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Book Review: The Like Economy by Brian Carter

By Dan Mckee | Published January 22nd, 2012

About 90% of the people that speak at conferences on the topic of internet marketing have a sense of humor comparable to that of a sack of bricks and that reason alone is enough to root for Brian Carter. He’s got a personality big enough to fill any room and comes equipped with jokes, many of which are quite funny or at least palatable in comparison to the typical drab of the average keynote speaker. The man also frequently writes for All Facebook, a site that I’m quite fond of, and thus another reason why I was eager to get through The Like Economy. A book that – you guessed it – is all about the topic of Facebook marketing and branding.

Before jumping to any conclusions, it’s worth noting that this isn’t a manual strictly for beginners. Carter gives the reader credit and assumes that if you’ve taken the effort to crack open a book on the topic that you’ve already done some preliminary work within Facebook or that at minimum you’re curious and are trying to decide if it’s something that might benefit you or your department. Don’t worry though, there’s a bunch of a 101 material within these pages if one should happen to need it. The instructions presented are clear and the benefits behind each view point are made obvious and tied up neatly by the end of every chapter.

But still, why even bother with Facebook?

Unlike PPC advertising through Google or Bing, there are many who won’t go near Facebook. It still holds a stigma in certain circles and thought of as a network of young people, who outside of Zynga products, don’t care too much for ads. Fortunately none of this hold trues and The Like Economy makes a convincing case that there’s plenty of money to be made and customers to be won through smart Facebook marketing campaigns. Pick up this book and you’ll learn how to optimize ad copy, refine landing pages, target the right people, and save some time, headaches, cash, or all three in the process.

All of it reminds me of a time not too far back when a friend was yelling in angst at her computer screen wondering why her finely tuned collection of ads weren’t generating any traffic. This is a book I would have enjoyed throwing in her direction in hopes of silencing the little subconscious voice that kept begging her to give up and admit that an AdWords campaign was the only way. Aside from simple cost per click comparisons, Facebook is a different beast altogether. It’s not going away and with new features such as Sponsored Stories being added to the mix, understanding how Facebook operates and learning some best practices has never been more of a relevant ambition than it is today. The information may be out there for the taking within blog posts or through self-practice, but having an organized guidebook likes this to work off of makes for a lot of sense. Facebook likes to shake things up without warning and make big changes quickly, but at of the time of this publishing one would be hard pressed to find a better education companion than The Like Economy. If it’s not the definitive book on the topic, it’s surely near the top of a very short list.

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Infographic: SEO Tune-Up

By Sparkplug Digital | Published January 9th, 2012

The beginning of the year is a great time “tune-up” your company’s SEO strategy so that you can get off to a great start in reaching your 2012 marketing goals. We created this infographic to provide a good checklist of things to consider to develop a high performing SEO strategy that will provide winning results.

See the Full-Size Printable Version

Please feel free to share this or republish it on your blog or website.

Copy and Paste the following HTML code to place this infographic on your site:
<a href="http://www.sparkplugdigital.com/seo-tune-up-infographic/"><img src="http://www.sparkplugdigital.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/SEO-Tuneup-Infographic.jpg" width="550" alt="Seattle SEO" /></a> <br /> Infographic by <a href="http://www.sparkplugdigital.com/">Sparkplug Digital</a>

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The Athlete, the Artist, and the Online Marketer

By Dan Mckee | Published January 2nd, 2012

More so than almost any other field, athletics and art are two career paths in which very few participants emerge as financially successful, despite a widespread base of interest and collective knowledge. There are many golfers, but very few can make a living from it and there can only be one Tiger Woods. There are many film makers, musicians, and sculptors, but almost none make it out of the garage and into the free market to an extent where art can be a full time means of income. One can choose to be an artist or an athlete for the pure joy or challenge of it, but the competition will always be so intense that anyone who isn’t extremely gifted and/or talented won’t be able to make it into the big leagues.

Online marketing and communications is different though in that everyone who wants to be successful ultimately can be if they so choose. With the right know how anyone regardless of age, gender, culture, economic status, or education background can leverage search, social, and web design to make a profit from a product, service, or idea. The sky really is the limit.

Accepting this to be true, the question I’d like to pose is are you approaching marketing as an athlete or an artist?

