield more conversions for that keyword. A transactional search query like “buy red velvet cupcakes” would likely be a worthwhile investment.

Goal 6: Own your brand name & top keyword searches

Some keywords seem near impossible to rank for organically because the competition is already so high. Typically these are non-specific keywords such as “candles” or “cars”. However, it is sometimes worth it to try. While endeavours such as these are often costly, they also result in high ROI.

Works Best For: Industries with highly competitive transactional keyword searches
Industry Example: Finance
Why It Works: Finance is one of the hardest industries to get your company ranked for conventional keywords because of the high degree of competition. Everyone in the financial industry is in some way competition against one another: from banks, to brokers, to investors, and the list goes on. However, to succeed you need to fight the fight. This means targeting those keywords that you know are highly competitive, as they are also the ones that are most likely to convert. A little research will be needed to determine what exactly these keywords are. Once you’ve determined which keywords you need to rank for, you can begin putting in the blood, sweat, and tears to achieve this. This will be an ongoing process of link baiting (creating content around the targeted keywords to make yourself stand out as an industry leader), consumer interaction, and on-page SEO. While the investment into this goal is high, so are the returns.

Goal 7: Naturalize your link profile

Naturalization comes from diversifying your backlink profile. This includes both anchor text and backlink sources. Constantly buying links or having an unbalanced quantity of “dofollow” links are red flags for search engines. In the end it will do more harm than good. It is a much better practice to cultivate links that are natural and make a habit of cleaning up your link profile.

Works Best For: Every business in any industry should aim for this goal
Industry Example: eCommerce
Why It Works: Again this is a goal that should be pursued by any business in any industry. eCommerce provides a good example because, at least in my experience, a large majority of spammy links are from some sort of ecommerce website (legitimate or otherwise). In order to naturalize your link profile you need to diversity it. This means creating variation in your links – don’t make them all “dofollow” and don’t have any duplicates. This is obviously going to look fishy to search engines. Create variation between your links: direct them to different pages, change your anchor text, and even as an ecommerce site, don’t always try to sell something.

Goal 8: Get new pages/sites indexed

This is a good goal to take on if there are certain pages on your website (most likely new pages) that are lagging behind in search rankings. Getting them indexed is the first step to getting found, so generating inbound link to these pages should be a priority.

Works Best For: New pages on existing sites (especially Retail, eCommerce, Auto, and Real Estate) and ALL new websites for any industry
Industry Example: Retail
Why It Works: This link building goal is extremely important for success for retail. There is always a high volume of new webpages cropping up as new products (such as seasonal styles in the fashion industry) get added to virtual shelves. Ranking for these new pages is important for sales. Since these new pages will most likely eventually be replaced by even newer ones, one-off content and relevant directory submissions will work well for this link building initiative.

Goal 9: Show results quickly: build link count by X

This is more of a pacification tactic for SEOs working with clients who expect immediate results. I wouldn’t recommend it, but included it anyway for informational purposes. The aim here is to accumulate many inbound links in a short period of time in order to prove the merits of link building to your client. This should appease them while your actual link building efforts are being cultivated.

Works Best For: Any industry, specifically useful for client work
Industry Example: Entertainment
Why It Works: Depending on your client this goal can apply equally to any industry. This process does not have to be targeted (although it’s good to do so anyway) and somewhat teeters on the edge of link-building ethics a.k.a Google Guidelines. Using the independent movie niche as an example, we can set a goal to increase our click-through rate by 50%. It’s not a goal that requires much targeting, but one that will ultimately generate traffic. Making this work will require the usual tactics of directory submission (while for this purpose any directory will do, it is obviously better to keep it somewhat focused), participation in industry conversations, and one-off content creation for distribution. While more people will be clicking on your links, they won’t necessarily be the right people. Either way, it gives you number that you can show your client.

Goal 10: Improve geo-specific rankings

Location is a significant ranking factor and should not be overlooked. This is especially true if your business is location-dependant, as are most brick-and-mortar companies. Outreach for this goal focuses on building inbound links from websites specific to your targeted region.

Works Best For: Location-specific industries such as travel, real estate, retail (brick and mortar), and food establishments
Industry Example: Travel
Why It Works: Nothing is more geo-specific than travel. Hotels and resorts would greatly benefit from pursing this goal. People need to know you exist if you expect them to book a stay at your establishment. Link baiting with content related to your business’ region, submitting your site to local directories, and backlinking on relevant sites are great ways to improve visibility. Geo-specific ranking will also improve with ratings and reviews of your business. Setting up a Google Local profile and encouraging patrons to provide positive (yet honest) feedback of your establishment will also help your local rankings.

Link building is such a complex and individualized task that there are even variations within the differences I outlined above. Ultimately every single business will be different. However, my hope is that you can use these goals and examples as a general guideline for prioritizing your link building activities within your own industry. Referral traffic, brand awareness, and a natural link profile will always strengthen your link building efforts, but I hope this will be able to help you determine where you should focus your energies!

About the author: Myia Kelly is a Marketing and PR Assistant at Powered by Search, specializing in social media, media relations, and content marketing. Thank you to Mike, Zain, Ken, and Adrian for your help with this post!

Link Building With Your Business Goals In Mind by Myia Kelly - if you enjoyed this post you can read more at TripleSEO or follow Chris on Twitter

But you discover that your competitors are outranking you with link spam

So off you go sending emails to bloggers and webmasters hunting for links…

But then you hit email number 58 and you’re all….

So you have a diet coke and keep on going…

So you wait…

And wait …

And your inbox starts looking like…

And you’re all like…

So you try the phone because you read about it on a blog once

But it doesn’t go to plan…

Eventually you get a link from a PR2 domain…

Then another from a PR4…

And then you get a link from a PR8 and inside you’re…

You tell your bosses and they’re all…

But your offline friends are like…

Except for that one guy who’s also an SEO…

The next morning you find your competitors have been following your footprints…

So at first…

But it’s soon back to…

And it feels pretty good!

