Someone has mentioned that a Guy Fawkes effigy will be present at the conference and that a certain Google spam hunters face will adorn the Guy. Surely not?

If you are thinking of going, go. You get to meet some great people and learn some cutting edge techniques. I’m not much of a conference goer as I’m usually too busy, but I am making an effort for this one. It’s a great place to find out how short seo bloggers actually are.

As a freelance my fee is dictated by the market, I set it too high and I get no takers, too low and I am swamped.

But what about those who work in organisations? It’s a difficult question for some to answer and I so rarely see it discussed in the seo blog world. Maybe because not everyone wants this information public.

Various factors are obviously involved like, experience, expertise, job availablity etc.

But what’s the starting pay for an seo and how much can you earn?

I’m interested in your thoughts.

But, I think you still should.

It keeps the mind focused, it keeps the creative gene fed with blood and oxygen, it enables you to start conversations on topics you are interested in. Problem is, if you are late for a client, which I am 80% of the time (have difficulty letting go of the work, just one more tweak) then they may get pissed at what they see as you goofing off on your blog. When in fact it actually helps get the juices flowing and helps you serve the client better.

I don’t have any clients right now (kinda trying to avoid them but they are like crack), but I do have potential clients waiting on proposals and I hate writing proposals. I know to some people it’s easy to organise thoughts into some semblance or crisp organised freshness.

Someone once told me when dealing with corporate clients, “stick in a load of pie charts in lots of colours, they love that shit.” I don’t think I have ever done the pie chart porn thing, so I don’t know, but it would be fun to try out.

Also a number of people have been moaning at me to blog again and I must admit, it is partly laziness.

And of course it does help that I have a new project on the go, placing seo professionals in gainful employment. It’s really a lot of fun and what’s surprising is learning about the different seo jobs out there. There is something for everyone. Although I do get annoyed when I hear of exeperienced seo’s getting underpaid. A lot of people find it difficult to understand how much their knowledge is worth. So if you are underpaying, don’t expect me not to blog about it.

So, expect me popping up in your feed reader a lot more lately and shaking things up. Yeah baby!

A number of people have told me that the best SEO’s are those who are self employed and that in-house guys are just trained monkies. It’s simply not the case as not everyone wants the stress, pressure and lack of security being your own boss brings.

Some people want to be able to leave the work at the office and simply have a good time and get paid a heck of a lot of money for what they do with no worries about where the next client will come from.

Personally, it’s not for me. Not that anyone would ever employ me anyway and I love the high-wire act of working for yourself. But simply because you do seo in-house does not mean you are any less talented.

And there is no reason why you shouldn’t be well paid if you are hot stuff.

Do you speak to one of the “digital services” recruitment agencies? Digital services? I hate the term digital services, it’s SEO or SEM or even online marketing.

The limited experience of recruitment agencies has been all bad. Most of the time I feel like I am speaking to a crack addict or someone who swallows coffee beans raw to get that instant caffeine injection. My biggest problem is trust, why is this person the other side of the ergonomically designed desk acting as if they are my best friend and wants more than anything to do me a favour.

Recruiters get paid a lot of money to place people so it’s no surprise they are aggressive. Not that there is anything wrong with that, it just leaves me drained.

I am sure there are great seo recruiters out there, if you know any great. But what strikes me is that the best person to place an search engine optimiser in a position is another seo. Who else is going to know what’s needed and understand what an seo really wants. And it’s not always cash, although it mostly is.

So here’s the deal. Me and enterprise level seo and Wordtracker guy, Mark Nunney are offering an SEO Recruitment service. To be honest, I want it to be skewed towards the SEO professional than the corporate client. I feel that optimisers are undervalued in the market place and do not fully understand their value. I think that if you are an expert, then it’s a case of the corporate client making their pitch and competing against others to employ you. Which is how it should be right?

Listen up, there is a shortage of skilled professionals out there. As an SEO you want to get the best deal possible, and lets face it, it’s not always about money.

Send in your CV and requirements to lyndon@cornwallseo.com and we can get you sorted. We know what you need beause we do what you do.

ps. I will be setting up an SEO Job blog so we can keep this blog doing what it does best.

pps. First job a client wants filled is here if you think you have the cahonas for it drop my a line. It’s next door to Ebay, which I think is kinda cool.

Creating conversation can be more linkable than pure content.

Starting an exchange of ideas within your niche can be more illuminating than simply publishing what you think, although to start the conversation you may have to publish what you think. The quality of the conversation will in someway reflect your understanding of the industry, whatever it is. By enabling a conversation about something that is on the minds of those in the niche you can create something more linkable than if you simply posted your own content.

My point is, seed a conversation own it, learn from it and benefit from it.

By knowing what people like I can deliver more of the same. I can find out what works and what does not, but if I started to go out and market the blog posts amongst my contacts the data would be made murky.

Most of the time, when I sweat over a post which I think showcases my huge talent, it bombs. But when I knock out something quick and dirty, something I think no one will take serious. It goes mental. Well that’s not entirely true, but the market constantly surprises me and I like to have the fresh data.