The Athlete

Success in athletics comes down to skill mastery and strict discipline. LeBron James is going to spend years of his life working on the free throw. His income, number of championships, and eventually his legacy will partially hinge on how well he can shoot the free throw in times when it matters most. To succeed he’ll need to practice for hours on end going over the same basic principles. The job is never over. Slack off and you’re at risk of falling behind.

As a marketing professional we have different versions of the free throw. A big one that comes to mind is publishing content. Every day we have to go back to the basics. Open the document, put words to the page, and publish. If inbound marketing truly is a priority, this needs to be a regular habit. There are numerous ways to improve, such as reading the right books and learning from those who’ve done it for years, but only through repetition can a person improve. There are no shortcuts. It’s getting up and doing the same thing again and again.

The Artist

Artists are different. They’re rewarded for creativity, ingenuity, and breaking the norms. By the athlete’s standards we would assume that by practicing for 4 hours a day over the span of 5 years than any person can become a great songwriter. Ask any musician and you’ll learn that nothing can be further from the truth. Songwriters make a name for themselves by pushing the boundaries of what’s currently accepted. They craft songs that speak for the moment and they see things in ways that others don’t. Art is as much about passion as it is about having the courage to think outside the box.

There are times when a digital marketer needs to act like an artist and be willing to take risks and communicate in ways that others aren’t. Online marketing isn’t a stagnant endeavor and new opportunities and even new frontiers emerge every year. While others are focusing on search and social network marketing, have you considered what your options are for online video and mobile app development? How current is your toolbox and when is the last time you tried something new? Are you creative or do you simply follow your competition when it comes time to decide what to do next?

If online marketing is a priority in your business you’ll need to learn how to work like an athlete and think like an artist.

Discipline and creativity
Repetition and inspiration
Application and vision

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Blogging isn’t Dead, but Quality Content is Still on Life Support

By Dan Mckee | Published December 30th, 2011

When someone stands up (usually a blogger) and says that blogging is dead I typically don’t pay much attention, because history has time and again proven otherwise. Like a cat with many lives blogging never really goes away; it just keeps evolving and growing.

This past week though when Jeremiah Owyang commented on the topic in his post End of an Era: The Golden Age of Tech Blogging is Over I was all ears. Owyang is gifted when it comes to nailing down the current state of the web and where things are going. He’s a trusted source of insight and his thoughts here were no exception. Although Owyang specifically commented on the state of tech blogging, it’s still only natural to lean towards one extreme of the argument or the other: YES blogging is on a downward slide, or NO we’re just getting started and blogging as we know it will only continue to get better.

Blogging just for the sake of blogging is not enough

Free and light publishing platforms have made it easy for anyone to launch and start a blog with relatively no hang-ups. Kids can do it. Businesses can do it. It’s good to share and be heard, however blogging “just because” doesn’t work anymore. A personal Blogger, Tumblr, or Posterous account is fine and dandy, but blogging with the intention of increasing brand equity, driving traffic, or another business objective requires a different mindset altogether.

Fact: Most blogs are not worth reading

Why? Because they:

A) rehash old information and provide little new insight or commentary
B) have no voice and read as if written by a robot
C) are search engine friendly, but not people friendly
D) provide no value to the reader
E) are too safe

Forget the overall state of blogging for a minute, how are your own blogging efforts holding up?
Are your writing chops sharp enough? Are you taking risks or are you playing it safe?

Content isn’t rare, but material worth reading still is.

The problem for many readers isn’t a lack of quantity or a lack of options, but that attention is still a rare commodity. I only have a limited amount of time each day to be reading blogs, so why should your blog receive a portion of my valuable attention? In an exchange for their time how much value are readers actually receiving in return?

Gold vs. garbage and how to tell the difference

Google analytics alone doesn’t indicate if you’re producing quality material.

Here are some positive signs:

▪ Email and RSS subscriptions increase month over month.
▪ Comments are healthy in relation to page views.
▪ People who aren’t customers or friends are ReTweeting your posts.
▪ You’re getting praised or scrutinized on other blogs.
▪ People reach out to you via email or on Twitter because of what you’ve written.

If you’re just starting out try asking friends or coworkers (ones that will tell it like it is) for inpiut.

“Can you offer some tips for improvement? What type of content would you like to see?”

A little feedback can go a long way.
If you’re not gathering input from readers, how can you possibly know what steps to take in hopes of improving?