The Link Building Process in GIF Form by Chris Dyson - if you enjoyed this post you can read more at TripleSEO or follow Chris on Twitter

Want more links and a higher response rate from your outreach?

Are you prepared to carry a fishbowl between your legs anytime you’re out in public?

A little background

You probably already know that when you meet someone for the first time you make your mind up about them in the first 7 seconds.

Not in 7 minutes. Which is enough time to convince them you’re nice. 7 seconds.

We meet. 1…2…3…4…5…6…7 seconds. That’s it. Time’s up.

My mind’s made up if I like you and trust you enough to believe or even listen to what’s going to come out your mouth next time you open it. Possibly even forever more.

Back in my first job when I sold Gas & Electricity door to door for a local electricity company I took great care to make sure that 7 seconds counted.

No one likes sales people. No one likes people knocking on their doors. Uninvited. Especially at dinner time. After a long day at work. It can bring out the worst in some people.

Which is why we dressed in the same outfits as the meter readers, because who hates the humble meter reader?

For me this meant more than just wearing the same jumper, trousers and jacket.

It meant scuffing my brand new shoes. Wearing a meter key and tools on a chain.

I probably looked more like a meter reader than half the meter readers did. And it worked. Very very well.  around my neck. Having my tie poorly tied and slightly squint. A cheap bic pen behind my ear rather than a favourite expensive one. A pair of trousers just slightly on the short side. I didn’t look up from my notes when I first talked to them, because I wasn’t caring about a sale. I was just a bored meter reader letting them know about some savings they could make on their Gas and Electric. And I certainly wasn’t interested in commission so there was no excitement in my voice.

So the good news is you can influence people very quickly with a first impression.

But here’s the bad news.

Whilst it takes someone 7 seconds to judge you, it takes them just 50ms to judge your entire homepage.

So how long do you think it takes them to judge your short and to the point outreach email?

What an Old Man and a Fish Bowl Taught Me About Outreach

Sorry I couldn’t resist this section title.

If you haven’t seen the film The Prestige with Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale it’s worth a watch.

The film is primarily centred around the rivalry between two magicians who have a long running history and eventually becomes exacerbated when one of them performs the ultimate illusion and things really get interesting. But I won’t spoil it.

During the film the duo go to watch an old Chinese magician giving a street performance and they try to figure out exactly how the elderly and frail man makes a very heavy goldfish bowl (filled with water and goldfish) appear from under a cloth.

One of them realises that the old magician isn’t just performing a trick on the stage but in fact he puts on a show every time he’s out in public. He conceals the strength he possesses to accomplish the trick by always appearing frail in public, whilst concealing the bowl by carrying it between his legs under his outfit.

One of them, understandably, finds it hard to believe he’d go to such lengths whilst the other has great admiration for the way the Chinese magician goes to such an extreme that he “lives” his performance.

Web Designers Don’t Use Tables with Borders

Just like no one likes sales people, no one likes link prospectors and spammers.

So if you’re going to email me why make it easy for me to spot you’re a fake without even needing to read the whole email?

The second I spot a bordered table I know you’re not a real web designer. Or at least a very bad one I wouldn’t want to use.

If you really want those links are you prepared to “live” the performance or do you just want an easy link?

Your on stage performance sucks and your tricks are easy to figure out:

• If you say ‘Hi’ without including my name I know you don’t really enjoy reading my blog as my name and ugly face are on every page of the site
• No UK business I’ve ever dealt with would say ‘Greetings of the day’ so I know you’re not based in Glasgow
• No legitimate peers I’ve ever encountered use 3 exclamations in their subject line
• No real web designer would use a table border on a site let alone in an email
• Nor would they use a red background behind dark blue text
• Your ‘From’ name is just John
• You’ve misspelt the service you’re apparently so involved with day to day

And so on…

I can tell without even reading the email you’re fake.

If you really want my link then “live” the performance:

• People manually delete comments without a Gravatar picture because most are spam. Think it might get approved if you had one even if it is spam?
• If your outreaching for a finance vertical then you might not want to be the only IFA without letters after your name in the email signature and missing a link to the industry regulator
• If you’re outreaching for a games company you might want to have a games character in your footer like every single other person in that industry
• You might add a just giving link for your next charity run
• You might actually have a LinkedIn or Twitter account
• Instead of complimenting me on my blog you might remark on the latest big thing to happen in our space or mention specific conferences I’ll know of
• You don’t have any company information in your signature (when was the last time you checked a company registration number was real?)

And so on…

It’s not much work to make it hard if not impossible to tell you apart from a genuine person operating in that space so why make it so easy for the audience to work out your performance?

Conclusion

Some obvious signature elements and online profiles can dramatically improve the effectiveness of a blanket outreach campaign.

And this isn’t about learning to lie to people either. If you’re already outreaching using persona’s you’re already putting on a performance but just a bad one so why not refine it?

And if you can’t be bothered to learn how to carry the fishbowl then you know where you can stick it.

You might also enjoy this highly relevant though obviously slightly-creepy-if-taken-out-the-comedy-context from How I Met Your Mother:

Want My Link? Learn to Carry a Fishbowl Between Your Legs by Chris Gilchrist - if you enjoyed this post you can read more at TripleSEO or follow Chris on Twitter

The past year has meant I have spent a lot of time doing something I’ve never had to do before, and something only a small number of SEO’s specialised in before April 2012. Over the past year I have worked with at least one site per month that has received a link penalty of a manual or algorithmic nature.

When should you clean up?

If you’ve received an unnatural link warning or you have seen a significant decrease in rankings around the time of a penguin update then you need to take action as soon as possible.