For example, I have tried different styles of headlines and it’s mostly the shorter, resourceful headlines which work, rather than the wordy, trying too hard to be clever headlines.

Always be testing.

It’s great because it got me to link, it got me to link because it both amused and made me angry. At first I thought such silly thinking by a bank should be publicised and I should post about it. But then I realised I had been motivated to link to the story. It’s distracting to call it baiting as in linkbaiting, but the story made my link finger itch.

I realise I could chose a better headline than this, but I wonder how many people search for “Lloyds bank is pants”? I guess I will find out.

The point is, invoking an emotional response is a powerful way to get a link. The story is helped by being on the BBC rather than a rag like the Daily Mail.

Actually I can’t really call it linkbait, it’s merely a great story.

There is as much chance of your slovenly flat mate putting on his shoes and coat and heading off to Lidl than there is as getting someone to link to you.

The point I am making is that useful links are extremely difficult to get, if you give it no thought.

If on the other hand you said, “I have a couple of friends coming over, one of them is that girl you really fancy and by the way did I mention that she loves Hobnobs, do we have any in the cupboard?”

The chance of the slobby flatmate heading off to Lidl increases exponentially.

Rather than ask for a link, make it serve the linkers self interest to link.

Make it your goal to know what the linker is interested in, what gets their juices flowing. What makes their linking finger itch?

“What reason does this linkbait give for people to link to it.”

Too often I see visitor bait being created. So you got on the front page of digg, give yourself a gold medal and stick it on your ass.

Who are you targeting your linkbait to? If it’s the knuckle draggers on digg it’s not linkbait, it’s a wet fart in a hurricane.

C’mon on guys, it’s real simple. Linkbait is for getting links.

Who are you targetting? If you say “anyone”, get to the back of the queue and stay there. You need to know exactly who you are targetting, you need to know what they read, what gets their juices flowing, even the size of their underpants if it helps you craft content to appeal to their link finger.

Try linkbaiting one person, go on, try it. Chose an authority figure in the niche you operate and go after their link. That one authority link is worth more than ten thousand diggs (yes I know diggs lead to links, but only if the content is good enough)

Targetting one person makes it a lot easier to craft linkbait as it can tickle their fancy a lot easier. Once they link to you, others will follow.

Concentrate on getting the link, not the visit.

I now have a solution. If you need some great linkbait work done, get yourself over to linkbaitcoaching.com and sign up (as of now there are 12 spots left), not to learn how to do linkbait, but to get access to talented people I am training to become expert linkbaiters.

Lets not muck about here, I’m expensive. $4,000 for a piece of content to grab you a bunch of links and $300 an hour minimum ten hours for consultation work. For some webmasters that’s a huge chunk of change. But find an up and coming linkbaiter and you could be paying a lot less, plus you probably find it easier to get their attention.

With more and more people selling linkbaiting services, It’s hard to find out who is good and who is simply good at selling themselves and their own stuff.

By being in a training environment you get to see what people are actually producing and the successes they have, you get a more transparent view of what they are about. Sure it’s a bit raw and maybe a bit messy, it’s a training camp, it’s the engine room, it’s a place where all the bullshit is left at the door. You get to see it how it actually is.

You get to see how an idea goes from just a thought to a front page digg, a hot Stumbleupon, a raging reddit, thousands of page views, generating hundreds of links.

Some of the guys are hot, they “get it”, you can see it yourself I don’t need to sell them, my advice is to grab them before they become big shots and don’t have the time to return your calls. Build a relationship with them now and it may pay off later.

I coach these guys, it’s my job to turn them into expert linkbaiters capable of producing content which attracts so many links that Google has to get Matt Cutts to talk about them at an SEO conference to play down their abilities.

Yeah I know, it’s more competition for me. But I love to teach and I love being a part of what these kick ass, talented guys are doing.

You want a piece of the action? Head over to linkbaitcoaching.com and get your credit card out. And if you hesitate and miss one of those 12 spots which are left, please don’t moan you missed out.

It’s very undignified.

Jack Schofield knows his linkbait, the piece he has referenced is a cracking piece, although as I speak it has not been submitted to digg or reddit or Stumble, what’s with that? Are they awake in celebrity scandal blog world.

Still, they got a link from the Guardian. Jack, what do I have to do to get a link from you?

Good find Jack.

ps. I took the bait and dugg it.

“Long term, promotion of content that attracts relevant links from those empowered to publish will win. The act of linking is performed, unsolicited, by individual publishers.”

bold added

Great post by Lee Odden

Further commentary at Is Linkbait the Death of SEO?

Creativity does not exist in a vacuum and ideas do not come out of nothing. Good ideas are preceded by hard toil, time spent studying, thinking, testing, mulling over. Sometimes you may have been thinking about an idea for years.

One of the things I help people with at linkbaitcoaching.com is to come up with fresh, innovative, effective ideas for their linkbait. Sometimes the ideas spark fresh thoughts in the reader and they are able to go off in an even more original direction. It helps to have a spark.

Here are some examples of the kind of link bait ideas I come up with:

Who Spends the most on web advertising?

