Internet Marketing London

Last week at the PRSA Digital Impact conference I met Steve Rubel, SVP Director of Insights from Edelman Digital and famous (sometimes infamous) PR blogger at Micropersuasion. He presented “2008 Digital Trends: Open Files” which talks about the framework Edelman uses (Faint Signals, Watch List and Hallucinations for tracking digital/social media trends.

Read my live blogging notes below or you can view the entire presentation over at Slideshare or Rubel’s post about tracking digital trends here.

Mass vs Micro. It’s less about reach and more about impact. Mass reach is dying. Micro is blogging, Twitter, Friendfeed etc. Even if people are not producing content and media, they’re impacted by it.

Google is not just a search engine, it’s a reputation management engine and is a place for PR. People trust each other more than authority figures. PR is more about “Public Relationships”, not “Public Relations”.

“Open Files” references the way Edelman tracks digital trends. Signals, Watch list, Hallucinations (you think you see something or not)

Faint Signals:

1. The cut and paste web - the web has evolved into a place where you can take content from one location to another easily. Traffic to your web site is less relevant as traffic can be driven elsewhere. Content follows you wherever you want to put it.

You want content not only to live on a web site, but so that it can spread elsewhere. Make it easy for that content to travel and track where it goes.

Gives example of the NBA using widgets. Can place widget in Facebook, MySpace, iGoogle.

2. Attention Crash - People are inundated with electronic communications. The numer of inputs we have as individusals has exceeded what we are capable of managing. Need to chunck it down. Keep it simple and use storytelling. If they can’t understand it in 3 seconds, they’re gone.

Gives example of Blendtec (willitblend.com). Great example of simplicity.

3. Digital Curation. There’s so much content everywhere it’s difficult to distinguish the “art” from the junk. At museums there are curators to make those distinctions. Online there are curators as well: humans and also algorithms.

Every popular niche will offer opportunities for brands to become the digital curator for that niche. The challenge is to do it before others do first.

Gives example of POPURLS and how they partnered with Intel to create an Intel version of POPURLS.

4. Super Crunching. The digital space is the most addressable media and marketing platform ever. However, many marketers are not “quants” and data is largely under utilized.

Google is the operating system for marketing. Data mining and visulaizations reduce risk, make marketing more efficient .

Example: Google Trends. You can track over time if the work you’re doing has impacted news search. Helps you see if you are creating demand with your PR work for keyword concepts.

5. Collaboration - The web is a platform for action. People are working together for shared outcomes.

Rubel shows a matrix of open and controlled communication. Communicate and collaboration. Different tactics fall in different quadrants. Advertising is controlled communication. PR is lessed controlled. Viral video is far more open but less likely to result in a specific outcome. Blogs, community engagement and ideastorms are open and collaborative.

The web is not just a platform for communication but for collaboration.

Example: mystarbucksidea.com. Anyone can submit ideas and the community can vote on them. Starbucks evaluates the best ideas. Open and collaborative.

Watch List - areas of experimentation

1. Living Room 2.0. The internet is coming to the living room in a big way. Shares that he has an apple TV and Xbox 360 connected to his LCD and also to the internet. Streams itunes and friends Flickr images.

We’re entering a new Golden age of TV via the internet. It’s still very early days though. Buy an apple TV and experiment with it so when the trend grows, you’ll be familiar with the experience.

2. Geek Marketers. There are people at companies tasked with staying on top of things. If you’re in PR find out who those people are at companies. If you’re at a company, hire one of these people to stay on top.

Hallucinations

1. Digital Nomads. Increasing numbers of people who are virtual workers or indpendent consultants. Small number but an interesting trends. They are using web based collaboration tools and lot.Ex

Examples/resources: anywired.com and Tim Ferriss’s 4 hour work week

It’s concievable that companies will become more virtual and distributed.

2. Data Leaking. Information is seeping out of institutions. Technology outside the enterprise innovates far faster than what companies are able to do inside. Gen Y workers expect the same tools in the office that they easily have at home. Work and corporate information is migrating to social networks and other online platforms. Be aware of this trend and be involved.