If however your site is ranking fine but you are sat on a site with a number of shady links in your link profile then it all depends upon your niche and your risk profile. In these situations I would rather build some more high quality links than start a major link cleanup exercise.

Get as much Link Data as you can

The mistake too many people make is just relying on one or two soruces of data for their Link Audits. Personally I will try to obtain as much data as possible from ahrefs, Majestic, OSE, Google Webmaster Tools and any reports the client might have from past SEO agencies.

I know Google say that the data in Webmaster tools is good enough but let’s be honest for a minute, Google tell us a lot of things that should be the case but I think it’s safe to say that things don’t always work out the way they tell us.

Remove your worst offending pages

If you are in the very fortunate position that the unnatural links are pointing to deep pages then returning a 410 on that URL and moving the content to a new URL does work. The issue you will then have is asking the high quality sites who are currently linking to the old URL to have to make the necessary changes.

It’s not all about the Anchor Text

There have been a number of posts about the correlations between sites with too many commercial anchors and penguin issues. I’ll agree the correlations are very high but guess what sites with a high percentage of commercial anchors also have… lots of crappy links.

Spun content on web 2.0’s, article directories, forum profiles, sponsored posts, blog networks, link wheels etc. Lots of crappy links, this is where a tool such as Link Detective can really help speed up the process and analyse the types of links that are pointing to your site very quickly. I recommend paying for the premium membership if you plan to be doing a couple of link audits per month.

Be creative at finding contact information for Link Removals

More often than not a client comes to you after receiving an unnatural link message in Webmaster Tools, they probably don’t have too much information on how the links were built and rarely have the contact information for the webmasters they have obtained links from in the past.

As you know I am a fan of automating/outsourcing as many mundane processes as possible so if you are looking for contact then check out this free tool from SEOgadget which will pull in the whois, Twitter and Linkedin information for the webmaster concerned. Alternatively you can use a paid tool such as Buzzstream to manage the process; this post from Wayne Barker is one I reference regularly when carrying out link removal outreach.

If the links are coming from sites that might have scraped your content and you have difficulty contacting them you can use WhoIsHostingThis.com, who are better known for their hosting reviews, to find the web hosting company so you can contact them to discuss the matter and lodge a request for the scraped content to be removed.

Expect to Pay Webmasters for their time

If you think that a webmaster will be happy to have to login to their CMS back end, navigate to the offending page and edit/remove your links and not deserve to request payment for it then you are very naïve. I’m not saying you should pay the price that they demand, but anything up to $50 for an hour of their time is probably a fair amount to expect to have to pay depending on the number of links they may need to remove; ultimately this is up to your judgement.

If the webmaster advises you they want $500 for their time then make a note of it in your spreadsheet or CMS and move on. Be sure to include this sort of exceptional request in your disavow file.

Build fresh quality links

The problem is a lot of those bad links were helping the penalised site to rank, and now Google have devalued them the site has tumbled down the rankings. You will inevitably remove some links that Google probably hadn’t thought were the cause of the penalty, as Google are very vague with their notices. So as you’re removing links it’s important to be developing a link building strategy and developing more linkable assets for your site to ensure rankings/traffic will return as close to pre-penalty levels as possible.

Assess the Return on Investment

Link removals aren’t cheap… Link Building isn’t cheap… sometimes you will need to advise the client that it might be better for them to start from scratch with a fresh domain. This is never an easy message to deliver but this is where an experienced SEO Consultant can add value to the link audit and removal process to be able to help a business make this difficult decision.

Don’t disavow too soon

A lot of people will dive both feet into disavowing links they feel are unnatural without actually making any efforts to contact the sources to remove the links.

Google will check the notes on the disavow file once you raise a reconsideration request so make sure you include as much data as possible about the links you have struggled to remove. It can take several rounds of link removal/disavow/reconsideration requests before Google are happy with the efforts you have taken. If I have to file a reconsideration request then I will include a link to a Google Doc showing what I have done and screen shots of any challenging email conversations I might have had with webmasters.

What are the biggest lessons you have learned from link removals and link audits?

Image credit carbone14

What I’ve Learned Auditing and Removing Unnatural Links by Chris Dyson - if you enjoyed this post you can read more at TripleSEO or follow Chris on Twitter

I think it’s important for anyone involved in digital marketing to understand what will motivate someone to share your content and when they are most inclined to do so you can develop the next step in your strategy.

Most marketers have a good grasp of the Extrinsic Motivators (price, features, benefits) of a product or a piece of content but we often struggle with the Intrinsic Motivators (how does the product align to a person’s feelings or goals). People are thinking feelers not feeling thinkers.

What do we know about People?

• we depend on mental models
• we want to be in control
• we don’t like change
• we’re not great at remembering
• we love a good story
• we are highly visual by nature
• we do have some limitations
• we are social creatures
• we’re curious
• we don’t want to put in a lot of effort
• we love patterns
• we make mistakes

A Goodbye Song for Google Reader

A very recent example of this is the latest video from Chris Gilchrist, which has been picked up by various sources across the web such as Buzzfeed and Knowyourmeme.

The reason this particular post has been successful is it plays to many of the factors I listed above as it is emotive, funny, timely and highly visual.

There have been a number of scientific studies into understanding why content goes viral or the motivations people have to share a specific piece of content.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

A large part of what compels people to share can be brought back to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. If our most basic of needs are satisfied we will start to satisfy the higher levels within the hierarchy, and it is no surprise that our desire to share information with others comes from the top 2 tiers.

Image from Wikipedia

One of the studies I am going to cite in this blog post is The New York Times’ Psychology of Sharing whitepaper – which I highly recommend you download. The study was an intensive process carried out in three phases:

• ethnographies
• immersion/deprivation focus groups
• quantitative survey of 2,500 medium to heavy social sharers

The study determined that above all else, sharing is part self-fulfilment and part relationship building – which isn’t really surprising seen as, back in 1966 Ernest Dichter’s study on “Word of Mouth” reveals 64% of sharing is about the sharer, themselves.

