[ Update 2023 ]Google changed the Penguin algorithm’s behavior in September 2016. Instead of punishing sites for violating link spam policies, Google began ignoring the paid links. The disavow tool became almost unnecessary from that time forward. This post is preserved for historical purposes and no longer provides useful guidance. More than a year after Google announced its Penguin anti-spam algorithm (in April 2012), many search marketing bloggers continue to misidentify manual spam actions Click to continue […]
Category: General
All posts that do not fall into other categories.
Use Blogger Communications to Reflect the Story You Want to Tell
There is a growing experimental industry that is cultivating networks of bloggers who want to be notified about interesting Websites and stories. The image of the “Citizen Journalist” has inspired a few companies to create blogger outreach channels that are just used for pitching or announcing stories the bloggers might want to write about. What’s in it for the bloggers? They are presented with ideas that may inspire them to write some great content. In some cases they may also be presented Click to continue […]
Native Advertising Is Poor Reflective Marketing
Native advertising is the new buzz expression. If you embed your content on someone else’s Website in such a way that it looks like their own content, their visitors may be more likely to click on the links or buy the products being advertised. To a marketer this may seem like a slam dunk play. But to the consumer it could just be creepy and deceptive. The sense of betrayal one feels when discovering that content on a trusted Website was placed there by someone else for pay breaks the rapport Click to continue […]
How NOT to Ask for a Link to Your Website
Some people still do old-fashioned link outreach, where they email other site owners and ask them to link to their sites. Done correctly, this can be an effective (and even efficient) way of acquiring backlinks to your site. I like to think I’m pretty good at this approach, in fact. Some people have the wrong approach, and even if you try to help them improve their approach, they get mad. As my partner, Michael Martinez often tells me, “Don’t get mad. Get glad!” When you’re asking for help Click to continue […]
Digital Audience Relations – What Internet Marketing Should Be
I had a conversation last week with a friend and business acquaintance in which we discussed the directions the online digital marketing industry is moving through. “Online Digital Marketing” has a nice ring to it but it’s an expression I grabbed at random. One could just as easily say “Social Media Marketing”, “Search Engine Marketing”, “Online Public Relations”, and any of a dozen other terms and you’re still talking about a conglomerate of agencies, consultants, freelancers, and permanent full/part-time Click to continue […]
Succeeding in Spite of Your Backlink Profile
Eric Ward taught me how to find backlink targets in 2009. Looking at the backlink profiles of competitors’ sites was part of that process, and I still use that in my arsenal of linkbuilding weapons. One of the things I’ve discovered by doing this kind of research is that many websites succeed in spite of, not because of, their backlink profile. Less seasoned SEOs might look at a competitor’s backlink profile with the intention of getting as many of the same links as their competitor has. More Click to continue […]
Useful Metrics for Reflective Marketing
As I mentioned in “Does Reflective Marketing Include Blog Commenting?” the goal of Reflective Marketing is to build audience. While it’s true that this should be the goal of all marketing a typical link acquisition campaign is not tied to audience metrics. Reflective Marketing strategies look like link acquisition strategies but Reflective Marketing really needs to focus on creating reasons for people to visit your Website. This may be done with or without links. Remember: Reflective Marketing is Click to continue […]
Does Reflective Marketing Include Blog Commenting?
What an interesting question. This brings up the ethical side of the Refletcive Marketing discussion. Are you really engaged in Refletcive Marketing if you’re leaving comments on blogs? And, are there better practices and worse practices? Blog Comment Marketing — if there is such a thing — has earned such a poor reputation because people have abused it, either by naively running around to various blogs and leaving unuseful comments or simply by spamming the blogs with fake comments for the Click to continue […]
Why You Should (Almost) Never Link to Wikipedia Articles
Last night, I noticed that one of the bloggers on an experimental site that I’m running was linking to a lot of Wikipedia articles. I sent him an email explaining to him why we don’t want to link to Wikipedia articles, and it occurred to me that a post on the subject might make sense. After all, a LOT of people ARE linking to it, and maybe they haven’t thought it through. Reasons NOT to Link to Wikipedia Articles The #1 reason is that there are almost always better pages to link to elsewhere Click to continue […]
How You Should Backup Your WordPress Site
Backing up WordPress should be a simple process but unfortunately it is not. You need to create several backup files because none of them will capture everything you need. For example, if you have set up special server directives to support your WordPress installation you should copy those files. This could include .ini, .conf, and other operating system files (as well as your .htaccess). You also want to backup your installation directory, which consists of all the .PHP files that WordPress Click to continue […]
Facebook and Reflective Marketing: Failures and Futilities
Danny Sullivan wrote a nice case study about a movie Website that is hard to find. He wraps up his article by stipulating that “Facebook Is Not Your Website”. This cautionary tale is nothing new in Web marketing. Last year Warren Colbert wrote “Facebook is not your website (no matter how much you wish it was)”. In fact, there are a LOT of “Facebook is not your Website” articles out there. With so many people advising the general business community NOT to make Facebook their Websites, why is Click to continue […]
Is Link Building Really Dead and Gone?
You can see them fleeing, scurrying out of the dark corners of “Internet marketing” like rats jumping from a sinking, burning ship: all the great “link builders” are now become “content marketers, publicists, and specialists”. The transition from “link building” to “promoting content” is a mix of change in philosophy and change in description. But are these guys really giving up on links? Of course not. They’re just repackaging their services in new language to avoid the stigma Click to continue […]