Traffic is something that can happen elsewhere, not just on your site. It’s important to enable content to travel. Digitial curation is a big opportunity. Find high demand niches and “become the curator”.

–

The PRSA Digital Impact conference was seriously information rich and I heard sentiments from many of the attendees as such. Hopefully PRSA can make them a regular event and in different cities.

Sponsored By: TopRank Online Marketing Holistic Marketing: SEO, PPC, PR, Social, Email

This panel at the PRSA Digital Impact Conference includes Heidi Sullivan and Jay Krall of Cision and Jason Falls of Doe Anderson and who writes Social Media Explorer.

Heidi starts out a with a poll: How many comments for media relations? and How many have created a social profile for a client? A small number of hands raise for each question.

Jason: What are three things you want to know?

1. Less tools and tactics and more to how you’re applying this, illustrating the value of it
2. More about blogger relations
3. Strategy and context. Enough about tools. Are blogs for every organization?

My observation is that based on these questions, it seems many of the PR professionals in the audience are not sold on blogs per se, and tools/tactics are premature. They want to know if a blog makes sense or not, does it fit within an overall communications plan.

Social media is about community not an audience.

Ironically, Jay starts out talking about tools. How do you find the right blogs to pitch? You qualify blogs to pitch not by the reader counts, but by how much that blog’s content is shared amongst others.

Process for finding blogs stats with blog search through something like Technorati. Then use traditional metrics like RSS subscribers. Also mentions unique visitors and email subscribers (for blogs that make that kind of information available)

Social metrics let you see whether a blog’s content gets passed around. Examples: BlogPulse, Delicious, Digg, Newsvine, Google blog search, Reddit, Mixx, Tailrank, Technorati, Stumbleupon, etc.

Once you see that a blog is popular amongst these social metrics, you’ll know that blog is worth spending your time on.

Jason mentions that being strategic about reaching out. Blogs may not be the best first content. He mentions Beam Global, owner of Maker’s Mark his client. He’d reach out to forums about new information before going to blogs about bourbon.

Playing by the rules in social communities gives you permission to contribute. Being transparent is what gives you the credibility to participate and share information with the community.

For PR practitioners: How do I determine whay type of involvement I should have with social media?
How does my target market consumer news.

Heidi talks about the importance of psychographics over demographics. Jason follows up with the distinction in psychographics between bourbon and whiskey brands.

Benefits of social media: Social media efforts are supplemental to your regular PR and media relations campaigns. It;s more direct to consumer communications than most PR pros are accustomed to. Social media carries with it an immediacy.

How do you deal with crisis managment when dealing with dissenting bloggers? You need to be involved in the space. Consumers can tell a “troll” versus a legitimate complaint. You need to be transparent, open and honest (easier said then done).

Gina Trapani of Lifehacker started a PR blacklist. It gets mentioned that Gian’s personal email address was listed in the Cision database. Heidi relates a story of how Jason Twittered not hearing back from Cision and how she contacted Jason to answer the questions he had. She was quick to reply to his concerns, honest, apologetic and transparent in Cision’s willingness to correct the problem and serve the PR community.

Jason mentions an event tomorrow 1pm Eastern with Shel Holz and Neville Hobson as well as many others in the PR, media and blog communities to talk about how to best improve communications between media relations and the media. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/fir

Responding quickly and honestly are key for PR and media relations professionals communicating with bloggers. Being a resource to bloggers and reaching out as a “heads up” and not a specific pitch can be very effective.

Find them, read their posts, what they write about, what they care about, and reach out to them in a very personalized way. willvideoforfood.com best blog pitch letter ever. Actually it wasn’t a great pitch because the blog post didn’t mention Jim Beam, more about Jason’s actual pitching skills. Although it does include links to Jim Beam.

Jason says you should ask for opinions and show that you care.

The pitch vs community engagement involves establishing authenticity: Comment, reach out and participate.

Time for Q and A:

Audience: Is there an equivalent measurement you can share with clients that equal to some monetary value

Jason: It depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. If it’s sales, you need to have that in mind from the start. Links need to go to the same landing page designed to convert to a sale. We report buzz factor, talk valiue, PR clippings. Specifics include feedback, inbound links, comments.