The NYTimes study split the motivations down into 5 main categories

1. To bring valuable and entertaining content to one another. A significant 94% of respondents carefully consider how the information they share will be of use to other people
2. To define themselves to others.  68% of respondents said they share to give others a better sense of who they are and what they care about.
3. To grow and nourish our relationships. 78% of respondents said they share information online because it enables them to stay connected to people they may not otherwise stay in touch with
4. For self-fulfilment. 69% said they share information because it allows them to feel more involved in the world.
5. To get the word out about causes they care about.  84% of respondents share because it is a good way to support causes or issues they care about.

The study also identifies six personas that share content. These personas can be defined by their emotional motivations, desired presentation of self and how valuable it is to the individual be the first to share.

1. The Altruist: These sharers are helpful, reliable, thoughtful, connected, and use email to share.
2. The Careerist: These sharers are intelligent business networkers and are more likely to share content on LinkedIn.
3. The Hipster: Less likely than other sharers to use email for sharing content, these sharers are creative, young and popular. They consume content that is on the cutting edge and care about defining their identity.
4. The Boomerang: These sharers share information to get a reaction and to feel validated. They are empowered by social media and tend to use both Twitter and Facebook
5. The Connector: creative, relaxed, thoughtful, making plans, uses both email and Facebook to share information.
6. The Selective: These sharers are resourceful, careful, and thoughtful. They share content that is informative and also use email to share content with individuals.

In the New York Times article “Will You Be E-Mailing This Column? It’s Awesome“, researchers found that people preferred to share long positive articles on intellectually challenging and engaging topics, especially such that inspired awe. Furthermore, surprising and emotional articles were more likely to be shared.

Popular Times For Sharing

According to this study carried out by RadiumOne there’s not only a peak time to share on social media but there are also different peak times for sharing to certain social platforms.

The tweet counts per minute of a New York Times article. Image from New York Times.

• There are two peak sharing times during the day: First between 10 a.m.  and noon and then again between 8 and 10 p.m.
• The worst time to share an article, if your goal is to maximize clicks, is between 9 and 11a.m.
• Sharing and clicks remain consistent from 1- 6 p.m.
• The hours between noon and 2pm see the most shares with the highest clickthrough rates.

Best Times for Sharing on Social Channels:

• Twitter: 1 p.m.
• Facebook: 5 p.m.
• Pinterest: 11 p.m.
• Google+: 10 a.m.
• Email: 7 a.m.

Cornell University also did a study that used language software to determine that there was a higher presence of positive words in 509 million tweets early in the morning. People’s moods peak early in the day, suggesting a correlation between sharing and happiness.

Why do you share content online, can you identify with the six sharing personas?

Do you see a correlation with the times of day people share your content that align to these studies?

Image Credits: cdraff, cj isherwood

Why Do People Share Content? by Chris Dyson - if you enjoyed this post you can read more at TripleSEO or follow Chris on Twitter

The video covers peripheral messaging and it got me thinking about it’s correlation with inbound/content marketing.

The concept of peripheral advertising is essentially what the term implies; the marketing is conducted as a secondary effort to the main project, promoting the product or service tangentially.

The other element of the video I thought would be useful was the way in which people are influenced by colours and the associations we have with them. Something to consider the next time you are designing a landing page or infographic.

Anyway it’s only a few minutes long and you never know you might learn something new

Psychology and Advertising – Video by Chris Dyson - if you enjoyed this post you can read more at TripleSEO or follow Chris on Twitter

Let me remind you of the reality of marketing; as in life, it’s like an onion.  We may keep peeling at the layers, finding there’s ‘more to it’ than previously thought.’

While consumers make ostensible, fully-conscious decisions, clever research and marketing implementation lie beneath the surface.

Sit down.

Lift your right foot off the floor, making clockwise circles.

Keep doing it while drawing the number “6” in the air with your right-hand.

(Most of) you will notice your foot changed direction.

Abracadabra, my friends.

Welcome to the world of psychology,

of the inner mind,

of the “why” of things, a place marketers and brands take great interest in as well as a much younger content_muse.

Now that we have our links, let’s peel away another layer of the onion, thinking about principles of psychology in planning better conversions.

Arousing Checkouts

I recently skedaddled to Atlantic City.  Glimmer, glam, and lights abounded.

source: adweek

Casino ads are so arousing, so stimulating, featuring scantily clad women alongside beautiful, happy couples, reveling in their winnings and good times.

These ads are oft arranged along the Atlantic City Expressway, tinseled around the shore towns, and present inside ornate, casino interiors.

Why the sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll of ads?  Why do ads aim to stimulate?  Nucleus accumbens are to blame.

We all have them – portions of the brain activated when we feel positive emotions, equally activated when making high-risk decisions.

Research finds people are likely to open wallets wider when aroused; it’s why “sex sells.”  But, it’s not sex (specifically) that sells; it’s about invoking positive feelings and emotions as opposed to neutral and negative sentiments.

Where is your sales tunnels’ checkout, your virtual sales terminal?   For e-commerce sites, it’s where consumers confirm their purchase, when parting with money.

image credit: bryceadams.com

For other brand varieties, such as marketers, it’s the contact form.

Those in the SEO industry know the attractive call woman.  Do an image search for “contact us.”

One is sure to find a high number of brands abiding by the stereotype.

It’s a stereotype; the smiling attractive woman is used…a lot.

It’s true.  It’s true due to neurological impulse and reaction.  Twenty-five years ago, women owned about 10 percent of businesses, today about 30% and rising.

However, service providers are ‘playing the numbers,’ understanding a pretty, smiling lady is likely to arouse the attention and positive feelings of male owners, their consumers, helping to solidify the sale.

