If you are attending Pubcon this year in Las Vegas, you should know that we will be there representing as well and I do have to say that we are getting a little bit excited, could even say giddy, about our soon approaching travels to Vegas for Pubcon.  Pubcon means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but for DSM it comes down to good eats, good drinks, good friends, good business, and good times.

Along with everything else that comes with the territory, both Mat and Dave will be speaking this year.  Here are the details and I suggest you don’t miss these sessions as they could change your life forever!

Wednesday Nov. 11 @ 2:55 pm
Interactive Site Reviews: Focus on Brand and Social Reputation Management
Location: Salon F

Reputation management is becoming more central to website marketing responsibilities. Whether you currently have reputation management issues to deal with, or you want to be proactive and keep reputation issues at bay, this session will teach you a lot. Want to have your own site reviewed live?

Give your business card to the moderator or any panelist at the beginning of the session.

Speakers:

Brian Chappell, Sr. Social Search Strategist, Ignite Social Media
Giovanni Gallucci, Social Media Ninja
Matt Siltala, Owner/Chief Media Officer, Dream Systems Media
Jennifer Laycock, Director of Marketing/Editor, SiteLogic/Search Engine Guide

Thursday Nov. 12 @ 1:30 pm
Competitive Intelligence: Know Thy Competitor Well
Location: Salon C

Competitive research is important in any business, so that you know what you’re up against. Competitive research online can reveal a wealth of valuable intelligence about not only your competition, but also the need-to-know activity in your industry. Learn all about the tools our experts use and the richness of the data they are able to collect.

Speakers:

Michael Gray, President, Atlas Web Service
Michael Streko, Co-Founder / CEO, KnowEm LLC
Matt Siltala, Owner/Chief Media Officer, Dream Systems Media
Andy Beal, Internet Marketing Consultant, Marketing Pilgrim LLC

Thursday Nov. 12 @ 2:55 pm
Domain Names and Trademarks: Legal Issues
Location: Salon C

Trademarks, domain names, and click fraud are legal issues related to search engine marketing that marketers need to be aware of. This panel will look at the current state of trademarks, click fraud, and some privacy issues related to search engine marketing.

Speakers:

Deborah Wilcox, Partner, Baker & Hostetler LLP
Clarke Walton, Founder, Walton Law Firm
David Mink, Co-Owner/Chief Legal Counsel, Dream Systems Media
Steve O’Brien, VP, Sales & Marketing, Click Forensics

Now you know where we’ll be for sure at those times and we hope to see you there too!

I thought it would be cool to see how many marketing channels have popped up over the last several years compare to whats been out there forever already. When you look at this time line it is even more interesting to see all the opportunities that marketers have just in the last 10 years. I am sure we missed some channels (feel free to let us know in the comments – I know you will), but we tried to include every major one from as far back as we could go in recorded history.  (of course we added our companies logo – because companies like ours are the future )

A Look At The History Of Marketing Channels

Highlight, copy and paste the HTML code below into your site if you want to share the graphic:

<a title="A Look At The History Of Marketing Channels" href="http://www.dreamsystemsmedia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/history-of-marketing2.jpg"><img alt="A Look At The History Of Marketing Channels" src="http://www.dreamsystemsmedia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/history-of-marketing2.jpg" border="0" width="100%"></a>

• Spelling – check it twice.
• Check your spelling twice, especially in the title.
• Did I mention spelling?

I came across this posting tonight and had to share it.  If you are going to post an obnoxious Craigslist title (that gets more eyes), make sure you are spelling all your words correctly – or it makes you look like a MORON (and people will be afraid of you):  (what is “MOST SELL” anyway? – Oh, MUST SELL)  Now I am not perfect and I have got my spelling wrong at times, but never on Craigslist, and especially on my titles.  Double check them titles and you will have more people giving your listing a serious look.

Mistakes to avoid when using Craigslist

I’m doing a teleseminar with publicity expert Joan Stewart (the Publicity Hound) tomorrow and I hope you’ll join us. I’ve been a subscriber on Joan’s email list for several years and I’m honored to work with her.