For a marketing site.
Analysis of the companies and brands who spend the most money on advertising on the web. Difficult to make it 100% accurate, but an interesting discussion starter. You could look at those who waste money on the web, or which website is the most useless to advertise on. When was the last time you clicked on a banner? But ask the question, are you the target?

Most Powerful Home Speaker System in the World

For a gadget site.
I am sure it has been done before so worth a research, remember, if it has worked once it has proved itself and the same elements will probably work again.
Figure out the way to decide what is the most powerful speaker, as HiFi geeks will probably take you to task on your claims. But, this is good, having people argue with you and not agree does not mean they will not link. Polarising opinion is sometimes the best way to get people to link. What you are doing in effect is creating a platform for the discussion to take place, people may not be linking to your content but the resulting discussion.

Announce Payday loans as an attack on the Working Class

For a financial site.
As the credit crunch takes hold (not sure what you call it in the USA) more and more people are seeking unconventional ways to raise cash. Payday loans give you cash against your future wages, problem is it has a crippling interest rate and tend to be targeted at vulnerable groups of society. Taking an ethical stand against such practices you can attract the attention of linkers that wouldn’t normally link to a financial site.
You can highlight some of the horror stories that people find themselves in and talk of large men with baseball bats turning up at the door at 6am.
The purpose is to offer a different look at a competitive market. Most sites do the, “Payday loans are great”, type story as they want to attract people who will click on the ads. But you want links, so go for the social ethical crowd and start a conversation that will be worth linking to.
If you can get pro and anti groups discussing on the same page you have hit payday gold.

Why ergonomic furniture is rubbish.

For a furniture or office furniture site or a saving money site
I end up reading a lot of adverts regarding ergonomic furniture, as if that’s the best kind of furniture. I am equipping a new office at the moment and notice the stuff. I think it’s a load of crap and I suspect others do too, give me a second hand £20 desk and a decent chair and I am sorted. Detail how expensive this ergonomic stuff is and what does it actually mean. As far as I can tell it means furniture with rounded corners.
Make this piece highly opinionated and point out how expensive some of this stuff is. I would totally advise an office furniture linkbait client to do this, but I know they never would because they do not understand linkbait. But, it can be used to shock people into linking to your site, “maverick furniture website reveals shocking truth of furniture scam”. What the site does then is explain why they think the range which they are carrying is worth every penny.

Why you should never pay more than £30 for a desk
Imagine that as a headline on an office furniture blog? If you have a website that is about furniture design, or about advising people how to save money setting up their businesses, your link worth radar will be beeping. It presents a negative view point which is very juicy to link to but the body of the content should take the reader from a negative start to a positive finish. Positive in the sense that the business running this furniture blog is so cool and on the side of the consumer it is willing to present information which seemingly harms it and benefits the consumer.

View it in the sense of a narrative, look how a Hollywood disaster movie is framed, the marketing is always about how awful and dire the situation is, but then ends upbeat as the little white, blonde girl and dog are saved.

Try looking at your linkbait creation as telling a story.

Best American Cities to get Shot in.

For a tourist site or medical
I lived in DC for six months and on the first night, 8 people were shot dead. Coming from a country where a stabbing can make national news I expected uproar, I don’t even think the local news covered it. Sometimes I think it takes an outsider to point out that things are kinda crazy.

That aside, the amount of people getting shot dead in America varies from city to city. But the interesting thing to point out is that being shot in a city where gunshot wounds are more common may mean you get treated by a more experienced surgeon for that type of wound. I had read somewhere that the US military sent their surgeons to such hospitals to get training in treating gunshot wounds.

So, the more gunshot wounds a hospital treats, the better your treatment can potentially be. It would be interesting to grab data on the top ten hospitals who treat the most gunshots per capita. This kind of research and presentation of statistical data, if backed up proper referencing of sources can bring you all sorts of attention from journalists and news organisations who may link to you.

Take readily available statistical data, reshape and reframe it, give it an attention grabbing headline and you may have a nice bit of linkbait on your hands.

The headlines in the above examples are not what you would end up with. It’s possible you can come up with better by spending more time thinking about it. I came up with the headlines whilst writing this post, so they have not been through the grist mill yet.

Maybe these ideas spark different ideas that you can use. Ideas are all around, you just have to be able to spot them. Once you have adopted the linkbaiters frame of mind it becomes natural.

You can find more ideas for linkbait over at linkbaitcoaching.com

I have mentioned creativity in seo before, unfortunately it’s something I rarely see talked about as an important part of seo.

Consider this:

“The birth of an idea may be preceded and followed by modes of attention that are much more focused, purposeful and intellectual”

from pp14 The Creative Thinking Plan by Guy Claxton and Bill Lucas

“Modes of attention”, interesting that it’s in the plural, as if we have to spend a lot of time thinking about a thing when we are in different mental states. Attacking the issue from different parts of our mind.

I no longer call myself an SEO and have not done for a long time, (if I ever was one) and I now the pursue the path of viral content creator, or online buzz marketer or what is commonly known in the business as linkbaiting. This requires a truck full of creativity each day, but creativity takes time.