You have to get buy in from corp from day one on what the key metrics will be. RSS subscribers, links, and other outcomes.

Audience: Itmsounds like a FT job, but for an organization that has slim resources, how much time should be allocated to blog relations and outreach?

Jason: You want consistent content, once a week.

Heidi: Blogher recently did a study, that people read blogs 4 times a day.

Jason: More active participation will result in an effect more quickly. Allocate a certain about of time per month for creating that month’s editorial calendar.

Audience: My company sells a diverse range of products, How do you decide whether a blog makes sense?

Jason: Where does your audience spend their time?

Jay: Start by evaluating what’s out there. It’s amazing how many blogs there are for every niche.

Jason: Even if there isn’t a blog for your niche, then take the first mover advantage.

Audience: What’s the difference between blogs in general and blogs run by journalists?

Jason: Coordinate with PR to make sure there isn’t any crossover.

Sponsored By: Start a Career in Search Marketing Announcing the best online SEM courses from SEMPO Institute.

The TopRank team works really well together, bringing to each team meeting various areas of expertise and interest, which makes for a well-rounded environment here in our Lake Minnetonka office. We know how to play off of everyone’s strengths and ensure our clients are fully serviced based on their needs and objectives by those who can best take on that role.

Below is a list of our favorite online marketing tips , which - as a team - makes us stronger than each individual.

• Build Out Social Relationships Gradually - Social media and social networking are not “dump and run” tactics. Relationships need to be built over a long period of time in a venue that enhances the product or service you are promoting, which is when the promoted piece gets the most positive attention.

• Spell Check – Nothing ruins online credibility faster than misspellings or incorrect grammar. Check your spelling yourself and have someone else review your work. Don’t depend only on spellcheckers, as they may not catch the appropriate word usage or necessary punctuation.

• Understand How Your KPI’s Tie Back to Your Objectives - Will ranking #1 in Google for “wedding favors” automatically equate to meeting your sales objectives? Or, will an increased ranking be a trigger to focus your work on how best to nurture these new potential prospects to customer status?

• Incorporate Keyword Phrases into Promotions – whether it be press releases, online advertising or social media promotions, using a keyword phrase along with yours or your client’s name can enhance how searchers search for the website in the future.

• Use a Clear CTA - When using a Call to Action, ensure that what you are asking is clear and to the point. Also ensure that you are indeed asking a person to do something.

• Identify Yourself - Come up with a good handle and avatar so that no matter what channel you are engaged in, you are easily recognizable.

• Identify How Visitors Use Your Website - When customers and prospects visit your site, what type of content are they looking for and where do they click on the page to find it? By knowing what your visitors are looking for, you can provide the content they need and a user experience to keep them coming back for more.

• Understand your End Goals – Online marketing is similar to traditional direct marketing when trying to reach certain inquiry levels. Understand the desired inquiry level, and follow that back through your amount of projected traffic, touchpoints and the whole universe you need to target.

• Plan & Understand - Be sure to plan ahead when it comes to Online Marketing. There is no shortage of promotion opportunities, however the promotions you select should deliver the desired results. As an online marketer, be sure to first understand what promotion channels deliver the results desired.

• Look to the Future - The online marketing landscape is constantly changing, whether in the form of updated search engine algorithms, new social media outlets or any of the other aspects of marketing that fluctuate. Devote time to keeping yourself educated on what’s new and upcoming in the online world by reading blogs and other industry publications so that you are prepared to meet the new challenges these changes will bring.

• Be Patient – online marketing typically doesn’t work overnight. Once your online marketing program is deployed, be patient and continuously monitor, analyze and refine.

That wraps up some of TopRank’s favorite online marketing tips. Do you have any you’d like to share?

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I guess you could call this the “International Edition” of the BIGLIST Update of search marketing blogs as we have multiple countries represented including SEOs and PR professionals from the UK, New Zealand, Netherlands and USA. There’s plenty of flavorful writing, advice and tips so read on:

• Searchwritten - Netherlands based Ramon Eijkemans started this new blog as a study in content SEO, a topic that’s near and dear.