The state of the blogosphere is irrelevant to individual success

Countless blogs will get started this year. Most will receive little traffic and eventually be abandoned. Your likelihood of success or failure largely hinges on the level of commitment put in and your ability to produce material that others want to read and share. If you’re going to blog, do so with the intent of excelling at it. At the end of the day you’re either only adding noise or adding value.

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Reality Check: Are Paid Links a Smart SEO Investment?

By Dan Mckee | Published December 18th, 2011

Not many SEOs like to talk openly about paid links,
at least not anywhere other than behind the safety of closed doors.

There’s a stigma associated with paid links and it’s often paired with negative connotations. HubSpot called it the Steroids of SEO. Just blogging about it even feels a little weird. Nonetheless paid links are as real as any other component of SEO and can’t be ignored. Some think of it as a dark art, while others might say it’s just another aspect of the game. Despite your own feelings on the subject, it can be argued that anyone who hopes to further their education as a student of SEO is bound to run into paid links head on sooner or later.

Over the past week I spent some time researching the potential benefits and downsides of paid links in hopes of getting a better grasp on how the SEO community at large approaches the subject. After talking to a handful of SEO professionals and combing through a large collection of articles, ultimately this post isn’t a declaration of Sparkplug Digital’s or even my own personal stance on paid links, but rather a guided exploration of the issue at hand. It’s my hope that the information presented can help you reach your own conclusions.

Starting with a definition: what constitutes a paid link?

Here’s a cut and dry explanation of a what paid link is straight from the horse’s mouth:

Google and most other search engines use links to determine reputation. A site’s ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to it. Link-based analysis is an extremely useful way of measuring a site’s value, and has greatly improved the quality of web search. Both the quantity and, more importantly, the quality of links count towards this rating. However, some SEOs and webmasters engage in the practice of buying and selling links that pass PageRank, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results.

For the purpose of this discussion a paid link is the exchange of payment in return for a link back to a site. In the eyes of Google links that are paid advertisements should use a nofollow attribution and everything else falls into a grey area and risks being classified as an attempt to manipulate search results. The definition can get fuzzy, as Johnathan Ledger points out in his excellent article on the topic, because of the often overlooked fact that syndicated blog posts and affiliate links aren’t exactly considered to be violating the rules. There are a lot of ways around the paid link conundrum.

What are the risks?

Matt Cutts has made it clear that those who choose to buy or sell links are at risk of being punished. Getting caught isn’t fun and can lead to sites being penalized or even removed.
JC Penny and Forbes are two examples of high profile companies that fell under the guillotine this year for engaging in such practices. Make no mistake about it, if you choose to buy links and get discovered you will end up regretting it.

But what about those that don’t get caught?

A survey held earlier this year by Search Engine Roundtable revealed that most SEO’s believe there are penalty proof links.

53% of those who responded said there are risk free paid links.
26% said there is no such thing as a risk free paid link.
20% were unsure.

The informal survey shows that over half of SEOs don’t see any risk in at least a small portion of paid links.

Use your imagination and it’s not hard to picture many scenarios in which there is little or no risk involved. If I’ve spent years building up PageRank and inbound links on a site that discusses healthcare news and happen to have a friend who has a site that sells healthcare products, we could easily setup a paid link arrangement and the powers that be over at Google wouldn’t have the slightest idea as to what was going on. I could continue on in a similar manner by carefully arranging the same type of deals with others who wanted a link and carry on almost entirely risk free. JCPenny, Forbes, and others that get caught usually end up in that situation ultimately because of carelessness.

Is the risk worth the reward?

SEOmoz conducted a controversial experiment last year in which they purchased paid links and were able to find success through their efforts. Although the experiment yielded positive results, SEOmoz still maintains a relatively no compromise anti-paid link stance and stated that the risk isn’t always worth the reward and more importantly that those type of actions violate their commitment towards transparency. It’s hard to not admire companies that choose to take the high road, however the fact remains that paid links do work if done with care. Links are bought and sold every day and it’s safe to say that a large portion of it goes unnoticed.

If you choose to hire an agency, outsourcing company, or any individual that offers to gather hundreds of inbound links for a cost, it could serve as a huge red flag. Buying paid links in bulk, especially with a middle man, can be a huge risk if the links aren’t gathered organically.

Is it wrong or unethical?