It takes time to be creative, it’s probably the most important think I teach my linkbaiting students over at linkbaitcoaching.com, a good piece of linkbait will take up to ten days. Most of that is spent thinking and throwing away ideas. The ability to spot a bad idea is as important as coming up with the idea in the first place.

You need that time because the mind has to go through it’s different modes to come up with that idea. Now I know people who have taken 15 minutes to create a piece of linkbait and it’s a great success. But, you will probably find that the idea has been at the back of their minds fermenting and going through the editing process whilst snug in the sub-consciousness.

The true test is to be presented with a subject you are unfamiliar with and you have to start cold. It can involve a lot of walking, thinking and looking into the distance. It involves getting your brain to perform different modes of attention whilst thinking of the problem.

The same is with SEO, getting creative with SEO and not simply copying what others are doing can give you the edge. Most techniques when they hit the public are over. It’s those people who can see things in different ways and challenge the perceived wisdom. Usually the perceived wisdom is wrong as it follows what worked yesterday. To be a creative SEO you need to be thinking about what can work tomorrow.

I’m a natural contrarian, I believe will live in cycles and if someone says “don’t do that, it no longer works”, time to look at it closely. What I find also is that some things that are talked about in the SEO blogosphere are complete crap. A lot of the time you read something and you know it works because you are doing it and yet it goes hot on Sphinn, people are commenting and saying “good point”. Best thing is just to keep quiet and let them get on with it.

But when you start doing the opposite of what the masses do, strange things happen. You stumble across things which work and which no one else is doing. When that happens, you have struck SEO gold and you keep quiet about it (unless it can bump you up a couple of pay grades but that’s another matter), you then notice people saying it used to work a few years ago but not anymore.

To achieve real success in this business, you have to get creative. Which was what I was doing with my spoof news linkbait stories. It was a technique that has been used successfully by a number of people for years, no wonder they wanted to keep it quiet.

In the end, getting creative might lead you off the garden path and into the sharp toothed man traps Matt Cutts has laid for you, or you may get lynched by the foaming at the mouth blogosphere. No matter, you are in this business for results not some hippy-geek-ethos. You find what works and then you do what works.

Note:
I completely went off my target for this post, I wanted to talk and discuss creativity more. Ah well, stream of consciousness it will have to be

Ed Dale Mankini , is a search term that is being tested by Ed Dale and his gang over at 30 Day Challenge. (note: not quite accurate, see comments)

What’s interesting is they are targeting a lot of web 2.0 properties and highlighting those who rank non-competitive search terms. Thing is, it works and it works fast.

It is what it is and for quick, smash and grab marketing it’s very successful. As part of a long term strategy I can see techniques like this can get you off the ground and running very quickly and can give you a valuable insight into how the google indexing machine is working these days.

Also, it could be very useful in going after those narrow, non-competitive niches, although ask yourself, why are they non-competitive? Could it be that there is little money in it.

Like most techniques, this form on “keyword grabbing” is going to work for those who use it in ways no on else is thinking about. Those who take the tips and tricks and transpose it into their online marketing strategy are going to be ahead in the game, whilst those who are simply copying the technique will be still on the starting blocks.

How easy is it for google to stomp on this? Probably not that easy, as the algo would have to be tweaked in how it favoured such sites also the speed of indexing may have to be tweaked. But, what google is getting out of it is far more than what is damaging it. So I think the technique will be good for a while. Most of use have been using it for years anyway.

Saying all that, if you want to play the long game, at your core has to be information that people will climb over each other to read. No linkbait or widgetbait or keyword grabbing from web 2.0 properties is ever going to beat that, but they should be part of the mix. How much of the mix is down to you. Relying on one technique too much will force your head above the parapet for Matt Cutts to take his best golf swing at your head.

Also, such tricksy action can attract the ire of the blogosphere, as Maki bemoaned here, read the comments and you will notice Ed Dale putting his case forward in defense.

Sure, I don’t want the serps filled with low rent crap, but from a professional point of view we need to experiment, to test, to push things a little hard. And if we have to go the Ed Dale Mankini route then so be it.

But hey, it got me to link. And if that was the point, then success. Of course there is a cost and that cost may not be instantly quantifiable. The cost must always be considered when indulging in controversial linkbait. Obviously for me it affects how I view the seomoz brand, calling what I do “outright fraud” is a little rich from a blog advocating sock puppet marketing.

I have learned, people do not need to like you or even agree with you to link to you. If you have an opinion there is always going to be someone with a different opinion. But, when you get personal as Marty as done here and I have done in the past, it transcends to a new level.

I am not moralising on the issue, people make their own decisions according to their own moral code and what they think Google will let them get away with.

Before you crank up the slagbait machine, do remember there are real people out there and that nuance and irony are sometimes difficult to communicate over a blog.

No. Linkbait is not good content. Linkbait is exceptional content. All your content should be good at least I hope it is. Linkbait is the kind of content you spend ten days crafting. If you did that with all your content you wouldn’t get much done. Linkbait is targeted at a specific target, whilst content is simply targeted at the users of your site.

Someone else claims linkbait used to be called, “Killer headlines”.