I’m not suggesting you adorn your checkout and contact pages with scantily-clad women, but I am suggesting you arouse your customers, inciting emotion during moments of risk, anytime they part with their money or personal information in exchange for perceived value.

Know customers, what excites, and bridge what excites to your brand.  Sometimes, two seemingly mutually exclusive entities combine, one riding the other’s coattails of perceived excitement.

Let’s consider a drink of sugar, water, and electrolytes.   What’s so exciting about it?

What’s so exciting now?

image credit: https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/

Limited Pricing

Pick a number from one through nine.

What if I told you that I can account for 97% of the responses?

That would be impressive.

I cannot.

However, 90% of prices end in 9 or 5, with 97% ending in 0, 5, or 9.  Those are high percentages to exact coincidence; psychology must be at work.

Rounding upward requires more mental processes, so when we see  9’s (as in $6.99), we mentally retain the 9 (associated with the 6) rather than rounding upward to 7.

Additionally, we read left to right, giving the first number more ‘memory weight.’  As prices get higher, so does posed risk.

Let’s see this psychology at play regarding “television prices.”

Moreover, there’s no need to remind consumers they are parting with money, right?  Let them focus on the positives, the benefits of products and services rather than cogitate upon severing with dollars and cents reflected in visually-present decimals and dollar signs.

Roger Dooley reminds to relieve consumers of visual, fiscal anxiety, dropping dollar signs and decimal points when possible.  Notice no dollar or decimal graphics on this menu page.

image cred: http://chawedrosin.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/cloud-room4.jpg

Every product and service has a price, and how that price is delivered plays a role in perception and conversion. 

Vanities for Sale

What is it about a small figurine of a man on a horse that stirs envy in non-wearers, facilitating vanity, and instigating consumer snobbery?

image cred: http://art8amby.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/polo-ralph-lauren-ss-2010-robyn-sinclair-4.jpg

When younger, a number of peers owned Reebok pumps.  I never wore a pair of Reeboks before the pump series, but a number of friends had them, so I had to have the pumps too.  They were the new ish, arousing envy in others…to an extreme level.

credit: http://runwayboyz.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/sneakers2.jpg

Envy has been around for ages, populating social circles throughout time.  In this age, it is present on Facebook, a study finding, “People aged in their mid-30s were most likely to envy family happiness while women were more likely to envy physical attractiveness.”

Do you think advertising knows the effects of envy, using the knowledge to position respective products and services?  From 2005-2008, women were less likely to be overweight than males (27.4% versus 39.6% of population).

Let’s do a web search for “men’s weight loss.”

Now, let’s add a “wo” to the search.

We’re weighing the difference between 41 and 478 million results respectively.

Marketers know envy stirs commerce, but men and women are envious for different reasons.  Men are envious of same-sex rivals who have muscle tone and opposite-sex appeal.

Women grow green over rivals’ beauty and youth.

image credit: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/

When brands identify what stirs market envy, businesses begin to make competitors green with incoming revenue.

Successful brands observe vanities, introducing rationales that encourage purchase behaviors.

How can you incite envy in your consumers?  How can you make potential customers envy those who presently use products and services, planting seeds of interest and eventual intent?

Urgent Prestige

Envy is oft associated with prestige; we all want to be the king and queen at the lunch table, right?

Competitors offer similar products and services, distinguishing respective brands by engineering and marketing desired legacies, creating mystique and intrigue.

Creating a sense of urgency encourages action – smart marketers associate urgency with a desired call to action.

70% of adults, paying consumers, experience the ‘fear of missing out.’  You only live once (laugh out loud!)  How are you preying on this shared, human point of emotional mortality?

How do brands union the principles of urgency with prestige?  Brands love fan boys and girls; they want us to sleep outside, so we’re the ones leveraging the latest.

credit: http://www6.pcmag.com/media/images/307479-tech-personalities-apple-fanboy.jpg

Smart marketers want to introduce the dire need, the notion ‘you can’t live without’ the next iteration, or the spring line of clothing, or the newest way to seven six-minute abs.

Have you heard of ‘prestige pricing,’ the notion of creating an aura of mass intrigue around a product or service, asking higher-end prices from the start?

Prestige pricing can be created; it also becomes self-sustaining.

The essence of the Kumcu and McClure (2003) case is that consumers of prestige products such as furs, jewelry, or luxury cars have incomplete information about product quality. Firms with (assumed) considerable market power then embark on consumer risk reducing promotion strategies (sampling, warranties, guarantees, etc.). As a firm’s promotion activities increase and consumers gain more knowledge and confidence about the perceived quality of prestige products, the result will be an increase in the quantity demanded for these prestige products at higher prices.

BEYOND PRESTIGE PRICING: COVERAGE OF COUNTER-INTUITIVE DEMAND IN MARKETING EDUCATION James M. Stearns & Shaheen Borna

Keen marketing doesn’t squabble over prices with consumers.  Intended, upscale marketing involves notions of lowering risk, increasing envy, and introducing the undeniable sense of intrigue and elitism.

credit: http://hilfertygolf.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/members-only.jpg

Urge consumers with the notion of prestige, allowing them entry into your special club or team.

credit: http://www.heatherphysioc.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/heather-roger-robot-seomoz.jpg

Get in Consumers’ Heads for Better Conversions – Minding Psychology in Commerce by Anthony Pensabene - if you enjoyed this post you can read more at TripleSEO or follow Chris on Twitter

Author’s Note: Chris helped me out a ton in gathering interviews and giving me ideas. He’s the best. I’m sad I couldn’t use everything that everyone typed, because most of it was brilliant. I’d also like to thank Bill, Ian, Paddy, Paul, Rand, Eric and the folks on Reddit who answered my silly questions. You’re all great. 