How to Use Keywords, the ‘Magic Magnets’ that Pull Consumers
and Journalists to Your Press Releases

When: 3 to 4:10 p.m. Eastern Time

Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2009

Sign up for the killer press release teleseminar here.

Joan delivers a lot of value. You’ll get a recording of the call, handouts with step by step instructions and 2 videos. The call goes over basic keyword research to find out demand and competition. It is for beginners or those who have no or little understanding of keyword research, anchor text, etc.

Some Burros

As I was searching online for some information to one of my favorite Mexican food joints here in Arizona I ran across several problems with their website and wanted to share them here.  I also came across several areas where I thought they could capitalize on social marketing, increase traffic to their website and interact better (online) with the people who love them.

The Argument:

You walk into one of their locations and they are already packed.  True, but tell me of a business (you know of) that does not want to reach MORE customers, or expand to MORE locations?  If they are speaking the truth, every business wants to grow and expand – and of course, make more money.  So, I feel with a few improvements to their website and nickles worth of free social marketing advice here, I think they could be making vast improvements to their overall bottom line.

Their Website Problems:

The entire thing, besides one html page and some PDFs is built in flash, that means – the entire website is a single flash file, which is NO GOOD for search engine optimization, because even if the flash is crawlable, only be a single page indexed.  They have four valley locations and could be doing a better job with their local marketing and creating pages that target those areas.  When they do this, people searching for them, and those locations get a better experience when they are taken right to the exact information they are looking for.  People hate having to search through an unfriendly website trying to find the information they want.  There are many other things having a site like this will not allow you to capitalize on SEO wise, but for the sake of keeping this post simple – I am not going to go there.

For example:

They have 4 locations here in the valley, so they should at least have four crawlable pages to target the specific locations like so:

• http://www.someburros.com/gilbert-arizona-location
• http://www.someburros.com/tempe-arizona-location
• http://www.someburros.com/san-tan-arizona-location
• http://www.someburros.com/chandler-arizona-location

We will get into how they can capitalize on social marketing with those specific location pages here in a minute, but first lets talk about why doing the above thing is good.  When I go to Google to look for information on “Some Burros San Tan Location” (because they do catering so it’s not out of the question to think that people will be looking information for them online) the result that needs to come up is the http://www.someburros.com/san-tan-arizona-location page because then I do not have to navigate several clicks on their website “trying to find” the information I was looking for.

They also have the opportunity to include a link to their Google Maps listing on that page (for that specific location) and maybe link to their Yelp listing with a link that says: “see what people are saying about us”.  By doing this, you are sealing the deal with being found for not only your specific name searches locally, (when you get crawled) but almost anything GEO targeted in your industry (ie: a search on Google for “Mexican Food restaurant in San Tan Arizona”).  This really is just the beginning of how they can capitalize, but I think that gives them a good start. (if they just so happen to be reading this)

Social opportunities missed (and solutions offered):

You see they have a page on their website talking about coupons and promotions (so you know, they know people are looking for this info online – or they would not have included it).  People do not want to go through the process of clicking on, and sending you an email just to get your offers – they want the easy way of getting your offers and deals: In comes social marketing. 

Here is my suggestion to them:  Why not have a place to connect with customers via Twitter and Facebook?  You can tell them to follow you on Twitter, and friend you on Facebook for special deals that only they get by being your friend or by being a follower.  This gives customers a reason to follow your business on Twitter, or friend you on Facebook because they are getting (and know about) deals of the day that are going on. Put the “Follow Us On Twitter” or Facebook “Friend Me” logos/buttons on the specific location pages (as talked about above) where someone (that worsk for that location) can give specific updates and offers (again, for THAT LOCATION), and offer a little insight or blurb on the page why following or friending would be a good thing etc.

This will bring a whole new following of people to your business, and you can connect with them in a way you never thought was possible – the human way.  There are so many other things that this will do for your business that you do not realize, like filling the SERPs up with the content that you want out there – so its great for reputation management.

Being social just helps your business connect with more people too (then the regulars), you will gain new attention, attract new customers and will be keeping up with the marketing techniques of this generation.  I am going to give local businesses a warning – if you are not making your sites more friendly, and doing everything you can to connect with your customers on a social level, you will be left in the dust by a competitor that is doing this, and “gets it”.