• 123 Social Media - Barry Hurd promises to educate business professionals on how to maximize the best in online marketing and technology.

• Ben Wills - While Ben doesn’t post as often as many other blogs on our list, his analytical, strategic, and pragmatic focus on online marketing is worth the read.

• Digerati Marketing - UK based Mark Cook writes a mix of short personal posts mixed with longer SEO articles.

• Bulletpoints - New Zealand based Nicholas O’Flaherty blogs a familiar mix of reputation management, online PR and search engine marketing.

• SEOCO Blog - Written mostly by David Eaves, this UK based blog covers news as well as SEO, link building and social media marketing topics.

• Find Resolution - Here we have a good example of a big agency blog so the emphasis is on industry observations, agency news and positioning.

Honorable mention goes to Ryan Blakemore who doesn’t post all that often and says his SEO hat has no color but he has been writing a lot about cloaking lately. He also manages to put out some interesting SEO and online marketing tips.

The BADGE is free and the link back is optional.

Sponsored By: Reputation Management in a Google World PRSA Teleseminar

Innovation, creative problem solving and passionate interest in the subject matter are a big part of successful internet and social marketing - the topics of prime interest to readers of Online Marketing Blog. Those same characteristics apply to organizations and individuals working to make strategic business and marketing changes for the future.

In particular, these values are reflected in the upcoming PUSH 2008 conference in Minneapolis June 15-17. In the very busy run up to the conference, PUSH founder Cecily Sommers took the time to answer a few questions about PUSH and The Fertile Delta event.

First, what is your background? How did you come to start PUSH and what are your goals for the upcoming event?

My work as a brand strategist told me that to be strategic, an organization has to have a clear sense of purpose and a long, wide view of the future. This is much easier said than done, especially in the midst of demands on businesses that have intensified by increased competition and the fast pace of change. I started the PUSH conference (named for a commitment to look at and be what’s pushing the future in new directions) to provide a time-out to get perspective, renew purpose, and to cultivate what I now refer to as “change literacy.”

PUSH is described as an experience first and a conference second, focusing on conversation, interaction and ideas which is a perspective very much in alignment with principles of social media. What synergies do you see between real world an online social networking?

I also refer to PUSH as a “zone of discovery,” where new ways of thinking and seeing come from an intentional mix of sources and disciplines. Discoveries are like sparks, whether from “firsts” (i.e. first exposure), putting known quantities together in new ways, or from a panoramic view of how things/people/ideas are related. Social media supports that kind of interaction too – where unexpected sparks of conversation lead to something/someone you’d never have found otherwise. Real-time layering of social media – like Twitter – brings more input in from more places, making it a very rich medium for discovery. Of course you have to do a lot of editing…

Can you share a few examples of emerging opportunities and business models that fit with the theme of this year’s PUSH Institute event: “The Fertile Delta”?

So much of the work represented at PUSH demonstrates this focus beautifully, that it’s hard to know where to begin or end. A partial list includes

• Chandran Nair, Director, Global Institute for Tomorrow in Beijing, who is focused on sustainable solutions for Asia
• Nate Garvis, VP Government Affairs, Target, who understands that smart solutions for an increasing number of social issues are best met through private-public partnerships
• Antoine Bigirimana, partner, Thousand Hills Venture Fund, has created the Kigali Center for Entrepreneurship in Rwanda and is working with the government there to make Rwanda the most connected country in Africa
• Cameron Sinclair, Director, Architecture for Humanity, has a completely open source model for international design talent to work with communities in crisis to build homes, schools, health centers, etc.
• Van Jones, Executive Director, Ella Baker Center, creating a Green Corps to generate training and jobs to serve a green economy while alleviating unemployment and poverty in urban centers.
• LS9, a biotechnology company that has engineered the production of petroleum from biofuels

Other Fertile Delta efforts will take longer to see ROI, but are still so smart, such as GE’s investment in developing health care centers, workers, technology and Six Sigma processes in Ghana; AMD’s commitment to see 50% of the world connected by 2051; the OLPC and Intel’s Notebook projects that are on the way to making computing affordable for all, and many more…

What are some of the more promising shifts you’re seeing with business innovation as a result of technology and online information sharing?