“Forgive me Matt Cutts, for I have sinned…”

I don’t use some of the same SEO practices I used 8 months ago. I’ve moved on from some ineffective and borderline spammy practices, but I’m still the same person I always was. Some industry dinosaurs label practices I still use as “spammy” or “black hat” even when I wholeheartedly disagree. These prehistoric lizards have seen the SEO world evolve from its Jurassic period to its Cretaceous period and they’re quick to point fingers. And we’re all quick to point fingers at one another—but we’re all people.

Regardless of our experience, our insider knowledge, the size of our cubicles and our psychic search algorithm predictions, we’re all just people. That means those black hat practices we speak of only in hushed whispers are the product of people. People just like us.

People who use black hat tactics aren’t cloaked warlocks reciting ancient incantations in dark towers—they’re our friends, our siblings and our lovers. They’re us. People use black hat practices because they can get away with it, because they disagree with Google’s policies, because the money is good or because white hat strategies just don’t work for them. I think it’s time to examine the human side of black hat SEO.

What is Black Hat SEO?

We usually define black hat SEO as “the tactics other people use” or “the tactics I would never use,” but it goes beyond that.

Bill Sebald of Greenlane SEO offers a thoughtful definition, “Maybe it’s any tactic or strategy, related to natural search, that goes against search engines’ published (vague) guidelines; including (but not limited to) automation tools, webspam, and code based black magic.  It’s a quicker way to get ranking results en masse, usually with little concern about the searcher’s experience.  I think intent is a big factor – for example, not all cloaking is penalty worthy, but if you’re tricking users or spiders, then you’re black hat cloaking (for example).”

Paddy Moogan is an SEO consultant for Distilled. He adds, “I still think of black hat as being stuff that is either illegal or bordering on illegal. This stems from when I first read about it in the context of hacking / computer security rather than from an SEO point of view. I don’t necessarily feel that black hat means ANYTHING that is outside of search engine guidelines. So to relate it back to SEO, when I think of black hat, I think of hacking sites for links, editing htaccess files, doing nasty server side stuff to kill the rankings of that site or to point links to your own. I know many will not agree but that’s just my perspective.“

Paul Madden, a UK-based SEO, explains it this way, “Blackhat in general means any tactic that could theoretically get you in legal trouble, everything else is just SEO ”

Those first two definitions differ a bit, but they seem to agree on ‘intent’ as a key factor. Intent is the key—even if the intent isn’t specifically to cause damage or game the system. “Everything else is just SEO,” in Paul’s words, takes a less black and white approach. The definition is nebulous, so black hat SEO might just boil down to “the ends justify the means.”

The Money

When it comes to black hat, the most obvious answer to the “why?” question is money. Techniques that are now considered spammy used to be normal, and people used those methods because they got higher search rankings. In this business, higher search rankings equal money. Everyone needs money, and SEO is an attractive field for freelancers or folks who just want to make a little cash from home. On a base level, we can all empathize with that.

Anonymous Redditor #1 explained it to me this way, “It’s my main source of income. As a one man army I don’t have the time for white hat methods, outsourcing work is usually unreliable too. I love coming up with new techniques and in return, $$$.” He also stated that it’s “A lot less work than white hat.”

The nature of which practices are acceptable in this industry has changed drastically. Some people, such as Paddy, never gave the color of his hat a second thought in the distant past. “I didn’t really think much about it, I was young and wanted to make money and because I was only doing this for my own websites, I didn’t worry too much. So they didn’t feel like I was doing black / grey hat stuff at all because there were definitely lots of people using those methods and they worked a little too well.”

Paul was fully aware of what he was doing. “I always tried to remain morally clean as far as the things we did, but I also always enjoyed the competition… I was always fully aware of what I was doing and what the risks were, I always felt I was one of the more mature heads in the [Syndk8 forum].” As far as the money goes, Paul adds, “I have no mortgage now.”

Since time is money, time is also a big factor in Black hat SEO. Ian Howells of Halo18 (and Bill’s early mentor) knew exactly what he was doing. “They were commonly used, effective, and blatantly “black hat”. The risk was assessed before starting, the overhead was extremely low, and the potential return was significant.

“I’ve had plenty of projects where the intent was purely to make money. I wasn’t trying to change the world, or make the internet a better place, or even (frankly) help people. The goal was, simply, to earn money. With that stated purpose, black hat was the fastest, most efficient way to accomplish my goal. If I was going to put the “white hat” time and effort into something, it wouldn’t be able to get rolling as fast as I wanted.”

Following Orders

Working in the SEO industry also means that you’re under the client’s whip. Even if you don’t approve of a tactic your client wants you to use, if you ignore their request you’re going to lose a paycheck.

Anonymous Redditor #2 explains, “I deal with a lot of Lawyers as clients, and they generally insist on black hat techniques for some reason… It’s actually quite frustrating. Locally, they want to rank for every damn city in their state. I had a new client recently that had set up 24 P.O. boxes in every city in California, with local listings for every one of them. I advised the client that this was black hat and that Google did not like this type of thing… so I did what I was told, but I knew that this was not best practice… Long story short, Google caught onto it, and penalized them. BIG TIME. I now refuse to do this type of work because it’s unethical and unwise to do.”

Life in the Trenches

SEO Conferences in the 90′s were tough places

Practicing black hat techniques often works as a learning experience, as well. Some people use black hat tactics and hacking to gain a deeper understanding of search engines and the internet as a whole, while others have simply learned from their black-or-grey hat adventures.

Even SEOmoz founder/CEO Rand Fishkin has put on a non-white hat. Rand explains, “Generally speaking, [the practices I used] were considered less dubious than they are today, but I still knew that what I was doing wasn’t entirely within Google’s guidelines – if not the letter, at least the spirit.”