I hope other businesses can learn and get some ideas from this post, and that Some Burros can take it as (like I said) a nickles worth of free advice to improving things.  Its funny, I suffer from a problem that most don’t … when I am online doing searches, or looking for something I can’t just “look” and get the info I wanted.  I have to look at everything as if I were doing marketing for them (always a marketer) – it’s a curse I know, but I hope these guys benefit from it this time, and that everyone can learn something!  LOL

Last week, Mat had a post where someone asked the question:

I’ve contacted some of the sites that have linked to my competitors and requested that they link to me, but have never heard back.  What do I do?

And I couldn’t help myself but to email Mat a reply.

It was a little edgy, but he thought it was  funny informative whatever enough that he asked me to turn it into a post and be a random contributor.

Here. Goes. Nothing.

Some people are made to be hunters.

Some are made to be hunted.

Whether you are a hunter or a someone who is usually hunted — deep down inside, you know what your natural tendency is… and don’t even try lying to yourself about it.

So first you have to be completely honest with yourself and admit whether you are a hunt-er or a hunt-ed.

Once you know if your natural bias is to be a hunt-er or a hunt-ed, then you will know if you are a good link builder or not.

If you don’t naturally gravitate toward being a hunt-er, the truth is that you will probably suck as a link builder.

Why?

Because you most likely don’t have thick enough skin. Being a link builder takes a number of things, but high on the list is having unusually thick skin and being able to be completely comfortable with being told to get lost – or sometimes, GET LOST LOSER and then the occasional GET LOST LOSER BEFORE I CALL THE POLICE GOOGLE.

Let’s say a competitor of yours is getting great links from someone at a site and your mission is to get that person to give you a little linky-linky instead of your competitor.

What do you do?

Sure, each situation is 100% unique, but the first thing you need to do is find out if the person you are trying to get to give you a link is a hunt-er or a hunt-ed.

If The Person Is A Hunt-er

If the person who is handing out link love is a hunt-er, tread very, very lightly.

The truth is that most people who hand out link love in the world today aren’t hunt-ers — they are hunt-ed’s because they are more frequently the stable, pleasant content manager type who has been hired to manage a set of properties and not as often the balls-to-the-wall-whacko type that most hunt-ers are.

But if the person you want link love from is a true hunt-er (you can usually figure this out fairly quickly if your emotional IQ is above average) then you need to try an UNDERHAND approach.

Start by asking a question that has nothing to do with links and one that you know they will know the answer to. Toss them a softball when asking the question – one that is just hard enough that they will be able to feel smart, but not so difficult that it makes them feel dumb.

Then leave a comment somewhere on their site where they can see it.

Then leave another comment the next day, and then another for about a week or two.

Then stalk them on Twitter.

Then start talking with their FRIENDS on Twitter and get their friends to be your friends.

Once their friends are your friends, you can then triangle your new friend into your friend who is now the hunt-ed but they just don’t know it yet.

Then be understated as you try to find out how they get paid, how they feel about their job and what their boundaries are of what they will and won’t do.

Then after all that – and probably another 3 or 4 things I won’t tell you here… THEN AND ONLY THEN DO YOU ASK THEM FOR A LINK.

If The Person Is A Hunt-ed

If the person who is handing out link love is a hunt-ed — then it is just like picking out your spouse.

Since you are the hunt-er, you just go about it like you are going to make the hunt-ed fall in love with you.

The weird thing about this whole process is it is virtually identical to #1 except that you can take a more OVERHAND approach — meaning you can be more aggressive.

You might even be able to try the usual lines like “don’t worry, no one will know about it and of course I will still respect you in the morning…”

After you spend somewhere between 30 seconds and a month getting them all ready for the big consummation of your relationship… THEN AND ONLY THEN DO YOU ASK THEM FOR A LINK.

Whether the person you are trying to get a link from is a hunt-er or a hunt-ed, if you keep in mind the idea that getting a link is a lot like trying to get laid, it makes it much, much funner easier.

Are you looking for: a one-link-stand? Someone who can be your emergency linky-call? A long term link-ationship? A link-buddy? A non-committal-linkout? Someone who has never been linked before? Someone you don’t have to worry about getting mad about your link as long as you leave money on the dresser on your way out?