No, a killer headline is part of what linkbait is but it is not what it is.

Yura asks a sensible question about using linkbait just for links, well that’s what linkbait is. It’s a tool in the seo tool box you use to get links. That is it’s purpose. If you want to get another outcome you use another tool.

What this tells me is possibly that the seo community still does not get linkbait. It does not surprise me , over at linkbaitcoaching.com the first questions I usually get aksed is “how can I build my network so I can game digg”. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but it’s not as important as other components of linkbait.

You cannot really blame the seo, they tend to be an odd sort. Getting excited over web traffic stats and obsessing over keywords. I know because I am one, or rather was. Can’t really call myself an seo anymore.

The jump that the seo has to make from what they do to creating linkbait is quite a big one. It’s something I am learning whilst teaching how to linkbait. But once an seo does get it, they have an edge over their neighbour who doesn’t.

Solve peoples problems.

If your response is “duh”, give yourself a Terry’s Chocolate Orange.

The problem here is, “how do I know what directories to submit to?”

This is how.

It took me 9 years of working online to get that the way to get links is to solve peoples problems.

I have a more fuller account here.

Linkbait Coaching is not about giving you static lessons and letting you get on with it. I am there to answer your questions on the forum and to help you come up with linkbait ideas and help with headlines for your specific niche.

Help is also there for advice on building a social network and building social media power accounts.

One month on, members have concentrated mostly on linkbait creation help and headlines. We have already created some fine content which is already developing natural organic links and shooting up social bookmarking sites.

In fact, just today I had a member complain his server crashed from too much traffic from Reddit. What a cool problem to have.

A lot of the members are businesses who offer linkbaiting and link building services. The program is excellent for members such as this, as they constantly need fresh ideas and help with headlines.

Sometimes it is difficult to get sound creative advice when you work within a company and to outsource the creative process tapping into hot, new ideas makes perfect sense.

There are a few one man operations too, and what is interesting is the rate that some of them learn. When you consider you can offer linkbait from $2,000 to $5,000 and more, the fee of $400 per month is put into perspective.

I totally understand if people wish to do just one month and then leave, but I will be offering as much information as I can. My cunning plan is to over deliver and get you all to stay.

But no probs if you simply want to sign up for a month.

OK, new members can sign up Wednesday, Noon, UK time, that’s 7AM EST and 4AM West Coast US

Last time it took three days to sell out, so you should be able to get in under 24 hours, but it’s first come first serve.

I will email the sign up link tomorrow.

Any questions you can contact me through

msn: lyndonantcliff @ hotmail.com
Gtalk: lyndoman
Twitter: twitter.com/lyndoman
Skype: Lyndoman

See you on the over side.

Lyndon

Linkbait Coaching

So what got me thinking this morning was this post, titled, Don’t Be Popular, be Useful, which in turn is a response to a Jonathon Morrow at Copyblogger titled, How to Stop Being Invisible.

I also read an article in Wired about Juliet Allison, someone I knew nothing about till today. Maybe I should read Gawker more, yeah right.

The Barone article, crystalised a lot of what I had been thinking.

I have been noticing a lot of people who have cracked the “being popular” code, but they don’t seem to crack the “being useful” code. Twitter followers, Stumbleupon friends, even RSS subscribers. You think that’s it? End of?

I do have a problem with the Morrow article, he claims that “Blogs are a diversion”. Always a mistake to use one word to describe something as complex as what a blog is. A diversion implies ending up in a place different to the one intended. Most people are programmed to waste time, they may claim that the “Class Clown” website is merely a diversion, but in reality it’s their real objective. They may claim that the “clever clever” website was their objective, but that’s just a smoke screen.

Serving up imbecilic content to morons is always going to make money if you pitch it right. Rupert Murdoch gets it’s. P.T. Barnum got it and yes, I am afraid George Bush got it. But to do that right, you have to be brilliant. George Bush brilliant? Of course he was, he used what he had to get what he wanted. Can you do that?

So, what are the options for blogging? Class clown, make yourself useful or make someone think? A mixture of all three is probably the best bet, but ask yourself a few questions.

• What are your objectives?
• Why do you blog?
• Who do you want to reach?
• How will you know when you are successful?
• When will you know when to stop?

There are some people who will link to you if you make them think, others if you provide something of use and then there are others who will link if you make them smile.

Your choice, use your words well.

More and more this year I’m thinking it’s the year of content. Last year was the year of Linkbait. But, lets face it, linkbait is content. A “ten cups of Colombian coffee an hour”, kinda content, but content never the less.

When thinking of content, in the context of a web page, think other words too. Don’t just read this post, think about content in the context of your own web properties.

• facts
• instruction
• intelligence
• knowledge
• lowdown
• material
• news
• report
• wisdom
• word

Content creation is not something that is talked about enough in my tiny seo goldfish bowl world, it seems to be talked about a lot more in the affiliate world, or even the general internet marketing world. Although, you may think it is talked about too much.