Business models will evolve and create more overlap between public and private sectors, putting increased emphasis on Corporate Social Responsibility and Social Entrepreneurship. And in markets, personal fabrication technologies, or 3-D printing, will affect every industry from health care to food to retail and energy.

Who attends PUSH?

PUSH Attendees include Directors, Managers, and Vice Presidents of Marketing, Consumer Insights, Product Development, Business Development, Store Design, Strategy and Innovation, Entrepreneurial Initiatives, Creative Services, Brand Management, Account Services, Strategic Alliances, and Design from enterprise-level companies such as Intel, GlaxoSmith Kline, Microsoft, Target, Best Buy… as well as independent consultants, academics and artists.

Thank you Cecily, we’ll see you on June 15th!

PUSH 2008: The Fertile Delta
June 15-17, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN
http://www.pushthefuture.org/

Sponsored By: TopRank Online Marketing Holistic Marketing: SEO, PPC, PR, Social, Email

With all the sessions, speakers, networking and photo-snapping going on in the last 2 days at SMX Advanced in Seattle, it’s surprising any attendee got anything else completed at all.

While I didn’t attend every session (can’t be in three places at once - just not possible for this girl :)) I managed to get to quite a few where I learned a lot of valuable information and got a feel for what everyone was talking about.

The main theme I noticed in Seattle this week was the idea of value, and how to increase value. With the idea of the recession looming over our heads like a dark cloud, there are many people who want to see their dollar going as far as it can.

Search Marketing and Surviving a Recession this morning talked mentioned the idea of getting the biggest bang for your buck; the highest value for your marketing dollars. The session Building Value for your SEM Business focused on how to increase this value for your clients so the clients feel they are getting the most out of what they are paying the SEM agency. By involving the client in training and execution and giving something unique back to the client, the agency is increasing their sense of value to the client.

Assigning value to the services performed by any company - and then delivering well beyond those services to increase that value - can help the company move well through this economic downturn and grow in the future.

And check out a couple more pictures from SMX today! It was a great conference, and I look forward to upcoming SMX events!

International SEO panel

SMX Advanced attendees working hard, blogging and Twittering between sessions…

…and blogging and Twittering during sessions

A final visit to the Expo Hall

I had a great picture of myself Twittering the conference, but my camera died before I could upload it. I’ll get it online soon, so follow me @dlarson15 for updates!

Sponsored By: Start a Career in Search Marketing Announcing the best online SEM courses from SEMPO Institute.

While there is still a debate over the effect of the recession we are in, or even if we are in a recession at all, it seems most companies and individuals are preparing for it the best they can. Talks of budget cuts and conserving resources are on everyone’s minds these days.

So where does search marketing fit in to all of this?

Our expert panel this morning at SMX Advanced - consisting of Jon Miller from Marketo , Russ Mann of Covario , Dave Davies of Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning and Andrew Beckman of Location3 Media - gave great advice and opinions in how to come out of this recession thriving.

Search Marketing and Surviving a Recession consisted of prepared and audience-asked questions to the panel about what we can do as an industry to make it through this economic downturn.

Glass Half Empty or Glass Half Full?

An audience poll revealed that many more audience members feel their business will be positively affected by the recession rather than negatively affected. Russ Mann agrees whole-heartedly, saying that the glass is overflowing. He is seeing a major turn from his clients and other large companies spending more money for online marketing and cutting back on their offline marketing. The rest of the panelists follow this same optimistic train of though, though Jon Miller stated that he is being a bit of a realist, and knows that he needs to watch what is happening with his company very closely.

What Worries You?

Jon started off with saying the biggest concern is that advertising and marketing dollars get cut during a recession. While this worries him, he says to make sure that any marketing efforts completed are measurable and that the marketer can prove the results or their activity. As long as every dollar is accounted for and ROI is proven, marketing should fare pretty well. Russ agrees, saying that since the CEOs and CFOs are tightening the purse strings, it is important to show results and prove the value of the marketing dollars being spent. Dave builds off of this, stating that search marketing is one of the most provable forms of marketing. All we have to do is look at analytics, rankings, clicks, leads and conversions and we know exactly which campaign drove those results.