This is the question that I struggled with the most during my research. Paid links are largely considered black hat and thus shunned upon by SEO purists. The fact though is that paid links will never really go away. No matter how stringent a search engine is when it comes to fighting those who break the rules, paid links will always be around in one form or another. SEO is by nature highly competitive and as long as the tactic works there are people who will use it. I tend to agree with people like Ross Hudgens who think it’s wise to talk about paid links in relation to disruptive links vs non-disruptive links. Some will continue to swear that there’s nothing wrong or abnormal with intelligent paid link acquisition and still there are others who want nothing to do with the practice. It’s up to you to decide if paid links are going to be a tool that you rely on once in a while or something that you avoid all together. Only you can make that decision.

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6 Ideas for Creating Linkworthy Content

By Charles Sipe | Published December 14th, 2011

creating content Building your website into a digital asset that will provide strong returns for your business over the long-term requires an ongoing effort to continuously improve your SEO. In the book The Art of SEO the authors point out that the companies that tend to be the most successful in SEO are those who view SEO as a lifestyle rather than a short-term solution.

According to the computer scientists and SEO experts at SEOMoz, about 70 percent of the ranking algorithm has to do with links. And in order to get links you need content worth linking to. Depending on what you sell, the difficulty of creating great content for your website may vary. For instance if you are ThinkGeek and sell USB Doomsday Devices, it is pretty easy to create linkworthy content around this because it is remarkable in of itself. However, if you are selling something that is not as remarkable, it may be much more difficult to create content worth linking to. If this is your situation, here are a few ideas to fuel your content engines.

In-depth Information

If you are selling a product or service, it is important to have informative content on your money pages of your site. This can include specific details or facts that people would be interested in if they are conducting research on what product or service to buy. One mistake that companies make on their product pages is having too little informative content. If the buyer feels like they have too little information, they might go elsewhere. From a search engine perspective, too little content can provide insufficient data for determining the relevance of the page. Google and Bing want to provide searchers with the information they are looking for, so they are more likely to recommend a page with plenty of information than one with not enough information. Another benefit to having more in-depth information is that other websites will consider you an authoritative source and link to you, which provides signals to search engines that your site is an authoritative source on the topic.

Relevant Infographics

Informative and interesting graphics on your pages can provide visitors with a richer experience. Informational graphics tend to provide a lot of information quickly and this can educate visitors about the features and benefits of your product or service. People are more likely to link to a product page filled informative graphics than a product page that is 95% text. Additionally, creating an infographic can be a great way to earn a lot of links. Infographics can often be easily embedded on blogs or websites and contain a link back to your site. If they are well done, people will want to share them with their audience with links or social mentions.

Industry Interviews

A creative way to generate content for your website is to interview interesting people or thought-leaders in your industry. Often times the interviewee is happy to link back to their interview from their own website if you ask. This also provides interesting insights for your target audience that gives them a valuable information and a good reason to visit your site for educational value, which can lead to people liking and trusting you more.

Case Studies

People love to see examples of other people who have used your product or service because it provides social proof. It can also help them imagine how the product or service will make their lives better. Interviewing happy customers can be a valuable source of content for your site. If you feature another business, they might also link to your site.

Customer Reviews

One mistake that a lot of ecommerce sites commit is using the manufacturers’ product descriptions on their product pages. This is bad because it is duplicate content and Google and Bing do not want to provide searchers with content that they can just find on the manufacturers’ website. If you do not have enough time to write unique product descriptions for every single product, adding customer reviews can help to add unique content to these pages. Amazon is one example of a site that provides a lot of value for customers by including reviews. Not only does this provide relevant content that adds search engine value to the page, but visitors are more likely to convert to customers if there are product reviews.

Product Videos

According to Cisco, video will account for 90% of net traffic in three years. The Internet is moving more towards video content in the future and Google often features videos in its search results (it helps if you set up a video sitemap). Adding informative video content to your pages can provide visitors with great information and can also make the page more linkworthy. If your video shows up in Google search results, it often has a higher click-through rate than the other search results on the page.

Here are just a few examples of content that you can create for your website that will increase the amount of quality content on your site, which Google and Bing want to reward with high rankings. If you have any suggestions for additional ideas, please feel free to share them in the comments below.

Charles Sipe is the Director of Search for Sparkplug Digital, an online marketing agency in Seattle, Washington that provides SEO services and online marketing strategy and execution for companies that aim to make the world a better place such as tech companies, startups, and non-profits. You can contact him at charles@sparkplugdigital.com or on Twitter at @charlessipe.