No matter what kind of link-love you are looking for, if you follow these simple tips, you can soon be well on your way to being the Ron Jeremy of linkbuilding.

I was checking out some Yelp listings this morning, and come across something that made me wanna rant for just a bit. If you are going to participate in communities like Yelp, and leave your two cents (or reviews in the case of Yelp), then why not FULLY PARTICIPATE?  People are not going to give what you say a second thought if you are doing anything like Paul B. here:

How NOT to be a Yelper!

In my opinion reviews like these are about as worthless and annoying as anonymous blog comments from people to scared to really let others know who they are, and what they stand for.  You don’t even have the balls to add a picture?  The other negative side of it, is these kind of reviews or comments leave no value or make people want to believe them.  You have two people that have reviewed with a 4 and 5 star, that use real pictures of themselves and have multiple friends and hundreds of reviews – which makes them 100% more credible.  Also, the review is to suspect, like it could be a competitor because it says “fresh & good flavor” but then goes on to slam the crust and only give 2 stars?  Anyone who truly gets Yelp, understands that this is a bogus review and would not give it any thought when using Yelp to find a place to eat.

The moral of the story here is to make sure and take the time to be real & actually participate in the communities that you are a part of, because if this user is an actual legit user – nobody’s buying what hes trying to sell us, and eventually Yelp will end up removing the listing.

3 Important Tips:

1. First and most important – Add a REAL image of yourself.
2. Leave reviews or comments that don’t seem like a 2 yr. old wrote them.
3. Take the time to add friends, it makes you look more legit too.

I got asked the question below after a link building webinar I did this week.  It is a great question, and one that is asked to me often by many people.  I thought I would take the time to really answer it, and provide some useful tips for overcoming the link building block that we all hit.  I even got some link building ninjas to help me answer this, so sit back – buckle up, and get ready for a great ride!

Question Asked:

I’ve contacted some of the sites that have linked to my competitors and requested that they link to me, but have never heard back.  What do I do?

My first answer to this is actually in the form of a question – How many link request did you even send out? Typically if sending out a hundred or so requests, be prepared to only hear back from 1 or 2 people (and in turn only find a few good links out of every few hundred or so out of those). So, if you are not having any luck and have only sent out 10 or 20 emails then you have only begun to scratch the surface with link building.

I would also ask what the exact technique of finding your competitors links you were using, because there are many techniques of finding good links via the competition. If you are just going to YSE and exploring the URL of your #1 competitor and going down the list of results, and emailing all of then, I am not surprised by your results. I would use a lot of those results as guides only. If you find a review site, don’t email them and ask them for a link (with a review you already have written), talk to your customers and see if they would be willing to go to the site and submit a review for you. Don’t tell them what to say, just ask them if they would be willing to go to “review site a” and leave a few comments about what they purchased from you.

Here’s an idea that works!

Letting people know where they can find you online (via your website) is a must too. How will people know they can leave a review on Yelp or Google Maps, if you don’t have a link on your site somewhere that says “Learn more about us on Yelp”, or “Find more pictures on Google Maps”? So again, use the above suggested methods to see (research) what the competition is doing, but use this technique to actually get the link. You are not breaking any terms of service because you are not giving people compensation for their reviews.

Are you being yourself?

If you are sending the same mass email out to everybody you find, then I understand why you are not having much success. You need to find ways to connect with the site owner where you want a link. What can you do for them? Do you have a site where giving them a link might be appropriate? Can you suggest any changes that might help their business? Could you offer to continue giving them content which would help enrich the visitors of their site? Sure, this process can take a lot longer, but the results (links) you get with it are going to do much much better for you in the long run and pass the most juice!

I think back to once when I found a college professors students “curriculum” page, where they had included resources to other websites for the kids. I had an article that I thought would be a perfect fit. I emailed this teacher and explained who I was, and that I thought I had something that might work well on this page. I also told her I would be willing to do an interview, or talk to these kids via Skype etc. (answer their questions) She ate it up, and I helped out her kids, and now have many valuable .edu links because of it. I would have never got this professor if the email had started out “Dear Webmaster”.