His robots.txt encounter has been well documented, and he sees his time engaging in those tactics as time he’d like to get back. It’s doubtful to me, however, that he’d be the search marketing powerhouse he is without making a few mistakes. Rand elaborates, “The worst part, though, is how little those techniques actually move the needle when it comes to growing a real business or a real brand. I wish I’d invested that time doing, as Wil Reynolds like to call it, #RCS (Real Company Shit), not manipulative junk. The latter has long-term, ongoing value, and that’s what a growing company needs.”

Bill Sebald learned the dark arts from Ian Howells. Bill explains his learning experience this way, “If I had to be labeled one or the other, I’m easily a white hat.  But on the side I ran affiliate sites that experimented in the dark arts.  I’ve always owned a bunch of test sites to experiment with, so it seemed like a good opportunity to learn the other side of search.  This was about 4 years ago.  I figured it was important to see what I was up against, so I would occasionally visit Wickedfire and Warrior type forums…”
Ian Howells gave Bill a tour of SEnuke, TweetAttacks, Drip Feed Blasts, ALN, Article Marketing tools, WP-Robot, BMR, commenters, etc. He learned from all of them. Bill then a found a tool he was a little more comfortable with, “Build My Rank was one I felt a little safer with.  Because they had slightly higher standards on uniqueness, and because not all of the domains looked like total trash, I would actually write my own original content for that network.  The results were amazing.  This was a real Google crowbar.  Eventually I got lazy and let the staff write the articles (shifting from gray to pure black), even though the quality was garbage.  But as the rankings came, I turned a blind eye, eventually put all my eggs in that basket, and as expected, it all came to a screeching halt.  The whole thing was an awesome learning experience, but looking back I realized how much I didn’t know about SEO until I learned the black hat side of it.”

Paddy started at a young age. “I messed about with learning to hack when I was 14-15 years old but it never got further than trying to crack people’s passwords to various things. I soon learnt that this wasn’t a great use of my time and turned my attention to learning better stuff instead!

“I have messed about with a lot of shady SEO techniques when I was learning the ropes and just working on my own websites whilst I was at University and trying to earn some extra money. It was mainly to do with scaling the production of websites without having to write and register each one manually, so I’d try to build 20 websites at a time rather than 1 at a time and each one would have Google AdSense all over it. A step on from that, I’d mess about with autogenerating free blogs such as Blogger blogs or WordPress with the goal of pointing a load of backlinks to my own sites.”

Anonymous Redditor #2 mentioned that s/he loves coming up with new techniques as well, and s/he treats it as a learning experience.

“I’m reminded of the end of SLC Punk, where Stevo leaves the anarchist lifestyle behind in favor of Harvard law school. The two come together, his worldly knowledge and his impending legal education. As Matthew Lillard’s character famously said, “We can do a hell of a lot more damage in the system than outside of it.”

Define the term damage as you will. I like to think of it in positive terms.
Good Guys Don’t Wear White

Some people have been burned by using white hat tactics. They put in the time and hard work, but their SEO campaigns just didn’t pay off. At that point, it becomes a matter of defeating the system. It’s a different kind of damage.

French webmaster Eric Belet told me his story, “I’ve been a webmaster for 10 years, and I started looking into SEO 5 years ago. I started out doing white hat. Unfortunately I started to earn money only 3 years later, I earned almost € 3,500 per month. I was really proud to finally earn my living. In April 2012, during the release of Google Penguin, my main site was severely downgraded. It went from the first page to the last one.” Eric didn’t know that he was engaging in white hat tactics, but once he was penalized for “doing the right thing,” he created a different strategy. “… in anger, I’ve started doing Black Hat SEO. I saw that using a lot of BH could earn money quickly. Indeed, in three months I have managed to make a few sites that brought me a little money. Unfortunately, at the beginning of November 2012, I received a message from Google declaring that they’ve blacklisted 11 websites.”

Eric continues, “Now I work harder every day, and I do not think I will ever use White Hat tactics… I have used the Google Disavow Link Tool for all of my bad links, and requested reconsideration of my sites 12 times. It’s still a waste of time because Google does not want to help. Today I really hate Google, you know.”

Eric is a normal guy, and his reaction is pretty understandable. It’s not hard to imagine myself in his shoes.

Doin’ Time

The repeated use of black hat SEO practices results in penalties. Sometimes there are legal implications, but that’s not usually the case. Most of the time sites are blacklisted, their search rankings or toppled or they’re banned for AdSense.

Ian Howells talks about black hat penalties, “Oh, [I’ve been penalized] tons. But that’s the point. If you weren’t penalized, you weren’t pushing hard enough and you left money on the table.”

Bill Sebald has been penalized as well, “In the end all my test sites that I pushed black hat tactics into got nuked.  I pushed too hard in nearly every incident.  Now the only thing that stands is the shattered remains of some pretty crappy websites.”

Paul Madden has also suffered the wrath of Google, “I have burnt more of my own sites than most people. At one time I had somewhere in the region of 20,000-25,000 .info scraper sites in play at any one time… they are ALL now burnt.”

Ian, Bill and Paul aren’t alone. Plenty of normal people have been penalized for black hat practices, especially when they didn’t differentiate between hat colors in the first place. Some people didn’t understand the difference, some people wanted to push the boundaries between black and white and some people just didn’t care about hats. There are some great SEOs who aren’t even repentant.

Every single person who’s used black hat SEO tactics has used them for a reason. They’re just people trying to make a living. They’ve taken their beatings and learned their lessons. Some continue practicing the dark arts, and some of them bleach their hats on a daily basis.

We’re quick to put on a judge’s wig and bang the gavel, but one person’s white hat tactics are another person’s black hat tactics. We wouldn’t have many of the industry’s thought leaders today if they hadn’t engaged in black hat practices. It’s all a matter of history, perspective and favoring an actual conversation over pointing a virtual finger.