Here is why I think it’s important, and this thought was inspired by an anonymous, bad ass, seo I had lunch with this week. You have to create thousands and thousands of pages to get people to your site who are going to convert into pounds and pence. People are searching with increased keyword phrases, people know how to use Google these days. The specific age demographic who spend the most amount of money grew up with Google, they do not know a world without a search engine. They get it.

People are increasingly using 3, 4 and 5 word phrases to search with. How the hell are you going to research and then target a 5 word phrase?. And some of these phrases only get searched for once a month. What use is your fancy keyword tool then?

Actually keyword tools are still very useful, but there are new and different ways to use them. Not sure if I should share right now, but anyway….

The point being that you need thousands of pages of content to pick up this long tail. It’s not simply a long tail issue here because new aspects of the way people use language changes any possibility of predictive seo.

Forget seo.

Concentrate on publishing information which will solve peoples problems, which will naturally create the search phrases that no one else will be competing with.

I hear automated article software being cranked up as we speak, sigh! I’m not against the black hat approach, far from it. If it gets results, do it. But I am more interested in building long term results which act like compound interest. The Warren Buffet approach to seo.

Content creation, backed up with linkbait is my favourite internet marketing strategy right now.

Brian Turner over at Internet Business gets it, Squidoo get it, the New York Times gets it, even digg gets it.

Forget “content is king”, content is seo.

I rarely read stuff on there anyway. Way too much to do these days. New systems like Plurk and friendfeed simply shakes up the same content and people and presents it in a different way. I haven’t time or inclination to read the same stuff arranged in a different way.

I will get sucked into the odd convo, but if you want to chat, best thing is to come to one of the Cornwall SEO pub nights - which have yet to be arranged.

I don’t waste much, if any time trying to get google traffic to this blog. I no little use for this data except for entertinment purposes, about it is interesting to observe how people search.

I will link to anyone who also posts their keywords, kinda like a mini-meme. That’s if your brave enough ;)

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ed dale
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http://www.cornwallseo.com/search/index.php/2008/05/15/when-linkbait-goes-mental/
http://www.lening-geld-lenen.nl/
if you never make mistakes
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bath”" “”naked’
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do something excellent in her presence”" tao
ed dale”" writing
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how many diggs”"
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living without google”"
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made for stumbleupon”"
marty weintraub”"
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social tribes”"
the seo blogosphere”"
when linkbait goes mental”"
(not set)
*.companies*.@hotmail.com
#NAME?
1 shel
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cornwall, united kingdom - (cheap web hosting directory) - march 8, 2007 - a new search engine industry report,
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how ed dale hammered in the final nail of my twitter coffin
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http://www.cornwallseo.com/search/
http://www.cornwallseo.com/search/index.php/2008/05/16/dude-wheres-the-mental-post-gone/
http://www.cornwallseo/
http://www.pokerroom.com
http://www.seoservicesinc.com
i don’t mind doing mistakes
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interwebs tubes
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I usually don’t mention when a site gets a redesign, but this is a little different. I first blogged about Conversion Rate Experts, aka Ben and Karl way back in 2006. I could see then that these guys were special.

They specialise in a niche of seo called conversions, meaning they help you turn that visitor into a paying customer. With all the emphasis on traffic and getting an avalanche of traffic from digg, it’s easy to forget that profit can be improved merely by increasing conversions rather than traffic.

In the past they hardly blogged, they didn’t need to. But now it looks like things are ramping up and lots of juicy things are on offer like tools and resources. Starting off with a list of great marketing books.

But it’s the design of the site I love. It has to be one of the best ones I have seen. I want one ;)

So what are you waiting for? Go to conversion-rate-experts.com and check them out.

“Unfortunately the algorithm does not only look at submitters. Before a submission is promoted it must reach a certain number of votes within a 24 hour period. If every time User A submits a story, Users B-Z are the first to vote, the alarms are going to sound. It’s likely that when this happens, User A has jumped on his instant message or microblogging client of choice and spammed his buddy list with the link to his submission or the direct like to the blog (which sequentially has a button to vote on the story embedded within the page).”

Interesting post from nethackz

Although it would be nice to back up the theory with some cold, hard, forensic facts. Simply saying a site is on the so called “autobury” list does not mean it is, proof would be nice.

Also, check out this mega failed digg from Techcrunch

On the similar subject, I haven’t had a front page in ages, it wouldn’t be beyond the realm of possibility to imagine that “do not front page”, has been added to my account. Especially with the shenanigans I have been up to. Maybe it’s time to retire Iggle Piggle?

The point being, don’t obsess over your IM network and get to work creating killer content with drop dead headlines. In fact, forget digg, build content that people will drool over, content that has them crawling over broken glass to get to their mouse and give you link.

Stop trying to game the system and give people what they really want.

Basically, the word on the streets is that getting links from blogs is less effective than it used to. This may be true amongst the uber bloggers, but I think it’s still very effective lower down the food chain. And lets face it, if you produce information that is going to solve peoples problems you are going to be popular and get links.

The more narrow the blogs focus the more obvious that it can solve specific problems and so attract a niche audience. The problem with most blogs is they are not narrow enough. If there are not enough bloggers in your niche, attract those who are not. Go sideways, think lateral.