I also think that many “new to link building” individuals are afraid of being told “no”, or they think the person they are trying to get the link from knows what they are up to (or that they are trying to be a sneaky SEO). I am amazed at how many trusted sites, passing amazing link juice are ran by people who don’t have a clue what they are sitting on. If you find ways to connect with these people on a human level, they will link to you, and you will have success!

I went to Twitter and posed this question to my followers and asked for my link building NINJA friends to chime in.

Here is what they said:

Follow Melanie Nathan on Twitter

First Link Building Ninja Up: Melanie Nathan – (Melanie Nathan specializes in creating custom inbound link building campaigns for her clients at CanadianSEO).

Assuming the question revolves around a person emailing all the sites their competitor is linked from and getting no response, here is what I’ve learned from my experiences:

First of all, what kind of links requests were they (reciprocal, editorial, paid etc)? How many emails did they send out? Were they all at once or scattered over a period of time? Did they all have the same subject and email body content? Did they not get ANY response from ANY of the sites?

It could be that they’re too busy to respond and your email got buried; maybe the person who handles it is on vacation or sick etc etc etc. I believe though, that the two main reasons you don’t get a response to a link request are either a) your email was flagged as spam or b) they didn’t like the pitch.

Of course, you can’t really know definitively, but there are a few common sense things you can be doing in order to combat the above:

• Don’t include any hyperlinks within your email. Not even your own site url or the url of the page you want a link from (that comes after initial contact).
• Email them from a professional domain based or non-spammy email address (i.e. not linktome@hotmail.com).
• Word your email carefully. In the real world, you wouldn’t walk up to a total stranger and immediately ask them for something. Emailing a link prospect should be looked upon the same way.
• Make each link request email unique instead of generic. Show your personality!

Too me, the first email should be about opening up the lines of communication and making them feel safe enough to even respond to you. Not bombarding them with how awesome your site is and what you want them to do for you (Note: I’m not saying this person did so).

In any case, a follow up email is definitely a good idea. I generally forward a copy of my initial email (assuming it was well worded) and include a note, something like:

“Hi again, I didn’t get an answer to my initial email. Just wanted to make sure you’d received it. Looking forward to your response. Cheers, ”

If they don’t respond after that, then they’re probably not interested so I wouldn’t advise emailing them a third time or you’d really be spamming them lol.

My last piece of advice is to only email a couple of sites at a time. This way you can test out a few differently worded emails and techniques, seeing what works and what doesn’t, before you waste every good prospect on one bad pitch.

I’d like to get a look at the actual email they’re sending out/technique they’re using. I’d probably have some more tips for them.

Follow Debra on Twitter

Next Up, Link Building Ninja #2: Debra Mastaler – (Link Building Services – Link Building Training by Debra Mastaler of Alliance-Link)

I think you have a number of options:

1. Write back and ask again, preface the email with a “don’t want to be a pest but would really appreciate it” type comment
2. Write back and apologize saying you forgot to mention the compensation/incentive offer/giveaway you have to send in exchange for the link
3. Go find their blog and start commenting. When you feel confident they’ve noticed you there, write again, point out your participation on the blog and ask for the link.
4. Sign up for their newsletter. When you write back be sure to flatter the newsletter and then ask for the link.
5. Combine answer 2 and 3 and ask for the link
6. Backlink the competitor site and get links on all the sites linking to her/him.
7. Forget about it and move on. The time spent thinking and rewriting could be put to use elsewhere.

Follow Arnie Kuenn on Twitter

Now Up, Link Building Ninja #3: Arnie Kuenn – (Arnie Kuenn & his team focus on link building & higher rankings at Vertical Measures)

My initial reaction was to say “find another job”. Not because this link builder is unsuccessful, but because they actually asked this question. Clearly this is their fourth day on the job and they have no one training or coaching them.

Let’s break this down.

“I’ve contacted some of the sites that linked to my competitors…” SOME of the sites? That sounds to me like something less than 10 sites and if you have already given up and are puzzled as to why this isn’t working, you might polish up your resume.

“…and requested that they link to me,”. Hmmm. REQUESTED that they link to you? Do you give them an excellent reason to? Did you make a fair offer to them? Or did you just request a link because they were linking to your competitor?