The Human Side of Black Hat SEO by Dustin Verburg - if you enjoyed this post you can read more at TripleSEO or follow Chris on Twitter

Once you have determined the main theme for your niche site you need to set out a content strategy for it. I am currently working on the design and content strategy for two of my new niche sites and as I want to make sure that these sites are both successful and profitable I am investing a lot of time right now in these early stages.

In the pre-Panda days it was very common place that after a bit of keyword research to determine the long tail and related search terms for your niche site thin, spun or cheaply outsourced articles would be generated to make it possible to rank your site for these search terms. Today I think it’s very important that people who are developing niche sites as a source of income develop a content strategy that puts the user first and not the search engines.

Niche Site Content Strategy 2009

Niche Site Content Strategy Today

“Content strategy is an emerging field of practice encompassing every aspect of content, including its design, development, analysis, presentation, measurement, evaluation, production, management, and governance.”

The idea is to create something valuable and BETTER than what is already out there ranking in the top 10.

Not surprisingly time and resources are the most challenging parts in developing a content strategy and this was shown to be the case in this survey by Lee Odden on the troubles bloggers had with their content strategy for their social presence.

The biggest challenges highlighted within the article are:

• knowing what to write about

• maintaining a consistent flow of good content

• setting the right tone for the company and the readers

• identifying a theme to focus on, given broad offerings or a complex brand

Within this article I will breakdown some of the key questions you need to ask yourself when developing your website’s content strategy and some of the decisions I have made for one of my new niche sites. I will also outline a number of ways you can combat some of the difficulties that many affiliate marketers face when managing their niche site portfolio.

What do you want your content to do?

As a niche site owner you need to really understand your sites goals, key metrics and monetisation strategy before you can sit down and truly answer this question.

It’s important to remember that content is more than just words, pictures or videos on your website. Your content serves a purpose, and the more accurately you define that purpose the more successful it can be.

Ultimately for my first niche site I want my content to persuade people to use my affiliate links to buy products.

Who is your audience?

As I pointed out earlier it is important to build your niche site around your users (audience), and the best way to do that is to aim your niche site’s content around two key areas of internet browsing:

1. Searching for answers
2. Sharing of information

By creating content that people will be searching for the answer for we will be able to position our sites as subject matter experts which in turn instills trust and increases the likelihood that they will carry out an action towards one of our goals.

If you create content  to  be shared it will generate extra traffic from links or social shares and in turn bring more potential visitors who share similar character traits as our target audience.

Carrying out some basic market research into your target audience you can begin to define your content strategy and also the design and presentation of your content. I like to define User Stories (or personas) to help me understand them better, keep me on track and to make sure my content is aimed at them and their needs.

My niche site is targeted at young people aged 16-24, most of them will be attending college or will have recently graduated, their personal income will be less than $35,000 per year and they are highly active on social media.

What actions do you want people to take?

The number 1 goal for a niche site is to make money, plain and simple but in order for people to move further into your sales funnel they need perform several smaller steps.

It is important to remember that:

1. Selling is a mutual exchange of value – remember this does not have to be just a financial transaction but could be an informational or action based transaction too
2. Selling isn’t something you do to people – it’s something you do with them, this is one of my biggest bugbears and no one likes being forced into making a decision.
3. Developing trust and rapport precedes any selling activity – don’t go in for the jugular straight away, building a relationship first can make sure that you are selling to the right person at the right time, and greatly increase their likelihood to carry out a transaction with you.

The first step in your Sales funnel may be to persuade an individual to follow you on your social networking profiles or to join your mailing list, this is the first step to developing a relationship and greater rapport, as it allows you to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise in your niche.

Other pieces of content may exist purely to generate traffic to your site and increase social shares and links.

What type of content are you going to publish?

Now that your are certain of your audience’s goals and your website’s goals it’s time to decide on the way in which your content will be consumed, what types of content you will be publishing and where it will be published.

Will you be using Social Media channels, a blog, email, data visualisations – oh and what about mobile?

You also need to consider things such as content length, design and voice/tone too. You can’t be building a well executed niche site around a bunch of $4 outsourced articles.

With my niche site I know that my audience are heavy social media users and will be highly likely to be accessing my website via mobile devices especially with informational queries.

Therefore I have a choice to make do I want to build a mobile app or build a responsive site, I also have to take into consideration the fact that I will need to develop content for Social Media profiles and there are character limits in place here too.

How Do I Come Up with all this Content?

If you are struggling to brainstorm new content ideas perhaps you could try the following:

1. Use Google Alerts to monitor for new content in your niche
2. Ask your Audience – this is quite a common tactic in the Online Marketing space that when you join someone’s mailing list one of the first emails they will send to you is what’s your biggest struggle right now?
3. Subscribe to Blogs and News Sites in your Niche with an RSS Reader
4. Create a Custom Search Engine to search Forums and communities for content ideas
5. Make the use of Tools such as this great title generator from Portent or Ubersuggest.org for keyword ideas.
6. Analyse content that your competitors created with Open Site Explorer, Topsy or Social Crawlytics to find out what types of content were linked to or shared the most
7. Carry out Keyword Research to find what keywords potential visitors are using to find your site, you could use the Google Keyword Tool to determine volumes
8. Imitate and Iterate – all art is theft after all and researching what others are doing to make their content and websites more engaging is always a great idea.

Once you have a list of content ideas it’s a good idea to draft out an editorial schedule.

Depending on how many sites you plan to manage it’s important to be organised and if you do outsource your content creation to others in bulk, make sure that you schedule your content to go out at intervals and analyse when your audience will most likely be online.

Now that you’ve carried out these first steps in your niche site content strategy you need to work out how you are going to promote the hell out of it – which I plan to cover very soon!

Developing a Content Strategy for your Niche Site by Chris Dyson - if you enjoyed this post you can read more at TripleSEO or follow Chris on Twitter