Yes, I know you can’t really see what is on the screen and the audio kicks in too loud at the start, the hosted version is a full screen.

I will try to make a video blog a day and Youtube the odd one over here. There is so much happening in the world of social media marketing right now, it’s an exciting place to cover.

No, I do not have a payday loan blog, and no I do not sell links to any such sites. This is an seo experiment and the payday keyword is one I like to play with as it’s so competitive and it’s something I have no interest in ever getting into.

I want to see how quick this post will get into google blog search, which I love using.

I want to see if the title phrase ranks in the main google search and how long it takes to appear.

I want to see if I can rank for “Free Ice cream”, or “Cheap Payday Loan”, I doubt it, but you have to push to the edge to see what happens.

It’s ironic but this blog is not had much seo work done, mostly because I can’t be arsed, although the professional reason is I don’t really need to as I get my traffic from social sources and not google.

Sorry if you came here wanting ice cream with your payday loan, yes I know it’s a fake title.

I haven’t been blogging much due to spending most of my time at linkbait coaching and the rest recovering from Seo Class. Yeah I know, I need to blog about it but I have been served with a court order from the High Sheriff of Edinburgh and the Association of Inflatable Quadrupeds to keep quiet.

If you don’t think that dropping £1,500 to learn some cutting edge seo techniques is worth it, then you’re an idiot.

***UPDATE***
The post now ranks in main search and is indicating it took 4 hours to be listed, but the interesting thing is that it hasn’t popped up yet in blog search, only the Sphinn submission has. Other posts are listed in blog post, so it’s not a ban. Sphinn.com obviously has more link juice, but Google did work out that the phrase was here first. Although, in the main search the Sphinn post was picked up two hours after.

So what does this tell us? Nothing definitive, but it does give us a benchmark.

The post ranks now 16th for “Cheap Payday Loan”. Not that I care, I don’t feel like fleecing working stiffs with loans at 2,456% just yet. But, this blog has no incoming links about Payday loans and yet it ranks for it, in a competitive industry too.

I am sure it will drop quite quickly in a week or so.

Thanks all for joining, lots of work to get my teeth into.

Lots of fun

Only 20 spots available.

It’s $400 for 30 days access.

See you on the other side.

Lyndon

Linkbait Coaching

That’s 2pm UK time which I think is GMT+1.

I have only had 4 hours sleep as I had to solve last minute admin problems. I have tested and retested the Membership system and forum, lets hope everything will go smooth.

There is only a limit of 20 people, I know a lot of people have expressed interest so it may fill up quickly. There are a few test and admin accounts already in there, but only 20 people will be involved in the coaching program.

People have asked if it’s a course, not really, although there are aspects of a course. What I am offering is help with your current linkbaiting strategy, as if you hired me as a consultant. I will be helping you improve and fine tune your linkbait strategies.

The program is $400 for 30 days although you can just keep it going and basically outsource your linkbaiting. It will renew automatically, so cancel if you only want a months worth. Payments are all through paypal as I want to keep it as simple as possible.

Some people have said the reason I am doing this is because of recent events. Not true, I have been planning this since January and seriously started putting the thing together two months ago.

If you don’t get in don’t worry, I am sure some spots will open up in a months time.

Hope to see you in there.

May your links be many and aged.

After a struggle, I managed to prise the withdrawn e-book from Patrick’s vice like grip and promised to only offer it to my Linkbait Coaching group.

For those who don’t know Patrick, he blogs over at Blogstorm.co.uk and is an expert link builder and link baiter. Check the backlinks to his own blog.

There are some excellent prizes on offer, but because I am all over the place at the moment I forgot to tell you earlier. Hey, you have 24 hours to do it, I’m sure you can do it. Deadline is June 13th.

I know, I’m an idiot, I should have posted earlier.

My Contribution is:

Click a link
Sponsor a child
Save a life

Your choice
Click on by
or change a life

Stop your crying
ground is already wet
Your wallet matters more

The response from people has been very positive, and I think those 20 spots will go very quickly. It’s great that so many people are interested. I think it shows the power of building relationships with people and providing social proof that you know what you are talking about.

For those wanting to buy linkbait off the shelf, I am sure some of the people I will be coaching will be interested in fulfilling your needs. Although if you look at the cost of linkbait, $4,000 and the cost of a whole months coaching from me, $400. You can see that you get a lot more bang for your buck and are able to learn and understand the process, you can then go on to develop your own high grade linkbait.

More details about Linkbait Coaching

I need help with my headlines and I need it now?

Do you have any linkbait ideas, the sooner the better?

Could you help me build my social network?

How do I get a digg power user to submit my cool content?

It’s a common problem for those wanting to create linkbait and attract thousands of people and links to their website. It’s why a professional linkbaiter can charge many thousands of dollars, if you can get hold of one. I charge $4,000 but unfortunately I am not accepting new clients.

I have separated the linkbait process into the four stages above. Get all four elements right and you are liable to get some serious traffic and links. Although, if you have a popular site already, you probably only need the first two as your own audience will take care of the latter two.