“…but have never heard back.” If you are already disappointed in the fact that no one got back to you, you have many discouraging days ahead of you. Again, you might want to rethink your career choice. This is a numbers game. Even if you have a great offer, you are trying to sell someone on the idea of giving you a link. Expect the vast majority to ignore you.

“What do I do?” If you haven’t already quit your job, you might want to evaluate your approach to potential link partners. Make sure you can clearly articulate why someone should want to link to you. Did you take the time to make a personal contact? Did you make a great offer? What is the compelling reason someone should want to link to you? Also, if you haven’t already, consider other methods to gain links. There are dozens of ways to do it, but they all require hard work and a bit of a salesperson’s mentality.

Follow Dan Patterson on Twitter

Final Ninja of the day #4 Dan Patterson – (Dan Patterson is account manager at SEO.com and has a keen eye for link building).

First of all, how does the subject of your email read? If it sounds like an obvious “I want a link from you” title, you can assume that most people are just deleting the email without even opening it. You really have to be able to offer something good and beneficial in return if someone is going to act on your request.

Second, how does the body of your email read? I’ve seen some emails that are so long I’m not going to read them, and neither will anyone else. But I’ve seen some that were only two sentences. Also, don’t just use a template for every site. Come up with something unique for each site so they don’t feel like they were just spammed.

The third thing is follow up. Chances are that one email isn’t going to do it. People are used to getting link request emails and just deleting them or ignoring them. But if you make a good request or offer, but then follow it up a time or two you may actually get a response.

Thanks guys & gals! This is some great advice, and answers the question perfectly. When you hit a link building roadblock, as the individual on my webinar did, I think you need to take a step back and first, evaluate what you are doing, take a closer look at the techniques you are using, then read over these suggestions offered here by our link building ninjas.  You do this, and I know you will start to see more successful results with link building.

I recently tried Sponsored Tweets as a publisher. I’d forgotten I signed up until I got an offer to tweet. I looked at the landing page and the ad and decided to give it a try.

The tweet I sent was clearly marked as an ad. I made $9.95 for the click (the advertiser paid roughly double that amount). Not bad. But what I liked more is that the advertiser went to my site and contacted me about writing some press releases. They become a new client.

Now I’m looking into Sponsored Tweets as an advertiser. There are very affordable options for people with large or very targeted networks (here’s a list – celebrity tweeters always come up first unless you choose to hide them. Type in a tag to narrow the list.). Example: Shoemoney (who charges $470.54 a tweet, which has obviously gone up). I believe advertisers can make an offer.

Here’s my Sponsored Tweets page so you can see what advertisers see.

You can write an ad, or let the person write the ad or let them decide. I would give them a tweet but leave the option open for them to change it. Why? To save time for those who want it to be quick and to let the person tweeting change the ad to fit their audience. Put it in their own voice. They must disclose that the tweet is an ad or it won’t be approved.

You can also leave the time open or ask them to send the tweet between certain times. I’d choose to send it out during a time range in the middle of the day.

Next I want to try this as an advertiser. I talked to Sponsored Tweets yesterday and learned more.

• They come up with a price per tweet but the person can raise that amount to whatever they choose.
• The average amount to pay is $15 per tweet. That would mean the person you sponsored gets $7.50.
• There are more than 12,000 people in the database. They have to have at least 200 followers and the account must be at least 4 months old.
• When you refer people you make 10% of what they make. Sort of like an MLM but only one level. If you liked this post, please consider using my link.

What I love most about Sponsored Tweets? It’s easy to use and a quick way to make money if you get an offer that fits your audience. You can get highly relevant ads out very quickly and with a lot less “know how” than Google Adwords.

What I’d like to know is what tags to use – like keyword research to see what 140 characters worth of tags I should put on my profile. The reason this system works is because there is so much transparency and choice on both sides.

If you have a new campaign I suggest giving Sponsored Tweets a try.

Have you tried Sponsored Tweets? What do you think?

I know, this seems pretty basic – and is to most people who are following me on Twitter, but believe it or not I got the email asking me to explain how to “retweet” something. After a few emails back and forth it gave me a great idea to create another video and share some thoughts and techniques.