How Should the First Marketing Dollar be Spent?

The panel was across the board on this question. Andrew Beckman began by stating that the first marketing dollar needs to be spent on getting back to basics. There are many companies, he says, who are so excited to get to the online promotions aspects that they forget the foundation of SEO is choosing the correct keyword phrases and optimizing title tags and meta descriptions. Dave said to use that first dollar and take a good long look at your website and find out how to make it work for the company’s target customers. Users are getting more internet savvy and they know a bad website when they see one. Keeping your website above the competition can definitely benefit your company. Russ Mann went along with this idea saying that the first dollar should be spent on customer research.

It is possible that search is not the best marketing channel for certain companies, but in order to make that decision, you need to do a lot of research first. Rounding up this question, Jon stated that with budgets getting tight, it is important to get the most out of those clicks you are acquiring from your paid campaigns. Test and retest to find what works and make sure you are best spending that first dollar.

Tips for Convincing Clients to Keep Dollars in Search?

Andrew opened this question up by saying that while it takes time to get a search program up and running smoothly, the longer it takes the company to get in the game, the longer it will take for them to see the return on their search marketing investment. Search marketing has the opportunity to be both a direct marketing and a brand vehicle at the same time, so show the client the results you are giving them and how people are finding their products and services. This identifies benefits to the client from your consultation and helps the client focus on how to get the best results.

Where are Businesses Wasting Their Money?

While we all waste our money in many different ways, from getting Caribou every morning on the way to work to washing our cars every other day, this question pertains specifically to marketers. Russ jumped in right away and said that he sees the biggest waste of money happening when the bigwigs in the business aren’t on the same page. CFOs may want to increase revenue while CEOs may want to increase brand awareness. By understanding the desires of the company rather than wasting time and money trying to come to one decision, the marketer can begin showing results faster. Jon says there is a lot of money being wasted by marketers shouting to everyone around them rather than focusing on the pull-marketing of search. Take the time to find and pull in the searchers at the end of their buying cycle rather than trying to push your message on most people who aren’t interested.

The overall theme here was the idea that we need to be held accountable for all of our activities. In the past, SEOs were more laid back when it came to reporting results. Now we need to make sure all clients’ marketing dollars are going toward the best results, which in turn makes us better as well. By following the tips offered by the panel and managing finances a little more closely than usual, we SEOs will escape on the other end of this recession stronger, with a better skill set, and ready to attack the world again.

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Day 1 at SMX Advanced has wrapped up quite nicely. Below are some of the session highlights and the gorgeous Bell Harbor Conference Center.

Danny Sullivan opening the show this morning in Seattle.

Everyone milling around, getting ready for the first of this mornings sessions

Blow Your Mind Linkbuilding Tactics panel this morning

Building Value for your SEO Business session, where we learned that we must invest in our clients and employees to increase the value of the company

Buying Sites for SEO panel, featuring Shoemoney in a fantastic video. You can view his SMX Advanced video here.

Danny and Matt, dressed as twins, during You & A with Matt Cutts to close the conference today.

Sponsored By: Reputation Management in a Google World PRSA Teleseminar

Watch out link-and site-buyers alike! Matt Cutts is in town!

For those of you know don’t know (is there anyone out there who doesn’t?), Matt Cutts is the head of Google’s web spam team; which means any secret we are hearing at SMX Advanced, Matt is making sure the shady tactics aren’t working anymore next week.

Beginning with a pop culture comparison, Matt states that risky link building behavior is a lot like Milli Vanilli. If you do something that will benefit your site right away, like lip synching your way to a Grammy, you will get caught and it wont benefit your company in the future. You will be stripped of your Grammy and acquire a drug problem. And your site will be banned.

So… what should we do? Matt answers some great questions from the audience.