For personal consultation I charge £150 an hour, minimum ten hours. This enables me to work closely with you, getting to know your niche, your objectives and helping you craft your linkbait to the quality needed. I also help getting the content submitted to digg through a power user.

The problem with hiring me for a personal consultation is that I am expensive. £1,500 or $3,000 is a lot of money for most people. Which is why these days I tend to only work with Corporates with large pockets.

So I got to thinking. How could I deliver the same level of personal service to clients but at a reduced cost, as a reduced cost means I get to reach more people?

An eBook after all, was out of the question. It’s not that eBooks are evil, I have learned a lot from various eBooks and there are some good ones out there, but I feel linkbaiting needs something a little more personal. A little more hands on. Different niches require different approaches as each sector has it’s own hot buttons and a one size fits all is not going to cut it. The solution needs to be tailored to the specific needs of the niche.

Creating headlines is very difficult for some people, personally I find it very easy to come up with headlines, I don’t mean to brag, it’s just how my brain works. If someone has a niche they want to promote, I can usually come up with more usable headlines in a hour than they can get through in a month.

Linkbait ideas too. I have a notebook crammed with them, for various niches and industries. I spend most of my waking hours thinking about linkbait and I often get ideas when I look at a niche. Most of them do not get used as I do not have time to create the linkbait, taking as it does 5 - 10 days to put together.

So rather than go down the linkbait eBook route, I’ve decided to replicate my personal consultation service, but instead of charging £1,500, I am only going charge £200 for a whole months access to a subscription only forum where I will coach people to create linkbait worthy of any professional linkbaiter.

Considering how much I charge for linkbait, this is an absolute bargain. This program is going to be very hands on, I can only accept 20 people, as I want to deliver the most personal service possible, answering questions, coming up with headline ideas, helping with linkbait ideas, introducing you to a larger social network and helping with that digg submission (as long as the content is worthy).

I have put aside half my working time to help 20 people create killer linkbait campaigns. I will be teaching all I know, every trick in my playbook will be available to you. Nothing is going to be held back.

I know other linkbaiters want me to STFU, and who can blame them when they are making so much money selling expensive linkbait services. But, pass me that megaphone, I think I need to shout just a little bit louder.

In fact, other linkbaiters may hate me for what I am about to do as a number of people have told me they want to join so they can offer their own linkbaiting service. And why not, I believe in an abundance mentality, that there is more than enough work to go around. And the monthly fee can easily be recouped with just one linkbait sale.

Although it’s a monthly service, you can sign up for just one month if you prefer. I’m making it as transparent as I can, as I don’t see a need to be tricksy. I find Paypal the best for this kind of subscription as you can easily cancel your subscription with little difficulty. Some may only do one month, whilst others may do a year. It’s my intention to retain as many subscribers as possible by providing the most beneficial service I can.

I want those who sign up cranking out the most linkalicious linkbait ever seen in the history of mankind. I want to help you create linkbait which will make your competitors so jealous, they will gnaw off their own arms, all the way to the elbow.

As you can see, I am not going to craft an obnoxious sales letter for this. You know the kind, with the large red letters and the screaming headlines. “Sign up to my course right now!!!! Or your offspring will curse you!!!!

It’s not what I am about, I shoot from the hip, you either like it or you don’t. I want only serious people to sign up for this.

Warning

This course is for advanced members only. If you do not know what linkbait is, please do not join.

The Linkbait Coaching course will be launching on Monday, 2pm (UK time) June 16th

There is absolutely only 20 spots available, this is not a marketing gimmick, it is the limit of how many people I can give a great service to all at once. Once the spots have gone for that month, that’s it.

Sign up for the Linkbait Coaching email to be notified of where you can apply.

If you ask, what’s the point. Then the answer would be very little. However, if you get why increasing the number of your connections is of benefit to you then come join. It does things differently and this effects the conversation, giving it a different edge.

But, if online, social networking is not necessary to your core business, don’t bother. It’s really just for the uber geeks and only a few of those will actually get it to work for them, rather than working for it.

I am absolutely chuffed and humbled to be asked to speak, especially in the presence of such brilliant people. I will be talking about Linkbait and Social Bookmarking, I may even reveal a few behind the scenes stuff about the recent “mental linkbait”, as all was not how it seemed.

I hear there are a few spots still open, I advise you to snap them up quick as the knowledge you will learn from such and event will easily pay you back with increased business.

Hope to see you there.

So I installed the seo title plugin

It enables you to remove the defined blog title from the title tag, enabling the title tag of the page to be more seo friendly. As you can see from my titles, it no longer has “cornwallseo” in the title.

This went out live on UK TV last night. The goal was for the skydivers to spell out Honda within the time alloted for the commercial. I wonder if failure would have brought even more attention, it certainly took hold of peoples imagination and brought something interesting and imaginative to TV advertising.

Cost you $22, which is only only ten quid, you may pick up some linkbait tips whilst you lose. Once you have registered your place is secured and you simply have to turn up at 8pm.

I havn’t organised a chat room, I think you can chat on pokerroom.com but we still have twitter.

Hope to see you there, I hear there are going to be some excellent players take part so should be interesting.