Linkbait vs. Widgetbait - Linkbait - content you place on your site to earn inbound links - is good. Widgetbait - creating a widget in order to gain inbound links to your site when users install the widget on their site - is debatable. Matt says that the widgets that fully disclose “by installing this widget you will be placing an outbound link on your site to X site” are more acceptable than not telling users and placing spammy outbound links within the widget.

Google Penalties - While Matt wouldn’t come right out and say what the Google penalties are, it is certain that there are penalties. Some vary from where you should be ranking (page 1 versus page and there are some that can get your site booted out of the Google index. If you think you have a penalty - especially after you’ve implemented something new for your site, such as a shady link exchange - change it. Fix it. The power is in your hands. Then monitor the rankings and see if your site’s rankings going back up.

Natural links vs. Paid links - A common theme here are SMX Advanced is talking more and more about buying links. What is bad and what is okay? Since we are all here at SMX Advanced, buying links is considered an advanced link building tactics, meaning it is very high risk. Matt and Google both state that editorial, natural links are better, and whenever Google gets a paid link reports they find it and take action. Google is willing to do algorithmic work and manual work to identify and penalize these paid links, and they use the manual methods to improve their algorithm to sniff out the paid links faster.

Matt Cutts-Law of SEO - Matt stated that, while he is seen as the moral compass for SEO, he feels everyone knows what is right and what is wrong. We are all smart people and who know what the risky behavior is. All you need to do is think for a minute: “what is best for users?” “what is best for the site?” “what is best for the company?” and you will come up with the right answer without having to consult Matt on every turn.

Matt also gave us an example of the ultimate risky behavior in terms of acquiring links: Contacting Google itself and requesting a link exchange.

“Dear webmaster of Google.com, Your site looks reputable and authoritative. Would you mind linking to our website, and we will return the favor for you?”

Great session used to end Day 1 of SMX Advanced 2008. Looking forward to SMX After Dark tonight and Day 2 tomorrow!

Sponsored By: TopRank Online Marketing Holistic Marketing: SEO, PPC, PR, Social, Email

Technical issues flavored the beginning of this session at SMX Advanced in Seattle. However, "oopsies" notwithstanding, Blow Your Mind Linkbuilding Tactics was informative with plenty of advice for gaining the authoritative inbound links web sites need to rank well in the search engines.

The session was packed with link builders looking for new and cutting edge linking information. While we listened, Greg Boser, Roger Montti, Jay Young, Stephan Spencer and Todd Friesen did their best to share with the audience how to get the best links. Their tips included:

• Gain .edu links - The need for .edu inbound links is not a new idea, but we heard a couple new ways to gain these .edu links for your website. One of them was finding the heavy hitters in a certain industry and reaching out to those .edu sites linking to them. The idea here is that if this .edu site is linking to a competitor or an industry-relevant site, they are possibly open to linking to the other players in this market.
• Directories - Every link building campaign should start with directory submissions. And while there are many, many, many directories out there that are crap, there are quite a few that are still reputable and still send great link juice to the website. Most of those are paid directories, such as the Yahoo! directory or Best of the Web directory, but the links you get from them are fantastic.
• Research the high PageRank links - The value of PageRank as a way to qualify link sources is under speculation, but it can be a useful guide, which can mean a link means more coming from a PR9 page than a PR2 page. Spend time and find those relevant pages with high PR so what you have to do to get on those pages.
• Charities and Non-Profit sponsorships - Become a sponsor of a charity or organization that means something to you or your company and donate to them. The donation is tax deductible and you could get a permanent link to your site from the charity itself.
• Blogger Relations - Do you have a blog? Create relationships with other bloggers in your industry. Engage in their conversations on social networks, comment on a couple relevant blog posts, even READ their blog to find out their writing style. Then offer them something of interest to them and see if you can’t get a link out of it.
• Link Bait - If you’ve got a genius idea, implement it and earn those links. Create a tool, game, video, set of tips, etc. and promote it. Interested parties will see it and you can earn those links from those relevant sites. These earned links are invaluable.

Ongoing link building takes a lot of time and dedication, but the benefits can send both traffic and provide a competitive advantage for increased search engine rankings.

Sponsored By: Start a Career in Search Marketing Announcing the best online SEM courses from SEMPO Institute.